Members Present:
President Rodney Hero; Program Chair Ann Crigler; Treasurer Gilbert St. Clair; Council Members Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Ron Schmidt, Dvora Yanow, Michael Alvarez, Michael Haas, Charles Lockhart, Diana Dwyre, Michael McCann, Barbara Norrander, and Michelle Saint-Germain; Ex-Officio members William Dixon, Ken Godwin, Susan Olson, and Executive Director Elizabeth Moulds.

Guests Present:
Jane Bayes, Ted Jelen, Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, and Betsy Carroll.

Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order by Rodney Hero, WPSA President, at 8:21.

Approval of Minutes:
The minutes of the September 3, 1999 Executive Council meeting in Atlanta were approved.

Introductions:
Ken Godwin, one of our two new Political Research Quarterly editors (Harold Clarke was not present) was introduced.

Reports:
A. Local Arrangements, San Jose, 2000 annual meeting. Betsy Carroll reported that things were going well thanks to Betty Moulds, Elsa Favila, and Ann Crigler.

B. Local Arrangements, Las Vegas, 2001 annual meeting. Ted Jelen, Local Arrangements Chair for the Las Vegas meetings, updated the Executive Council on arrangements. The 2001 meeting will be held at the Alexis Park Hotel (a non-gaming hotel).

C. Membership. Elizabeth Moulds reported a significant drop in WPSA membership during the 1999-2000 fiscal year. WPSA is doing better than other regional political science associations, and some drop was expected after the 1998 Los Angeles meeting. Alternative strategies for cultivating members were discussed. These included: "locking" panel acceptance to pre-registration (designed to limit "dead-beat" presenters), writing "dead-beats" after the fact and encouraging their membership, graduating membership fees by income, requiring pre-registration of at least one member of a co-author team, and offering life memberships. Mention was made of the need for quicker confirmation of registration for meetings. Interest was expressed in having the Association examine the gender, ethnicity and field distribution of its members. Michael Alvarez and Ann Crigler proposed doing a membership survey. These issues will be referred to the Membership Committee.

D. Financial Report. Treasurer Gil St. Clair reported that, in spite of membership declines, the Association's finances are doing well. Various cost-saving measures such as putting the preliminary program on a web-site rather than mailing a copy to the membership were discussed. Since a number of such changes are likely to become possible and desirable in the near future, there was a preference for moving to them collectively in a single year rather than adopting different changes in various years. The Midwest PSA and the ISA provide models here.

E. Political Research Quarterly, Susan Olson. Susan discussed PRQ circulation. Individual subscriptions are down since 300 persons who joined the Association for the 1998 Los Angeles meeting did not renew. Institutional subscriptions are on a slow, steady decline.
Bill Dixon discussed manuscript decisions for PRQ.

F. Nominating Committee Report from September Meeting, Jane Bayes.
Jane Bayes presented the Committee on Nominations' slate of nomination as follows:

Timothy Kaufman-Osborn , Vice President and Program Chair 2001
Stephanie Witt, for Executive Council, Region C.
Manuel Avalos, for Executive Council, Region B.
Barbara Morris, Executive Council, Region A (two-year term).
Victor James, Executive Council, Region A (two-year term).
Fernando Guerra, Executive Council, Region A (one-year term).
This report was approved by the Executive Council.

Old Business
A. Site for 2002 Annual Meeting. Elizabeth Moulds discussed options. San Diego and Denver do not appear to be possibilities (although Denver is still a possibility for 2003). Attention is now focusing on Long Beach. Ron Schmidt and Michelle Saint-Germain discussed Long Beach's strengths. The Council moved, seconded, and carried that Elizabeth should work with the Long Beach team to negotiate a contract for a 2002 meeting in Long Beach.

B. Adding Texas to the WPSA Region. Elizabeth Moulds presented several options for accomplishing this addition. The Executive Council approved her option I which equalized regions B and C in terms of members. Elizabeth has prepared appropriate changes for the bylaws. The Bylaws change will be discussed and voted on at the Members' Business Meeting.

C. Hawaii as a Potential Meeting Site. Elizabeth has agreed to more investigation (exploring the cost of the Hilton Waikoloa and air fares on Hawaiian Airlines in particular), but a Hawaii meeting may not work out. Concern was expressed that Hawaii will be expensive, and that may well mean a drop in attendance. It is not likely that graduate students would be able to afford coming to the meeting. A Hawaii meeting would likely attract different people from those attracted to other WPSA meetings. Vancouver appears as a more workable "exotic" site, and Elizabeth will continue work on that as well.

New Business

A. 2000/2001 Budget. Gil St. Clair proposed minor adjustments relating to program committee expenses and insurance for the annual meeting, to the proposed 2000-2001 budget. The revised budget was approved by the Executive Council.

B. Committee Charges for WPSA Committees. Rodney Hero reported that historically, there have been no written charges to the ten WPSA standing committees. The absence of charges has likely contributed to uncertainty as to what the committees are supposed to do. Rodney Hero made a request of all committee chairs this year to draw up draft charges. Two (Status of Women and Membership et al.) responded by the time of the meeting.
Considerable discussion ensued about the draft charge for the Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession and the relations among this committee, the Women's Caucus and WPSA generally. The Executive Council made some suggestions with respect to the draft charge of this committee and was favorably disposed toward the revised document.
Relatedly, Michael Alvarez suggested that we charge the committees on women's, African-Americans' and Latinos/as' status in the profession with making the relevant paper awards and that appointments to these committees be made by the Association president in consultation with the relevant caucus. Ann Crigler and Elizabeth Moulds agreed to draft a proposal to this effect, consulting with both the committees and caucuses in the process.
The draft charge for the Committee on Membership, Attendance, and Registration was more problematic. The Executive Council decided that former officers and local arrangements chairs (possibly Lyn Ragsdale and Louis Fraga) were in the best position to advise the membership committee on this matter.
More generally, the Executive Council seemed to be favorably disposed toward requesting that members of the Executive Council serve as liaisons between the Executive Committee and the standing committees. Experience with particular standing committees could thus become an important qualification in the selection of future Executive Council members.

C. San Francisco as a more frequent Annual Meeting Site. Because of the ability of sites such as Los Angeles and San Francisco to draw exceptional attendance and thus increase Association membership, the Executive Council considered the possibility of meeting in San Francisco more frequently. The major problem is that likely area local-arrangements persons are burned out. However, if the Sacramento staff grows and can carry a heavier burden of local-arrangements activities, then such a strategy might be more feasible (hence the focus on San Francisco rather than Los Angeles). Additionally, APSA might be able to offer some help in negotiating better guest room rates with appropriate San Francisco hotels. The Council advised that every third year would be preferable to every other year. Elizabeth will explore the possibilities.

D. The Executive Council discussed changing the cycle of the nominations made by the nominating committee. The goal was to have nominations made more in advance of office holders' terms of office. It was moved, seconded, and carried that the Nominating Committee be asked this year to recommend two slates: one slate of individuals to begin office in 2001 and the other slate of individuals to begin in 2002. Next year's Nominating Committee will then recommend a single slate to begin service in 2003.

Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 11:43.

Respectfully submitted,
Charles Lockhart