American Schools of Oriental Research
Board
Meeting
Holiday Inn Select
Indianapolis, Indiana
28 April 2007
DRAFT
MINUTES
PRESENT: Eric Meyers, President, P.E. MacAllister, Chairman, Gary Arbino, Bill Arnold, Jeff Blakeley, Oded Borowski, Eric Cline, Vice President for Programs, Jim Strange, Secretary, Jeffrey A. Blakely, Jennie Ebeling, Nan Frederick, Sy Gitin for AIAR, Jimmy Hardin, Carol Meyers, Orlyn Nelson, Austin Ritterspach, Tammi Schneider, Joe D. Seger, Lydie Shufro, Stuart Swiny for CAARI, Randall Younker, Chris Rollston, Andy Vaughn, Interim Executive Director, Ed Wright for AIAR, Bethany Walker, Susan Ackerman,
ABSENT: Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Mark Chavalis, Sidnie W. Crawford, Gustave Feissel, Sheldon Fox, Lawrence T. Geraty, Ann Killebrew, Melody Knowles, Beth Alpert Nakhai, Burton MacDonald, B.W. Ruffner, Susan Sheridan.
VISITOR: Tim Harrison
1. CTA 8:10 am P.E. MacAllister
2. Approval of past minutes—
a. BE IT RESOLVED that the minutes of Nov 2006 be approved as distributed. Moved by Tammi Schneider and seconded by Oded Borowski. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
b. BE IT RESOLVED that and issue from the spring meeting be enter into the minutes, namely, a statement that the position of Past President is accepted in much a manner as to satisfy the 30 day necessity for changing the by laws. Moved by Eric Meyers and seconded by Tammi Schneider. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
3. Approval of Agenda:
BE IT RESOLVED that the Agenda be approved as distributed. Moved by Tammi Schneider; seconded by Joe Seger. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
4. Action Items:
a. BE IT RESOLVED the Appointment of Andy Vaughn as Executive Director for a three-year term from Jan 1, 2008 to Dec 31, 2010. A question was raised whether he would be allowed to have his own dig. Yes, but within the structure of ASOR, i.e., with approval of an application for affiliation from CARP. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
b. Nomination for new ASOR officers.—Jeff Blakely.
BE IT RESOLVED that the terms for the VP for Committee for Archaeological Research Policy and VP for Development commence on July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2010. This is a motion and a second from the Executive Committee. Moved by Joe Seger and seconded by Tammi Schneider. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
The Officers Nominating Committee was comprised of Jeff Blakely (chair), Gary Arbino, Carol Meyers, Susan Sheridan, and Stuart Swiny. The Boston office prepared an ad for the Newsletter and sent emails for nominations. Some emailed Jeff suggestions. He and the committee contacted about 60 members of ASOR, and 11 stood for office.
BE IT RESOLVED that the ASOR Board endorse the recommendation of the ad hoc Officer Nominating Committee, to wit:
Tammi J. Schneider, VP for Membership for the period 1 January 2008 through 31 December 2010.
Ann Killebrew for VP for Archaeological Research and Policy for the period 1 July 2007 through 30 June 2010.
P.E. MacAllister for Major Donor Coordinator
Terry A. Hoefecker as VP for Development for the period 1 July 2007 through 30 June 2010.
Morag M. Kersel and Michael M. Homan, Co-Vice Presidents for Programs for the period 1 January 2008 through 31 December 2010.
Timothy P. Harrison, President for the period 1 Jan 2008 through 31 Dec 2010.
This came as a motion and a second from the Executive Committee.
PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
BE IT RESOLVED that P.E. MacAllister serve as Major Donor Coordinator. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
BE IT RESOLVED that the board endorses the idea of co-vice-presidents for Program. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
BE IT RESOLVED that the board accepts the nominations for all officers above. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
Great appreciation was expressed for the hard work and expert efforts of the Officer Nominations Committee.
c. Membership report—Tammi Schneider.
BE IT RESOLVED that the ASOR board affirms and clarifies its current policy on Membership with the following: Professional membership is required for a person to serve as a section chair for the annual meeting, to serve on an academic committee, or to present a paper at the annual meeting. A person who is enrolled as a student at an ASOR corporate member institution is exempted from this rule. The ASOR Board wishes to provide a one-year grace period (until December 31, 2007) to enforce this. This comes as a motion and second from a standing committee. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
d. FY 08 report—Andy Vaughn. Right now our expenses show that, if all Board members give their $500 contribution, we will be down to $15,000 to collect to have a balanced budget. The Treasurer’s Report outlines the budget for next year.
be it resolved that ASOR accept the Management Statement and Audit., Gary Arbino moved; Tammi Schneider seconded. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
e. Administrative Recovery Fee:
be it resolved that ASOR charge a 5% administrative recovery fee for funds that are passed through ASOR. Further, asor will receive interest (if any) while the funds are held by asor. The percentage charged for grants will be governed by the guidelines of the agency awarding the grant. This resolution only applies to new funds coming into asor. This is a motion and second from the Executive Committee. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY. It was suggested that this be advertised.
Andy reported from the Executive Committee that Tammi Schneider was asked to chair an ad hoc committee with the VPs for CAMP, COP, and CARP to look at membership and subscription issues to report back in November.
Sten LaBianca and Andy Vaughn were appointed to explore a venue or venues for a conference on research and publication of materials from politically contested areas. Membership of the committee will be drawn from current and in-coming vice-presidents and others. The Executive and Management Committees have endorsed this proposal.
Andy Vaughn, Tim Harrison, and Jeff Blakely were appointed to a committee to write job descriptions for the president and VPs.
5. Discussion Items
a. Annual Membership and Program Meeting Issues: The discussion yesterday conducted by Eric Cline and Andy Vaughn about the Annual Meeting yielded the need to take some action about 2009. There will be a survey of the membership in the next week about whether to meet in the same city as SBL or to meet separately. (11 voted "yes" in the straw vote, 4 were opposed, and 5 where on the fence.) ACOR and CAARI were prepared to meet separately. The Albright was on the fence. We talked about using SBL as the outsourcer for our annual meeting.
be it resolved to charge ASOR to find a different hotel in a nearby, different city for the 2009 meeting. Moved by Jim Strange; seconded by Nan Frederick. Rejected: 2 for and all others against.
be it resolved a) that the asor annual meeting for fiscal year 2009-2010 be held in the spring of 2010. b) ASOR will work with SBL to organize archaeological sessions at the SBL annual meeting, c) the fall Board meeting of ASOR 2009 be held in conjunction with the fall SBL meeting, d) these changes will not be undertaken unless the boards of the three research centers concur. Tammi moves, Jeff Blakely seconds. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
be it resolved that the Executive Committee review the results of the survey and consult with the three research centers, and the Executive Committee will report back to the Board in a timely manner. Moved by Tammi Schneider; seconded Austin Ritterspach. PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
Tammi Schneider appealed to the Board that all Board members find and encourage Sustaining Members.
6. Chair’s Report--P.E. MacAllister regaled the Board with a history of Indianapolis. ASOR, like Indianapolis, requires leadership. ASOR will be as important and impackful as its leadership leads it.
7. President’s Report—Eric Meyers. Eric stressed the intensity of recent communications between Andy Vaughn and himself and the number of emails that appear from our constituency. He emphasized that we have a sense of new commitment with new a leadership team. ASOR serves as the conscience of the social science study of the past.
8. Interim Director’s Report—Andy Vaughn. He thanked the Board for its decision to allow him continue in this career change. He needs volunteer help in all areas, such as recruiting Heritage and Contributing members, with membership and subscriptions, and to work on our vision for the future. He called for an initiative to lead to endowment of chairs in archaeology. We must work better to partner with the Centers. Andy Vaughn's goal is that it will be a joint vision statement with Tim Harrison and with input from asor members.
9. Treasurer’s Report (distributed beforehand).
10. VP Reports
a. COP Report—Chris Rolliston. BASOR is getting caught up. NEA is being edited by Ann Killebrew, Andy Vaughn, and Sandra Scham. NEA plans to be caught up by the end of 2007. JCS is also ahead of deadlines. AASOR: The Meyers Festschrift is at the printers.
b. Programs—Eric Cline (distributed).
c. Membership—Tammi Schneider. The VP for Membership reported that the Executive Committee has endorsed the idea of reconstituting the subcommittees for Institutional Membership, Professional Membership, Contributing Membership, and Heritage Membership. The Vice President for Development will be consulted.
d. Development (distributed)
e. Archaeological Research and Policy (distributed)
11. Other Reports
a. Investment Committee—Austin Ritterspach. The investment committee has diversified ASOR’s funds and no longer hold individual stocks. Net investment return on ASOR’s account has been strong (about 12% this fiscal year).
b. Grants Committee—Joe Seger. Joe distributed a report showing that we are attracting Heritage members. We have also established the Platt fund. We now have a portfolio of about $260k for fellowships. Between the Heritage and Platt we had a total of 16 awards to make. We established a committee to do that, which included the Harris committee. This is the first year that ASOR has been back to contributing to archaeology overseas. $34,500 was awarded this year.
c. AIAR Report—Sy Gitin. A full report was given. Sy stressed that the NEH grant has been awarded. This year AIAR will award 14 fellows. AIAR expects to have full occupancy in the hostel.
d. CAARI report—Stuart Swiny. When the US government reviewed the Memorandum of Understanding with Cypress with a view to renewing it, the Dept of Antiquities of Cypress and CAARI brought another point of view against the dealers association. Money is in hand to build the library.
e. ACOR report—Nan Frederick. ACOR is deeply involved with the forthcoming conference on Jordanian Archaeology which will be held at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. May 23-28. For more information go to www.ichaj.org
f. Other Reports—none
12. Adjornment-12:12 pm.
Respectfully Submitted,
James F. Strange, Secretary