Byzantine Studies Conference Archives
Governing Board Meeting 1999
Twenty-Fifth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference
College Park, Maryland
Governing Board Meeting Session 1: November 5, 1999
- Claudia Rapp called the meeting to order at 1:00 p.m:
Present: Claudia Rapp, Sarolta Takacs, Kathleen Maxwell, Derek Krueger, Sharon Gerstel, Linda Safran, Eric Ivison, Michael Maas, Hugh Elton, Robert Allison, Kathleen Corrigan, Patrick Gray, and Glenn Peers.
A motion was made to approve the Governing Board Meetings I and II Minutes from the 1998 BSC in Lexington, Kentucky.
- Sarolta Takacs, standing in for John Duffy-Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee, gave a progress report on the XXVIth Byzantine Studies Conference to be held on October 26-29, 2000 at Harvard University. Planning for the conference is well underway. A website has been established: WWW.FAS.HARVARD.EDU/BSC2000 and it is hoped that registration will take place on line. There is also a dedicated e-mail account for the conference. The address is: BSC2000@FAS.HARVARD.EDU.
A number of activities have already been planned. The Worcester Art Museum is hosting an exhibit entitled Antioch: The Lost Roman City. Plans are underway for an all day excursion on Thursday. The President's Reception will be held at Loeb House and the business luncheon will likely take place at the Harvard Faculty Club.
Hotels are also being contacted. Prices will range from $90 - 300/night. It was suggested that the website be set up so that conference attendees looking to share hotel rooms could be linked up. The Local Arrangements Committee also hopes to be able to house students attending the conference with local families and students.
Local funding for the conference is also expected to be strong. (Onassis Center, Loeb House?)
- The Treasurer's Report was given by Derek Krueger:
Derek expressed concern about the financial future of the BSC. A loss of $259.93 was reported for 1998-1999. However, the Conference Center of The University of Kentucky will pay the BSC approximately $1140 in dues collected at the 1998 conference. Derek Krueger expressed concern about the policy of paying $100 to graduate students giving papers at BSC conferences, suggesting that this policy will cost some $2300 for the 1999 BSC with 23 students giving papers. Derek requested a motion affirming that the current policy of paying graduated students who deliver a paper a $100 stipend be maintained. It passed unanimously.
Derek also cautioned that Local Arrangement Committees must be careful in arranging for the publication of the Abstracts. The 1998 costs related to the Abstracts were very high ($2664.52) and the heavy paper upon which the abstracts were printed led to unusually high mailing costs, especially for foreign members.
Derek also reported on the state of the BSC archives. A friendly relationship has long been maintained between Dumbarton Oaks and the BSC. In exchange for mailing labels, D. O. has provided storage space for the BSC archives in four very large, four-drawer filing cabinets. Most of those drawers were devoted to back issues of published abstracts. Pressure has been exerted upon John Nesbitt, who has recently formally resigned as archivist, to reduce the amount of space devoted to the storage of abstracts as at Symposia and they are available here at College Park at the Registration Desk. Other archival documents include financial documents, minutes of meetings and correspondence, but there did not seem to be any defining order to the means by which these archives were maintained. Patrick Gray wondered if the Library of Congress might be a more appropriate place to house the BSC archives.
- Claudia Rapp moved that at BSC 2000, John Nesbitt would be formally thanked and presented with a gift of a golden coin. The motion passed unanimously.
- Kathleen Maxwell gave the Secretary's Report. The BSC membership's database has been converted to MS Access. Representative samples of the kinds of queries and reports which can be done were circulated. Concern was also expressed that the BSC has no official stationery nor, apparently, a logo. Claudia Rapp expressed the hope that a student will be hired to be a web master and perhaps also responsible for designing a letterhead for stationery.
- Linda Safran indicated that last year's Treasurer's Report, while delivered by Alice-Mary Talbot, was actually submitted by Linda. She was not able to attend the conference.
The members were reminded of their next meeting on Saturday evening, November 6th at 6:45 in Rm. 212 of the Best Western.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:50 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Maxwell
Secretary, Byzantine Studies Conference
Governing Board Meeting Session 2: November 6, 1999
- Claudia Rapp, President of the BSC, called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm:
Present: Maria Georgopoulou, Eric Ivison, Sari Takacs, Sharon Gerstel, Rebecca Corrie, Glenn Peers, Derek Krueger, Hugh Elton, Stephen Zwirn, Patrick Viscuso, Michael Maas (AHA), Claudia Rapp (AHA), Kathleen Maxwell, John Cotsonis, Patrick Gray, and Kathleen Corrigan.
- The new Governing Board members were welcomed:
Rebecca Corrie
John Cotsonis
Maria Georgopoulou
Patrick Viscuso
-
- Glenn Peers suggested that there should be a graduate student present on the Governing Board. It was proposed that whomever wins the Graduate Student Prize should sit in on the Governing Board's meetings. It was agreed that the Charter needs to be checked before this can be voted on, particularly with regard to whether or not the graduate student would receive voting rights. This should be addressed at the next Business Meeting of the BSC 2000.
- Claudia Rapp proposed that the BSC should consider a formal affiliation with the American History Association (AHA). This would not cost anything and the BSC would be listed on their web site with a direct link to ours. We should determine how many members of the BSC are also members of the AHA as a list of names would be essential in proposing this affiliation.
- Claudia Rapp also proposed that we announce completed dissertations as a regular feature or at least try to include them in the Conference folder.
- Future BSC locations:
2000 Harvard University
2001 Notre Dame (Charles Barber)
2002 Rice University (Michael Maas)
2003 University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana
2004 University of California at Los Angeles (Claudia Rapp)
-
- BSC Website:
- The BSC web site would be an ideal location for the permanent storage of BSC programs and abstracts.
- Abstracts would still be available for conference attendees and for institutional purchase.
- Ralph Mathisen will remain supervisor of the BSC web site, but Claudia wishes to appoint a graduate student to assist in upgrading and maintaining the site. But how would such an individual be rewarded?
- Several names of individuals with the requisite skills were proposed as possibilities.
- It was agreed that the upgrading of the web site should be a priority and it should have its own committee. Patrick Viscuso and Hugh Elton were proposed as members of that committee.
- The BSC web site needs to be registered under its own domain (at a cost of around $20.00).
- Logo
The need for a BSC logo has been cited in several connections. The BSC has no official stationery and a logo would be useful in conjunction with BSC-related publications. It was decided that we would advertise a Millennium contest in the solicitation of abstracts for BSC 2000. The winner would be announced at that banquet and would receive free registration for BSC 2000.
- BSC: Election of New Officers
Dumbarton Oaks - BSC Liaison Committee
Annemarie Weyl Carr, Michael Maas, Leonora Neville, Claudia Rapp
Several changes have been initiated at D.O. which will impact Byzantinists who conduct research there. D.O. is beginning to use the Library of Congress filing system while still using its old unique system. Fellows from all three disciplines will now be housed on one floor near periodicals. Some Byzantinists see this as a positive change, others do not.
Program Chair, BSC 2000
Ellen Schwartz, University of Michigan, East Lansing (verify)
Vice President, BSC
Eric Ivison
Vice President duties used to include running the BSC Governing Board Meeting I (the Board's Friday lunch), according to Kathleen Corrigan. The BSC Charter needs to be reviewed to ascertain these respective duties. It was also agreed that the Vice President would assume responsibility for the institutional abstracts and their mailing. (This year Sharon Gerstel volunteered to take on that responsibility, however.)
President, BSC
Michael Maas, Department of History, Rice University
- Childcare, BSC 2000
Sarolta Takacs in response to a question indicated that children would be encouraged to accompany their parents to BSC 2000 and that attempts to provide childcare were being made.
The meeting adjourned at 7:50 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Maxwell
Secretary, Byzantine Studies Conference