Board Meeting -- Minutes

Providence College, Jan 15, 2005

(Note: the text from the agenda and reports are in italics.)

Attendees

Frank Ford (FF)
Lawrence D'Antonio (LD) (Chair)
Richard Wyatt (RW)
Scott McElfresh (SM)
Michael Gousie (MG)
Karl R. Wurst (KW)
David Hemmendinger (DH)
Viera Proulx (VP)
Ingrid Russell (IR)
Kris Powers (KP)
Laurie King (LK)

I. Minutes of September Meeting

1. Motion: to accept minutes.
Passed unanimously.

II. Reports

SM reminded us that, as per the minutes of the April 26, 2003 Board meeting, written reports, from the registrar, journal editor, web-master, membership chair, and chair, are required for the April Board meeting, and that from the treasurer, for the September meeting.

2. Chair's Report:   Larry

 I. Report from National

 1. The next meeting of the national board is February 23-27, 2005 at SIGCSE in St. Louis.

 2. By-laws revision continues. I would say that there are no major changes so far in the
by-laws. One proposal of interest is to increase the term of the President to four years
(one year as President-elect, two years as President, and one year as Past-President).

 3. A new region, Mid-South, has been created.

 4. Given the problems with the national vendor program, a proposal was made to change the
fee to $1000 (from current $2000).


It was noted that national wants NE, who is very successful with vendors,
to help recruit national vendors but NE is not able to get compensated for
the loss of revenue that results.  The general feeling was not to help
national with recruiting national vendors: it will confuse vendors to have
several regions talking to them instead of one person from national; that
this is the national board's responsibility.  The national vendor program
was initiated when National was not doing well financially and it was an
attempt by the national board to do something to bring in money.  It was
also noted that here is no incentive for regions to try to recruit national
vendors.

It was agreed that Larry would as national for some of the large monetary
reserve to be spent on ads for CCSC in high-profile places such as CACM.
Such ads should be placed over an extended period of time, and not merely
as a one-off as advertising people tell us that the former are much more
effective.  The aim is not merely to expose new people to CCSC but to
exhibit to those already acquainted with CCSC that we are a serious,
professional organization that it worth their time to submit papers, etc,
to.

It was reported that national is reducing national vendor fee. Several
people who said that they didn't think reducing the fee makes any
difference to whether or not a vendor commits. The question was raised of
who will take the cut if a discount is offered: national or NE. No one knew
the answer.

At this time, a matter largely unrelated to vendor arose, namely a question
about the national financial report.  We were told that none was
distributed at the fall meeting.  A concern was expressed that the report
was not in the Fall board meeting minutes nor was it in the newsletter as
has been the case in the past (it used to be in the October newsletter
and/or fall minutes).  It was also pointed out that our bylaws require the
treasurer to distribute to members a financial report annually.  This has
not happened and it's been 6 month since the end of the fiscal year.



 5. A motion was passed to do the Table of Contents for all proceedings in the same manner
as NE.

 6. A committee was formed to look into the possibility of having a centralized online
paper submission.

 7. Long-range planning was discussed.

a.What is the mission of CCSC, to give faculty at smaller institutions the opportunity to
publish their research or to give faculty, at any institution, to publish papers related
to undergraduate computer science education? Should both goals be supported or should it
be the prerogative of each region to decide what their focus should be?
b.What should the view on expansion (i.e., more regions). Expand as the need arises or be
more proactive? For example, should National look at establishing a California region?


 II. Future Conferences

 1. 2006 Conference at Holy Cross


The date of the 2006 conference at Holly Cross is April 21-22, 2006.

The program committee is fairly open, with mist slots unfilled at
present.

The date of the Sept 2006 meeting is set as September 17, 2005.

The date of the Jan 2006 meeting was problematic.  It was agreed that it
would be late, Jan 21, 2006.  This lateness meant that the program
committee will have to have already met and decided on the whole program
prior to the conference and board meeting.

The facilities at Holly Cross good.



 We need to pass a budget for this meeting and discuss further planning details with Laurie
King.

SM will email everyone an updated 2006 budget.
    


2. 2007 Conference

 At the moment Brooklyn is the only candidate. I think there are significant problems with
this site: location, cost, and scheduling. I have looked into possible alternatives, which
the board needs to discuss.


The Board was lukewarm on Brooklyn.  It is to expensive, would result in an
odd schedule, has never given us a firm commitment, and, overall, has too
many negatives.

Williams was noted as a possibility.  RIT has also expressed an interest. A
number of other institutions were mentioned as mere possibilities for Larry
to explore, but, in these cases, no one had any suggestions that were more
concrete than mere speculation.
  

 3. In general, we need to recruit possible sites.
3. Editor's Report:   Michael
No report given.
4. Webmaster's Report:   Karl
No report given.
5. Treasurer's Report:   Scott

No report given.
6. Memberships Chair's Report:  Danny
No report given.
7. Registrar's Report:   Frank

IR noted that our membership list needs to be updated. We need to put our CFP on the SIGCSE email list. IR will email details of all this to FF.

It was noted also that these tasks should normally be carried out by the Membership Chair.

8. Operating Document Subcommittee Report:  Frank, Karl, Amruth
No report given.
9. Guidelines on Paper Submissions:   Richard
No report given.

III. Old Business

10. Membership categories

The issue raised last time is how to categorize teaching assistants.

No action.

IV. New Business

11. Vendor issues There were different issues about vendors raised in recent emails. Some of these may be discussed in the conference meeting. Here are two issues: a.What policy do we have on vendor presentations? We have done these in the past. I'm not sure how successful they have been. b.The national vendor program has had recent problems. Currently IBM is the only national vendor. Should NE be involved in recruiting national vendors?

This was discussed elsewhere, including the conference committee meeting.
12. Speaker Issues

IR noted that we should get the speakers committed as early as possible and use their participation in their conference publicity.

Motion: That the Board direct conference committees to have the plenary speakers booked by the September Conference meeting.

Passed unanimously.

V. Business not on the Agenda

13. The Expiration of Board Officer Terms

 The following terms expire in 2005:

  • Treasurer: Scott McElfresh 2002-2005
  • Membership Chair: Danny Kopec 2002-2005
  • Webmaster: Karl R. Wurst 2002-2005
  • Registrar: Frank Ford 2002-2005

    • Scott said "perhaps", Danny was absent, Karl said "probably", and Frank said "yes" to continuing for another term.
    14. Online Papers

    It was noted that at present the paper submission are accessible to anyone who wasn't to look at them. It was suggested that we need password protection so that either only reviewers could look at papers (but they could still look at all of them) or a review could look at only their assigned papers. The latter would be preferable but the former adequate. IR said she would ask FLAIRS if we could use or look at the way they are doing it.

    15. Board Nomination

    Kris Powers was nominated for the Board by FF (seconded LD). It was suggested that the usual guidelines be suspended in Kris's case but the consensus was that this would set an unwelcome precedent. However, in view of her extensive work for national CCSC, it was agreed that we would count her work there as fulfilling the requirement that a candidate demonstrate a commitment to CCSCNE over a reasonable time period. All other requirements remain however and she will therefore come up for consideration the April Board Meeting.

    It was agreed that the number of Board members be increased to about 15.

    16. Motion to Adjourn

    Passed by acclamation.