2003 Preliminary Business Meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio
Chair Tom Royer called meeting to order at 5:06 pm.
Attendance and volunteer sign up sheets were circulated.
Tom announced that copies of the minutes from the 2002 meeting were available and copies were passed around. He mentioned that the minutes had been sent out earlier by E-mail and the corrections received had been incorporated in the latest version. Tom called for any additional corrections, hearing none called for a motion to approve the minutes, motion was made and the minutes were approved unanimously.
Announcements
Final Business Meeting will be Wednesday from 6:30-8:00 in Room 202 of the convention center.
Any changes to the meeting program will be posted outside Room 238.
Session moderators should complete the attendance forms provided at the moderator training session. These are used by the program planning committee for room selection for next years conference.
Speakers using PowerPoint presentations should visit the presentations preview room which is in Room 237.
There is a check room for laptops and other valuables, however the ESA is not responsible for loss.
Question from the floor concerning reason for sending presentations to ESA ahead of time rather than just sending them to the moderators. Tom explained that it was an attempt to avoid the last minute rush to load files into a computer at the beginning of a session, however, in his own session very few of the presentations were received over the web. Suggestion was made to just have the presentations to the moderators. Tom indicated that he would be happy to take the suggestion forward.
Reminder to renew your ESA membership (especially if you are an ESA officer.
Next year's meeting will be held November 14- 17, 2004 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.
There is a call for symposia proposals available on the ESA web site. The deadline to submit program symposia proposals is December 17, 2003 and for section and other symposia it is February 4, 2004. Ideas should be developed during this years annual meeting and discussed at the business meeting on Wednesday.
There will be a call for papers on the web site in the next two to three weeks.
Next year ESA will phase out slide projectors and PowerPoint will be used exclusively, organizers will have to make a special request for slide projectors from the program chairs if they want to use them.
No announcements from the floor were offered.
Introduction of Section E officers
Section E
Chair: Tom A. Royer, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK
Vice-Chair: Paul Guillebeau, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Secretary: Phil Sloderbeck, Kansas State University, Garden City , KS
Secretary-Elect: Arnold Hara, University of Hawaii-Manoa, HI
Governing Board Rep: Marlin Rice, Iowa State University, Ames, IA (through 2004)
Executive Committee: Kevin Steffey, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, IL Vice-President (2005) and Marlin Rice
Subsection Ea
Chair: Phillip Glagoza, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND
Vice Chair: Raymond Cloyd, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, IL
Secretary: Gregory Cronholm, Texas Cooperative Extension, Plainview, TX
Subsection Eb
Chair: Robert Hollingsworth, USDA-ARS, Hilo, HI
Vice Chair: Danny J. Hamon, Folsom, CA
Secretary: John W. Armstrong, USDA-ARS, Hilo, HI
Tom thanked all of the officers for their work and input into the organization.
Old Business
The 2001 minutes were read and discussed. A motion and second were made to accept the minutes. The motion passed.
Current Section E officers were introduced.
2003 Chair: Tom Royer
Chair-elect: Paul Guillebeau
Secretary-elect: Phil Sloderbeck
Governing Board representative: Marlin Rice
Executive Committee: Kevin Steffey
Standing Committee Reports
(The committee members' terms end in the year noted in parentheses below.)
Awards: Alton Sparks (2004, Vice Chair)
Reported that the hardest part is finding the judging panels as there are more than 100 people involved in the process. There are going to be some changes implemented next year. One is that the CV format will now be on the web site. There are judging worksheets for the panels. In third year of electronic submission and have a 20 page limit on packets, still a struggle to get nomination, part of the reason to allow for two years of resubmission.
Common Names of Insects: Jim Stimmel (2005, At Large)
No report.
Education & Youth: Douglas Sutherland (2004), Noel N. Troxclair, Jr. (2004, Southwestern Branch), and Michael R. Williams (2004, Southeastern Branch)
Doug reported that they had had a presentation from the Foundation on the work that they are doing to promote entomology to the general public and youth. One is trying to reach the home schooling people to create an inventory of resources on topics from IPM to pinning of insects. Also working on some projects with Disney and the Discovery Channel. Two issues that the committee is dealing with: (1) The teaching symposium was cancelled due to the lack of ESA funds to aid speakers. Many of these participants in the symposium are not ESA members and need help with travel funds to participate. The committee is looking at ways of getting some funding from external sources. (2) There was discussion on the Linnaean games and the committee made a proposal to the Governing Board to make it a separate committee. There is also a concern that the Linnaean Games is conflicting with the student debates, which challenges the ability of some to participate, particularly the smaller departments.
Ethics: Kenneth R. Lakin (2005)
Marlin Rice reported that Kenneth has requested to be relieved of his duties to that committee. Frank Gilstap the Governing Board liaison to this committee, is now looking for a replacement. Marlin asked if any one in the room had been contacted by Frank. Chris Sansone indicated that he had been contacted indicated that he would "probably" would take this assignment.
Fellows: John Thomas (2005)
John was not present. Kevin Steffey made an appeal to the group that John Thomas is the only Fellow from Section E and that this situation needs to be rectified. Susan Whitney King indicated that a committee was put together (to include Susan P. Whitney King, Victoria Yokoyama, Ken Sorensen, Marlin Rice, Pat Morrison, and Chris Sansone) to start the process of getting packets put together to nominate people to be Fellows. They have four people in mind, are dividing up the workload, and hope to keep the committee going to make sure they get people nominated. And asked that anyone interested in helping contact the committee.
Finance: Dennis Kopp, (2003); Wendy Wintersteen (2004)
Dennis reported that the committee had met for a day and a half in mid-August at Headquarters. The task was to develop a balanced budget and report the budget to the governing board. Balancing the FY 2004 budget was a challenge since there were a number of undefined variables such as the sale of the ESA headquarters building and moving expenses. However, a balanced budget was provided the governing board following our august meeting. At this meeting the governing board has been able to factor in many of the items that were unknowns to the finance committee in August and implement a budget that is not only balanced, but may have a small surplus.
Founders' Memorial Award: Victoria Yokoyama (2004)
Vicki indicated that the committee had four packets to review for 2003, and that three packets were from the previous year. The awardee was Gene Robinson from the University of Illinois and the Honoree was Walter Rothenbuhler. The presentation was Sunday and the event was well attended. The committee has a concern for next year because no new applicants have applied. There was a question from the floor on the deadline for applications. It was reported that the deadline has actually already past with no new applicants. Kevin Steffey indicated he was aware of the problem but did not want to make further comments at this time.
International Affairs: Robert G. Hollingsworth (2004, North America)
Bob reported that the committee would not meet until Wednesday, so no report at this time.
Membership
No report as apparently no one in the group had attended the meeting.
Honorary Membership: Kevin Steffey
No one on the committee at this time. No report.
Program: Tom Royer (2003), Paul Guillebeau (2004), Phil Sloderbeck (2005)
Tom indicated that he did not attend the meeting and asked if anyone else had attended. Rick Weinzierl reported that he was there and indicated that the committee would like constructive feedback on what worked and what did not work in regards to the PowerPoint presentations.
Public Information: Robyn Rose (2005, Chair)
Not present
Rules
No one attended.
Strategic Planning: Kevin Steffey (2004), Monte Johnson (2003)
Monte reported that there had been a session on Sunday to discuss various issues. One of the main topics was membership -- how can we attract people from other societies, interaction with school teachers, improvement of web site. Kevin reported that there should be a report from the planning session and other activity of the committee on the web in the near future. There was discussion form the floor on various ideas concerning increasing youth and emeritus membership. Kevin indicated that there had been a session earlier in the day where the Executive Committee had met with Emeritus members concerning how to better involve Emeritus members in the Society.
Systematics Resources: John A. Jackman (2004)
Not present; no report.
Publications Reports
(The members' terms end in the year noted in parentheses below.)
Publications Council: Guy Hallman (2005)
Guy could not attend this year's meeting, so Phil Nixon will take his place. However, the meeting is not until Tuesday, so no report at this time.
American Entomologist: Rick Brandenburg (2005), Mike Gray (Contributing Editor)
Mike reported that Rick had expressed his regrets at being unable to attend the meeting, and then went on to report that the journal was in a transition with the appointment of a new editor Gene Kritsky. 80 manuscripts were transferred form Tom Bellows including 13 columns, 22 book reviews and 45 papers (16 of which were eventually rejected or withdrawn). Several new features were launched including; What is it?, From the Past and In the Field and some additional new features are in development including Entomology Executive Summary by Dr. Robert Waltz, Indiana State Entomologist which will give a heads-up alert on insect related issues that may become important to members... Members are encouraged to submit manuscripts for Postmarked: Extension, USA. None were submitted in 2002, but four were submitted in 2003 (with one being accepted for publication in 2004). The committee pasted a motion in support for this column. And Mike made a plea for members of Section E to submit articles. They also plan to send letters to organizers of Section E symposiums to see if they would be interested in submitting articles.
Arthropod Management Tests: Raymond A. Cloyd (2005)
Committee has not met yet, but indicated that Dr. Saxena is stepping down as editor so Alan Kahan is looking for volunteers. (Kevin Steffey later commented tat arthropod management tests is looking into partnering with the Plant Management Network in a effort to make it more available to practitioners. It was also mentioned that with the passing of Larry Larson someone will be needed to edit the section on Materials Tested which Larry had done for approx. 27 years.
Book and Media Review: Chris Sansone (2004)
Chris reported that the committee has been struggling because a lot of its business was tied to ESA sales. Since ESA is not in that business any more, and since book reviews are being handled by the Book and Media reviewer, Abelardo Moncayo, the committee made a proposal to dissolve the committee.
Environmental Entomology: Richard A. Weinzierl (2004)
Alan Cameron, editor-in-chief for EE, reported that, at present, there are 19 subject editors handling manuscripts for EE, and that in order to keep the number of manuscripts to around 15 to 20 per subject editor per year, he is trying to fill 3 additional subject editor positions for Community Ecology, Population Ecology, and Sampling. Interested members should contact Alan directly. Alan reported that manuscript submissions to date for 2003 numbered 260; the total number of manuscripts submitted to EE in 2002 was 225. Roughly 50 percent of manuscripts submitted to EE eventually are accepted and published. Alan Kahan reported statistics on the time intervals bewtween initial manuscript receipt and various review, notification, and publication steps. Among those statistics were (a) average time for review = 3.8 weeks; (b) average time from receipt to authors' receiving initial notification of a decision = 11.3 weeks; (c) average time from acceptance to appearance in print = approximately 4 months. Alan Cameron, the subject editors, and Alan Kahan agreed that the electronic submission and Rapid Review programs are working well. Alan Cameron noted that the most common difficulty in the process is finding reviewers. The board and subject editors discussed this problem and issues related to portions of manuscripts, especially those derived from graduate theses, being on the web at the time the manuscript is submitted. No actions were taken on these topics.
Insect Pest Management Handbook: Kenneth Sorenson (2004)
[NOTE: This is a special committee]
Ken reported that the committee was scheduled to meet on Tuesday from 00 til 12 and that it was his understanding that there are 4 handbooks (Pesticides, Pets, Forage and Wheat) that are about done, except for some line drawings. Tom reported that he had seen something on there had been a deadline imposed on completing the submission of these handbooks during the past summer and asked Kevin Steffey to comment. Kevin indicated that there had been a dead line of June 1, which was extended one month to July 1 and that all of the documents were submitted before the deadline although one was not in the final form requested. Three of the four are in the reviewers hands. Alan Kahan is looking for Publishing Partners since the Society is not in a position to cover the cost of publishing these documents at this time. In addition the Governing board has past a motion that they will not accept any more handbook proposals at this time.
Journal of Economic Entomology: Allen Knutson (2004)
Allen was not present but Lisa Neven who is one of the subject editors volunteered to give a report. She reported an acceptance rate of about 50% and that there had only been two appeals. Turnaround of 10 weeks using the rapid review system. Review time is around 4 weeks (range from 0.1 to 27.6). Same problems as other journals in getting reviewers. There was a proposal to put a section form FA on Arthropod biotypes, but it was decide to leave it as a subsection under Plant Resistance. On item that was a relief to editors that they were told that they are not responsible for correcting editorial problems such as improper grammar and change in tenses. That other people are paid to do that. Editors are responsible for scientific content and merit. Need a subject Editor for Forestry Pests
Journal of Medical Entomology: Philip Nixon (2002)
Need new appointment (5 years) for 2004 - Tom reported that even though we no longer have someone officially on the editorial board that he had asked Phil Nixon to attend the meeting to keep us informed. Phil then reported that in 2003 they had had 123 manuscripts received and 63% accepted, with a average of a bout 10 weeks from manuscript receipt through review and contract of authors, a review time of 3.2 weeks and 17 weeks average time for acceptance to publication which includes time for author revision. Discussion on abbreviation of viruses. It was decided that the Editor-in-chief will determine abbreviations and will follow abbreviations used by the American Society of Microbiology when practical. Statement will be added to the Journal stating that it is assumed that IACUC protocol on the use of humans and animals in research is being followed.. Rapid communications suggested by the subject editor to be changed to normal communications if the publication is delayed by author rewrites or other factors. Tom Sappington is the new chair of the JME Editorial Board for 2004.
Thomas Say Publications: Clifford Hoelscher (2005)
Not present, no report.
Other Reports
Governing Board
Marlin Rice presented a report on the status of the Society and the status of the Budget, basically an overview of 2002, 2003 and a look forward to 2004. Income for 2002 was $2,641,320, expenses were $2,292,604 for a net of $348,716. Staff was reduced from 21 down to 7 and outsourced membership services. At the same time there were some losses: about $15,000 in investments, depreciation of equipment and buildings of about $88,000 and bad debt of $35,000 (papers and reprints not paid for). For a net of $210,412. (In summary positive changes income was about 19K above 2001, $300,000 less in expenses by cutting staff and out sourcing, rent income was increased, and 16K in late fees for meeting registration ($20*800), negative changes - Page charges and reprint income were down, exhibitor income was down, membership was 98% of target but only 95% of target revenue because of an increase in percentage of student members.) For 2003 as of the end of September, Income was $1,430,132, Expenses was $1,394,132 for a net of $36,000 - this would not include annual meeting income - There is currently a concern about the status of a block of rooms that were not booked which could cost the society a good chunk of money… Money in bank - in 2000 we had a little over $1,000,000 to where now we currently have $1,580,000… Working on budget for 2004 of income of $2,324,515 and expenses of $2,305,847 for a net of $18,668 - (projecting a 2% dues increase, a 83% renewal rate, and 959 new members, and an annual decline in meeting attendance). Membership 1999 to 2003 - Emeritus members have declined from 1000 to 350 (most of this drop came in 2000 when emeritus members were required to begin paying dues), Student members have had a small decline , but fairly stable. Regular members have declined from around 4900 to about 3600 and total membership has dropped from 7200 to around 5300. Section E membership is not any different from the rest of the society from about 520 to 360. Meeting attendance the last five years has also declined. Good news is that we are about to sell the building for $1,100,000.
Marlin also mentioned the new motion before governing board - that each branch be limited to one new nominee for the distinguished achievement award each year, but a non-winning packet can be reworked and submitted for two additional years. Motion was made just to make the rules clear.
Marlin stated that he thought that the sale of the building would be a good thing and that it had the support of the Governing Board.
He also stated that his term of the Governing Board will end in 2004 so the group needs to come with a candidate or candidates to replace this position.
Board Certification: Phillip Sloderbeck (2003)
Going through the same struggles as the Society. Qualifying exam has been revised and is now in an electronic format and we are now working on revising the rest of the exams. Working to put together a certification program for pest control operators. Exam is currently being tested and program should be introduced early next year.
New Business
Tom indicated that the meeting was running long and that he would entertain a motion to adjourn. Dennis Kopp requested time to make an "announcement or two:" Reminder of symposium on Federal Employees Participation in Professional Societies Tuesday morning and the Symposium on Building a National Pest and Disease Diagnostic Network- A Federal/State Partnership Wednesday afternoon. Entomology Foundation Banquet Wednesday night, tickets are still available, Entomology Foundation Booth silent auction.
Tom then announced the other two symposia that the section had supported -- Overseas Activities to Protect America from Quarantine Pests and Multi-Colored Asian Ladybeetles in Agriculture and the Urban Environment. Thus we filled four slots out of the five that were we allotted. Encouraged everyone to please forward any symposium ideas for 2004 to Paul Guillebeau.
Tom congratulated Dr. Elizabeth E. Grafton-Cardwell, University of California-Riverside for winning Distinguished Achievement Award in Extension and Dr. Robert B. Trumbule, Maryland Department of Agriculture. for winning the Distinguished Achievement Award in Regulatory Entomology.
Tom again asked for input on whether to end or continue the meeting. At which time ,Robert Hollingsworth requested time to present a resolution on behalf of Eb - a resolution to be presented at the final business meeting. The resolution relates to the transfer of port inspectors to the department of homeland security. These inspectors are being trained in areas additional to what they were formerly doing which was pest interception only. Concern is the potential for pest interception will go down in the future because of less emphasis being given by their supervisors. The goal is an ESA resolution to express our concern and encourage cooperation between DHS and APHIS.
1. Whereas, approximately 2,200 Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) inspectors based at US international ports of entry and other locations within the US have been transferred to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and
2. Whereas, these inspectors are being assigned duties in addition to their former duties relating to the interdiction of quarantine pests and
3. Whereas, the number of quarantine pests intercepted at our ports of entry has been increasing each year in the United States concomitant with increases in air travel and international trade of agricultural commodities and
4. Whereas, members of the Entomological Society of America understand the serious threat exotic pests and disease-causing organisms pose for public health and US agriculture
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Entomological Society of America (ESA) expresses its concern, urges continued emphasis on the interdiction of quarantine pests by qualified quarantine inspectors, and encourages good communication, cooperation, and mutual support between DHS and those responsible for quarantine policy and operations within APHIS.
Susan King moved that section E support the resolution and Doug Sutherland seconded the motion. Motion was passed by voice vote.
Tom asked Windy Wintersteen for a report on the status of the ESA committee to suggest candidates for Certificates of Distinction for Outstanding Achievement in Entomology to be presented at the International Congress of Entomology in Brisbane, Australia, in 2004. Wendy indicated that she did not remember off hand and would report on this later.
Chair Tom Royer called for symposium ideas to be presented at the final business meeting.
Meeting was adjourned at 6:22 pm
Minutes recorded by Phillip E. Sloderbeck, Section E Secretary, 2003