Minutes of the IALLT Board Meeting (teleconference), August 19, 2003

Members present:

Peter Liddell, Pres.

Ursula Williams, Pres. Elect

Ron Balko, Business Mgr.

Judi Franz, Programs Director

Present by standing invitation:

Andrew Ross, Journal Editor

David Pankratz, Past Pres.

Absent: Ute Lahaie, Secretary

Peter called the meeting to order at 1p.m. EDT.

Since Ute was unexpectedly unavailable, Ursula graciously agreed at short notice to act as recording Secretary.

1. Approval of Agenda.

Judi moved to approve agenda

Ron seconded

Discussion: Under 8. Other Business.

Add future meeting dates (Judi) and open council positions (Peter)

Agenda approved unanimously

Ron moved to approve minutes of last board meeting

Judi seconded

Discussion: change spelling of “Monica” to “Monika” (Judi)

2. Previous Minutes

Minutes approved unanimously (Judi/Ron)

3. Matters arising: Peter reiterated that finances will remain a major concern.

4. Chair’s Remarks. None

5. Reports from Board Members

1. Treasurer: Ron’s report is pending. Conference finances not finalized yet. David reminded that income from publications sold at conference had not been tallied. David also reminded that (according to P & P) expenditures should be listed for approval by the Board a every meeting. (Treasurer shall submit disbursements to Pres. prior to monthly meetings.)

2. Pres. Elect: Ursula will attend NERALLD meeting in March, and has agreed to write a column for the Journal that will come out in September. She will start two discussion threads on the Board WorkTools site; one on the IALLT web site, which has some navigation issues, and one on the monograph series. Jack Burston has submitted a proposal for a monograph comparing turnkey language lab products. Andrew, Peter and Ursula will discuss. Peter requested that the Board read and suggest improvements to the draft Guidelines for the IALLT Monograph Series (circulated) before the next call.

3. Programs Director:

   • Judi is enthusiastic about a nominee for TESOL rep. She will ask Carol Wilson-Duffy (MSU) to submit bio. Will circulate for Board discussion and possible action.

   • EuroCALL: Russell Hanson (BYU) is a possible candidate

   • K-12 Rep (proposed) Two candidates have emerged, Frank Kruger-Robbins (FL) and Sara Honig. Both are from the Eastern part of the US, and it appears that both are employed in private schools. Ursula added that Gilbert Gailius was also interested, and that he was also from the east. Discussion ensued, in which the importance of having representatives from the entire US was stressed. It was thought that perhaps it would be better to have several representatives instead of only one.

   • Judi moved that the P & P be revised so that the K-12 representative description could allow for multiple representatives. Ron seconded. Approved unanimously

   • Judi then moved that the K-12 group of representatives be headed by a chair (to be appointed by the Board) who would become a council member, and who would be able to appoint a designate for council meetings if necessary. Ron seconded. Approved unanimously

   • Judi reported that Nina Garrett had expressed interest in establishing an affiliation with the MLA, in particular with its ADFL (Administrators of Departments of Foreign Languages) “arm.” Board did not have enough information and will hold this pending receipt of same.

   • There was some discussion about what the size of the council should be and whether this should be cause for concern. On the minus side, a large council could be unwieldy, particularly if not well organized. On the plus side, only Board votes, so council can function in an advisory capacity. Judi expressed some concern about the potential number of people who would be reporting toeach Board position.

4. Secretary (unavailable for this Meeting.)

6. Journal Editor: Andrew reported that the next volume of the Journal is almost ready to go and that in fact some material had already been sent to the publisher.

   • Andrew is waiting for some columns (among them Peter’s and Ursula’s) and nudged those two board members in the direction of completing those ASAP.

   • Lee Bradley is the new printer. There is an issue about fonts that was pending as of the time of the conference call. Gamin is working on it.

   • Andrew reports that in discussions with vendors he learned that they are interested in seeing article-length submissions on their products to the Journal and that they wanted more exposure in the Journal than an ad provides. This is a vendor-relations issue.

   • Andrew has received some information about in-house publishing and has looked into possibilities at Brown. He recommended that self-publication of the Journal merited further consideration.

   • A brief discussion ensued about the implications for the Journal in a proposed joint membership possibility with CALICO, IALLT and EuroCALL.

   • Andrew mentioned that the Journal still needs several columnists. He will start a thread on the WorkTools site, hoping that the Board can come up with recommendations. David suggested e-mailing members (via LLTI?) to see if there are interested parties among them.

7. Setting priorities for the new Board: Peter brought up several issues that the new Board will find important to address. Among these are three that rank very high:

• Vendor relations

• member benefits, and

• relationships with affiliate organizations—especially with respect to reciprocal agreements about conferences and journals.

The relationship between the IALLT conference and the IALLT membership was also discussed. For example, excess monies generated by the Rice conference were passed on to UM to help with its conference. It was expected that UM would do the same, but there is no prescription or requirement for this. The question arose whether this is something the organization (Board) should become involved in. These issues will undoubtedly be the focus of several meetings, and they were identified as agenda items for the next meeting.

8. Other Business

   • Meeting schedule: the Board will meet (teleconference) on the first Tuesday of each month, except September. Next meeting: Tuesday, October 7^th.

• Peter announced that Sharon Scincirello was the sole candidate for the Council position of Publicity Director. There was general agreement that she would be an excellent fit. *I think it was Ron who had discussions at UM. Sharon then wrote me an email, offering to stand (but those details are not worth minuting).

• Ron moved that Sharon be invited to become Publicity Director. Judi seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Peter will issue the invitation.

• Another open council position is the one for Intellectual Property. Two candidates have surfaced, but the board doesn’t know either of them well. Both will be asked (by Peter) to submit bios and letters of interest.

• IALLT 2003. Judi reported that the post-conference evaluation raw data were in, that comments were positive and constructive, and that the overall evaluation looked positive. Raw data have been forwarded for compilation.

The next meeting was set for October 7.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:03 EST.

(Sgd.) Ursula Williams, Acting Secretary