2007 Minutes

 

Minutes of Board of Directors Meeting
Noon March 22 2007 Salon 1 Sheraton Philadelphia City Center Hotel
 
Present
Philip Hineline
Stanley Weiss
Robert Sternberg
Arnold Glass
Joseph Ferrari
Lorraine Allan
Jeffrey Fagen
Norine Jalbert
Ralph Miller
Kurt Salzinger
George Spilich
Late
Byron Nelson
Wade Pickren
Absent
Thomas Zentall
Bernard Beins
Ruth Colwill
Visitors
Robert Allan
Andrew Delamater
Thomas Ghirardelli
 
1. 12:00 – 1:00 PM Lunch
 
2. 1:00 PM Call to Order
 
3   Election Committee Report.
    Introduction of new officers.
          June 1 Nora Newcombe will become President-Elect,
          Norine Jalbert to become Treasurer, (pending approval by Board and Membership),
(see Appointments below)
          Andrew Delamater, Thomas Ghirardelli, and Michael Lewis
                        will begin three-year terms on the Board
          Robert Allan will complete Norine’s term on the Board
 
Glass: I am confused about what lowest preferential vote means in bylaws.
 
Jalbert: I propose:
The bylaws shall be interpreted to mean that lowest preferential vote to mean least preferred candidate.
Approved Unanimously.
 
Elections, cont.
 
Hineline:   Ruth Colwill proposes that term of office be added to call for nominations.. 
Allan: We should list current affiliation as well as term of office.
Glass:   Can’t guarantee that information in call will be correct.
Allan: I propose:
The call for nominations will include the current affiliation and term of office and will be sent to the Board of Directors for review.
Approved 9-1.
 
Weiss: The election should be open for a longer period time.    That way people can campaign. I believe that the ballot should be available at least two weeks.
Miller: I propose:
Election ballot will be available a minimum of two weeks.
Approved 9-1.
 
Weiss:   Someone I nominated did not get counted as EO did not receive nominating email.
Allan:   I propose:
Call for nominations will be sent out by Chair of Elections Committee if feasible and nominations will be collected by the Chair of Elections Committee.
Jalbert: I think that we should not change the process piecemeal in this way. 
Weiss: EO has too much to do. The Past-President has the time to do it. 
Hineline: 
If this lands in my lap then I will try draft a procedure on how to proceed.  
Approved: 7-3.
 
4. Discussion of Executive Officer’s Report (Distributed in Advance)
Glass: It takes a lot of time to negotiate hotel contracts.
Salzinger: Will APA do it for us?
Weiss: No, they will do a workshop. And then we are on our own.
Glass: That is correct.
Report received and accepted by consensus.
 
5. Discussion of Treasurer’s Report (Distributed in Advance)
Ferrari: All investments are under Sam’s name and Sam would like to get his name off them.    There is no record of how much money was donated for Keller, Sexton, and Solomon lectures.   Money ($15,000) was moved from checking to Vanguard account so we are getting interest on the money. 
Ferrari: Half the exhibiters haven’t paid yet this year. I will go ask them for the money.
Salzinger: We should encourage APA to take ads. 
Ferrari: We need more exhibiters.
Glass: Graduate programs in psychology and psychology-related fields may be interested in exhibiting.
Weiss: Glass should write a page that a subcommittee of the Board could send out to graduate programs.
Spilich: I will provide letter and mailing list with review of the Board.
Ferrari. I will also serve on the committee to get graduate program exhibiters.
 
Ferrari: We should not have so much extra money.
Weiss: Aren’t we a particular kind of nonprofit that can generate this income?
Jalbert: You can keep two years operating expenses in the bank. It is not that you can’t keep more, but you have to designate it for some purpose. For example, we could be saving for a new building and we could be saving forever. The danger of designating money for a particular program is that you can never use the money for any other purpose.
 
Glass: Membership dues income is currently overstated in Treasurer’s budget for this year.
Ferrari: We will take $20,000 off the budget and thus show a deficit for next year.
Jalbert: Let us table budget until end of meeting.
 
6. Discussion of Program Committee’s Report (Distributed in Advance)
Glass::We rejected bad submissions for the first time in years.   There were few complaints and submitters of rejected proposals requested feedback on the reason for rejection next year.
Hineline: How should we describe the length of the long abstract? Simply stating a number doesn’t indicate whether that is a minimum or a maximum.
Weiss: I think we may need up to 1000 words.
Miller: Program committee members have only so much time to read abstracts. It seems to me 500 words is sufficient.
Hineline: Would you accept about 500 words? Whatever it is, I suggest that it be stated as “on the order of,” since we’re unlikely to reject a submission that runs somewhat over the specified number.
Delamater: Perhaps we should have more than one social committee member to handle the large volume of submissions in that area?
Weiss: Are undergraduates submitting papers?
Hineline: Only posters.
 
7. Appointments
7.1. Animal Learning, Cognitive, and Clinical Members of Program Committee (3-year term) each have one more year to serve. Replacements must be in place by next year’s meeting.
Weiss: I propose Bob Allan for Animal Learning.. 
The Board agreed unanimously.
 
Glass: The vision group originally recruited by former EPA President Jeremy Wolfe will return to EPA next year. Todd Horowitz will serve as their representative on the Program Committee. This will give us representation in the area of perception.
 
Allan: They haven’t accepted papers outside their own group in the past.
 
Glass:   They have returned with the understanding that they will be fully integrated within the EPA program and will accept submissions from all members. Vision was my term for them.   Their area does not have a definite name. What do you want to call them?
 
Allan: Call the area Perception.
Sternberg:   Call area Sensation & Perception.
Glass: Okay, Sensation and Perception.
 
Salzinger: For the clinical representative on the Program Committee, I recommend David Barlow, Steve Hayes, and Joel Weinberger in that order.
 
Glass: I propose:
Byron Nelson is reappointed to a second one-year term as Chair of Program Committee
Approved Unanimously.
 
7.2. By email ballot, the Board of Directors had already appointed Norine Jalbert to serve as Treasurer (3-year term) beginning June 1 2007.
Reaffirmed Unanimously with a $3000 honorarium.
Ferrari: I think that the Treasurer should continue to get travel, room, and all expenses at EPA meeting paid for by EPA.
Glass: Until the Board of Directors explicitly changes this policy the Treasurer will get all expenses paid for at the meeting:. 
 
7.3. Executive Officer (5-year term) has two more years to serve. Last year the Board decided to have a one-year overlap between prospective and current EO for purposes of training. This means that if a change of EO is anticipated, a replacement must be in place by next year’s meeting. Discussion was tabled until evaluation of EO.
 
8. Old Business
8.1 Continued Development of Web-Site and Web-Based Administration
Miller:   I have a proposal to make the on-line website categories consistent with bylaws.
Allan: Actually, we need to revise the bylaws.
A Bylaw Revision Committee was formed consisting of Tom Ghirardelli and Stan Weiss.
 
8.2 Additional Strategies for Building Membership
Hineline: We need more complete email lists. Also we need postal addresses to send things out regular mail. Is someone willing to take this on?
Spilich: I will offer my secretary $10 an hour.
Hineline: This could be the responsibility of the Associate EO.
 
9. New Business
9.1. Assistant Executive Officer
Sternberg:  Arnold spends a lot of time on reactive stuff. There are so many things that we might do but we don’t have the time to do it. I wonder if it makes sense for an associate executive officer to drum up our finances. We need a proactive person who can get to advertisers.   It wouldn’t cost us that much. This person will coordinate all efforts and assertively raise money for us.
Hineline. This is a good idea.
Sternberg: The test would be can they double our membership and/or revenues.
Weiss: How do we have the search?
Sternberg: If we decide to do this then you as President can immediately organize the search. Then we have a year to test this out.
Salzinger: I recommend that Arnold write a description of the position.
 
9.2. Compensation for Board
Weiss: I propose that members of the Board of Directors receive a free room in the meeting hotel Thursday night.
Miller: Our current policy is that a Board member can request compensation for the Thursday night room if they need it. I propose we continue the current policy:
Upon request, a Board member who needs a free room in the meeting hotel Thursday night in order to attend the Board meeting will receive it.
Affirmed by the Board.
 
10. Selection of time of next year’s Board meeting
Noon March 13 2008 Boston Park Plaza Hotel
 
11. Evaluation of Executive Officer
The EO will be paid $21,000 for 07-08 and $24,000 for 08-09 if he stays for that year.
 
12. Treasurer's budget proposal for fiscal year 2007-2008
Approved by consensus for presentation at the annual business meeting of the association with the following changes: (a) reduce membership dues revenue to $65,000; (b) increase salaries/taxes to $29,000; (c) increase technology/web expenses to $10,000; (d) subtotals and totals to be adjusted accordingly.
 
13. Adjournment at 5:45 PM
image widget
CURRENT MEMBERS START HERE