Thursday, December 28, 2006, 8:00–10:00 AM

Philadelphia Downtown Courtyard Marriott Hotel
21 N Juniper Street

Present: Armengot, Beebee, Bermann, Eckhardt, Finney, Komar, Lionnet, Martin, Prins, Richmond-Garza, Saussy, and Trumpener
Regrets: Brodsky Lacour, Hanssen, Kristal, Lewis, and Yao

Meeting convened at 8:07

1. Approval of minutes from Princeton meeting

a. Discussion followed of student assistants for the ACLA, growth of organization, size of membership, attendance of new constituencies (Germanic, East Asian, Slavic), and the possibilities for other collaborations

2. Financial, Fundraising and Membership Report

a. Discussion followed of Puebla finances

3. Report of the President (Komar)

a. Election Results: Vice President: Haun Saussy (Yale University); new board members: Bella Brodzki (Sarah Lawrence College), Xiaomei Chen (University of California at Davis), Rita Felski (The University of Virginia), Djelal Kadir (Pennsylvania State University), and Seth Lerer (Stanford University); new graduate student representatives: Joshua Beall (Rutgers University) and Giovanna Montenegro (San Francisco State University)
b. Prize winners to date: Karen Thornber for the Bernheimer, Guilan Siassi for the Horst Frenz, Tobias Boes for the Aldridge
c. Decision made to solicit membership via email to report any prizes that they have won for inclusion on the ACLA website
d. Selection of organizers for the ACLA sessions at the 2007 convention: “New Comparative Methodologies” (Beebee); second session topic to be chosen (Prins)

4. Report of the Vice-President (Bermann)

a. Discussion of future venues 2009/2010

5. Report of Finances Committee (Saussy)

a. November report presented and finances are growing in low risk investments

6. ACLA 2007 Puebla update (Zamora/Schuessler, in absentia)

a. Nearly 1,300 abstracts have been accepted
b. Gratitude was expressed to Carole Viers for conducting the submissions process and beginning to prepare the program to be posted on-line
c. Discussion of logistics and finances especially of the role of a travel agency in future conference and the need for a balance between cost of accommodations and of travel
d. Reaffirmation that the ACLA does not provide seed money for conferences

7. ACLA 2008 Long Beach 2008 (Fisher/Baum, in absentia)

a. Request from conference organizers to receive copies of previous conference budgets
b. Expected participation of 1,200 and desire to continue the reputation of the ACLA for inclusivity

8. Financial Update from ADPCL (Eckhardt)

a. ADPCL listing will appear in PMLA September Directory
b. MLA Profession will publish the Scheiner report on the undergraduate curriculum
c. There are plans for a graduate study to follow
d. So far the ADPCL has not succeeded in acquiring affiliated status with the MLA, but the ADPCL will continue to appeal and pursue this goal
e. The ADPCL will run two sessions at 2007 ACLA meeting: job market and funding and grant writing in collaboration with Pauline Yu and the ACLS

9. Student Representatives Update (Armengot/Martin)

a. Discussion of concerns about the usefulness of the listserve
b. Desire to place a bulletin board on the website to post CFPs and other materials and to facilitate connections among students at different stages of their careers
c. Plan for roundtable at the 2007 ACLA meeting

10. Consideration of changing to stepped salary-based membership fees

a. Discussion of equity and privacy issues
b. Decision to address questions in tandem with any increase in fees

11. Discussion of need to standardize from year to year and centralizing the scholarly portion of the conference website (paper submissions, program information, program copy, etc.)

12. Update on the ACLA Secretariat 2007-2011

a. UT Austin will continue funding through 2011 but will want the ACLA to support partially the ACLA’s expanded secretariat through ACLA funds

Meeting adjourned at 10:10 AM