President Lieberman called the meeting to order at 11:05 a.m.
President Lieberman recommended that the Assembly to consider the reports of the following committees: Nominations (Fred Brenner), Audit (Steven Case), Membership (Assad Panah), Strategic Planning (Lynn Elfner), and any Old and New Business.
A motion was made and seconded (Safko/Elfner) to approve the recommendation of the President Lieberman. Motion Carried.
A motion was made and seconded (Thompson/Brenner) to approve the Assembly of Delegates Minutes of February 19, 2000. Motions passed by a voice vote.
Fred Brenner presented the following slate of nominees to the board for year 2001 - 2002 on behalf of the Nomination Committee: Judith Parker, and David His:
After a spirited discussion a motion was made and seconded (Safko/Pitkow) to close the nomination and nominees to be elected by acclamation. Motion passed by voice vote.
President Lieberman congratulated the newly elected officers of the NAAS Board.
Brenner related that offices that will be open next year are:
Thompson: Treasurer's position is the position the majority of us would be eligible for, and he stressed that this is a very important position, and we need to be recruiting, and actively looking for a qualified candidate.
Lieberman: so if anyone is interested in pursuing these positions please let me know. I will be stepping in Dr. Brenner's shoes.
Audit committee consists of Steven Case (Chair), Ertle Thompson and Susan Kafko. Upon learning that S. Kafko did not attend the NAAS meeting, Case and Thompson met. About two hours were spent reviewing spreadsheets Ed Nelson constructed to track income and expenses for savings and checking accounts. These were compared to bank statements, deposit slips, and transaction invoices. While a number of spreadsheet entries were incorrect (sometimes in the amount entered, more often in category to which they assigned), the records provided made it possible to track all transactions and reconcile differences within the various categories. The committee will provide a list of corrections to Nelson and thank him for providing an material sufficiently organized and detailed for examination.
The outcome is that, within the financial expertise of the committee, we feel that the account balances are correct for transactions posted to date. Thus the financial status of the association appears sound. In this regard President Lieberman related that basically we are financially stable. On the whole, any money that comes in we spend for the annual meeting, so we are not losing ground. The committee thanked Nelson for his excellent work.
A motion was made and seconded (Safko/Elfner) to accept the report of the Audit Committee. Motion passed by voice vote.
A motion was made and seconded (Safko/Elfner) "we direct the President to contact AAAS to seeking possibilities of getting financial support for the officers of the NAAS including the AJAS Director (full acquisition) for travel to AJAS/NAAS/AAAS Annual Meeting and registration etc." President Lieberman related that it is in my list. Motion passed unanimously with voice vote.
Collegiate Academy/Membership committee consisted of Assad Panah (Chair), Jerrold Mabien and John Safko. Panah reported that he has been in contact with the NAAS affiliates (44 state academy of science membership) regarding their membership status, collecting and updating their information for enclosure in the electronic version of the Directory, Proceedings and Handbook 2000-2001. The total membership with some rough estimates is approximately 81,000 members strong, from which more than half belong to the New York Academy of Science.
A motion was made and seconded (Pitkow/Elfner) to accept the report of the Collegiate Academy/Membership. Motion carried.
Lynn Elfner (Chair) reported on behalf of the Strategic Planning Committee: Neil Berman, and Dwayne Nichols. He reported that he has four items, which he/she would like the Board to consider. Depends how you place them in the order of priority, they include:
We want to get representatives especially AJAS delegates from Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts to participate in 2002 AJAS/NAAS/AAAS annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. Jerrold Mobien is from Connecticut and teaches in New York. He is going to help contact the New York Academy of Science. We have already made contact with a representative from the Massachusetts Academy of Science. We had a discussion with the Massachusetts 4-5 years ago and want to follow up on that discussion to establishing relation with the Massachusetts Academy of Science. It may not be possible, but it can be done if they are interested. Issue can be raised, and we may be able to get some students from the Massachusetts Academy of Science to participate in the 2002 Annual Meeting.
The New York Academy of Science had planned to send some students to this meeting, but did not this year.
The case of the Connecticut Academy of Science is different. The Web site of this state chartered academy of science shows that they are doing a lot of student and teacher related activities. They have a mechanism to identify outstanding students and send winners to INCF.
We want to look ahead at least for next 2 years, to seek outside support for workshops at either the annual meeting or perhaps off-time for editors of Academies' Science Journals dealing with: the issues of changing economics and technology of publishing, the impact of the Internet on-line publications and its affect on the revenue stream and the credibility of peer review of electronic publishing. There is activity in this regard. For example, Undergraduate Journal is going to publish in Ohio State next year.
We would like to increase the visibility of state academies. Following up today's workshop we will have fresh information.
We would like to look into the long term at what constitutes the Board of Directors and the governance of the National Association of Academies of Science. Elfner related that "my own experience having been Board Development Chair for the Triangle Coalition, that the Board be very diverse, it then brings leaders from industry, academia and government, and it is in fact a stronger Board in terms of affecting policy. We always want to keep place for scientists and the grass roots approach. There may be some commonality with other affiliates of AAAS. For example, the American Chemical Society has grass roots and we might develop 2 or 3 at-large positions that are more at-large than the at-large position at the state academies.
Don Jordan related that there is a financial issue, which needs to be discussed. History shows that formerly we used to receive $4000 - $6000 from AAAS (6 years ago) to help this event and summer conference call meeting. The Education Department of the AAAS took away these funds and returned them back to us as functional receiving terms. We lost $6000 - $7000 over the years, which were supposed to go for printing and distribution of the Proceedings. Now the Proceedings are published electronically, what happened to the money?
Lieberman: Last year the NAAS Board passed a resolution that we allow up to $1000 for a Board member to be reimbursed for traveling to the meeting. This year one of the officers had requested this option because of lack of support from his university and the state academy, and I have approved it.
No new business was forthcoming.
A motion was made and seconded (Brenner/Safko) to adjourn the NAAS Assembly of Delegates Meeting. Motion carried by voice vote.
Respectfully submitted,
Assad Panah
NAAS Secretary