[Air-l] May 2001 report

[Steve Jones]

May 17, 2001
Report of the a(o).i.r. executive committee
Prepared by Steve Jones



AoIR Executive Committee
President: Steve Jones
Vice-President: Nancy Baym
Secretary: Matt Stoner
Treasurer (on leave): Benjamin Bates
Interim Treasurer: Wes Shrum
Open Seats: Beth Kolko and Sean Cubitt
Appointed Seats: Diane Witmer and Fay Sudweeks
Student Seat: Matt Williams
Publications Officers: Jeremy Hunsinger and Charlie Breindahl
2001 Conference Coordinator: John Logie
2001 Conference Program Chair: Leslie Shade
Ethics Working Group Chair: Charles Ess


1.  Introduction & General (Jones)

Below is the monthly report from AoIR executive committee members.

2.  Executive Officers' Reports

2.1 President (Jones)

2.1.1. Kagi works, and we've heard far better reports about it than 
about PayPal, so that migration has been successful.

2.1.2. Speaking of migrations, hats off to Jeremy for getting us 
moved onto our own server!

2.1.3. The executive committee will be drafting descriptions of the 
roles they've played in AoIR and making recommendations about the 
association's structure, in advance of upcoming elections. It is 
likely that such activity will also involve revision to the AoIR 
bylaws. Keep an eye out for information and announcements, and 
please, participate, volunteer, stand for election, etc.!


2.2 Vice President (Baym)

2.2.1 Nothing to report.


2.3 Secretary (Stoner)

2.3.1 Nothing to report.


2.4 Treasurer (Shrum - interim)

2.4.1 Nothing to report.


2.5 Open Seats (Kolko, Cubitt)

2.5.1 Kolko: No report.

2.5.2 Cubitt: No report.


2.6 Appointed Seats (Witmer, Sudweeks)

2.6.1 Witmer: Nothing to report.

2.6.2 Sudweeks: No report.


2.7 Student Seat (Williams)

2.7.1 No report.


2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl)

2.8.1 Hunsinger:

2.8.1.1. april was very busy, in order of time in some manner. I 
spent time with Leslie and the program committee. I spent time 
migrating systems. I spent time with John getting him set up for 
posting stuff on the webpage. I spent time on various and sundries.

2.8.2 Breindahl: Business as usual. Jeremy did all the work and left 
me to twiddle my thumbs :)  After the server move, I am trying to 
take over after Steve as list manager of air-l.


2.9 2001 Conference (John Logie, Coordinator and Leslie Shade, Program Chair)

2.9.1 Logie: This month the local team was focused on establishing a 
reasonably complete website  << 
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/aoir/local.html  >> designed to address the 
questions which have been repeatedly e-mailed to the Conference 
Coordinator and Program Chair. This work was completed in concert 
with U of MN's Professional Education and Conference Planning office, 
which has established a website for conference registration 
<<http://pware.com/index.cfm?eventdisp=02%2D2703&clientid=2383>>. 
With the assistance of "beta testers" Jeremy Hunsinger and Steve 
Jones, these sites are now up and running, and as of today, 11 
attendees have successfully registered and paid.

Speaking of payment, the IR 2.0 account within the Rhetoric 
Department is, at long last, fully functional, and it will serve as 
the core fund for deposits and budgeted expenses between now and 
October. Not all of the pledged funds have yet arrived, but there is 
enough funding within this core account for all major expenses 
between now and the concert, and additional gentle nudges will likely 
produce the remainder in the coming weeks.

Negotiations with potential food providers are ongoing, but so far 
the options seems reasonable. We have been considering the 
posssibility of securing sponsorship for the Thursday night reception 
and/or the Friday night banquet. Once the budget numbers are 
finalized, we will take this matter up with AoIR-Meet and/or 
AoIR-Exec.

More generally, I am working to finalize a core team of graduate 
students and colleagues to take on management of book exhibits, tech 
support, website maintenance, and the like. In the coming weeks, I 
will be introducing you all to the "point people" on these issues, 
and improving the overall routing of questions and tasks.


2.9.2 Shade: Paper acceptances have been going out - so far the 
number of people who
are saying they are coming has far exceeded the number that say they can't
attend (2). Here are the stats, with many thanks to Jeremy:

current stats
type		accept		reject		rate
papers		230		135		63%
panels		28		5		84%
Art		2		4		33%
workshop		0		9		0%

about 85 - 90 sessions compared with about 60 last year 1/3 more

about 330 people on panels  compared with about 220 last year  about 1/3
more again


2.10 AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair)

2.10.1 No report.