2004 Preliminary Business Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah
Chair Peter Cranston brought the meeting to order at 5:06 p.m. and called for a proposal that last year’s minutes be approved. It was noted that future Section A administration would involve a high degree of repeatability, following Cranston’s model. Motion to approve was made, and seconded by Jackie Miller. Chair welcomed in for 2005 Brian Wiegmann as Chair, Carol von Dohlen as Vice Chair, Michael Caterino as Secretary.
Summary of Committee Appointments
Strategic Planning: Caroline Chaboo agreed to the nomination, will replace Susan Weller.
Systematic Resources: Jason Cryan agreed to nomination. Student representative Floyd Shockley also agreed.
Education and Youth: Alex Wild agreed to nomination.
Fellows: Jim Woolley proposed but ineligible because himself not a Fellow.
Governing Board - Jackie Miller needs renomination, but also needs opponent.
Foundation Awards - Matthew Wallace was the only nomination, but acclaimed by judges as excellent and deserving.
Thomas Say Award– No nomination, no award.
Standing Committee Reports
Education and Youth (David Furth)
The committee is trying to set benchmarks for better teaching of entomology. They need a separate committee in ESA to be responsible for Linnaean games. Members also agreed that the teaching symposium should be elevated to program symposium in order to qualify for PEF funds. Now so underfunded it gets to be last minute. This year the chair was able to raise $500. There was a question about the Insect Expo, which for insurance reasons got cancelled.
Ethics Committee (Andy Brower)
The issue of a subscriber letting others read and use the journal was discussed. The committee agreed that it is best for all readers to have subscriptions but on the other hand it is good that people are reading papers! Anyone who has an ethical issue please send it to committee for consideration.
Fellows
Manya Stoetzel not present. We are nominating Jim Woolley to take over. Mike Ivie stated that the person on committee has to be a Fellow. We will defer to final business meeting.
International Affairs (Felix Sperling)
Felix was unable to attend meeting. Section Chair Cranston asked him to follow up and report at final meeting.
Program Committee (Pete Cranston)
Program Enhancement Funds (PEFs) were within usual bounds. We had one program symposium and 4 Section symposia (4 sessions). There were 44 oral and 23 posters in student competition; these are increases over 2003 and 2002. Cranston thanked everyone whom he contacted to moderate and judge for their positive responses. Increases in student participation may be in part due to PEET funding; also, more students in systematics. The chair expressed some concern over impending program symposium deadline (Dec. 13, 2004) because few proposals yet submitted.
NSF funding for travel to International Congress of Entomology, 2004: There were many applications but funding was down by 1/3 so ~1/3 fewer applications funded. Awards were apportioned according to student percentages by Section in ESA. Total acceptance rate was 11%. Cranston advised that members need to think about how to address the issue in ~3-4 years time. Jackie Miller commented about the problem of Section C outnumbering A.
Report on the Program Committee meeting, Sunday Nov. 14, 2004: 1700 papers and posters were submitted, 45 withdrawals. The latter cause problems in programming, Cranston urged members to reduce withdrawals, present data even if they are terrible; no one will laugh, we’ve all been there. 2004 was the first experiment with online access to presentations post-meeting. There were some minor problems with Mac files presented on PCs. Feedback on time change for student papers was requested. Cranston encouraged all to hand in annual meeting questionnaires. As requested last year, students will receive awards at this meeting. Cranston complimented all participants for choice of symposia and quality of the science, because science is what makes the meeting and the Society. The policy about restriction of one presentation per author was discussed, and the idea raised that invited speakers in symposia could be allowed to present an additional talk on their own research.
Strategic Planning (Jackie Miller)
Process (Shaping the Future Organization of ESA: Strategic Alignment) has been going on the last 3-4 yrs. Have been working on vision, mission, investment decision matrix. At this meeting the committee is talking to students, members for contributions to the process. Starting assumptions: try to get away from the past. They are exploring organization design options of ESA: capabilities, characteristics, commonality. Definition of actionable units (AUs). Focus of ESA central. Focus of actionable units. There is a desire to make the Entomological Collection Network (ECN) a functioning unit in our Section. Governing Board desire to coordinate across AUs on common interests (student affairs, meeting logistics, etc.). Characteristics that ESA must include flexibility, credibility, leadership, authority, global view and influence, responsibility and accountability. Testing the concept and next steps: Get feedback from students, Sections, and Branches. Comments were made at this point about Section A as AU, and about a successful student meeting.
Systematics Resources (David Furth)
The committee has reworked their mission and purpose statement. Committee will meet tomorrow about certain topics. Today’s meeting concerned the composition of the committee with regard to Branch and other Sections. Should there be more Section A members? Suggestions were made to change the composition to include all Sections and Branches, add 4 Section A members, 2 student members, and a member from ECN. Last year’s proposal to work on a national network of insect collections was discussed, along with idea of establishing collection protocols. John Oswald followed up on the item of draft list of areas of interest; an e-mail was sent to Section A which said list to include on a proposed “Systematics Resources for Entomology” web page jointly sponsored by the ESA (Section A and the Systematics Resources Committee) and the ECN. “The purpose of this new web site will be to aggregate in one place links to the diverse web (and other) resources of interest to insect systematists. The site will not duplicate existing resources, but will provide quick and easy access to a diversity of entomological systematics resources in a manner that is logically organized around the needs, activities and interest areas of systematic entomologists.” Such a resource could help conserve membership. It is hoped that ESA Central will agree to host the pages; this would be another bullet for Section A on the website. Oswald will contact us to help compile the best 10-20 links on a particular topic. He was asked to resend the information. The chair reminded us of the session on Wednesday afternoon about permits; such information would also be useful to post on the website. Mike Schauff commented that many individuals farther along in careers have so much to juggle in their jobs; we need younger members who have more time to get involved. Oswald noted that if anyone wants to be involved, please contact him and others on committees.
Publications Reports
Book and Media Reviews
Report deferred until final business meeting.
Publications Council
Report deferred until final business meeting.
American Entomologist (John Heraty)
Journal is doing well. 52 manuscripts processed in 2003, 33 so far for 2004, 28 book reviews and 8 columns. Rejection rate of 22% shows increase in quality of submitted papers. Grayson Brown is the new contributing editor. Heraty encouraged Section A to submit manuscripts (especially for “In the Field”) since publication of color articles is free. Deadlines for Buzzwords and Research Briefs were reviewed.
Annals of the ESA (John Oswald)
Average time to first notification from submission is 11 weeks and 45 weeks to publication, with no backlog. Several page charge waivers were awarded, as well as $2000 in waivers from C.P. Alexander Fund. Annals receives more $ in publication waivers than any other journal. Currently has 15 subject editors; several resignations coming in 2005; journal needs nominations for new editors especially in Lepidoptera and Heteroptera. Thanks were extended to subject editors in the room and elsewhere.
Environmental Entomology (Nathan Schiff)
Published 181 articles in 2003; acceptance rate was 56%. Compared to Annals, average time to first notification 2 weeks slower but publication 3 weeks faster. Subscription are 1100. Cadmus (James Slavin) is publisher. 502 libraries carry journal. Publication online before print was approved. There have been only 4 appeals to a rejection in the last 2 years. A possible increase in page charges is pending. An issue was raised about use of the journal to publish meeting proceedings, and whether page charges should then apply. J. McPherson asked what was decided on page charges for proceedings? Rehash by Schiff. McPherson noted that the time to publication is artificially inflated. Mike Ivie added that Blackwell has bragged that they are the second largest publisher of entomological journals after ESA. Reach of our papers in ESA journals is unsurpassed. (Applause). The chair thanked Nathan for raising issues common to all journals.
Other Reports
Governing Board Report (Jackie Miller)
Membership, by category: Trying to keep bottom line in budget. YTD, regular membership doing well, students #s good, too. We lose students in transition to professional career, we need to encourage students to keep membership.
Membership by branch: Numbers are maintaining or increasing.
Membership by section: #s in Sect. A up over last year, doing well across board. One problem is registrants listing no Section, may be related to structure of online form (people miss the check box).
New members: Student membership is up. Recruitment vs. retention - new members offset old members not renewing.
Membership trend: Total #s are above last year at this time. Miller requested each of us to recruit one new member.
Annual meeting attendance: Last year (2003) attendance was 2250; this year ~2200. Many registrants are “other” people, not members; need to look at this in the future.
Branch meetings: Good attendance, up from 2003 a little. Some branches pay students to attend.
Journal subscriptions: 2000 compared to now show big decreases but are holding steady compared to 2003.
Outsourcing firms: ESA central down to 7 employees. Thus, we outsource many jobs to private firms (meeting registrations, financial, e-commerce). Want to do more online.
Website overhaul: Drop-down menus, more user friendly and quicker. Have completed outline and draft of content.
Recap of budget: Stopped the bleeding, are keeping within budget, living on income from one year to next. Funds from building sale deposited in CDs until GB decide where to invest. Costs more $ to operate each year, need to keep pace. Voted to increase 1.7% membership dues, created new contributor level of $500, raised institutional and nonmember periodical subscription rates. Chris Thompson: can non-members look at online presentations. Miller: yes, at same price. ESA is trying to give more for membership. Thompson: online presentations should have a good post-meeting market—people will pay to see presentations after fact. Miller congratulated Jay McPherson as a new honorary member.
New Business
The Chair reviewed program symposia for 2005: (1) May Berenbaum has proposed “Writing for the public.” (2) Tracy Leskey proposed “Honoring the life and work of Ron Prokopy.” Chair asked for show of hands for support for these two (lots). Proposed Section symposia included (1) Honoring Miriam Rothchild, proposed by Becky Simmons and Jackie Miller (Vince Smith will be asked to participate). The Chair noted that "Brits rule!" in recent and future symposia. We need more ideas by mid-December. Chris Thompson noted that we should make the honorees Fellows at the same time. Chair added the Rothchild symposium may be promoted to a program symposium, in which case there would be no Section symposia. Brian Wiegmann said that Srini Kambhampati had an idea. Brian will be soliciting proposals. Andy Brower said that it is more desirable to have symposia that are not order-specific, because they have greater appeal more people. Chair agreed (but it is harder).
Chair noted a hot breaking news item from Mike Ivie; there is a resolution in prep to condemn the theme for next year’s annual meeting. Chair asked if we can vote to condemn the notion to condemn. It was suggested that we vote on this issue at the final business meeting. There were comments about the importance of genitalia. Chris Thompson said that Sect. A can generate a motion to approve the theme. Mike Ivie added that it is best to show up at final ESA business meeting and vote against the motion to condemn.
Anthony Cognato announced a job at Michigan State University.
John Oswald said that last year an idea was raised for developing a procedure for peer review of websites; it was raised again at ECN this year. Several approved of the idea and were willing to work on it. Student members are especially encouraged to work on this because they will inherit the problem.
Jay McPherson said that we need to increase efforts to nominate Fellows and Honorary Members; Section A has some of finest entomologists in ESA and many older members are ideal candidates—but need nominations. Chair added that we also need Thomas Say nominations.
The chair thanked all in attendance and all who have worked for the Section in the past year. A motion to adjourn was made, and seconded by Jay McPherson. The meeting was adjourned at 6:35 p.m. with 70 in attendance.