Minutes of the 14th Annual SPCW business meeting

Saturday, July 21, 2007

The meeting was convened at 4:00pm at the Universidad Latina de America in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico.

In attendance: Trudy Conway, Lani Roberts, Joseph Orosco, David Chan, Karen Bardsley, Jeremy Wisnewski, Mo Janzen, Janet Donohoe, Rob Metcalf, Jack Weir, David Gandolfo, Paul Penner, Mark Sanders, George Teschner, Patricia Diaz Herrera

Trudy began the meeting by commending Joseph and Karen for their fine work on the 2007 conference. All in attendance exhibited their agreement with a round of applause.

I.Presentation on 2008 Conference Site

Janet Donohoe provided information about the site for the 2008 conference. Dates for the conference are July 6-10, 2008 at Snow Mountain Ranch of the YMCA of the Rockies. 25 Rooms have already been reserved in the Indian Peaks Lodge. Each room can hold up to six people. Room rate is $109.00 per night with a $32.00 per day fee for meals, meeting room, and membership for the week at the Y. Camping on the Y grounds is available. The Y provides programming for pre-school age and older kids during the day. Activities such as hiking, biking, horseback riding, rafting, miniature golf, and volleyball are available to all Y guests. Snow Mountain Ranch is accessible from the DenverInternationalAirport through a shuttle service called “Home James.” A one-way ticket from the airport is $51.00. It might be possible to get a cheaper rate if we have a lot of people coming in at the same time.

Discussion moved to a theme for the conference. After much debate, it was decided that since this will be the 15th Anniversary conference the meeting should not have a specific theme, but that the call for papers include as possible topics all themes from prior years. Possible themes that had been suggested will be reserved for other upcoming conferences. Those themes were the following:

Understanding

Work, Labor, Creation

Religious and Secular Institutions in the Contemporary World

Discourse and Dissent

Work, Technology and Family

Revisioning Technology

Tradition and Memory

As usual, it was advised to add to conference descriptions that additional papers on other philosophical topics are welcome.

Elected Co-Chairs of the Conference: Jeremy Wisnewski and Rob Metcalf (with Janet Donohoe in the wings should Rob be fortunate enough to spend summer 2008 in Germany).

Questions were raised about the review process for the conference papers. There was some confusion about this for 2007, so it was decided that Karen Bardsley would write up a description of responsibilities for the Program Co-Chairs and distribute those to former Program Chairs for review.

Reminders:

  • Papers that have been accepted for the conference still go under a second review if they are submitted to the PCW Journal
  • Program Chairs have the right to override reviewers if they deem necessary
  • Call for Papers needs to go out very early in order to ensure as many submissions as possible.

II.Moderator Reports (to be attached)

Ed Grippe: Eastern Division (2005-2008) (according to 2005 business mtg minutes)

Ralph Ellis: Central Division (2003-2006) (according to 2005 business mtg minutes)

Jeremy Wisnewski: Pacific Division (2006-2009)

Reminders:

  • There should be calls for papers for at least one session at each APA meeting.
  • Lani keeps the listserv current and can easily send calls for papers to members

III.Treasurer’s Report (to be attached)

There was discussion about whether this year’s program co-chairs should be reimbursed for their out-of-pocket expenses on behalf of the conference. Decision was made to pay co-chairs back for their expenditures.

Unused nametag pouches that were purchased for this year’s conference will be used for future conferences.

There was discussion about the fact that conference participants were not charged dues as part of conference fees. In this past dues has been paid by all participants. It was agreed that this procedure will be more formalized in the future.

IV.Elections

Moderators: We thought that both Eastern Division and Central Division should have been up for vote, but in an effort to stagger elections, it was agreed that Ed Grippe will continue as Moderator for the Eastern Division for one more year. (In fact, in looking back at minutes from 2005, they are still staggered appropriately because Ed’s term didn’t really begin until 2005.)

David Chan volunteered to be Moderator for Central Division and was elected by acclamation. His term will be 2007-2010.

Treasurer: Joseph indicated a willingness to serve a second term as treasurer. He was reelected by vote (with no dissenting votes).

Secretary: not up for election. Janet’s term is 2006-2009.

President: Trudy indicated a willingness to serve a second term. She was reelected by vote (with no dissenting votes).

There was discussion of the web site manager and it was suggested that web site management be linked with the secretary’s position. Janet will contact Andy Fiala about this.

V.Journal Report (to be attached)

The main issues for discussion was whether the society should keep paying the PhilosophyDocumentationCenter when it is not entirely clear what the benefits are. There was a great deal of debate. Some felt that the PDC does not do enough for what we are paying them. We can list the journal ourselves with the Philosopher’s Index. Others felt it was important to stick with the PDC since journal submissions have increased perhaps due to increased visibility and since it allows us to be electronically available through Poiesis. It was decided that Trudy would gather information about what services the PDC provides, how much of the dues money they keep, why there has been a drop in subscriptions to the journal, etc. She will communicate that information to the executive committee which will assist her in making a decision about whether to remain with PDC or not.

Andy has indicated that due to the increase in the number of submissions to the journal and changes in his position at FresnoState, he is overwhelmed by the workload. Lani volunteered to take over some of the journal duties by becoming co-editor. Trudy appointed Lani as co-editor.

The issue was raised about whether the journal should be conference proceedings, whether it needs a clearer focus, or whether it should stay roughly the way it is—accepting submissions and also encouraging conference attendees to submit their papers. It was suggested that this discussion should happen on-line to get as much feedback as possible and that the executive committee should be charged with making a final decision after the on-line discussion.

Andy was commended for the improvements in the journal.

Trudy indicated a need again to purge the review board of inactive society members. This will be discussed with Andy.

Recommendation was made that copies of the journal should be sent to the Library of Congress in addition to being sent to members of the review board.

It was debated as to whether authors ought to also receive a complimentary copy of the journal.

6:30 pm meeting was adjourned.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Janet Donohoe, SPCW secretary.