Members Present:
President Rodney Hero, Program Chair Ann Crigler, Secretary Janie Steckenrider, Treasurer Gilbert St. Clair, Council Members Michael Haas, Lyn Ragsdale, Susan Olson, Peri Schwartz-Shea, Ron Schmidt, Charles Lockhart, and Executive Director Elizabeth Moulds.

Guests Present:
Richard Brody, Stanford University, and Tom Cronin, Whitman College.

Call to Order:
President Rodney Hero called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m.

Approval of Minutes:
Minutes of the meeting of March 25, 1999 were approved.

Reports:
Program Chair: Ann Crigler announced that the theme for the 2000 meeting is Political Science: An Interdisciplinary Perspective and that the panels were arranged. She stated that the deadline for paper proposals is September 17th.

Executive Director:
Membership: Elizabeth Moulds announced that an e-mail address will be requested on all future membership forms and a list of e-mail addresses of the membership will be created.
Financial Report: Elizabeth Moulds reported on the final costs and proceeds from the Seattle meeting. The net balance was $9,732.24. She stated that the costs for the programs and the reception were higher than the previous year. There were also additional charges for hotel meeting rooms and $5,000 for a graduate student assistant. However, the costs for audiovisual equipment and the exhibits were less than the previous year.
She also noted that plans for changes in the administrative structure of WPSA will necessitate the purchase of a computer. Pre-registration and other tasks will be centralized and conducted from a Sacramento office in the future.
Local Arrangements: Elizabeth Moulds announced that she has collected the dates through 2004 of other association meetings and conferences and has assured that the dates for the WPSA annual meetings will not conflict unless hotel availability allows for no alternative.
Elizabeth Moulds stated that the plans for the 2000 meeting in San Jose are proceeding. There is a change in the usual scheduling of the meeting and it will be held from Friday through Sunday morning to permit a reduction in room rates in San Jose. She outlined the intention to invoke a more stringent policy to assure that all who attend the meeting have a paid registration. It is estimated that over 100 persons attend the meeting without paying the registration fee. Richard Brody suggested that badge control at the reception would help assure meeting registration.
Elizabeth Moulds reported on her progress on the Executive Council's directive to find a hotel in Las Vegas for the 2001 meeting that was not a gaming hotel. She has signed a contract with the Alexis Park which has no gaming machines in the hotel. The room rate will be $115 and there is a shuttle to the strip.

Nominating Committee: Jane Bayes explained the new schedule for nominations to occur in the fall instead having nominations right before the meeting. The Executive Council approved the committee's slate which will be presented to the membership at the March meeting. The nominations are as follows:
Vice President and Program Chair: Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, Whitman College

Region C: Stephanie Witt, Boise State University
Region B: Manuel Avalos, Arizona State University, West
Region A (Full Term): Barbara Morris, University of Redlands
Region A (Full Term): Victor James, Peralta Community College
Region A (1 Year Term): Fernando Guerra, Loyola Marymount University

Editor Selection Committee (PRQ): Richard Brody reported that the Committee had met in Seattle in March and developed a strategy for the search including web postings, advertisements, and developing a list of potential applicants and inviting them to apply. Interviews were conducted in Atlanta at the APSA meetings. The Committee recommended Harold Clarke and Ken Godwin of the University of North Texas as the Editor Designates of the Political Research Quarterly. The Executive Council approved the recommendation.

New Business:

Adding Texas to the WPSA:
Elizabeth Moulds outlined the potential of adding Texas to the membership of the WPSA and stated that this would require a by-law change. Rodney Hero explained that there is nothing formal on what states are included in the various regional associations and he talked with the Southern Political Science Association about whether including Texas in the WPSA was a problem. Elizabeth Moulds will draft a by-law change to add Texas to the WPSA which will be brought to the full membership at the March meeting. She stated that this may necessitate shifting some of the regions within the WPSA for balance of membership representation. She will prepare various models for regional representation within the WPSA. There was discussion about having one At-Large Non-Region representative to the Executive Council.

Future Meeting Sites: Elizabeth Moulds explained the difficulty of finding a local arrangements host department in Southern California for the meeting in 2002 and stated that she is exploring a variety of possibilities. She suggested an alternate possibility of holding the meeting in Denver in 2002 and in Southern California in 2003. She also asked the Executive Council to elicit opinions from their universities and WPSA members about the possibility of holding a future meeting in Hawaii or Vancouver.

Women's Caucus Awards: There was discussion about the disparity in amounts awarded at the annual meeting and that the award from the Women's Caucus is considerably less than the other awards. The Executive Council approved a motion that all the awards will be $250. The WPSA Policies and Procedures will be amended accordingly.

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 7:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Janie Steckenrider, Secretary