Minutes
Meeting of the Board of Directors of the
American Philological Association
March 24, 2012
Radnor, PA
The Board of Directors of the American Philological Association met at the Villanova University Conference Center, Radnor, PA, on March 24, 2012. Those present were Profs. Jeffrey Henderson, President, Ronnie Ancona, Roger S. Bagnall, and Peter Bing, Dr. Adam D. Blistein, Profs. Kathleen M. Coleman, Joseph Farrell, Denis Feeney, Bruce W. Frier, Michael Gagarin, Mary-Kay Gamel, James M. May, S. Georgia Nugent, and Ann Vasaly. Profs. Sara Forsdyke, Jonathan M. Hall, Kathryn Morgan, and Matthew Roller were absent. Prof. Henderson called the meeting to order at 5:05 p.m.
Plagiarism Case
Prof. Coleman distributed to the Directors a draft of a statement to be published on the APA web site and in the Newsletter concerning a complaint of plagiarism that had been brought to the Association. She had drafted the statement with the help of Prof. May and Dr. Blistein on the basis of a discussion by the Board on January 5, 2012. Directors discussed the statement and suggested several changes to it.
Action: The Board voted to publish the statement as amended on the APA web site and in the Newsletter.
Departmental Membership
Action: The Board added the following sentence to Regulation 65 concerning Departmental Membership: “Other organizations may become departmental members upon approval by the Board of Directors.”
Action: The Board approved the request of the Eta Sigma Phi honorary society to become a departmental member of the APA at the B.A.-granting Department level.
Placement Service
In advance of the meeting Directors had received an exchange of e-mails between Dr. Blistein and Prof. David Potter, Chair of the Placement Committee, as well as a summary of placement procedures of the Modern Language Association and the American Historical Association. The Committee wanted to transfer the responsibility for scheduling interviews at the annual meeting from the office to hiring institutions, while Dr. Blistein felt that the office should continue to do this work. The Directors discussed the scheduling question as well as the continuation of the requirement that candidates using the service be members of either APA or AIA. Verifying membership was often a logistical problem just before the annual meeting because a number of candidates postponed joining either society and registering for the Service until they were sure that a hiring institution would offer them an interview.
Action: The Board voted unanimously not to require candidates to be members of APA or AIA but to establish a two-tiered fee for candidates, $20 for members and $55 for nonmembers, with candidates being required to become members by September 1 to qualify for the lower fee.
Action: The Board voted with 11 in favor and 2 abstaining to have the office continue to schedule interviews for the coming year, but it asked Dr. Blistein to investigate the possibility that the online Placement System could permit institutions wishing to schedule their own interviews to do so.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:00 p.m.