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Untitled Document

IAFFE Board Meeting
August 4, 2004
St. Hilda’s College, Oxford

Present: Bina Agarwal, Robin Bartlett, Lourdes Beneria, Mariam Chamberlain, S. Charusheela, Cecilia Conrad, Diane Elson, Ulla Grapard, Mary King, Charlotte Koren, KimMarie McGoldrick, Gabrielle Meagher, Jennifer Olmsted, Semsa Ozar, Ingrid Robeyns, Jean Shackelford, Diana Strassmann, Irene Van Staveren

Others Present: Alicia Giron, recent board member
Sally Scheiderer, assistant to Robin Bartlett
Yada Praparpun, guest to discuss conference site (for a small part of the meeting)

PROCEEDINGS :
1. The meeting was called to order by IAFFE president Bina Agarwal at 2:30 pm. She welcomed the group noting that this was a historic moment in the life of IAFFE and of this Board, which bore the responsibility for overseeing significant structural changes. She noted that the additional time the board has spent together during two days of the Strategic Planning retreat had been intense and productive and one of the primary agendas of this board meeting was confirming the Strategic Planning decisions and outlining the process of implementing them.

2. The minutes of the January 2004 Board meeting held at San Diego were approved as corrected. These corrections added Lisa Saunders’ name and deleted Mary King’s name on the nominations Committee, and noting that Lourdes Beneria not S. Charushela is chair of the ad hoc committee looking into procedures that IAFFE might follow for deciding whether or not to endorse political statements.

3. Reports from the Executive Secretary -- Jean Shackelford
A. Financial Report
The IAFFE Budget - The Finance Committee could not meet prior to the Board meeting, so there were no recommendations to the Board for either the 2005 IAFFE budget or the budget of IAFFE’s journal, Feminist Economics. However, at the Board’s request, Jean agreed to provide a broad review of the IAFFE budget that she had circulated. The budget includes salaries and other funds needed for the transition to the new IAFFE structure and for hiring an Association Manager. The budget is balanced by using the contingency allocation. The budget includes $10,000 from the Ford Strategic planning grant that Susan Stevens had indicated were likely to be left over after billing for her services. The Conference Coordinator (Barbara Krohn) is included in this budget. The decision that Barbara would provide support for the Oxford conference and would be asked to stay on till July 2005 was made during a conference call in which Sue Stevens and the members of the Strategic Planning Committee participated. All members of the Executive Committee were on the call that approved this decision. The Board discussion also focused on the approximately $100,000 CD currently held in reserve by IAFFE. It was suggested that these funds will be used to balance the 2005 budget and can be used to fund other activities of the Association. Robin Bartlett suggested that the board consider how much they should carry as a “cushion” in reserve. While the primary IAFFE account stands at a seemingly generous $180,000, $179,000 is due to grants that mandate the use of those funds. For the 2004-revised budget, funds are included to hire a bookkeeper to assist in audit preparation. 
Jean drew attention to the minutes from the San Diego Board meeting in which the board approved revised 2004 budgets with the understanding that the IAFFE Office budget and the FE budget were complementary and jointly constituted the IAFFE budget. This implies that the line item mentioning funding for the journal administered by the IAFFE office is deleted from the Journal budget. This could be included in versions that show the full cost of publishing the journal. The 2005 Journal budget had not been reconciled in this manner. 
The Board chose not to vote on the IAFFE and F eminist Economics budgets since the Finance Committee had not yet met. Members of the Finance Committee agreed to meet on August 7 at 8:00 AM to review and reconcile both 2005 budgets, and to approve the budgets through a conference call subsequently. There will be a conference call on September 7th to approve the budgets. 
Grants: Jean and Bina drew the Board’s attention to SIDA’s continued contribution toward enabling southern board members and other southern participants to attend the Oxford conference. The Board thanked both SIDA and the Ford Foundation for their contributions and support on this count. Jennifer Olmsted noted that she, and others, would be happy to assist with the grant writing that might bring additional scholars to IAFFE Conferences. 
Letters of invitation: Jean noted that this issue had come up in the context of the Oxford conference. She drew attention to earlier correspondence in which she had suggested that the Board develop and approve a policy for issuing letters of invitation to IAFFE conferences. This was especially important given that the next IAFFE annual conference would be in the USA and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to obtain visas to enter the USA. Participants thus needed to be informed early that their papers had been accepted and it was important for IAFFE to facilitate this through the invitation letters. It was suggested that visa information be put on the web. It was noted that there are different visa categories, and short term visas were less difficult to obtain, and we would only be inviting people for the short term. Charu volunteered to write a draft an invitation letter for people who needed visas and also provide information on the average time taken for getting US visas from particular regions. She said she would try to get this information to the Board by September 20, 2004. It was mentioned that the Board also needed to set up standards and policies for non-US conferences. This information needed to be posted on the IAFFE website and included in the 2005 conference brochure. 
Proposal to approve auditors: Jean circulated information about Rogers Huber and Company of Williamsport and Lewisburg, PA, and recommended that the Board approve hiring the firm for the 2004 audit, as required by Pennsylvania law. The estimated cost of the audit would be between $7000-$9000. She said the IAFFE 2005 budget had funds for this. Bina moved that the board approve contracting with Rogers Huber and Company for the 2004 audit. Lourdes Beneria seconded. The motion was duly passed.

B. Membership Report
At the end of December 2003, there were 568 members. Of these, abut 54% were US based members and 46% were located outside the US. Overall there were members from 48 countries. The number of US members had dropped while that of non-US members had increased. IAFFE was losing about the same number of members as it was gaining. Jean told the Board that Barbara Krohn was working hard to keep the membership list updated. 
Dues Structure: Jean stated that membership dues had not been raised for several years, and proposed an increase of USD 5.00 for the bottom two levels, since there is a heavy subsidy for all but the top two groups. Increasing the rate at the lower end would help cover the cost of the journal for those groups. Because journal prices have increased to the association and dues have not, not only does the association subsidize newsletters and mailings, but also the price of the journal itself. Bina added that she did not anticipate a problem in terms of membership loss in raising the rates for developing country members by USD 5.00, since the rate would still be reasonably low. 
Responding to board member questions, Jean explained that dues revenues are not used for the conference. Registration fees pay for the conference. One option would be to drop the Newsletter and not raise dues. The Newsletter could be placed on the web only. Another option would be to increase the dues by $5.00 for all levels of membership. The Board suggested that members would like to receive a receipt when they pay dues. This is something they would like to start once an Association Manager had been appointed. Some people would also like to pay for two years or five years at a time, and some members had even suggested exploring life membership dues. After some debate the Board decided that a more systematic assessment was needed of the dues structure, rather than ad hoc decisions. It was therefore decided not to increase dues at this time, but to set up a committee to research the options further. Bina constituted an IAFFE subcommittee for this purpose composed of Ingrid Robeyns (Chair), Diana Strassmann, and Mary King. This subcommittee will look into dues proposals and send their findings to the Board one month before the June 2005 meeting, for a vote at that time. An interim report would be presented to the Board in January 2005. 
The Board also expressed a wish to pursue a membership drive and contact people who had not renewed their membership to find out why. (Jean pointed out that Marianne Ferber has contacted people for the past five years.) 
Newsletter: Discussion turned to the possibility of offering the IAFFE Newsletter on line in lieu of the current practice of printing and mailing a hard copy. However, several board members pointed out that a hardcopy was very useful, since in many places the hardcopy was placed in libraries or reading rooms and thus reached much larger numbers that could be reached through an online posting. Bina emphasized that this was especially important in developing countries. Also newsletters are used to provide information about IAFFE to potential funders, as well as used for publicity and membership recruitment. Jean agreed that some libraries and non-members receive the Newsletter, so something would be needed for them to make them aware of IAFFE activities. The web was not always reliable in conveying information even to members. Some systems look on IAFFE mail as spam and many members fail to inform IAFFE of address changes. Hence the hardcopy should not be discontinued. Some members suggested that perhaps a limited number of hardcopies could be printed in addition to online posting, which led ot the question – how many printed copies might be needed? It was decided that the Publications Committee would review the various options and make recommendations to the Board on whether the newsletter should be mailed to everyone as done presently, or published only on the web, or some mix of the two (online plus a limited number of hardcopies).

4. The Strategic Plan
The Board moved through a series of motions to approval policies for implementing the Strategic Plan that the board had developed in the previous two days of the Strategic Planning retreat.
The following actions were taken. 
- Motion to maintain three Vice-President positions as is stated in the IAFFE Bylaws, thus maintaining status quo. The motion failed (4 –Yes, 11-No, 2-Abstentions) 
-Motion to eliminate the position of Vice-President. The motion failed (10-No) 
-Motion to reduce the number of Vice-Presidential positions from three to one, with the Vice President being elected for a three-year term, to take place through attrition. The motion passed. (9-Yes, 6- No, 1-Abstention) 
-Motion to change the name of the Secretary position (of the split Secretary Treasurer positions under the Strategic Plan) to Secretary General. Motion passed. (13-Yes, 1-No, 2 Abstentions) 
-Motion to have Annual Self Assessment - Each committee will provide a written self-evaluation report to the Executive Committee one month prior to the annual IAFFE meeting. The reports would assess the extent to which the committees have fulfilled the goals they had set out and list the constraints they had faced. Each committee would be listed on the agenda to present these reports to the Board at IAFFE’s annual meetings. (Motion passed) 
-Motion for the Board to appoint an Ad-hoc Assessment Committee of three to five members, which would include one person from the Strategic Planning Committee, one from the general membership who had not been involved in the Strategic Planning Committee, and a past IAFFE President to evaluate the new structure and IAFFE's functioning during the transition period in June 2005. (Motion passed) 
-Motion for the Board to consider contracting with an independent evaluator to provide a summary evaluation, within five years, depending on future need and availability of funding. (Motion passed) 
-Motion that an audit be conducted after December 31, 2004, in accordance with PA state mandates. (Motion was passed unanimously). 
-Motion that an interim financial report be conducted at the end of 2004. (Motion passed) 
-Motion assigning the reporting line of the Association Manager to the Secretary General for day-to-day IAFFE matters. In the event of conflicts with other offices receiving the services of the Association Manager, priorities for the Association Manager would be set by the President, then the Executive Committee, and ultimately the Board. (Motion passed, 1 Abstention) 
-Motion to approve the following procedures for hiring an Association Manager. The President will appoint a Search Committee composed of four people, the President-Elect, Executive Secretary, one current Board member, and one current IAFFE member. They will refine and post a job description, gather applications, conduct phone interviews, and interview successful candidates by November 1, 2004, and the Association Manager's position will begin in January 2005. (The motion passed unanimously.) 
-Motion that the Board appoint a Treasurer for an initial two-year term beginning January 2005. The person appointed could be renewed for an additional three years. Subsequent terms would be for five years. (The motion passed unanimously.) 
-Motion that the Board appoint a Secretary General for an initial three-year term beginning January 2005. This person could be renewed for an additional two years. Subsequent terms would be for five years. (The motion passed unanimously.) 
-Motion to create a committee of the President-Elect, President, and Past-President to ensure the transfer of all IAFFE materials to the relevant officers. (The motion passed.) 
-Robin Bartlett proposed that until the end of the 2005 conference, Jean be made co-Treasurer along with the new person appointed treasurer who during this period would work as a co-treasurer. This proposal was contingent on the Pennsylvania statutes. The relevant Statute 5732 was read out. Therefore, the Board can assign the Treasurer position to as many people as needed. Jean could be called Treasurer Designate. The Board welcomed this proposal and Jean’s assistance. Jean said if she accepted this she would like a contract that states she is not responsible or liable for anything in 2005. Her duty would be to see the organization through the 2004 audit. All her financial and programmatic responsibilities on behalf of IAFFE would end (apparently) on December 31, 2004. The proposed contract would need to state that the current Executive Secretary is responsible for all financial activity prior to and including December 31, 2004 and any additional signatures relating to audits of those activities. The new Treasurer would be responsible for all financial affairs beginning January 1, 2005, except for any leftover 2004 financial activities. (No action was taken on this proposal.) 
There was a long discussion on how to fill the positions of Treasurer and Secretary General. Robin asked that the positions be filled immediately—preferably during the current IAFFE meetings and from among the current Board members. Most Board members, however, strongly disagreed with this procedure, and insisted that it was necessary to follow due process and have an open search for candidates, through an application and nomination process. They emphasized that there was no reason to believe that eligible candidates could only be found from within the current Board. Nor would such an appointment, made without a search, be seen as legitimate. It was also emphasized that due notice needed to be given to the membership so that they could also participate in the process, which should be “clear and transparent” and democratic. The decision to set up a search committee and have an open search was called to vote and passed by the majority 
It was however recognized that an effort should be to fill the posts soon. It was decided that the President would set up a search committee for these two positions which would list the eligibility criteria and job requirements, and put out a call for nominations and applications by September 1, 2004 and complete the send its recommendation to the Board by September 8, 2004. 
Bina, as President, subsequently constituted the following committees: 
She appointed Jean Shackelford, Robin Bartlett, Diane Elson and Ulla Grapard as members of the Search Committee for an Association Manager. She appointed Lourdes Beneria, Cecilia Conrad, and Jennifer Olmsted to serve on the Search Committee for Secretary General and Treasurer. It was stressed that these positions need to be fairly quickly. A general announcement would be made at the Membership Meeting that anyone interested in one of these positions should notify a Search Committee member. Members could also send in nominations. Candidates should have knowledge of IAFFE and the particular responsibilities that transition to a new structure would entail. The candidate should be willing to take initiative and leadership and be able to work with the President. Prior Board members with experience or members on the Strategic Planning Committee could be potential candidates to consider. The ideal candidate would also have institutional support. <

5. Journal Report on Feminist Economics: Diana Strassmann
Due to time constraints, Diane Strassmann passed out her report to the Board members to be viewed later. Action on the journal’s 2005 budget was also deferred to the Finance Committee.

6. Reports from the Committees 
A. Finance committee
The Finance Committee was unable to meet due to the time spent on strategic planning and so had nothing to report. 
B. Nominations committee
Ulla Grapard, chair of the nominations committee, stated that the bylaws would need to be changed in 2005 given the Board decision to reduce the number of Vice Presidents from three to one. However, until that happened we had to continue with the present practice of having 3 Vice Presidents. Randy Albelda agreed to be elected in the current phase and then resign later so that this change could take place. The slate of officers for the 2006-2009 was presented by Ulla, who explained that the committee had worked to assure geographic diversity and also to take account of Sue Stevens’ recommendation in her report that members be chosen who had served the board before, to maintain continuity through the transition period. She also brought to the Board’s attention that for each potential candidate the nominations committee had listed an alternative candidate in case the first named person did not agree to the nomination. This would ensure that the regional and other criteria used to make the main list of candidates would be maintained through the substitute candidates. Ulla also suggested that a better selection process is needed. There were 29 suggestions for 11 positions. The search committee then ranked the selections. The Board approved the slate of candidates:.

C. International committee 
Due to time constraints Semsa Ozar (chair of the international committee) distributed her report but did not present it in detail. She highlighted, however, that applications for travel grants were lower this year – going down from 25 to 16. The number of papers submitted by travel grant applicants also decreased from 22 to 12. She mentioned that although the committee had listed priorities she wasn’t sure if these were used in the funding process and how useful their work had been. Bina emphasized that the whetting of proposals by the international committee was a very useful exercise in making selections when funds were scarce. However, she explained that since for the Oxford conference, substantial funds had been successfully raised from several sources such as SIDA, Ford Foundation (India), and Ford Foundation (USA) everyone who had applied for funds could be sponsored this time. Hence for this conference no selectivity needed to be applied. 
Semsa also told the Board that the international committee had developed a list of suggestions to enhance IAFFE’s international reach, and that it would meet on August 5 at 12:45. 

D. Publications committee 
Cecilia Conrad (chair of the publications committee) noted that the Publication Committee did not meet in January but would on Friday 6th at breakfast. The future of the newsletter would be one of the agenda items.

E. Pedagogy committee
Robin Bartlett (chair of the pedagogy committee) reported that the Pedagogy Committee had not met and so had nothing to report.

7. Report from the President: Bina Agarwal 
Bina noted that due to lack of time she would not present her comments verbally but would send her remarks in writing later to be included in the Board minutes. She has since sent the following note to be so included: 
“I have had the privilege and responsibility of presiding over a momentous period in IAFFE’s history, a period of transition to a new expanded management structure. This new structure, I am sure, will help take IAFFE to greater heights and substantially expand its reach across countries. But like any other structure its potential lies in the people who will take responsibility and give it leadership. I am very hopeful on this count, however, since if the present board is any indication we have within IAFFE more than ample reserves of talent and commitment to make this a success. 
I joined IAFFE as a Board member in 1993 at a time when the Board had no southern members. I served two Board terms, before being nominated and elected (after a break) as President. The Presidency has brought with it enormous amounts of responsibility and hard work – especially in putting together the complex program for our Oxford conference, and being part of the strategic planning process. But it has also been a year of enormous challenge, learning and satisfaction. For a start, there was the challenge of identifying conference themes and putting together the conference program, involving over 300 participants. How much work this entails is something that every President no doubt only recognizes when actually faced with the task, especially if you want to do it creatively, ensuring thematic coherence, and leaving a personal mark. For me, this involved reading through piles of abstracts, identifying the underlying themes, putting papers on the same topic together into panels, negotiating with pre-submitted panel organizers to allow some relocation of papers, finding homes for outlier papers, identifying chairs to ensure both expertise and international diversity, putting everything into coherent themes and a one-page-at-a-glance matrix; and then, just when I thought I had it all done, dealing with a barrage of requests to adjust for changes in travel plans, dropouts, new entrants, and so on. In addition, I wanted this conference to be truly international, and sought to do this in three ways: one by raising additional funds for international southern participants, so that this time we were able to fund everyone who wanted to come; two, by organizing an international plenary with a panel of Southern women of eminence involved with grassroots activism, policy formulation or feminist networking. Three, by inviting Amartya Sen to give a keynote speech. We will of course only know how these efforts have paid off after the conference is over. 
But in these efforts I have not been alone. I would especially like to thank Jean Shackelford for her partnership and backup support throughout my Presidency and in particular in working with me on the numerous details that a conference involves, including preparing brochures, posters and the program booklet, fundraising, dealing with location details, and last but not least putting together the conference CD (the first in an IAFFE conference). Alongside, Barbara Krohn’s support was invaluable. And the international committee and the Program committee provided important additional inputs. I also want to thank Diana Strassmann for her efforts to get sponsorship from Taylor and Francis to celebrate 10 years of the journal at the conference, including for the tee shirts we will all be receiving and for an evening reception. Moreover, during this year, along with Ingrid Robeyns and Jane Humphries I have worked with Diana to bring out the journal special issue on Sen’s work and ideas as a book. It has been a complicated process since we wanted both a South Asian edition by Oxford University Press (India) and a rest-of-the-world edition by Taylor and Francis. It has been a learning experience for all of us, but one which should prove useful for future efforts to convert journal special issues into books. 
The strategic planning process has been another challenge but also a wonderful opportunity to work closely with a team of IAFFE members. Overall, I feel privileged to have known and worked with the members of this Board, each one of whom I thank for their support and inputs during my tenure thus far.
Many months of my Presidency are still left and many tasks yet to be completed. Also even after my tenure is over, I hope to continue serving IAFFE in various capacities. But this year will remain for me the most memorable.”

8. Report on IAFFE-Europe: Edith Kuiper 
Edith noted that plans for the Budapest conference and other IAFFE-Europe activities were moving along, but did not give a full report due to time limitations.

9. Upcoming Conferences 
A. Report on plans for 2005 Annual Conference
Robin Bartlett distributed flyers on the conference at George Washington University, Washington, DC. The theme of the conference she has mentioned was “Women’s Education and Its Role in the Global Economy.” The Board members expressed some concern that having one theme would limit participation. The conference could include other topics. Bina suggested that Robin consult with the board about broadening the theme. 
B. Report on plans for 2006 Annual Conference 
Bina recommended deferring the conference in India until 2007/2008. Thailand, Australia, and Barcelona were suggested as alternative potential sites for the 2006 conference.
Yada Praparpun had put forward the idea of holding the 2006 conference in Bangkok, Thailand, but had to leave before the Board could discuss this. Hence, in her stead, Jean explained that the proposal was to hold the conference at local hotels, although the conference would be hosted by the University. The Board noted however that Bangkok was expensive and that the logistics could be difficult. The Board thanked Yada and the officials from the University and emphasized the need for a more detailed proposal in terms of costs and specifics. 
Gabrielle Meagher had prepared a packet of materials and a proposal to hold the 2006 conference in Sydney, Australia. The host college would be Women’s College at the University of Sydney. The University is close to the center city and there would be good transportation. Gabrielle pointed out that it would be winter in Sydney and that conference participants would need to be reminded to bring warm clothing. The question was raised whether Australia would be appropriate given our mandate to hold the conference in the South after the UK and the USA in 2004 and 2005. The Board decided, however, that Australia was uniquely situated and should perhaps not be counted as either from the north or the south in our conference rotation plan.) 
Lourdes presented the proposal for Barcelona, Spain. She noted there might be an opportunity to have a conference in Barcelona, but the offer would only be good until November 2007 due to a possible change in government at that time. It would be a joint venture with the University of Barcelona and the Women’s Institute in Government. 
All three sites were considered by the Board. Finally the motion to hold the 2006 IAFFE conference in Australia was passed with a vote of 8-yes, 4 no, and 2 abstentions. 
No action will be taken on the 2007 conference until full proposals are received. 

10. Any other matters 
At the 2003 IAFFE conference in Barbados the question of an anti-war statement by IAFFE was raised by some members at a plenary session held after the membership meeting had already taken place. Subsequently, a group of members got together and formulated such as statement and circulated it on the IAFFE list serve. This led to some discussion on whether such as statement could be sent with IAFFE’s formal endorsement. The matter was raised with the Executive Committee in which the majority of EC members felt that there were several difficulties in the EC endorsing the statement on IAFFE’s behalf and sending it out or publishing it in IAFFE’s newsletter. First the issue had not been brought up either at the membership committee nor at the Board meeting in Barbados, so it had not received the approval of the membership or the Board. Second, the actual statement had only been formulated by a small group after the Barbados conference had ended, and then distributed via email. According to the Pennsylvania statutes, the Board cannot take binding decisions via an email vote. It was decided however that the matter would be discussed in the 2004 January Board meeting. 
The matter was formally discussed at the January 2004 Board meetings and an ad hoc committee was appointed constituted of Lourdes, Jennifer, and Charu to look into the matter and make recommendations for establishing a policy for such statements. Article II, Section 3b of the Bylaws was referred to, “Unless otherwise provided in the Articles of Incorporation or these bylaws, the affirmative vote of a majority of members entitled to vote on a matter and represented in person or by proxy at a meeting of members at which a quorum is present shall be the act of the members (other than the election of directors and officers as provided herein or a matter for which the affirmative vote of a specified portion of the membership entitled to vote is required by the Act)”. It was decided that the same committee that had worked on this statement would come up with a procedure for this type of issue, so that in future there were clearer guidelines that could be applied without delay should such an issue come up again. 
Cecilia Conrad, Edith Kuiper, and Gabrielle Meagher met after the Strategic planning retreat and discussed “web procedures” that will be mailed to Board members.
 
Bina thanked the Board for its time and efforts. She also thanked Sally Scheiderer for her work in keeping the minutes. The meeting adjourned at 6:50 pm.