Western Political Science Association
Executive Council Meeting

Thursday March 27, 2003
Denver Hyatt, Denver CO

Members Present:
President Timothy Kaufman-Osborn; Program Chair William Haltom; Treasurer Gilbert St. Clair; Recording Secretary Peregrine Schwartz-Shea; Council Members Manny Avalos, Anne Costain, Victoria Farrar-Meyers, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, Barbara Morris, Barbara Norrander, Ron Schmidt, Clive Thomas.

Members Absent:
Mary Caputi, Al Harris, Victor James, Mark Petracca, Andrea Simpson, Raphael Sonenshein, and Clive Thomas.

Ex-Officio Members Present:
Ken Godwin, PRQ Editor; Ron Hrebenar, PRQ Managing Editor; and Elizabeth Moulds, Executive Director; and Elsa Favila, Associate Director

Guests Present:
Julie Novkov, Nominating Committee Chair; Lynda Roberts, PRQ Coordinator and Office Support; Michael Brintnall, Executive Director APSA; Luis Fraga, Bylaws Committee Chair; Joel Kassiola, Council Member-elect; Dave Rausch, Membership Committee Chair; and Dan Smith, Local Arrangements Chair, Denver.

Introductions:
Lynda Roberts and Michael Brintnall were introduced.

Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order by Tim Kaufman-Osborn at 8:00 am. He thanked Bill, Betty, and Dan for their hard work getting ready for the Denver meetings.

I. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

The minutes of the August 30, 2002 Executive Council meeting in Boston, MA were approved without correction.

II. REPORTS

A. Executive Directors Report: Elizabeth Moulds

This past autumn, Betty spent considerable time working on the final details of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Association and the University of Utah re the PRQ. Also, due to lots of communication to program chairs, the association offered a full set of paper awards this year. In addition, much of the work in preparation of the Denver conference was done centrally in Sacramento. She has been working with Barbara Norrander (program chair) and Richard Clucas (local arrangements chair) on the 2004 Portland conference, March 11-13.

The contract for the Oakland hotel for 2005 has been signed. The conference dates are Thursday March 17 through Saturday March 19. BART is across the street from the hotel and it is 11 minutes to San Francisco.

Future sites:
2006 Southwest region: Perhaps Las Vegas again (perhaps the Alexis Hotel) or Albuquerque again.
2007 California, southern region: Perhaps San Diego.

There is a prudent reserve of over $100,000 in the association coffers. This will facilitate the WPSA transition with Betty when she may resume faculty status once the new President of Sacramento State University takes over.

B. Program Chair’s Report: William Haltom

Bill reported that the total number of conference events was between 180 and 200. Overall, thanks to Elsa Favila, who did the lion’s share of the work, the web approach to producing the program worked well. The number of people attempting to attend without paying has decreased.

There is room for improvement: (1) The names of members of the Executive Council need to be marked in some way so that their paper presentations are not scheduled at the same time as the executive council meeting. (2) The computer program needs to be able to check for duplication of paper titles to assist section chairs in their scheduling across sections. (3) Ideally, participants should enter their information and abstracts directly into the data base, while on line, so that section chairs are spared this task.

The program is important because it is used by PRQ to select potential manuscript reviewers.

C. Local Arrangements Denver 2003: Dan Smith

Dan thanked all those who had helped, particularly his colleague Andy Bush, the volunteer staff, and the great Hyatt staff. The rooms blocked were 921 but he expects there will be a drop off due to the inclement weather. Still, 800 rooms had been filled by the time of the executive meeting, so the facility is at 108% of capacity. The overflow hotel worked well.

Expenditures included travel, software, and on-site cancellation insurance. Income was $9,000 more than expected. Net income should be about $27,000.

Local Arrangements Portland 2004: Richard Clucas

Local Arrangements Chair for Denver is Richard Clucas who wasn’t able to be at the council meeting. The dates for Portland are March 11-13 at the Marriott with views of the river and Mount Hood. The Marriott staff just hosted I.S.A. meetings, so there is some staff experience. The cost per room is $109. There are wineries, and expresso bars, and pubs to visit.

D. Nominating Committee Report: Julie Novkov
Tim emphasized that Julie Novkov served for two years as the chair of the nominating committee, so special thanks for her service

Julie thanked her fellow committee members for their hard work. She emphasized the need to appoint good people to this committee because it is essential to the success of the association. The appointees have to be willing to reach out to find good nominees.

WPSA Nominating Committee Slate
For Election at the March 28, 2003 Membership Business Meeting

Vice-President and Program Chair 2003-2004
Ron Schmidt, Sr., California State University, Long Beach

Executive Council 2004-2007

Region A
Shaun Bowler, University of California, Riverside
Edwina Barvosa-Carter, University of California, Santa Barbara

Region B
Sonia Garcia, St. Mary’s University, San Antonio

Region C
Clive Thomas, University of Alaska, Southeast

E. Financial report: Gil St. Clair

Gil submitted the financial report. The net assets of the association are $129,111.58. Much of this money is in a Certificate of Deposit. Though the money does not earn a high rate of interest neither is it at risk.

F. Membership Committee Report: Dave Rausch

Dave, with assistance from Renee Cramer, submitted a written report. It suggested using the APSA membership form as a starting point for putting together a new membership form. The report suggested the possibility of additional fields on graduate student status ( i.e., A.B.D., Ph.D., M.A.) and, possibly employment status (e.g., tenure-track, adjunct, affiliated staff). Membership recruitment and service would be easier if the association knew more about its members. Graduate student members are much less likely to renew their memberships.

Part of the difficulty of having an accurate, up-to-date data base is that there are currently separate data bases. One is complied via on-line pre-registration by the association whereas another is complied at University of Utah via PRQ renewals, which are still paper based. Lynda Roberts and Elsa Favila will pursue the possibility of integration via new software. One possibility is a link from the pre-registration site to the PRQ membership site. It is also important to keep the email address list up-to-date.

There was additional discussion about the complications of requesting more information. Filling out the forms can be burdensome unless the information is stored and then members are asked only to make corrections every year (as with APSA). Another serious issue is possible suspicion and fear, e.g., the fear that if one is not tenure-track that could be a disadvantage for getting on the program. Some one suggested a separate census approach to allay such fears. But it was clear that if the association wants a high response rate, information requests should really be done during the pre-registration process, perhaps with a disclaimer about the use of the information. Betty suggested that changes in data collection should be incremental.

It was moved, seconded, and unanimously approved that the Membership Committee be charged to report back in August with a proposed new membership form for further discussion.

G. PRQ Report: Ken Godwin

Ken handed out the report. He is happy to report that the backlog is now gone. He asked the executive committee members to tell assistant professors that from the time a manuscript is submitted, if it is accepted for publication, there is a only 15 month span until it appears in print (at least for 80% of the cases).

The PRQ is moving to electronic submission which is now used by JOP and AJPS.

III. OLD BUSINESS

A. Redd Award: Amendment to Policies and Procedures. Moulds

The Charles Redd Foundation has agreed to fund the Redd Award for five more years at $250 per year.

Proposed changes, of a minimal nature, in WPSA Policies and Procedures document reflect this new agreement. See section 1. a. 7) and 1. b. 1) and 1. b. 4). It was moved, seconded and unanimously approved that the changes be accepted.

B. Graduate Student Council Member: Amendment to Bylaws

The graduate student participation at WPSA ranges from 19-32%. Because of their importance to the association, it had been suggested in that past that the Executive Committee be expanded to include a Graduate Student Council Member. Any change in the nature of the Executive Council would require members’ approval.

In Boston, consideration of this issue was assigned to the Committee on Bylaws. Luis Fraga, chair of the committee, presented a memo on the issue to the Executive Council. The Bylaws Committee members reached no consensus. The memo raised five issues for careful consideration before any action is taken.

Valerie Martinez-Ebers agreed that the memo raised all the right issues, but wondered about some other possibilities: Would it be possible to have a graduate student member on the council for just a year? What about the possibility of having the local arrangement chair select a student locally (which would mean decreased travel costs to the student council member)? Council members discussed the issue of monetary support for a graduate student council member but noted that there is an equity issue in supporting a student when some faculty council members can’t afford to come. Ron noted that having local arrangements select a student doesn’t make sense in those cases in which the hosting institution is not a Ph.D.-granting institution.

Tim suggested the possibility of a status committee for graduate students. That could institutionalize a graduate student voice, involve multiple students, and might be facilitated by a graduate student email list. Also, since members of the council act as liaisons to status committees that would be another avenue of communication. It was observed that this would be one way to recognize the importance of graduate students to the association, a means of empowering students so that they come to the Executive Council with their own ideas. Whereas changing the size of the executive council requires an association membership vote, under Article 9 Section 3, the Executive Council has the authority to establish an ad hoc committee, that if successful could become a status committee.

It was moved and seconded that the Bylaws Committee consider this possibility and report back to the Executive Committee at the Philadelphia meeting. This motion was passed unanimously.

IV. NEW BUSINESS

A. Renewal of Memorandum of Understanding between WPSA and the University of Utah. Tim Kaufman-Osborn

A committee consisting of Tim Kaufman-Osborn, Ron Hrebenar, Ken Godwin, Harold Clarke, Gil St. Clair, Elizabeth Moulds, Lynda Roberts, and Elsa Favila met in Boston to renegotiate the MOU (which was set to expire July 1st 2003). A new MOU was drafted.

It was moved and seconded that the new MOU be approved. The motion passes unanimously.

Section III.D.1 of MOU indicates that the current editors of PRQ may be offered an additional two-year term by the Executive Council (in addition to the initial four year term). This additional two-year term was voted on last year. However, the Bylaws provide in Article 6, Section 3 (c) that the PRQ editor’s term should not exceed 5 years. It was moved and second that “five” be changed to “six” years to be consistent with the MOU. This motion passed unanimously.

The WPSA dues were increased. There have been only a few complaints from members about the dues increase. The MOU stipulates that distribution of dues money between the Association and the PRQ shall be negotiated between the two parties. The current distribution of dues is acceptable to WPSA as it strives to increases its resources for the time when it will have to “buy out” the executive director’s time. Editor Ken Godwin indicated the possibility that he might have to come back in another year and ask for more money. Likewise, managing editor, Ron Hrebenar indicated that he had had to guess about the costs for the new format of the journal. So he also may need to request a reallocation of dues in the future.

In the context of the discussion of the PRQ, Ron Hrebenar reported that the journal will have a booth at the 2003 APSA to showcase the PRQ’s new format. Free copies of the PRQ and WPSA membership forms will be available at the booth. There may be a request to Council members for some volunteer labor to staff the booth for a couple of hours.

B. Budget: Gil St. Clair

Gil handed out the spread sheet on the proposed budget 2002-2003. There was a formal motion to approve the budget report which was approved.

C. Policy change re: renaming the Chicano/a Award

The status committee requested a name change for the award and the committee. This request requires a change in the Policies and Procedures document. It was moved and approved unanimously that every instance of “Chicano/a” be changed to “Latinas and Latinos.” In addition, a change in the name of the status committee is needed in the Bylaws (Article 9, Section 2). It was so moved, seconded, and approved that this change be offered for the members’ approval.

D. Insurance coverage and terrorism: Moulds.

The insurance company offered the association the chance to buy insurance against a terrorist act, the classic low probability, high impact risk. The current policy covers the association against cancellation of the conference due to weather or a hotel strike.

The cost of adding this insurance would be 600 times the cost of the original policy. Because the cost of the insurance would, over time, exceed association revenue the Association treasurer, Gil St. Clair, recommended that it would be prudent to self-insure for terrorism. The council endorsed this position.

E. APSA /WPSA Collaborations: Discussion with Michael Brintnall, Executive Director APSA

Michael brought official greetings from the APSA and he reviewed the specific on-going projects of the APSA for the Executive Council, notably plans for a stand-alone teaching conference, the appearance of the new journal, Perspectives on Politics, and the Mentoring and Graduate Task forces.

He brings to the council a possibility for collaboration. The APSA association has been having participants post papers on line for some time. APSA is now working to switch to “All Academic Software” (AAS) to keep the conference proceedings up for a longer time at a lower expense in PDF format. This system will feed into a “pre-print server” for political science scholarship.

AAS would allow APSA to add related associations “at virtually no cost” (which means a possible $2000 set up fee and an ongoing maintenance fee of $1000.) APSA has been talking with IPSA, ISA, and MPSA. Should WPSA participate now?

There was a lengthy discussion. There are many areas in which electronic format is proving useful (from the personnel newsletter to e-journals). Associations can work together to lower the costs. Concerns raised included the possible impact of this system on the blind review process; how the separate legal entities of APSA and WPSA should work together; possible revenue losses due to no longer having paper sales; and whether it makes sense to commit WPSA money at this time.

Because of such concerns, it was moved and seconded that the council should authorize the WPSA president to send someone to the APSA working group meeting this summer. The motion passed unanimously.

F. WPSA Logo. Favila

Discussion of the logo was delayed until the next Executive Council meeting in Philadelphia.

Meeting adjourned at 12:00 pm

Respectfully submitted,
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea
Recording Secretary