2006 Final Business Meeting, Indianapolis, Indiana
Summary: Section D was well represented at the2006 ESA National Meeting, with a good mixture of symposia and talks. Participation was high in the student competition, with two sections of oral presentations, but more participation in the student display sessions is encouraged for next year. Topics for discussion at the business meetings included a change to San Diego for the 2007 annual meeting where ESA-subsidized child care will be available, an update on the 2008 International Congress of Entomology to be held in Durban South Africa, a proposal for a new journal entitled “Public Health Entomology”, changes in Society administration with potential outsourcing of the national meeting organization and central management to the Tri-Societies group, and updates on ESA and section D membership numbers (Section D has 619 members as of September 30, 2006). In addition, major discussions for the 2006 Section D meetings surrounded the issue of restructuring. At the final business meeting, the following motion was made: “Whereas, we have a well defined unique identity within the ESA and a unique group of participants, we therefore oppose the portions of renewal that would take away our identity”. This motion was unanimously adopted by the section members present. Section D members are strongly encouraged to read a report on the proposed restructuring process published in the February 2006 issue of American Entomologist, to attend their branch meeting where further discussions will be held on restructuring and to participate in the Society vote on restructuring in April 2007.
Final Section D Business Meeting
The Final Business meeting was called to order by Roger Moon at 3:36 PM on Wednesday December 13, 2006 in RM 117 of the Conference Center.
Old Business:
Student Competition results. Kirby Stafford mentioned that the competition was tough for the Section D, Session D1 Papers this year. The winner of the first section was Joshua Benoit (Ohio State University) who presented a talk entitled “Suppression of water loss by the northern house mosquito, Culex pipiens, during diapause”, and in 2nd place was Kirsten Pelz-Stelinski (Michigan State University) who gave a talk entitled “Competitive interactions between Ochlerotatus triseriatus and Aedes albopictus are influenced by habitat-associated microbial community dynamics”.
Jerry Hogsette presented the winners for Session D2. There were 10 papers (1 cancellation) with Jeb Owen (UC Riverside) as the winner for his presentation entitled “Interface of the chicken immune response and the northern fowl mite, Ornithonyssus sylviarum.” Second place went to Juli Taylor (an undergraduate student from Morehead State University) for her presentation “Faunal succession of necrophilous insects associated with carrion in Rowan County, Kentucky”.
Glen Scoles presented the awards for the display presentation. First place was Elina Lastro (North Carolina State University) for her poster “Impact of methoprene, an insect growth regulator, on fecundity and survival of Onthophagus taurus”. Erin Vrzal (University of Florida) won second place with a poster on “Nutrition and survival of Culex spp. on various sugars”.
Glen ended with a request to section D members to encourage their students to submit posters.
Final Committee Reports:
Publications council– Jerry Hogsette added to the reports presented previously from others on publications. He claimed that the Journal of Medical Entomology is one of most widely cited journals in the world. There was some discussion of making the Arthropod Management Tests a peer review publication, but eventually the council decided not to make this change. For the proposed Public Health Entomology journal Alan Kahan would need to provide a list of what the journal was focused on and who the readership should be. No decision has been made on this proposal yet. Another discussion was initiated by a representative from Section A. Many Section A members have publications on the web that only can be presented digitally. Some of these members want ESA to put together guidelines for peer review on web-based documents so they can get credit. There was some question about the set of standards that would be used. This issue will be on the agenda for the governing board for summer meeting. Additional discussion surrounded the use of common names outside the US and Canada. The situation is difficult because if you have a regional common name that is not in the literature, then it can’t be an official common name. The board suggested the use of a local common name with a note that it is a local common name.
Editorial boards.
Annals of ESA. Jeff Tomberlin was not present.
Book and Media Reviews: Janet McAllister was not present.
Environmental Entomology: Mark Blackmore was not present.
Thomas Say Publications: David Taylor presented an update, stating that they are considering converting to digital publication only because they could increase the number of issues per year from 1 to 4. In addition, they plan to reprint their bed bug book in soft cover.
Standing committees. No reports from Fellows (Jim Oliver) or Founders (Woody Foster).
Membership committee report. Phil Kaufman reported that there are 5,690 ESA members as of September 30 2006, with a drop from almost 300 members last year. This probably amounts to a drop of 100 members from last year after including the new members who joined during this ESA meeting. Section D had 654 members in 2005 and has 619 members in 2006 (as of September 30, 2006). In addition, there is a general request from student members who want to have ESA host a CV clearing house for job seekers. Students, post docs and others would like to upload a PDF of their CV to the meeting site. This may be available by next year’s San Diego meeting.
Nomination committee report. Laura Harrington requested nominations for the standing committees as soon as possible. Nominations are open for the following positions: Governing Board Representative, Section D Secretary, Publications Council representative. The following appointed positions are open: J. Economic Entomology, J. Medical Entomology, Education and Youth, Ethics, Fellows and Founder’s Memorial committees.
Governing Board. Carl Jones provided an update. There is a plan to create a young scientist award for ESA members between their postdoctoral work and 40 years old. In the Governing Board meeting there was a discussion section by section about what went on in the respective section meetings, especially regarding the renewal. Virtually every section says renewal is a great idea, only if they can keep their current section name. The only section that was happy with the new name is subsection Fb (structural entomology).
New business:
Carl Jones asked for a motion that those attending the final business meeting of section D support the renewal proposal as described in the American Entomologist Fall 2006 issue. Tim Lysyk proposed to amend this motion and Dave Taylor seconded the amendment. The floor was then opened for discussion. Glen Scoles felt that the issue should be approached individually, not as a Section. Nancy Hinkle was concerned that if we join with subsection Fb we would have to pay to support seminars that we aren’t interested in. Additionally, the reorganization will double the numbers of Society officers, making federal employees ineligible to serve in those associated with lobbying or having fiduciary responsibilities. She was also dubious that any efforts from ESA Headquarters could enhance outreach, because that is an activity undertaken by motivated individuals. She also expressed doubt that ‘position papers’ can capture the sentiment of the Society and envisions situations in which Sections and ‘Networks’ contradict one another’s position papers. The concern about finding additional officers was voiced again. Sandy Allan mentioned that it is illegal for government employees to be part of any lobbying group. In response, Carl explained that Tri-Societies has a person whom they pay to keep them abreast of these issues and they haven’t run into any legal problems. In addition, many federal employees haven’t had these problems. Carl urged the group to speak out and let the executive committee of the governing board know if section D doesn’t want to be with Fb. Tim Lysyk disagreed that section D members should deal with the issue of restructuring individually. He said he would be very disturbed to have a group that downplays the importance of medical entomology. He said if we change our name to public health entomologists, we are in danger of losing people who might leave for other societies. Furthermore, the Journal of Medical Entomology is a premier journal and we need to maintain our identity and keep our journal going. He wondered why we couldn’t make changes within our own existing structure. Tim Lysyk stated that he was vehemently opposed to this proposal.
Kirby Stafford echoed Tim’s comments and said he thought we were well defined as a section. Carl responded that by having a smaller number of sections we would have a leaner, trimmer Society that would be able to respond quicker to things. He mentioned, as one of the best reasons for restructuring, the opportunity to have funds that are disbursed readily by our own section.
Tim Lysyk said it was important to realize that when the proposal was first presented Medical and Veterinary Entomology was not even one of the sections and he praised Carl for helping to rectify that problem. Tim felt that section D can operate within the existing system, and that funding can happen here.
David Taylor stated that we have already lost people from the section, and that has hurt the veterinary entomologists. Tim was worried that people would become disillusioned with ESA.
New Motion:
Tim Lysyk proposed the following new motion:
Whereas, we have a well-defined unique identity within the ESA and a unique group of participants, we therefore oppose the portions of renewal that would take away our identity.
The members of section D who were present voted unanimously in favor of this new motion (22 people).
Carl Jones reminded Section D members that there will be a Society-wide vote in April whether to move forward with restructuring. Concerned members should send governing board representatives suggestions. Governing board’s plan is to rewrite constitution by Jan 2007 and then go to the branch meetings. Phil Kaufman asked if there is less than a 2/3 majority in April will the proposal die. Carl responded that he believes it will die for a while if turned down.
Roger asked for other items from the floor. He thanked Carl for his efforts. He presented a new idea for the Highlights symposia that has been a long tradition. He would like to see speakers go into greater detail on topics. Since section D is allowed 3 symposia and program enhancement funds, it may be possible to expand the highlights symposium to include two more talks during the meeting on particular topics of interest. This could be a way to modify the highlights and make ours more attractive. If you have ideas, talk with Sandy Allan.
Graham White asked if there is a place where people can download old highlights lectures, or can the old ones be uploaded to the ESA website? Others thought this would be very helpful. For the quarterly reports, the 2007 secretary Phil Kaufman will send the urls for this year’s highlights presentations out to our members.
Installation of New Section D Officers and passing of the gavel. Roger passed the gavel on to his successor Sandy Allan. Sandy thanked Roger for his service, before reminding the group that the 1st deadline for symposium topics will be Feb 1st , 2007. There are 3 types of symposia in the program (The titles have to work with the meeting theme – “Making Connections”). Proposals for symposia consist of a title, list of potential speakers and their proposed titles. Proposals are judged and those selected are eligible for program enhancement funds. Contact Sandy for more details if you are interested in submitting a symposium proposal for program or regular symposia.
Nancy Hinkle movedto adjourn the meeting and Jack Petersen seconded the motion.
Respectfully submitted by Laura C. Harrington.