Minutes of the Conference Committee and the Regional Board meeting of the Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges Northeastern Region, January 12, 2002

Attending:  Dick Close, Betsy Brenneman, Paul Chiasson, Larry D'Antonio, Dale Fish, Frank Ford,  David Hemmendinger, Aparna Mahadev, Laura King,  Danny Kopec, Scott McElfresh, Ralph Morelli, Viera Proulx, Ingrid Russell, Kate Sanders,  Charles Welty, Karl Wurst, Richard Wyatt

2002 Conference Committee Meeting

Reports by committee chairs:

Workshops, panels, and tutorials (Kate Sanders)  We accepted 2 workshops, 3 tutorials, and 5 panels, and rejected only 1 tutorial (which was on the same topic as one of the other proposals). CCSCNE has generally accepted nearly all of the panels, tutorials, and workshops, except for last year when there was an unusually large number of submissions, so our results are about par. By shortly after the beginning of the meeting, the panels, tutorials, and workshops were all scheduled in cooperation with the papers committee.

(Secretary, Charles Welty, was 10 minutes late in arriving and missed some of the first items. Charlie arrived after the previous report.  Kate Sanders sent Charlie the above information by email.  The following table was on the board.  If anyone wants to send Charlie the time table for the papers, panels and tutorial time slots, they will be added.)

Decided to eliminate session 5 on Saturday and move session starting times slightly later.  Schedule now stands as
 

Friday	1:00 pm  Invited Speaker	2:45 - 4:00 pm  Session I	4:15 - 5:30  pm Session II	Posters	Banquet
Saturday	8:30 - 9:45 am Session III	10:00 - 11:00 am Plenary Session	11:15 am - 12:30 Session IV

 

Posters (Aparna Mahadev)  18 posters have been submitted, some with missing part of the submission.  Estimate we will have 23 - 25 posters total.
Best poster awards - need at least $300 for poster awards.  We got $250 from UPE last year and will probably get the same amount this year.
Viera suggests that we give each attendee a list of posters at the beginning of the poster session and have each person rank the ones they saw.

If we have judges, each can only judge 4 or 5 posters.  Each poster should be judged by 2 people.  Therefore we need 12 judges.  We could solicit judges at the conference.

Another suggestion was to have 2 parallel judging methods, judges and attendees.  Each contest could have 2 awards.  Each could have a flexible number of honorable mentions.  Amount of awards would be determined by amount available.

We will try to give cash awards at the conference paid out of petty cash ($1000).  Awardees will fill out form with name, social security number, and get a receipt.

Students submitting posters will pay the $30 registration fee, fill out copyright form, etc.

Speakers (Dale Fish)

Allen Tucker - Invited speaker on Saturday.  Will talk about rigor in programming languages.

Possible keynote speakers to be contacted (in order of contact)

Leslie Kaelbling (MIT)- Excellent speaker, dynamic.  Kate will contact.

Bev Woolf (UMass) Working with other departments to get computers into their curricula.  Try to get her to give an overview talk, not a specific system talk.  ??? contact ???

Kim Bruce (Williams)    ??? contact ???

Registration brochure info needed by Jan. 28 goes to Karl on Feb. 7.

Also need lodging, directions, session chair, etc.

Registration form.  Cathy Bareiss needs to see it and approve it.  Should include solicitation for judges.  Meal preferences may be listed.

Should send email solicitation for session chairs soon.  Include rejected authors in that mailing.  Volunteers should contact paper's chair.  Session chairs should send registration to Dick Close early so their names can be in the program.

Richard Close will send email to Ralph, Frank, and Aparna about what he needs and when he needs it.

Final program will be ready when the room assignments are settled.

$200 fee for a plain table.

Need $1000 for the reception - co-sponsors needed.  $500 in our budget.  $500 from sponsors.

Publishers often send checks late.

Microsoft is co-sponsoring the programming contest with about $700.  (They have given national $2000 to be shared among the conferences that are having programming contests.)  We need more co-sponsors to have $600 for prizes and $400 for food.

National vendors (who have paid money to national to be listed as such) may not show up to the conference.

Vendors registration form will be worked on by Kate and Scott.

Vendors may want to make a presentation, need power, need internet connection.

Ingrid will give a vendor information form (with information about CCSCNE) to Paul.

Should contact local publisher representatives about being vendors.

Early payment means the vendor will be listed in the program.  March 31 is the payment deadline.

Tell vendors that the big publishers (Addison-Wesley, Prentice-Hall, etc.) go to our conference.

The check should be made out to CCSC, Northeast Region.

At present there are 8 candidate papers for the best paper award.  Judges will be Aparna, Larry, Dick Close, Laurie plus 2 more to be solicited.

Frank will create the form and send it to Cathy for approval.  Filled out forms and money get sent directly to Cathy.

Registration checks will be cashed more quickly than before.  The plan is to have them cashed within 2 weeks after they are received.

All students who have matriculated (been admitted) at the college are eligible.

We will stick with the same programming languages as before.

We can accommodate 20 teams.

A good, solid systems person will be available during the contest.

People are needed to make up questions.  Frank will send out sample questions from previous contests.

Windows will be used.

Two more judges (at least) are needed.

Crown Plaza will give 2 free rooms for 80 rented rooms.

Hampton Inn will given 1 free room for 25 rented rooms.

There is a conflict on Saturday with another campus event.  They should not interfere with each other too much.

Police will direct attendees to the appropriate parking areas.

Map to the appropriate entry gate for Saturday will be put on the Web.

Our lunch will be physically separate from the other group.

The other group will not tour our building.

Items taken from the Provisional Agenda mailed out by Richard Wyatt on Jan. 10, 2002, appear in italics below.

Board Meeting
 

I. MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER MEETING

1.  Danny Kopec pointed out that his name was misspelled in the minutes.  Scott McElfresh pointed out that he wasn't there so some comments were inaccurately attributed to him.  Appropriate changes were made to the posted minutes at http://www.ccscne.org/for/board/minutes/01/fall.html.  People were not notified of the minutes being posted.  Notification will be done from now on.

Minutes accepted by acclamation.
 

II. REPORT FROM NATIONAL

Relevant Matters and Highlights from the Recent (November 2) National Meeting

2.  Formalization of Positions Within Regions

Each region will identify an individual who is responsible for

communicating to the national board for each of the following:

  A. Regional Webmaster - Responsible for maintaining the regional web site

  in keeping with CCSC national guidelines, and for communication with the

  CCSC (National) Webmaster. (Amruth at present, changed to Karl later in minutes.)

  B. Regional Registration Chair - Responsible for on-site registration in

  consultation with the CCSC (National) Membership Secretary, and for

  forwarding registrations and fees to the CCSC National Membership

  Secretary.

M/S (Richard/Ralph) Frank Ford will be official registration chair.  His first term will before 4 years starting July 31, 2002.  His term will be 3 years thereafter.  Passed unanimously

  C. Regional Editor - Responsible for the collection of the final versions

  of all papers and copyright forms and for forwarding these papers and

  forms to the CCSC (National) Publications Chair.  Also responsible for

  ensuring that all presenters have registered for the conference. (Richard Close)

  D. Regional Treasurer - Responsible for preparing the conference budget

  in consultation with the Consortium (National) Treasurer, for tracking

  all expenses, for authorizing the Consortium (National) Treasurer to pay

  bills. (Scott McElfresh)

A subcommittee of three of National is continuing to look at it. National

is also aware of the need to consider permitting registration via credit

card.

There is a new listserv: CCSCMember.  It includes all current members of

CCSC is currently not moderated.  Only board members post to it.  Members

wanting to post to it should send their requests to the regional

representative.  Information about listservs will appear on the CCSC web

page.

Each region has a listserv.  Non-members can also subscribe to it.

At our CCSCNE Sept. meeting we discussed this matter.  From Sept. minutes:

  Currently, only John Meinke's name is listed as editor of the journal,

  whereas others also make editorial contributions such as the papers

  chairs, who are, of course, making acceptance decisions. One suggestion

  is to list John as the "executive editor" or "editor in chief" and others

  as "contributing editors" or perhaps "issue editors".

National has passed (8-2-1) the following motion:

  The [national] Publications Chair, for each Journal issue, will name an

  Editor-in-Chief, and may name an associate editor.  Furthermore, each

  region may designate up to 3 additional people as contributing editors.

  All editors will be listed on the title page.

Though unsaid, the intention is that the three (or fewer) named in each

region would normally be the paper chairs as it is they who make the

editorial decisions as to which papers to accept.

Discussion: It was suggested that the Editor (Richard Close at present)

  be given the title "managing editor" in the journal.  The paper chairs

  would be given the title "editorial board".  This will be brought up at

  national.  If they do not do it we will revisit it.

M/S (Frank/ Viera) Richard Close will be recommended to John Meinke as associate editor and the papers chairs will be recommended as contributing editors for this year.  Passed: unanimously.

A national vendor form has been created.  Future discussion at national is

needed to fully formalize the procedure.

The national vendors are listed under item 21 in these minutes.  We only get $100 from national vendors as opposed to the $200 we get from our own vendors.

At our CCSCNE Sept. meeting we discussed this matter.  From Sept. minutes:

  There have been suggestions that we should consider recommending to

  national that they consider changing our name.  We are no longer merely a

  consortium of "small" colleges but of just colleges. (There is already an

  important distinction between "universities" and "colleges"; it is, then,

  enough for us to refer to ourselves as "colleges").  Moreover, the term

  "small" is often perceived in a less than fully favorable light by some,

  including deans and members of tenure and promotions committees.  One

  suggestion has been that it would simplify matters and be more palatable

  to those reluctant to change the name if we could find an alternative

  rendering of our initials "CCSC". Two suggestions (mere suggestions) are:

  "Consortium for Computer Science in Colleges" and "Consortium for

  Computing Sciences in Colleges".

  M/S (LK/AK) Richard Wyatt will bring the issue of removing "small" up

  with the national board.  Passed: 12 - 1 - 0

  Discussion: It was generally felt that the issue should be brought up at

  national, but that the given suggestions not be part of the motion.

As most of us know, National has taken up the matter seriously and is

currently soliciting views from the regional boards.  [Richard's] preliminary

impressions are that the chances for an eventual name change are 60-70%.

Whereas many members appear to be quite enthusiastic about a change, some

certainly are not.

There is a detailed time line for regional conferences to follow.

Conference committee members should look at:

   http://www.ccsc.org/membership/memberdata.htm

Suggestions on changes to the time line should be made to Richard.  A detailed comparison of our present timelines with national's will be done when national's becomes final.

National wants conference budget 18 months in advance.  We need to have the 2004 budget in September of 2002.  Scott will send Richard the budget guidelines to check out the restrictions.

The national timeline is a work in progress, it may change drastically.

Richard pointed out that national really, in a way, follows what the regions can do.  National does have final financial responsibility.

Early budget preparation does force us to think about whether the college or the conference pays for such items as janitorial services, mailing, etc.

A. Danny Kopec is still interested in having Brooklyn College host the conference but 2005 seems a more practical year.

B.  These three candidates are dropped from consideration.

    Ellen Beatty - Beatty@southernct.edu

    Ralph Bravaco - ralph@stonehill.edu

    Onkar Sharma - Onkar.Sharma@marist.edu

None have replied to three emails, so unless someone actually knows one of

these persons and will personally contact them about hosting, we will

consider them as no longer under consideration.

C. Brad Richards - Vassar (richards@cs.vassar.edu) As of the Sept. meeting

he seemed somewhat interested but was not sure they have the space.  Viera will contact him.

D. Other Possible Hosts

At the Sept. meeting, the following were mentioned.

    * Dartmouth College (Scott Drysdale) - Scott M. will contact Scott D.

    * UConn (Keith Barker, Robert McCortney)   Karl suggested that we not pursue UConn due to lack of their interest.

    * Williams College (Kim Bruce, Dwayne Bailey)  Matt Dickerson will contact.

    * Union College (David Hemmendinger) David's dean thinks it is a good idea but will have to find the money. [David Hemmendinger had to leave early so this occurred at the beginning of the meeting.  ]

Although the Sept. minutes do not reflect it, it is [Richard's] recollection that

some of those present offered to contact people at these places, presumably

because they are acquainted with them.  [Richard] cannot now recall who they were,

but we (Richard included) need to be more aggressive in following this up.

Other suggested hosts were

Holy Cross (2007 or 2008)
Providence College (2006 or 2007)
University of Hartford (2006 or 2007, especially 2006 for the tenth anniversary.)

Richard will take care of this.

[Richard[ has asked the committee to revisit the matter partly because, since

National is hardly impoverished, we can afford to increase the

reimbursements so that we are less out of pocket, and partly because of a

possible inequity.

We at NE have contributed a good deal to National's surplus, which,

frankly, borders on being embarrassingly large.   [Richard] is therefore disinclined

to ask NE board and conference committee members to "eat" expenses on the

putative ground that National cannot afford a more complete reimbursement.

On the possible inequity, the committee is, as [Richard] understands it, a little

unclear as to how to proceed and so [Richard would] like to the board to consider the

matter and decide whether it should continue.

Here is the email Richard sent to Scott, which deals with it:

      Scott,

      I'd like you to (re)consider a matter from the subcommittee on

      reimbursement for travel, if you would.  I suspect we rushed through

      the matter (and others) at the Sept. meeting and we might benefit from

      a more judicious consideration.

      Upon reflection, I'm concerned about the possible inequity in regard

      to item 3 (below).  As it stands, we are reimbursing up to $50 for

      travel.  However, it is the FIRST $50 that would be reimbursed.

      Consider two travelers, Dr. Long and Dr. Short.  Long travels a long

      way, say 900 miles round trip, but Short travels a short way, say 150

      miles round trip.  Let's assume that the mileage rate is $0.33/mile

      (roughly correct).  Thus, Short gets $50 and is not out of pocket at

      all, whereas Long gets $50 and is out of pocket $250.  I wonder if

      this is the fairest way of handling the matter.

      My worry is that although we can all "eat" a small out of pocket

      expense, no one should be expected to "eat" a large one.  Of course,

      there needs to be a limit: personally, I'm not going to want to pay

      in full for someone to attend a CCSCNE board meeting if the member

      happens to be on leave in South Africa :-)

      Perhaps you might consider alternatives.  Here are two:

      A.  Reimburse (up to some limit, say $100 for the sake of discussion)

      at 50% (or some other percentage) of the out of pocket traveling

      expenses.  Thus Short would get $25, and Long $100.

      B.  Reimburse (up to some limit, say $100 for the sake of discussion)

      at the full rate, but not for the FIRST so many miles (say 100 miles,

      for the sake of discussion).  Thus Short would get $16.67, and Long

      $100.

      I am not suggesting that you must recommend a change, only that you

      consider it.  If you decide that the fairest course is as it stands,

      then that's your committee's decision.

      ---------------------------------------------------------------

      From the Sept. minutes:

      ---------------------------------------------------------------

      Subcommittee: Reimbursement for Travel.  (Scott (Chair), Danny, Laurie)

      The following can be paid by CCSCNE for Board and Committee member

      expenses to travel to the September or January meetings subject to

      amount budgeted specifically for travel.

          1) Hotel - up to $80 per person, with receipt, if the person must

          travel at least 3 hours in each direction.

          2) Meals - up to $30 per person, with receipt.

          3) Travel - up to $50 per person, which may include:- passenger

          vehicle tolls, with receipt- mileage at current IRS rate OR

          gasoline, with receipts.

      To cover travel costs, Board and Conference Committee members are

      encouraged to seek their own institutional support at first.

      -------------------------------------------------------------------

Discussion:  We should use the IRS rate for mileage reimbursement instead of the rate at each institution which is the present national policy.

National has $49,000 in its account after paying expenses.  That seems to be quite a bit and does not support the attitude that they are impoverished.

We would like to keep more of the profits that we make on conferences.  At present we not only pay our share to national, but they keep any extra funds that we make.

National has asked that regions report conference attendance figures, submit bills, returning extra proceedings, and so on in a timely manner.

National (Cathy Bareiss) will now cash registration checks within 2 weeks of the time that she receives them.

A board member has reported:

     PROBLEM: Last year, we used a lot of space on the server, and we had

     to pay some extra fees for it.

     SUGGESTION: Although CCSCNE can afford some "extra storage space"

     fees, be somewhat cognizant that we do not have unlimited space for

     free.  If you need the space, USE IT, but don't be frivolous with

     server space.  If you want to know how much space we have for free,

     Karl should be able to tell you.

 

Do we, for example, want to save information from last year's reviews,

paper and reviewer summary or do we want to summarily delete it?

Discussion:  This is only a small amount of money.  Around $10 at present.  The Webmaster should make the basic decisions.  Richard suggested keeping the paper reviews but storing the papers themselves at the host college in the future (perhaps just on a CD).  Perhaps Webmaster could archive papers at his/her location, too.  No action taken.

Suggestion: subcommittees are to submit (via email) the final

version of reports at least 7 days before a board meeting in order to be

voted on.  Otherwise, a report can be discussed, but cannot be voted on at

the meeting.  (Voting might be permitted (by email) after not less than

7  days after the meeting.)

Rationale: subcommittee report are in general sufficiently complex that we

cannot absorb them during the meeting alone, We need time to ponder the

material.

Not a motion but was accepted by acclamation that we would try to conform to this idea.

A. The final report from Middlebury has arrived and was attached to the agenda.  It is available at http://mathcs.muhlenberg.edu/~mcelfres/CCSCNE/treasurer.html.

We paid $4000 to national for proceedings, registration, etc.  National also has the $4000 we had left over (profit).  There was much discussion of how much profit national gets from us and what they do with it.

B.  Report was given earlier about monetary prizes at the conference, see the Posters report in the conference minutes.

C.  2003 conference seems to be in the red.  [The corrected budget shows a $1000 profit, it is also available at http://mathcs.muhlenberg.edu/~mcelfres/CCSCNE/treasurer.html.]

M/S (Frank/Scott) The 2003 conference will have 1 brochure sent regular mail and the rest sent email.  We will try to make the 2004 conference all email.  Passed: unanimously.

New registration amounts of $120 (regular) and $40 (student) were suggested for 2003.

A new treasurer is to be selected.  Scott will work with new person.

Michael Anderson was suggested at the last meeting but has not responded.  Scott will contact him.

A member writes: I would like to have it on the agenda for the January

meeting about the proper disposal of minutes and such.

Suggestion: The secretary is to post board and conference minutes to WEB

and notify board and committee members via email all of that fact within

??? weeks of the relevant meetings.

We currently accept and even encourage papers to be submitted in

WordPerfect format.  WordPerfect is clearly obsolescent.  No one this year

submitted in that form; almost all were in Word.

Suggestion 1:  We no longer accept papers in  WordPerfect.

Suggestion 2:  We no longer advertise that WordPerfect is the preferred format.

If National wants to keep WordPerfect for reason to do with the Journal

printing, that's up to them.  The journal editor does, as we understand it,

already have to reset almost all papers in WordPerfect in any case.

Amruth has notified [Richard[ that he would like to step down as the Webmaster of

CCSCNE.  No date has been officially set but he would like us to find a new

Webmaster a this meeting and take over thereafter.

Although it would be natural for a Webmaster to be a board member, it is

not, as [Richard[ understands it, a requirement.

Discussion: Karl volunteered as Webmaster.  He is going to ask Amruth's help in getting started.  No term is presently set, but that can be established at a later meeting.

Email from Frank:

   In reference to mailings, we have always done two or more in my

   recollection.  I believe Ingrid likes three but until last year, we only

   did two.  The first one comes after the September meeting and is a call

   for participation.  The second one is the preliminary program and the

   actual registration form and comes after the January meeting (usually

   MUCH after it; it has been in March).  As far as I know, both mailings

   go to the CCSC membership that requested mailings from the Northeastern

   section.  (I believe you can request as many section mailings as you

   want when you join.).  I know we also send everything through e-mail.

   The duties of the Conference Chair listed on the web site clearly calls

   for two mailings of 2000+.  I think this should be a discussion item at

   the January meeting.  I think I am doing justice to Rod's position if I

   say that he considers our reliance on snail mail to be an atavistic

   leftover from pre-internet days that ought to be resisted by those of us

   who are computer scientists.  I think I agree with him and I have

   another point to bring up.  We send the mailings to those who already

   know about the conference.  I don't think we gain that much from the

   mailings over our email reminders.  Perhaps we should invest in several

   emailings as reminders and invest our snail mail money in buying the

   AMS's mailing list of CS Department chairs and send them the mailings.

   There are not that many in the list.

   As to the 1000 contribution from RIC, I think we can include the

   xeroxing of the preliminary and final programs and the xeroxing of

   copies that need to go to the other conferences as publicity, the money

   given for student help, the cost of the meals for the planning meetings,

   the folders used at the conference, the preparation of the meal tickets,

   and at least one mailing of some sort.  This discounts the time spent by

   the organizers, the secretarial help, the rooms, computer labs, parking,

   internet connections, audio-visual services, tables, internet and phone

   communications, heat, light, ventilation, etc.  If we were paying for

   these at a conference center or a hotel, the cost would be prohibitive.

   Perhaps that should be included in our calculations.

   The upstart of all this may hawk back to a discussion we had earlier-

   how much money do we really make at these conferences.  I'm not sure it

   is realistic to expect Colleges to pay for so much.  I think we may have

   to up our registration cost to 110 (or 120).  I realize we want to keep

   our costs low but we would still be much, much cheaper than other

   conferences in CS.  This could give us 4000-6000 more dollars to use for

   the conference.  I also think that some of that ought to be kept in the

   section as a "rainy-day" fund.  I realize that as a large and vibrant

   section, we should help subsidize other sections but I would like to

   have something to fall back on in case we have a problem year.

   Any thoughts on these matters?  If all of you are willing, I would be

   willing to have this email sent to the board for consideration.

Discussion

This year there have been minor problems created in the paper registration

process by the fact that a few authors registered their papers at different

times from when they submitted them.  We had one most unfortunate example

of a paper that was not registered at all.

Suggestion: we send email confirmation of *both* the paper registration and

paper submission.  Each email is to mention the need for the authors to

both register and submit their papers.

Discussion

National is forming an important committee on standards for small

departments.  At present there are 6 members; 3 from MW, 1 SE, 1 SC, 1 CP.

We can nominate a member from NE to server on the committee.

Partial description of the committee's task:

   This will involve circulating an announcement to our own member

   institutions and other similar colleges that the research is being

   conducted and asking for a contact person.  The announcement will be

   followed by a survey form to the contact person that identifies a range

   of problems commonly found in small programs and asks for a rating of

   how serious the respondent considers each problem.  If a respondent

   replies that any problem is not serious an essay explanation will be

   requested.  When the results are collected we will have a profile of the

   significance issues facing small programs and we will have identified a

   small group of people who have found their way around many of these

   problems.  We will then focus on those solutions and see what is

   revealed about "best practices" that are transferable.  Out of this

   data will also come some information about the curricula in these

   programs, the laboratories, the faculty loads, etc., which will allow us

   to say something about the averages in small programs that will let

   programs determine if they are above or below average.  The next phase,

   should the data and the interest warrant continuing, would concern

   studying the norms with the aim of characterizing the factors that are

   associated with being below or above the norm and seeing how the best

   practices might be applied to improving the norm.

Discussion, Volunteer

Reminder: National vendors may attend all eight conferences.  We also list

them in our journal and on our website and add a link to them from our

website.  The cost is $2000.

The National Vendors are at present:

  Microsoft   -- paid

  Metrowerks  -- paid

  McGraw-Hill -- not yet paid

  Scott Jones --  paid  (expires in February, but expected to renew)

A few members exhibited concern that the number of submitted papers has declined for 2 years in a row.  The concern was that this might be a continuing trend.  They were also concerned that this would increase the percentage of papers accepted, thus weakening the prestige of the conference.