2021-07-09 ALA EWS Business Meeting Minutes

EWS Business Meeting Minutes

Back to list of all minutes: https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/membership/ews-business-2/

Virtual Zoom 7/9/2021

Meeting Began 11:00 am EST

In attendance:

  • Jennifer Haytock
  • Myrto Drizou
  • Margaret Jay Jessee
  • Sharon Kim
  • Melanie Dawson
  • Paul Ohler
  • Tricia Farwell
  • Virginia Ricard
  • Laura Rattray
  • Carole Shaffer-Koros
  • Donna Campbell
  • Margaret Toth

Jennifer Haytock called the meeting to order and opened with announcements

  1. There have been 2 constitutional amendments:
    1. Online Meetings—in order to allow for greater attendance, at least one board meeting will continue to take place virtually at a time that coincides with the MLA conference
    1. We have added the position of Archivist to the society officers, a position in which Carole Shaffer-Koros has agreed to continue serving
  2. Conference updates:
    1. The EWS hosted a virtual panel at ALA this year with the help of Myrto Drizou and Sheila Liming. There were 3 presentations and a good audience of approx. 20 attendees.
    1. We have a planned panel for the November SSAWW conference in Baltimore, “Edith Wharton’s Ecologies,” organized by Melanie Dawson
    1. Gary Totten is organizing a PMLA Panel, “Edith Wharton and Risk,” in November 2021
    1. And we are planning an MLA Panel, “Edith Wharton and Work,” for the next conference in Washington in January 2022
  3. Our three awards are in committee and we will announce winners in mid-August
  4. The society now has a new account with Chase Bank, one that is owned by the Society, not an individual.
  5. Officer Reports:
    1. Sharon Kim, Treasurer:
      1. We are in the process of moving funds from our Bank of America account to the new Chase account, which will be complete when a CD with BoA matures on July 19th and those funds can be transferred.
      1. The board will consider whether to allocate some funds for a new CD with Chase Bank or open an account with an online bank for higher interest rates.
      1. Discussion of whether to ask/require members to cover the cost of the fee the Society incurs when membership dues are submitted via PayPal.
    1. Sheila Liming, Membership Coordinator (sent in report, read by Jennifer Haytock)
      1. We have 183 current members, and May and June saw an increase in advance of ALA.
      1. There are more multi-year memberships, as well
      1. Our Institutional Membership list has remained unchanged; PSU Press is helping with institutional membership addresses, but we still need to correct around 4 addresses
      1. Sheila will continue to research an automatic renewal reminder through PayPal
    1. Paul Ohler, Editor, EWR
      1. The 36.2 issue proofs are in and ready to go to print
      1. Adding the journal to Project Muse and the European Reference Index is helping with visibility and adding to international submissions
      1. Mary Carney is stepping down from the Editorial Board; Jennifer Haytock has been added to the Editorial Board
      1. Book Reviews are becoming more difficult as presses are no longer sending free review copies. Paul will look into contacting authors to see if they would be interested in sending the journal a copy of a recently published book
      1. The board is considering occasionally reprinting important articles from the journal’s archives
      1. The Journal continues to welcome submissions from members
    1. Donna Campbell, Webmaster
      1. Last year, the Society website garnered 25,793 views and 10,633 visitors; we are on track to have similar numbers this year

Visitors are coming from both internet searches and social media links

  1. If members have a book or article, please send that information to Donna so that she can post it on the site and link it in social media platforms; there is a new books and new article page on the website to showcase these work
  2. New Business:
    1. Discussion of future conferences/symposium

The Mount is interested in working with the Society on a 2023 conference or symposium. Logistically, our large international conference might be hard to do at the Mount, and 2023 may be too soon to organize it; the board showed interest in a smaller symposium instead.

We discussed tying the symposium to ALA in May of 2023 because it will be in Boston, and we can perhaps arrange group travel to the mount after the ALA conference.

Discussion of our larger conference in 2024 or 2025. Anyone interested themselves or would like to suggest someone to direct the symposium or the next international conference should contact one of the officers.

Meeting Adjourned at 12:15 EST