The American Schools of Oriental Research

The American Schools of Oriental Research Executive Committee Meeting October 1, 2005 - Atlanta, GA Minutes

 

PRESENT: P.E. MacAllister, Chairman, Lawrence T. Geraty, President, James F. Strange, Secretary, Douglas Clark, Executive Director, B. W. Ruffner, Acting Treasurer, David Rosenstein, Development, Eric Cline, CAMP, Larry Herr, COP, Joe D. Seger, Eric M. Meyers, Holly Andrews, Assistant Director, Selma Omerefendic, Accountant.

ABSENT: Martha Joukowsky, Burton MacDonald

1. Call to Order - P. E. MacAllister

2. Approval of Minutes of April 29, 2005 Executive Committee: Approved as submitted

3. Report from the Chairman – P.E. MacAllister—Waived

4. Report from the President - Lawrence T. Geraty. The President of ASOR pointed out that this a crucial time in ASOR's history.  There is an opportunity to combine the Atlanta and Boston offices.  Will we rise to the occasion? He thanked the Executive Committee members individually for their efforts.

5. Report from the Executive Director - Douglas Clark (report distributed).

Larry Geraty and Doug Clark worked to recruit two Boston area residents as Board Members. Doug hopes they will join in December, 2005. He circulated a resume of Orly Nelson as a potential Board Member. Doug announced that his goals for 2005 are helping Development, working toward a unified ASOR, and Enhancing ASOR's Academic Initiative. Doug proposed an increase in membership dues.  If we raised memberships $15, we would gain $17,700. If we raised the Annual Meeting registration $10, ASOR would realize $6,000.  Doug traveled to Nashville to talk to the group initiating the ETANA database. We now have a project included in the database and ETANA is one of our major projects within the new Heritage Protection Trust Initiative of our development program.   Sept 21 he traveled to DC to work on the upcoming Jordan conference in 2007 with the new ACOR Director Barbara Porter. Also in DC he attended a conference at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington to introduce ASOR and Sandra Sham. He will attend the ACLS meeting in San Jose, CA. later this month. Doug spoke of current work in the Boston office on the annual fund drive, approaches to donors, efforts to expand the Board, increasing institutional and individual memberships, and area ASOR visits and events. The work with Schulz and Williams, consultants in development, is going well. The Articles of Incorporation, By-Laws, and Manual of Policies and Procedures are not yet in sync in part because of the work on changes in membership categories, currently under discussion. On the subject of unification of SBL and ASOR meetings:  ASOR’s venue and time will not change. We will not share the same hotel. SBL now begins on Friday. They are now booked out to 2012 or 2013. The current mood is to keep book sales separate. Cross-linking of programs is already online. We support the idea of some sort of joint employment services.  ASOR proposed an SBL/ASOR joint program in Bible and Archaeology. Staff has begun discussions with BU to renegotiate the contract we have with them. ASOR co-sponsored an extremely successful summer NEH Teacher’s Institute in Boston. On Publications, Doug pointed out that there are now several issues to address, namely, a unified mission and objectives, a unified budget and financial management, and unified operations.  The motivations for unifying the offices included economic factors and unification of administration and development activities.

BE IT RESOLVED that the Executive Committee supports the action taken by the Executive Director and Larry Herr to move the Publications office to Boston. Moved by Eric Meyers, seconded by B.W. Ruffner. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

6. Report from the acting Treasurer – B. W. Ruffner. ASOR needs to raise nearly $250,000 by the end of this fiscal year to make up for last year’s deficit and cover expenses this year. He also added that one of the limitations on the audit is that the auditors like to see figures into the new fiscal year so as to confirm spending patterns. According to Selma $5,500 has been contributed by Trustees for the first quarter. That is quite low.  The Autumn fundraising letter to Trustees will be sent this month.

7. Report on Personnel Review -- B. W. Ruffner. (Document distributed: “Personnel Evaluation Subcommittee, Committee on Personnel and Administration.”) The staff absented themselves and discussion ensued about the best way to act on the report.

BE IT RESOLVED that, whereas we recognize that there are serious issues that need to be addressed in the light of the report, ASOR shall ask Schultz &Williams, ASOR's development consultants, to advise the Executive Committee and the Board before the November meeting what structure all of ASOR must have in order to realize our objectives. David Rosenstein moved; BW Ruffner seconded. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

BE IT RESOLVED that the Executive Committee authorizes COP to borrow $21,000 from the Opportunity Fund to enable COP to pay for the production of more copies of the Qumran issue of NEA. This is a motion and second from COP.  PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

BE IT RESOLVED that income generated by subscriptions and sales of ASOR journals and books, endowment funds assigned to publications, and any bank accounts containing publications funds shall be restricted to the use of ASOR publications. Surplus funds may be transferred from ASOR Publications to other ASOR entities by a process that includes a negotiated formula. Moved by Larry Geraty and seconded. Motion Carried 5 to 3.