MinSept11

Minutes of the Regional Board meeting of the Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges Northeastern Region, September 11, 1999.

Attending: Dick Close, Ron Curtis, Larry D'Antonio, Matt Dickerson, Timothy Huang, Laurie King, Amruth Kumar, Scott McElfresh, Viera Proulx, Ingrid Russell, Bob Shine, Charles Welty, Karl R. Wurst, Richard Wyatt

Minutes of the April 24, 1999, meeting were approved.

Old Business

Elections for Editor and Treasurer were inadvertently missed. These positions are for 3 years, terminating in January 2002. [The Editor has responsibilities concerning the conference papers and all material to be included in the proceedings. The Editor receives all written and electronic paper materials for the conference. The Editor must also distribute and collect the copyright and registration materials for all conference presenters. The Editor forwards the registration materials to the national CCSC and forwards papers to the national proceedings editor. ]

[This year the Treasurer must deal with outstanding bills from CCSCNE 2000. The Treasurer is the primary liaison with the national board for the payment of bills. The Treasurer must be aware of how billing is done in a variety of cases (e.g. SIGSCE sponsored speakers pay for registration and then are reimbursed by SIGSCE).

In the future, the Treasurer will be responsible for preparing conference budget, recording conference expenses, and forwarding conference bills and other bills for payment to the national treasurer. (The issue of who should authorize such payments should be resolved at the next meeting. - not a part of the meeting, but a note on TBD item)]

Editor Dick Close volunteered and was elected by unanimous consent.

Treasurer Scott McElfresh volunteered and was elected by unanimous consent.

New Business

Concerning the CCSCNE 2001 and 2002 conferences.

Middlebury College has a new Science Center. It will definitely be ready for 2002, but Dickerson will check for 2001. There is restricted housing available in Middlebury but much space available in Burlington, 35 miles away. We will probably need about 8 different small for attendees to stay. Small places in and close to Middlebury, larger places further from Middlebury.

Worcester State is a possibility for 2002. Wurst will check into it.

Evaluations of the CCSCNE99 conference have not been made available from Frank Ford yet. Our conference evaluation form has a question asking for volunteers. We should check last year's evaluations for volunteers: both host volunteers and conference committee volunteers when the evaluations become available.

M/S (Proulx/Dickerson) Student volunteers will have their registration waived or paid for by the conference. Five full student registrations will be paid. If more will be needed for a conference, they should be proposed by the conference committee for Board approval. Passed by acclamation.

CCSC in-cooperation with ACM: Ingrid said that CCSC had indicated interest in pursuing an in-cooperation with ACM for all CCSC conferences. As a result, Ingrid put her efforts in seeking the in-cooperation for our regional conferences on hold. Ingrid expressed concern regarding delays and suggested that we go ahead with our plans if CCSC is not working on this. Viera will follow up on this at the CCSC Fall meeting and let us know of its status.

Ingrid was asked to send all 1996, 1997, 1998 conference budgets and invoices to Scott McElfresh. Viera was asked to do the same for the 1999 conference in Providence. Viera asked Amruth to send her a copy of the 2000 budget.

Domain name. We need a permanent location for ccscne.org. There are at least the following two possibilities:

1. Lease a Web site (with a T3 line) from sharenet. The cost is $20/month with an initial set up charge of $30. The Board requested that Viera check into how many email addresses came with the lease to be sure it is adequate.

2. There is a possibility that we could use the facilities now used byccsc.org. Viera will check into this possibility at the next national meeting.

A Webmaster is needed. Amruth is doing it now.

Adjourn

CCSCNE Conference Meeting, September 11, 1999

Reports

Papers (Amruth) - We now have 45 reviewers. We had 60 last year. The call for reviewers will go out once more.

Panels (Scott) We should be sure that everyone is aware of the differences between tutorials and workshops. Tutorials occupy 1 conference session (75 minutes) during the conference. Workshops run for 3 hours, before the conference starts. Both are submitted and refereed.

Workshops should be called pre-conference workshops in the future. A small additional charge ($10 was agreed by the committee) will be made for workshops. This will require and additional box on the registration form. Amruth and Larry will figure this out. (One suggestion was that attendees send registration money to registration chairs. The chairs will count the workshop registrants. They will then forward registrations to CCSC. The Editor will forward presenters registrations to the registration chairs.)

Poster Sessions M/S (Proulx/Wyatt) The student poster sessions are only for undergraduates. Graduate students can submit actual papers. Passed by acclamation.

Publicity CFP goes out this week.

Registration nothing to report.

Vendors (Close) Will send information packets out this week. Will contact local reps. about the conference to be sure they are aware of it. $150 registration provides 3 name tags, access to meetings, but no food.

Budget Will be forthcoming from Viera.

New Business

Workshop or other sessions on how to teach Computer Science were proposed. These would be especially designed for graduate students. This implies that we would have to advertise the conference to larger schools than we presently do. We will wait and see if anyone makes such a proposal before we consider how to handle it.

It was suggested that the CFP be sent to high schools in the state and surrounding states. Larry will discuss the possibility of the admissions office doing this as part of their recruitment efforts. Any ads should be addressed to computer science.

M/S (Proulx/D'Antonio) Student papers will be judged by jurors selected by the Student Posters chair. The jurors will include some students if possible. The criteria will specify content first, before presentation or other criteria. $50 will be awarded to the two top posters.

Speakers were discussed. Bob Aiken will be the keynote speaker. The banquet speaker is not yet determined. Al Aho has been contacted. Other possibilities are: Salvatore Stolfo, Robert Sedgwick, Kathleen McKeown, Joseph Taub, Kenneth Steiglitz. Viera will find someone by January. (Danny Kopec suggested Dick Morley.)

Matt Dickerson will bring his blues band for a social period after the dinner. This will cost the conference $300 - $400 to bring in one band member who will not otherwise be attending.

Matt Dickerson was congratulated for being elected president-elect of CCSC.

Amruth detailed the total expenses that could be incurred by the hosting college. The full total is about $6000. Much of this has commonly been absorbed by the hosting institution so that is does not show up on a final accounting. It is a good idea to let hosting institutions know what their responsibilities are so they can make informed decisions. Viera asked Amruth to compile this list of host institution expenses and send that information to her so we are better informed for future conferences.

Ingrid asked that we get a copy of last year's budget to see how the conference did last year (money wise and in terms of number of attendees). Viera will send us a copy.

Local arrangements in Mahwah for CCSCNE2000. The Ramada has blocked out 80 rooms at $89 each. The Inn at Ramsey has blocked 40 rooms at $79 each. Amruth will check to see if they provide breakfast or shuttle service to the conference. It was decided that breakfast would be more important.

The next meeting will be on January 8, 2000, at Ramapo College, 11 a.m.

Adjourn.

Respectfully submitted,

Charles Welty, Secretary

October 29, 1999