2013 minutes

Eastern Psychological Association
Board of Directors Meeting
March 1, 2013
Ziegfeld Room, Marriott Marquis, New York, NY

MINUTES OF THE MEETING

Attendees-

Invited
Maryellen Hamilton, Treasurer-elect (term starting June 1, 2013)
Richard Conti, Member-at-Large (term starting June 1, 2013)
Terry Davidson, Member-at-Large (term starting June 1, 2013)

Elected Officers
Debra Zellner, President
Andrew Delamater, Past-President
Thomas Zentall, President-Elect

Appointed Officers
Frederick Bonato, Executive Officer
Norine Jalbert, Treasurer

Elected Board Members
Rachel Barr
Bruce Brown
Bonnie Green
Christopher Hakala
James Macdonall
Susan Nolan
Irene Pepperberg
Vincent Prohaska
Steven Sloman

1. President Debra Zellner called the meeting to order at 12:35 PM and gave welcoming remarks in addition to welcoming the new officers/board members. This included EPA’s new treasurer, Maryellen Hamilton who will start June 1st.

2. Election Committee Report – Past-President Andrew Delamater, chair of the Election Committee, presented the report. Andy acknowledged the winners of the election: Susan Nolan will be the new President-Elect on June 1st. New Members-at-Large for the Board of Directors will be Terry Davidson, Marie Helweg-Larsen, and Richard Conti.

Andy addressed the default rankings in Survey Monkey that some members objected to but also stated that the Committee looked at results in a number of ways. It was agreed that the Survey Monkey issue would be looked into for next year and the problem would be solved.

3. Program Committee’s Report  - We had a large number of submissions this year- about 1,300. The acceptance rate was also higher than usual this year. Nancy Kim will serve as Program Committee chair starting June 1st. It was generally agreed upon that it is better to have the Chair not have an area to manage in addition to all the tasks that the Chair must handle already.

Vinny Prohaska announced to the Board that two “meet the speaker” sessions were scheduled with students. These will be informal gatherings after talks. Paul Rozin and Saul Kasin both volunteered to meet with over 40 students from 27 different institutions.

4. Executive Officer’s Report- Fred Bonato thanked Deb Zellner and Dan Gottlieb for all their help in getting the conference together. Fred spoke about the finance challenges associated with the year’s meeting in Manhattan—challenges that would be met partly by healthy registration numbers and booth rentals.

5. Historian’s Report- The historian’s report was discussed and in particular the idea of archiving EPA historical materials in Akron. There was general support of the idea and a motion was introduced.

Motion: The EPA Historian will send EPA materials to Akron for archiving and EPA will contribute $1,000 a year for the next five years to Akron and this practice will then be revisited in five years. The motion is contingent on EPA retaining ownership of our materials.

The motion passed: 14 in favor, 0 against.

Bruce Brown suggested we figure out how to get materials digitized in an efficient manner and then posted on our website. Debra Zellner requested that the Historian generate an approximate cost for such a project.  

6. Treasurer’s Report- Norine Jalbert reported that EPA was doing well financially. Our past two meeting resulted in net gains of revenue and it seems that this year’s meeting will as well. The general finances were reviewed and discussed.

7. Action Items & New Business-

EPA Phone

Fred Bonato made a motion that a phone and phone contract be purchased for EPA.

The motion passed: 14 in favor, 0 against.

Program Committee Issues

Debra Zellner indicated that we should consider bringing neuroscience back as a regular area. The area could be a home for submissions that include cognitive, social behavioral, some perception, and evolutionary psychology. The motion passed: 14 in favor, 0 against.

Debra Zellner pointed out the low number of submissions for Applied Behavior Analysis and made a motion that it be removed as a regular submission area. Some members supported keeping the area. A motion was made to remove Applied Behavior Analysis as a regular submission area but to include a description of it in one or more submissions areas.

The motion passed: 12 in favor, 2 against.

Rachel Barr made a motion that would result in more informative and detailed descriptions of the submission areas on our website and the submission portal.

The motion passed: 14 in favor, 2 against.

A motion was made to make APA Division 52 (International) an EPA affiliate as opposed to a program area. This would allow Division 52 to have space at EPA meeting to conduct their own meetings and they could also have space for programing.

The motion passed: 11 in favor, 1 against, 1 abstaining.

Treasurer Transition

A motion was made to hire an accountant who specializes in non-profits. The accountant would file our income tax and assist the treasurer with other financial and record keeping tasks. The cost to hire an accountant was estimated to be $2000-$2500/year based on quotes obtained by Debra Zellner.

The motion passed: 14 in favor, 0 against.

Funding External Groups

A motion was made to suspend funding EPAGS an external organization that EPA has assisted the last two years. The rational for suspending funding being based on minimal programing and the agreement that the organization is now in a position to conduct its own fundraising.

The motion passed: 11 in favor, 1 opposed, 2 abstained.

8. Discussion of Budget for 2013-14- The budget for next year was briefly discussed and it was agreed that it would be voted on by the Board at a later time when more accurate numbers had been obtained regarding this year’s meeting.

9. Evaluation of Treasurer and Executive Officer- This session did not include the Treasurer and Executive Officer. The performance of these officers over the last year was discussed.

10. Adjournment for speaker

 

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