ASIH Executive Committee Meeting Minutes, 2018

2018 ASIH Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

The ASIH Executive Committee Meeting was held on July 11, 2018.

Present: Brian Crother (Chair and President), Kathleen Cole (President-elect), Carole Baldwin (Past President), Maureen Donnelly (Prior Past President), Robert Espinoza (Chair of LRPP), Deanna Stouder (LRPP Co-Chair), Wm. Leo Smith (Editor), Adam Summers (Co-Chair of ENFC), F. Douglas Martin (Treasurer), Prosanta Chakrabarty (Secretary)

Absent: William Matthews (ENFC Co-Chair),

President Crother called the meeting to order promptly at 9:00 a.m.

Some new members of the Executive Committee were Introduced at the meeting including the Treasurer Designate, Katherine Maslenikov; New Copeia Editor Leo Smith; and ENFC Co-Chair William Matthews. Unfortunately, Dr. Matthews was unable to attend but he did send an email with his comments that were noted during the meeting.

Prior Past President Donnelly gave as an update on Stoye/Storer Judging Categories based on a request from Exec in 2017 on whether there needed to be a change. Dr. Donnelly reported that the data suggests that the categories should stay the same except that we should separate Ecology & Ethology (E&E). Dr. Donnelly then “Moved that Stoye E&E be split into E&E Ichthyology and E&E Herpetology.” The chair of LRPP Bobby Espinoza seconded.  The motion was approved unanimously be Exec.

Past President Baldwin brought up whether ASIH should have a cost sharing strategy for paying for the Names of Fishes Committee to meet. In February the ASIH granted this group, that was previously supported by American Fisheries Society (AFS), $5000 for a 3-day meeting. Dr. Baldwin noted that Larry Page has done a great job leading this group, and that nearly all members of that committee are members of ASIH. Because it was unclear who would “own” the list, the matter was tabled by President Crother.

President Crother than raised the issue of Eliminating the ASIH Closing Event. After some discussion it was decided that anything that didn’t require tickets and that was not exclusive or cost-inhibitive to students would be better for the last day of the meeting. After some discussion of options Past President Donnelly moved to ‘Eliminate the Closing Event, and to ask the Local Host to have an event either fully funded by that host, or to have a No-Host Social in its place on the last day of JMIH.” Dr. Stouder seconded the motion and it was passed unanimously.

President Crother noted that due to rising costs, including the cost of bringing people to the meeting, that we should increase Symposium support - which has always been $3,000. Dr. Donnelly made a motion to increase this amount to $5,000, seconded by Dr. Baldwin, and this motion passed unanimous.

Treasurer Martin then gave us an update on the ASIH Budget. He noted in this discussion that it was not a good idea to move General Endowment funds to the operating budget as is sometimes suggested. The Treasurer proposed instead that the $14,000 increase from this year’s General Endowment Fund be split between the under-funded Gaige and Raney Award funds. In addition, he proposed that $40,000K from the General Endowment be moved into Gaige and Raney (at $20K each) to support those important student research awards. The motion to transfer these funds passed unanimously.

Dr. Stouder then suggested perhaps combining some of the of these award funds into a single account.

After some discussion Dr. Donnelly moved to “Have the ‘Let the Students Ride’ fund be subsumed under the Clark Hubbs Student Travel Award.” Leo Smith seconded this motion and it was passed unanimously.

Dr. Donnelly then moved that Gaige and Raney funds be increased and given a hard cap of $8K to spend per year on student awards with a decree that this amount should be reexamined after five years in 2023. Dr. Stouder seconded and the motion passed unanimously.

The Exec noted with great sadness the passing of Dr. Robert Cashner and noted his many efforts on behalf of the ASIH. We also thanked the Cashner family for its efforts in establishing the new ‘Cashner Student Assistance Fund’ to help pay for travel of ASIH students presenting their first JMIH paper. If you would like to donate to this fund please write a check to the ASIH with "Cashner Fund" in the Memo and give it to the Treasurer [Douglas Martin, Treasurer ASIH, 1609 Lions Den, Leander, TX 78641].

Secretary Chakrabarty then raised the problem of having more than one student presenter up for the same competition based on the same poster. He then made the motion that “Only one award competitor is allowed per student-award presentation.” This motion passed unanimously. 

The Long Range Planning and Policy Committee Co-Chairs Stouder & Espinoza then discussed much-needed updates to the ASIH Policy and Procedures Manual.  The Exec thanked Drs. Stouder and Espinoza for their hard work, noting that they didn’t even have a word document of the most recent version of the PPM to edit from. Drs. Stouder and Espinoza noted that there was still one more year of decisions to be made about this important document. Stouder and Espinoza thanked the other members of the committee singling out Margaret Neighbors as being particularly knowledgeable and helpful.

Among the changes to the PPM discussed was including standardized four letter acronyms for all committees. Several members of EXEC asked why the BOG must be listed as the BOFG and the BAM as BAAM, but all resolved to use the four-letter versions.

Other changes included having the full award names standardized and listed consistently; for instance the “Student Travel Fund” should always be listed under its official name the, “Clark Hubbs Student Travel Award.”

In discussing the Secretary Designate and Treasurer Designate positions – Secretary Chakrabarty moved that there should also be a Copeia Editor designate position created. Treasurer Martin seconded, and this item passed unanimously.

Dr. Donnelly then moved that “LRPP is charged with the annual upkeep of the Policy and Procedures” manual. Secretary Chakrabarty seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

The Co-Chair of ENFC Adam Summers noted that the PPM needs to be more visible on the ASIH website. President Crother noted that the Charge for each committee should be sent to the new chairs when they are elected or appointed and Dr. Donnelly added that “everyone needed to read the PPM.”

Editor Smith then noted that the Copeia Production Manager Katie Smith had volunteered to copyedit the PPM after she noted many spelling and grammatical mistakes. The Exec very much welcome her edits.  

The updated PPM will be sent to the BOFG by an email vote in the near future

Dr. Stouder then raised the question about whether the ASIH President can create co-chair position on standing committees. Dr. Donnelly noted that she created co-chairs for several committees as President in order to have one ichthyologist and one herpetologist leading these committees in order to show our combined interests and shared burden.

After some discussion a motion was passed that the “President shall appoint a co-chair for LRPP and ENFC and that each co-chair gets a full vote on Exec. It was added that there should be representation of both ichthyologists and herpetologists represented on those committees.” Dr. Baldwin seconded and the motion passed.

The Exec also asked the LRPP to look at the wording and different uses of the following committee terms: “standing, continuing, recurring, special purpose, and ad hoc committees.” The LRPP has decided that Ad Hoc committees will be removed from the PPM.

Dr. Stouder then explained that the European Union had new regulations called “General Data Protection Regulations.” Breaches of these regulations could have serious financial implications for ASIH. Editor Smith noted that he contacted Allen Press several times about this issue but had not received a response. President Crother will pursue Allen Press to better understand our liability under these new EU laws and asked Exec if we should retain a lawyer for better understanding these regulations. After some discussion President Elect Cole moved that “ASIH retain a lawyer for the purposes of discussing the General Data Protection Regulations,” this motion was seconded by Dr. Stouder and all were in favor.

President Crother noted that it would also be good to have an Ombudsmen under the services of ASIH because of our Code of Conduct (CoC) and because not all Exec members are trained under Title IX. President Elect Cole then moved that ‘ASIH participate in hiring a professional Ombudsmen service for future meetings.” Dr. Baldwin seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

It was noted that currently only the ASIH has a CoC and that members of Exec are the contact points for any violations. Dr. Espinoza is working with other societies to make the CoC JMIH wide.

We then went on discussing continuity planning for officers in the unfortunate situation where someone needs to take over a position suddenly. Dr. Donnelly recounted how she took over the Secretary Duties quite suddenly after the passing of Bob Johnson. It was decided that we should set up a cloud-based storage of data such as GoogleDrive for every committee. Dr. Summers noted that having a legacy email address for each committee chair and officer, such as ASIHSec@outlook.com would be a good decision. It was agreed that we need a blanket cloud platform to house our emails and data files. Editor Smith recommended Slack as an option and Dr. Summers noted that our new meeting management firm BURK.inc may be able to help us create this cloud back up.

Editor Smith then updated us on the state of Copeia. He noted he was unsure about several issues included how new Associate Editor’s can get reimbursements and how to deal with authors not paying publication related dues. These were addressed by members of Exec. Dr. Smith noted some new innovations including allowing authors to have 50 days of open access on new papers and Copeia becoming fully compliant with ICZN. He noted that the impact factor has gone up slightly from last year. Dr. Smith noted other innovations would be forthcoming.

We then moved on to items of New Business.

The Chair of the Meetings Management and Planning Committee, Henry Mushinsky, gave us a presentation that will be repeated at the BOFG and BAAM. He discussed our new meeting management company BURK.inc and future meetings. The Exec was very enthusiastic about the choices made by the MMPC, and we hope the BOFG will support these initiatives.

The EXEC formally welcomed the Treasurer Designate, Katherine Maslenikov and President Crother and the Exec thanked her for volunteering for this important position. Treasurer Martin said that in December he would transfer signatory rights from Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank over to the new Treasurer. Treasurer Martin noted that he still write next year’s Treasurer’s Report and that he and Ms. Maslenikov would be in contact about financial activities of ASIH.

Dr. Donnelly then raised the issue of having several important files and documents on the K-state run portion of the ASIH website – she noted that this content needs to be migrated to ASIH because we will no longer be affiliated with K-State. President Crother will discuss with our Webmaster how best to make that transition happen.

Editor Smith then noted that he and his wife Katie printed some Copeia Merchandise – including pint glasses, several hundred stickers, magnets and other items. Some of these will be available for the student auction. Leo and Katie’s kids, Milo and Betsy are walking around JMIH18 as the “Copeia Swag Team” with these items.

Dr. Donnelly then moved that “ASIH reimburse Editor Smith for the ASIH/Copeia merchandise he and Katie Smith created.”

As an item of new business President Elect Cole suggested that member of ENFC should be on the Audit committee. But Dr. Donnelly noted that the Audit committee was created to extend the official position of past presidents. It was noted that the Audit Committee is not part of the official audit of the ASIH Treasurer and finances and that it is really an oversight committee. Dr. Donnelly made a motion to kill the Audit Committee, that was seconded by Dr. Baldwin. The motion failed after discussion. It was noted that the committee was not in the constitution so the motion was modified to make the “Audit committee an Ad Hoc committee [instead of a standing committee]” This motion passed unanimously.

Treasurer Martin noted he had many paper copies of bank statements and other financial documents that needed to go to the new Treasurer. He noted that many of these were redundant with electronic documents and that some might be discarded. A motion to scan all the documents was tabled after the EXEC asked the Treasurer to first find out how Non-Profits are legally bound to handle these documents.  

President Elect Cole than requested that the Treasurer send financial reports to ENFC. Some members of EXEC thought that as a committee committed to long-term financial and endowment goals that these reports would not benefit the ENFC. Dr. Summers said he would add that idea to the ENFC agenda.

Dr. Cole also noted that some ASIH members had expressed concern that they were unable to comment on various BOG and EXEC decisions because of the short period of time between the BOFG book being released and the EXEC report. Secretary Chakrabarty noted that the BOFG report is sent to the entire membership, not just Governors, by email, Facebook, and Twitter by early June and that they have more than four weeks to comment. He then noted the EXEC minutes are read during BOFG and then again sent out to the entire society before the BAAM. He wanted to remind those that may be upset for any reason that he is sincerely happy to discuss the many ways in which he could improve his work for ASIH.

To close out the meeting the EXEC discussed that we do not need any additional ASIH postcards or pamphlets and that the JMIH postcard about the next meeting is sufficient. We also discussed the need to restart the conversation about an umbrella organization governing the various JMIH societies. The EXEC noted that we had not heard from the “JMIH Committee on creating an Umbrella Organization” in some time.

President Crother then called for a motion to adjourn, and we did so at 1:20 p.m