The Board of Directors of the American Philological Association met at the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter Hotel, San Antonio, TX, on January 9, 2011. Those present were Profs. Kathleen Mary Coleman, President, Ronnie Ancona, and Roger S. Bagnall, Dr. Adam D. Blistein, Profs. Dee L. Clayman, Joseph Farrell, Bruce W. Frier, Jonathan M. Hall, Judith P. Hallett, Jeffrey Henderson, John Marincola, James M. May, Kathryn Morgan, Carole E. Newlands, S. Georgia Nugent, James J. O’Donnell, and Ann Vasaly. Prof. Peter Bing was absent.
Prof. Coleman called the meeting to order at 11:40 a.m.
Action: The Board approved the agenda it had received in advance of the meeting.
Action: In accordance with By-Law #14, Profs. Bagnall and Hall were chosen by lot to be members of the Executive Committee for 2011.
Development Report
Dr. Blistein reported on the meeting of the Development and Capital Campaign Committees that had taken place the previous day. The Campaign Committee agreed to focus on raising larger gifts to meet upcoming NEH matching fund deadlines, and there was considerable discussion of potential prospects for these gifts. The Committees discussed content and format for appeals to be mailed to members during the winter for the capital campaign and during the spring for annual giving. They also reviewed the success of the fund-raising event in New York City in October, plans for subsequent ones in other cities, and the generally positive reactions to the campaign display at the APA booth in the exhibit hall in San Antonio. Appeals to honor several distinguished classicists had generated a significant number of gifts in 2010, and the Committees agreed to list the names of donors to these “Friends” funds in a separate section of the APA web site.
The Committees discussed the campaign case statement at some length and concluded that the APA should not revise it at that point but agreed that its fund-raising efforts could focus on outreach and pedagogical goals now that sufficient funds had already been raised to meet the research component’s initial goal, i.e. continuing operations of the American Office of l’Année philologique. The Committees felt that the membership at large would welcome this news and the news that in the coming year the Association would also be able to use some earlier gifts to the campaign for additional minority scholarships and enhancements to the teaching award program. Several Committee members agreed to draft this message to the membership for signature by Prof. Coleman as the new President.
The Board discussed the importance of reminding members that the Association was conducting two appeals at once, its usual annual giving appeal and the capital campaign. It asked the Development Committee to consider modifying acknowledgment letters for each campaign to mention the other one.
Action: The Board approved a suggestion to add a line for donations to the capital campaign to the dues bill.
Report of the Finance Committee
Prof. Nugent stated that during its meeting the previous day the Committee had reviewed both an initial draft of the auditors’ report for the 2010 fiscal year and a comparison of budgeted income and expense figures to actual results prepared by Dr. Blistein. It reviewed the budget for the current (2011) fiscal year which had been modified to reflect new information about ongoing costs and to accommodate two proposed meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee on Archives. Finally, it discussed the fund-raising expenses the Association would incur during the 2012 fiscal year because of the extension of time given by the NEH to raise matching funds for the challenge grant.
The Association’s auditors had asked the APA to establish a policy on the treatment of investment gains and losses in permanently restricted funds. The Committee had reviewed an opinion on this matter from the APA’s attorney. (This document had also been distributed to the Board.) In addition, the Committee discussed the length of time funds should be in an Association endowment before they could be used for the purpose the donor had designated.
Action: With one abstention, the Board voted that the Association should never change the value of permanently restricted assets unless new gifts were received. All investment appreciation should be treated as temporarily restricted assets, and no expenditures should be made from a fund if investment losses resulted in its falling below its initial level.
Action: The Board accepted the Finance Committee’s recommendation that APA should have gifts on deposit for at least a year, and that any special fund needed to reach $50,000 before it could generate support for a particular program.
Action: The Board approved the expenditures proposed for two meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee on Archives in the APA Office to sort through papers accumulated since the last addition of materials to its archives at the Columbia University Rare Book Library in 1986.
Action: The Board extended the term of the Development Director’s position to June 30, 2012.
Reports of Vice Presidents
Outreach. Prof. Hallett described the annual meeting panels organized by committees in her division in San Antonio and planned for the next meeting in Philadelphia. The editorial board of Amphora had held a useful meeting to plan articles for the next issue, and Prof. Hallett had formed a search committee to find a new Editor and Assistant Editor for the publication during the spring.
The annual performance organized by the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance (CAMP) had been well received. In the future, the Committee would attempt to integrate its rehearsals better into the available meeting space, and it asked that any panel it organized be held after the performance. The Committee continued to assist the Aquila Theatre Company to identify program scholars for its Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives project and was developing suggested criteria for assessing the work a scholarputs into performance. It would also seek ways to publicize the APA’s lists of music and performance experts outside of the Association’s own web site.
The Committee on the Classical Tradition urged the APA to maintain some kind of liaison with the Modern Language Association now that the latter group was holding its meeting at the same time and had changed its regulations for allied status. It also asked the Board to consider a new name for the Committee.
Action: The Board changed the name of the Committee to the Committee on Classical Tradition and Reception.
Professional Matters. Prof. May expressed the concern of the Committee on the Status of Women and Minority Groups (CSWMG) that its survey work often required expertise that its members did not have, and that it distracted the Committee from other activities it might undertake. He would ask the committees involved in these surveys (CSWMG collaborates with other Association committees on some of its questionnaires) to recommend possible changes to these instruments. Prof. May had arranged for the next installment of the Association census of classics departments to be conducted online; it would be important to increase the number of responses to the questionnaire.
For 2012 the Placement Committee was considering organizing another panel on nonacademic job options for classics Ph.D.’s. In the next few months it would review Placement Guidelines for possible changes and would work on additional automation of the Service.
Publications. Prof. O’Donnell reported that the Committee on the Web Site and Newsletter had had a useful meeting with the new Information Architect, Samuel Huskey. Katharina Volk’s first report as Editor of TAPA indicated that the journal was flourishing. He expressed gratitude to Kathryn Gutzwiller for her excellent stewardship of the Monographs Series for five years, especially her willingness to extend her term by a year and her considerable assistance to authors. To date the search for her replacement had been unsuccessful. In the interim, Prof. O’Donnell would handle the Monograph Editor’s duties. Finally, he described books in production and several new publishing initiatives that were still in the discussion stage.
Program. Prof. Farrell stated that the Program Committee had discussed two areas in which it might take a more direct role in shaping the annual meeting program: by encouraging the organization of panels on more imaginative topics and by more careful selection of presiders who would, in turn, have more responsibility for the success of their sessions. At a future date, it might ask the Board for modification of the current rules for submissions.
The Board discussed the changes implemented in the Plenary Session at the San Antonio meeting as well as the low attendance at the President’s Reception. Suggestions for improvement included finding a way to combine the many receptions hosted by individual institutions with the President’s Reception, asking award committees to provide a very short (a few sentences) citation that could be read as the award winner came to the stage to receive his or her prize, and emphasizing the various projects the Research and Teaching Fund was now supporting in the regular talk about progress in the capital campaign.
Research. Prof. Bagnall reported that the Advisory Board for the American Office of l’Année philologique had discussed various production issues as well as the need for more publicity about the new features in the online version of the bibliography. The Office had successfully taken on some additional work caused by the failure of a Canadian office to generate records from journals published in that country. The TLL Selection Committee continued to operate well and had selected a Fellow for 2011-12 from a very large number of submissions.
Several Research Division task forces had made progress on their assignments since the Board meeting in early October, and Prof. Bagnall asked the Board to act on several of their recommendations.
Action: The Board created a standing Committee on Translations of Classical Authors reporting jointly to the Publications and Research Divisions.
Action: The Board dissolved the Task Force on Ancient Biography and asked the Research Committee to monitor other groups’ work in this area to determine whether additional efforts by APA were necessary.
Action: The Board made the Task Force on a Biographical Database of Classical Scholars an Advisory Board to a project on this topic to be hosted by the Center for Digital Humanities at the University of South Carolina. The APA would have no financial responsibility for this project, but the Board authorized the Executive Director to work with the Center in other ways.
Action: The Board authorized the Task Force on Performance Archives to set a March 31, 2011, deadline for final proposals to host an archive of classical performances and to recommend an acceptable proposal to the Board.
The Research Committee had reviewed a useful report from the Task Force on Digital Peer Review and the APA Portal which had been chaired by Cynthia Damon. Neither the Task Force nor the Committee was interested in ranking journals. The Task Force had greater interest than the Committee in establishing a system of peer review for digital projects. The Committee had greater interest than the Task Force in developing a mechanism to identify useful resources on the Internet and suggested that the Board assign this responsibility to the six ordinary Directors. Prof. Bagnall stated that he would circulate Prof. Damon’s report as well as his own to the Board for further discussion of this matter.
Education. Prof. Ancona described the annual meeting panels organized and being planned by the Committee on Ancient History. The Committee was developing suggestions for changes in abstract categories. The Committee on Minority Scholarships had selected two outstanding recipients for the summer of 2011, and its fund-raising raffle had been successful. AIA had offered to print a new brochure for the program.
The Education Committee’s panel on the new Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation had been successful, and, in conjunction with the Joint Committee on the Classics in American Education (JCCAE), it was working on further dissemination of the Standards document. The Committees had considered appropriate uses for gifts to the Gateway campaign designated for improvements in Latin teaching (next generation gifts) and for teaching awards.
For next generation funds, the Committee recommended establishing programs to reimburse tuition for courses taken to acquire certification in Latin teaching (to be awarded after courses were completed) and to solicit and review proposals for professional development from established teachers. The latter grants should range between $500 and $2,500. The Board deferred action on this recommendation because the Association had not yet received sufficient gifts to fund these programs.
Action: The Board accepted the recommendation of the Education Committee and JCCAE to use the gift of Daniel and Joanna Rose to increase the amounts of teaching awards to $1,000, plus a contribution of $250 to the awardee’s institution for teaching materials of the awardee’s choice. [It was subsequently determined that the current level of the fund would permit only $500 for the award and $200 for the teaching materials in 2012.]
Other Business
Action: The Board amended the instructions it had given to Prof. May on January 6 concerning a letter it had asked him to write concerning an Ethics Subcommittee matter. It asked him to send a copy of the letter to the disciplined party.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 3:10 p.m.