 |
|
Publications
| Teratology
Society Council Meeting II
The meeting was called to order by R. Kavlock at 4:08 PM. Bob announced that he had six items that he wanted to cover briefly at the meeting. Item 1. Meeting debriefing A. Exhibitor comments focused on the evening events. Next year they would like the evenings free to take potential clients to dinner, etc. B. Adequacy of room size was difficult to judge. Most of the rooms were judged to be either large enough or too large for the presentations. The NBTS room was too small for some of their meeting presentations. C. Projection Problems; most were related to the length of the larger rooms. D. The use of power point projectors next year was discussed. There are security issues to be addressed before asking each members to bring one from their work (both the projector and the laptop required to operate it would be at risk), but that may be the only way we can afford to provide this equipment to speakers. T. Knudsen will draft a uniform code for their use and present to Council for review at the next Council meeting. The final rules will be included in the meeting packet for paper presentations to be distributed prior to the annual meeting. E. Student sessions were not very well attended this year and discussion followed regarding ways to increase participation by the membership. The consensus was to keep the sessions together at one presentation session to facilitate judging of the papers and to foster greater student contacts with their peers at the next meeting. The program chair will work to avoid conflicts and try to coordinate with NBTS/OTIS, MARTA and MTA.
G. Daston reported that he had spoken to representatives of many of the companies in the President’s Circle to ask for their input regarding ways to provide increased funding for the Society. Ideas discussed included: Increase in the full membership dues, reduced registration for non-members at the annual meeting, replacing presentation of a new plaque each year with a single plaque that would have planned spaces for recognition of additional years of participation for repeat donors, elimination of the Journal subscription for corporations that already have active members receiving the Journal. A motion was made to provide President’s Circle member companies with one reduced cost registration at $100 below the member registration costs and two non-member registrations at the current member’s rate. The Teratology Society would also allow the contributing companies to purchase the Journal at the membership rate. The sustaining membership status will not change. More discussion regarding corporate contributions was deemed necessary. G. Daston and L. D. Wise will draft the appropriate documentation for discussion at the Fall Council meeting. Item 3, the Journal G. Daston reported that there had been preliminary deliberations regarding the expiration of the current publishing contract for the Journal. A follow up meeting with the publisher’s (Wiley-Liss) representative (Nancy Olson) has been requested. Discussions with Nancy Olson will include 1. "revitalizing" the Journal by providing four color covers to catch attention 2. Examination of the possibility of changing the name to capture a wider scientific audience 3. Sharing revenue with the Society. The possibility of a sliding scale between 5% and 20% depending on profits was suggested. Clarification of this proposal has been requested. 4. Expansion of the Editorial Board to include non-members for expanded coverage in fields where our membership is limited. Consideration of using a different publisher after our contract with Wiley-Liss expires was also suggested as a possible approach.
The membership will be canvassed for their opinions about proposed changes as soon as more details are provided by Wiley-Liss. This item will be covered in more detail in the Newsletter as information becomes available. The Publications Committee is considering the addition of a "chat" page in future editions of the Journal.
B. Kavlock announced his recommendations to fill vacancies in a number of the Society committees. The suggested members are: Nominations Committee to be composed of Tina Chambers, Elaine Francis, George Daston, David Beckman and Sue Henwood. Some concern was expressed regarding academic representation on this committee to insure that all sectors of the Society were represented in the nominating process. Other additions suggested by B. Kavlock include Sidney Beck to the Constitution Committee; Dave Kochhar to the ad hoc Fraser Award Committee (together with the three recent winners and a past past president of the Society); Tom Knudsen to the ad hoc Warkany Lecture Committee; Barbara Abbott to the Publication Committee chaired by Rochelle Tyl; Craig Harris to the Student Affairs Committee which will be chaired by K-W Hew with D. Farmer as recording secretary. There were no recommendations at this time for Membership or Public Affairs Committees. All nominations were approved by Council. Item 5. Benchmarking Discussion followed with information about the registration at this meeting, how that compared to past meetings. This lead to questions of the memberships status and who is leaving vs. who is staying, who is coming to the meetings and is not a member? M. Tassinari was asked to develop information for the Fall Council Meeting so this topic can be addressed in greater detail. Item 6. The Fall Meeting Discussion was held as to the merits of having the meeting as a conference call or having the meeting as a face-to-face meeting in Baltimore. Previous discovery determined that Baltimore was the least expensive city for travel by Council members and the Executive Secretary. The decision was made to try to arrange a meeting during the last two weeks of October. T. Masson will coordinate the arrangements.
© Copyright Teratology Society
1998-2002, 2003.
|