Attending: Larry D'Antonio, Frank Ford, Tim Huang, Laurie Smith King, Amruth Kumar, Ralph Morelli, Joan Peckham, Viera Proulx (Chair), Carolyn Rosiene, Ingrid Russell, Joel Silverberg, Roger Simons, Bill Taffe, Charles Welty, Richard Wyatt, Ying Zhou.

Not Attending: Michael Anderson, Richard Close, Richard Connelly, Matt Dickerson, Mark LeBlanc, Dana Madison, Mary Russell.

Hoyt Warner died of cancer on September 11, 1998. An annual student award at Western New England College has been established in his name. The Board voted $200 of its own funds and individual members also contributed. A check for the total amount will be sent to the fund.

Minutes of the April 25, 1998, Board meeting were accepted by acclamation.

Ongoing information about this year's conference including due dates, etc. should be sent to Amruth Kumar for inclusion on the Web site. He will send the present information to Viera Proulx.

Papers (Amruth Kumar): We are accepting electronic submission for the first time. Fifty seven reviewers have signed up and indicated their areas of expertise. There remain a few problems with electronic submission (e.g. no multiple authors allowed, paper title is not requested). These should be fixed soon.

All authors will submit basic author, title, etc. information on the Web.

Paper committee is communicating (but Dana Madison is not responding) by email. October 30 is paper deadline. Dana will get all hard copies and mail to reviewers. Kumar will handle electronic submissions. Zhou will deal with reviewers, assigning them t o papers, etc. All steps of the paper process are written out but the exact division of labor is not final. Reviews are due on Dec. 22.

Frank Ford stated that the next Call for Papers (CFP) will go out in the next few days. They will not be sent first class in order to save money.

Ingrid stated that it is important that the letter confirming that the paper was received to include the dates of acceptance and for submission of the final copy. Confirmation letter should also state the format and acceptable word processor(s) for the final submission.

The review form should have a place for the reviewer to indicate that the paper should be considered for a best paper award.

Last year's best papers should be listed on the Web page.

Authors winning the best paper awards should be informed at the conference so they will attend the lunch.

The Membership director will send email to authors saying that if they could not access the Web, they could get the template for submission of information by email. Amruth's telephone number would also be listed for contact

All changes to the CFP should go to Michael Anderson.

Student Posters (Matt Dickerson and Venu Dasigi were not attending): CFP should include a 500 word limit for the abstract. Not all students will get awards as they did last year. The award is registration for 1 author.

Add a phrase to the CFP stating that the project can be in any area of computer Science (not limited to CS education). Also add a statement that more info is available on the Web (amount of awards, limited number of awards, etc).

Frank Ford suggested that more space is needed for the CFP. Using two pages or legal sized paper would solve the problem.

Bill Taffe suggested that the posters be judged at the conference for the awards. Judges could have input from other conference attendees.

Deadline for poster abstracts will be Dec. 15.

Panels and Tutorials (Joan Peckham and Richard Wyatt):

Panels - Panel submissions should include at least a brief statement by the panel chair. The form of the statement is up to the panel. Also brief backgrounds of the panelists should be included in the submission if appropriate.

Tutorials - One page description including a short background (3 lines) of the presenter should be submitted.

Changes to the Panels and Tutorials section of the CFP are due immediately. New CFP should include a Dec. 15 deadline.

Peckham and Wyatt may have to recruit panels and tutorials.

Speakers (Carolyn Rosiene):

The keynote speaker is Andy van Dam (Brown U.).

The banquet speaker is Tracy Camp (U. of Colorado).

The names of the speakers and the titles of their talks should be put on the Web as soon as we have their permission.

Speaker's chair will send a thank you letter to each of the conference speakers.

Vendors (Joel Silverberg):

Previously participating vendors will be contacted soon. We need to find out who they should make the checks out to. We also need a tax ID number. Charge was $150 for a table and $250 for a presentation last year and will be the same this year. Vendors should put in writing what they want for support.

Vendors should be approached to sponsor the Friday social hour ($300) and the best paper ($200).

Mention centrality of the vendor location in the letter to vendors. Vendors will be listed on the Web page and in the proceedings. Vendors should be told that there is a lot of space but there is also a lot of interest, so space will be allocated on a first come/first serve basis.

Try to get commitment from vendors early. A check is the best form of commitment.

Local chair needs to find space to store vendor materials. Local chair must also set up a way to get the material transferred to the vendor location and to ship the material back out.

Joan Pridham will send Joel information on local industry to contact for their participation. Viera will follow up letters to industry with email from her as Chair.

Publicity (Michael Anderson and Mark LeBlanc did not attend):

The CFP will be sent to previous registrants.

Local Arrangements (Frank Ford):

Conference hotels are Day's on the Harbor ($79/night) and the Holiday Inn ($114/night). Blocks of 75 rooms at each have been booked. Another large meeting is in town that weekend and rooms may be tight. Board wants to know if either place includes brea kfast and whether or not they had breakfast facilities. Also, do they have any sort of shuttle service for conference attendees?

Kumar suggested that the Board have its own Web address (ccscne.org). The cost is $35/year. One of the participating schools must host the site, Northeastern was suggested. Viera will look into it.

Next meeting is at Providence College on Jan. 9, 1999, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Ingrid - Report from the CCSC national committee.

We made $2500 on the conference.

The 5^th anniversary conference will be at Ramapo College in 2000.

CCSC has budget and IRS problems. They are currently trying to create an audit process.

Various financial questions came up during the meetings.

1. Viera will talk to Ethel Schuster about how to write check for speakers, paper awards, etc.
2. Various other concerns about financing and the complexity of IRS regulations were also discussed. We discussed whether or not we were large enough to need professional financial services. No decision was made.
3. Various members expressed interest in seeing a detailed financial statement for last year's conference and making the one for this year available.
4. Ingrid will send Viera more detailed accounting information when it comes from the national Board.
5. Interest was expressed in having the financial statements sent to the membership each year.

Meeting was adjourned for a tour of the conference facilities of Providence College.

Brief overview of the conference facilities tour given by Frank Ford.

The entire conference will take place in the Slavin Center (the student center).

The "Pit" will hold the breaks. The student posters will be placed on a ledge that goes around the inside of the Pit. Vendor displays will be in the area overlooking the Pit. Some furniture (benches, chairs, and a sofa) may have to be moved to accommod ate the vendors. They are bolted down so this movement will have to be planned ahead.

The keynote speech, the lunch, and the banquet will all take place in an auditorium

adjacent to the Pit. This room can accommodate 180 people for the meals.

We saw about 7 other spaces that could be used for parallel sessions and vendor presentations. All were within the Slavin Center. Some were more commodious than others.

A "soft" hold has been put on all these spaces for the conference. This will be made into a "hard" hold in the week following this meeting, the week of Sept. 14, 1998.

Respectfully submitted,

Charles Welty

Secretary