September 2, 2015, San Francisco, California
PRESENT
President: Rodney E. Hero; President-Elect: Jennifer Hochschild; Treasurer: Kathleen Thelen
Council Members: Phillip Ardoin, Amrita Basu, Kenneth R. Benoit, Michelle Deardorff, EJ Dionne, Christine DiStefano, James N. Druckman, Maria Escobar-Lemmon, Linda Fowler, Paul Gronke Fredrick Harris, Jeffrey Isaac, John Ishiyama, Hank C. Jenkins-Smith, Frances Lee, David Lublin, Marc Lynch, Melanie Manion, Layna Mosley, Tasha Philpot, John M. Sides, Evelyn M. Simien, Alvin Bernard Tillery, and Mark Warren.
APSA Staff: Regina Chavis, Dan Gibson, Morgan Johnson, Meghan McConaughey, Kimberly Mealy, Teka Miller, Steven Rathgeb Smith, Heidi Souerwine, Betsy Super, and Barbara Walthall.
Guests: Melanie Manion and Bruce Caswell
Not in Attendance: Joanne Gowa, David C. Kang, and David Stasavage.
CALL TO ORDER
APSA President Rodney E. Hero called the meeting to order on September 2, 2015 at 8:30 a.m.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Hero discussed his visits to numerous conferences, Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Universities. Hero’s “Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the Americas” task force will complete their report by October.
TREASURER’S REPORT
Thelen reported for APSA a $3.5 million dollars Market Value, $7.5 million dollars from Operations, and $7 million dollars from Operating Expenses. Basu and Jenkins-Smith inquired about some of the costs that associated with the Open Access journal and the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute (RBSI). Conversation regarding RBSI potential funding sources continued. Ardoin raised the idea of restructuring the pricing of student membership to APSA.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Smith reviewed the process of the Journal of Political Science Education becoming an APSA-wide journal. Council must vote after the section votes to shift the journal to APSA. The costs associated with making this an association-wide journal are built into the budget.
The Cambridge University Press contract expires in 2017, but APSA has been in contact with them to propose new terms. Smith, Chavis, and Walthall are in the process of reviewing the wording of the contract, and then it will be sent to the association’s counsel.
APSA currently does not have all organized section’s contracts with outside publishers, but is working to update these.
A review of membership dues is set to occur during fall 2015–spring 2016 with several different categories. The definition of a department membership may broaden to include more than just academic departments.
Smith reviewed partnerships and collaborations with other organizations. Partnerships with the International Political Science Association and Mexican Political Science Association are planned for the near future. Hochschild enquired working with the European Political Science Association. Smith had discussed with Pi Sigma Alpha, the Undergraduate Honor Society for Political Science, the potential for establishing a closer relationship.
Smith provided updates on the APSA headquarters building.
The abstract submissions system is being reviewed for the conference. APSAConnect and its online communities are also being reviewed along with web platforms. Several organized sections’ websites are now facilitated through WordPress.
Smith is working on broadening the review of diversity—on all dimensions—to include the sections and section governance and committees. Smith would bring this outcome to the April Council meeting.
ANNUAL MEETING LOCATION
The Annual Meeting staff are reviewing some proposed sites that would allow for non-Labor Day options, including the same site from the 2011 conference in Seattle, Washington, for 2021 and Montreal, Canada, for 2022 as well as more updates for 2023 will become available in the fall. Lynch asked if the non-Labor Day date was decided. Souerwine expressed that this change would depend on the cities that are selected. Souerwine, Sides, and Escobar-Lemmon discussed the potential pros and cons of hosting the Annual Meeting internationally. Souerwine confirms that they have considered the attendance rates for the 2009 annual meeting held in Toronto, Canada.
STRATEGIC PLANNING DISCUSSION
As part of Council discussion in April, a Council Sub-Committee for Strategic Planning has been created. The committee revised the vision and mission statement in the Council book. An update will be sent to Council and Membership in the fall for comments. Several Council members offered initial comments regarding wording in the drafted vision and mission statement.
ORGANIZED SECTION REPORT
Smith introduced the organized section governance report from Carol Weissert. Sections were sent a survey asking for views on the website and general management of organized sections. Hochschild is concerned about the emphasis on what APSA, not the sections, can do to improve the current situation. Sides and Isaac agree. Benoit thinks these issues are hard to understand without financial knowledge. Chavis is working to gather some information regarding organized section finances.
PS EDITORS EXTENSION AND CREATION OF PERSPECTIVES EDITORIAL SEARCH COMMITTEE
Gronke and Ardoin were appointed as interim editors of PS after the retirement of Rob Hauck. They are interested in a two-year extension due to their current terms short length. After this extension, there will be a full competitive search and they can apply again. Thelen moves to approve the extension, Isaac seconds after asking for clarification. The motion is approved.
Council must approve an editor search committee for Perspectives. Council approves the committee, proposals, recommendation and approval for next year’s meeting, with a nine-month transition period. A motion is made to create the search committee and follow the same timeline as the APSR search last year. Motion seconded and unanimously approved.
AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Caswell (Rowan University) is introduced. Smith introduces the background: Council previously approved a committee to study community colleges. Caswell reviews the overarching goals of the committee, and the questions about political science content at community colleges they wish to answer. He then discusses the results of the initial survey. Hero clarifies that the motion is to change the ad hoc committee to a standing committee. Lublin expresses concern that there are certain issues that this committee will not be able to help with. Isaac moves to create the standing committee, it is seconded and approved unanimously.
APSR EDITOR SEARCH: COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION
Council recognizes Ishiyama for his outstanding editorship before he leaves for this portion of the meeting.
Manion thanks the Council for the opportunity to chair committee. Council received the committee report, which received full approval of all committee members. The committee received two and recommends acceptance of the Mannheim-Oxford proposal. The search committee looked for evidence of scholarly excellence, competence, innovation, and pluralism and diversity. Convinced of both excellence and competence of both proposals, the committee saw distinctive strengths in Mannheim-Oxford’s proposal. Council discussion of the proposals ensues.
Thelen references the process that was used to decide on a change in APSR. Hochschild wonders what will be done if Council decides against the proposal. Manion expresses that the Mannheim-Oxford team is very open to Council suggestions, and a clear decision should be made following discussion. Sides argues that the committee has done significant thinking and work to produce these results. Basu argues that she would be more comfortable voting if more information were being presented. A motion to approve the Committee’s Editorial Search proposal is introduced, seconded, and discussed. Motion is approved.
Hochschild asks for advice for future reviews. Sides suggests a standing committee format for council, but he is strongly in favor of the process that was used in this meeting. Hochschild, Benoit, and Lynch argue for methods in which decision making could be improved in future meetings. Hero hopes to move forward with a new process that has clear steps.
GOVERNANCE REFORM
Lake introduces the proposed new bylaws. The proposed reforms under consideration are lengthening the terms of Council members from 2 to 3 years and increasing the Treasurer position as such; creating new policy committees on the Council for membership, publications, conferences, teaching and learning, and public engagement; reconfiguring the administrative committee into an executive committee of officers and committee chairs. Lake discusses clarifications in the voting process introduced in the draft since the April counsel review. By petition to the president, 10% of the membership can vote to bring any matter to the president. Lake then discusses next steps. If the Council decides to recommend new bylaws to membership, there will be an open forum September 3, and a full discussion on Friday, September 4; if it goes to the Business Meeting, 40% can approve and it can be sent to the membership after a vote. They can also be amended at the same percentage; if majority of members approve, bylaws will take approval immediately; Council cannot change bylaws before Business Meeting but can recommend their own amendments by Friday’s Business Meeting.
Lake then discussed two proposed amendments that he anticipates will be introduced at the business meeting.
Article V, Section 3 to read, “Nominees for Officers and at-large member of Council are named by the Nominating Committee or by petition of 50 members” rather than 1%. And, APSA will publish list of nominees at least 120 days in advance rather than 60 days prior.
Article IX, Section I (b) to read, “The Association must publish the list of nominees for members to view 120 days prior to date of review.”
Article II to include in Business Meeting about voting on Proposals. The business meeting may vote on resolutions to be put before Council and membership as follows: Quorum for voting at the annual business meeting is 1% of the membership at record date; provided a quorum has been achieved.
Dionne supports Lake’s recommendation regarding the first amendment. A motion to support the amendment is introduced, seconded and approved unanimously. The second amendment is discussed. Dionne argues that the only issue is the 50, 130, etc. votes. A motion to support the language with a 2% quota over a 1% quota and ask committee to explain why. Motion to support the new language is made, seconded, and unanimously accepted.
PROPOSED GUIDELINES FOR ADVOCACY AND POLICY POSITIONS
Smith explains that in the last year’s APSA has been asked to take positions and become engaged in a lot of political science issues in the public sphere. The general opinion suggests that a detailed but non-burdensome process is needed. Abramson introduces a draft advocacy policy and requests feedback. Benoit suggest more specific language in part 5, and questions how APSA would be involved with journals moving to Europe. Lynch suggested that sections 4a and 5e open the door for political advocacy. Abramson thanks the Council and agrees to revisit the policy further.
ENDOWMENTS AND DEVELOPMENT
Super introduces creating a board designated fund for capital improvements, and to create a board designated fund to support RBSI from the existing Second Century fund. The motion was introduced, seconded, and passed unanimously.
RBSI WORKING GROUP REPORT
Mealy introduces the RBSI working group report. She thanks Philpot for her hard work on this project and for chairing the committee. The report examined the funding and formation of the existing RBSI, and develops strategies for supporting the RBSI program. The Working Group reviewed strategies used by programs similar to RBSI. One suggestion is for APSA to begin exploring additional partners to complement but not replace Duke University. The working group also examined programmatic data including successful outcomes resulting from RBSI programs. Simien enquired about the percentage of Black PhDs that are RBSI alumni. Mealy provided that similar data can be produced for Latino/Latinas. Lublin expressed concern regarding the effectiveness of the program and its ability to only encourage 10%–15% of participants to become political scientists. Simien conveys her problems with the pipeline and the lack of faculty diversity especially in recruitment. Hochschild expresses desire to move the conversation more toward change in target age groups. She suggests focusing on pre-college students. Mealy reports that the working group considered this, but was concerned about the program losing impact as a result.
Druckman would like to see the goals leaning away from going into academics or getting a PhD. Gronke suggests that it may be helpful when fundraising to know that successful cases have occurred outside of PhD recipients.
Harris questions if the departments are doing a sufficient job of recommending participants, and if there are changes that can be made to improve recommendations. Mealy expresses that efforts have been made to contact undergraduate students directly through channels that focus on REP, which is primarily the section most relevant to the course work of RBSI.
ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION
Smith discusses the new articles being filed in Washington, DC, to provide information to DC government. Motion to approve articles of incorporation was introduced, seconded, and passed unanimously.
OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL
Smith expresses that Cambridge University Press has made a strong case for hosting the Open Access Journal. He believes that this journal can provide content that is different to members of APSA and this is the time to use funds to expand publishing and socials sciences. Smith expresses that the financial questions from the spring meeting are addressed in the proposal and report.
Isaac has no objection, but is concerned that some aspects may be considered overlapping with Perspectives, as well as the issues of cascading reviews and their availability to other editors. Lynch asks if we could have all the journals shift over to open access. Benoit highlights the difference between the lengths of articles in different journals. Escobar-Lemmon expresses concern over this turning into a journal of rejected articles, as well as the potential risk of triple blind reviews and cascading reviews. Lee would like for the journal to start with a great founding editor that can establish the journal with a sound reputation. Smith describes Cambridge’s desire to be involved with the project. Thelen supports this proposal because it is representative of archival and historical work. She believes it should be welcoming to all kinds of articles and should not in any way signal that only one certain type of work is acceptable. She also wants to see the Journal of Political Science Education receiving more funding. It’s the biggest change to the budget she has seen, but she believes APSA is ready to upgrade. Hochschild agrees and believes that the journal will get ads. Dionne does not want articles rejected from other journals to be designated as so when they are published in the Open Access Journal. Isaac suggests that this journal be discussed with the other APSA journal editors. Smith suggests that Council could move to appoint a search committee that would develop a call for proposals. DiStefano queries what the call will include if not all the issues have been solved. Smith clarifies. Fowler and Lee discuss the amount of money available for this project and how it may entice an editor. Gronke suggests that more risks need to be taken. He thinks APSA must provide more outlets in order to maintain the standards of the discipline. Gronke references the results of the PS survey and expresses that the future of PS will not be the same as APSR. Motion by Isaac to authorize an Open Access Journal Editor Search Committee is seconded and approved unanimously.
PANEL ALLOCATION
Smith’s proposal to move from the previous 45-45-10 panel allocation to 80% panel attendance and 20% submissions will be discussed at program chair meetings and at the business meetings. Lynch enquires how the transition to Hochschild’s format would work. Smith conveys that once the allocation is established, it would then be converted to units. Escobar-Lemmon ask if Hochschild’s plan is followed and attendance drops will this then lead to no panels. Smith expresses that the memo has been circulated, and it will be a main topic of discussion at the division chairs breakfast. Lee believes this will give some anxiety to sections. Smith believes holding some of the bigger panels harmless will provide more panel opportunities for 2016. Benoit enquires what is being changed in the panel allocation formula. Smith explains. Thelen motions to pass this, Deardorff seconds the motion, and it is passed with one abstention.
PRESIDENTIAL INITIATIVE
The 2016 Annaul Meeting cochairs are aiming to transform the meeting from panel allocation to time/space units dependent on section size. The ultimate goal is to open space and time for different divisions to have choices in how their meetings are arranged. Hochschild proposes a new Status Group for First Generation Higher Education scholars. Motion to endorse passes with majority. The presidential task force has decided to focus on technological innovations and will be chaired by Darryl West at Brookings Institute. DiStefano asks if anyone has considered the impact of the space and time requirement of the Annual Meeting for sections. Hochschild responds that they have analyzed those impacts.
Smith proposed changing participation rules in the annual meeting to facilitate broader diversity of participants. Instead of allowing two appearances including two paper presentations, this would change to one paper presentation and one non-paper presentation.
BUDGET VOTE
Chavis addressed several questions from earlier regarding the budget. She notes especially that this is a vote to increase the general draw by 1% and to increase Centennial Center draw by .5%. Hero moves to approve budget, and Fowler seconded. The budget is unanimously approved.
Smith and Hero thank everyone for a productive and important meeting.
