EWS Board Meeting 1/11/24
Present: Myrto Drizou
Mary Carney
Jennifer Haytock
Rita Bode
Margaret Jay Jessee
Donna Campbell
Stacy Holden
Absent: Anna Girling
Shelia Liming
Carole Shaffer-Koros
MLA Panel chaired by Melanie Dawson (Thank you, Melanie!)
Upcoming Edith Wharton Birthday talk organized with Transatlantic Women (Thank you, Laura Rattray!) Gary Totten will be presenting “Edith Wharton’s Geographical Imagination” Jan 24 Noon EST
3 Awards/ year:
Elsa Nettels Prize
Undergrad Award
Archival Research Award
We had at least 5 submissions per award and the announcement of the winners will be sent by early February. The deadline will be June 30th for next year’s competition. We encourage volunteers to serve on selection committees.
Officer Reports:
VP Jay Jessee:
Currently organizing panels for ALA in May –we now have 5 submissions so we will be extending the deadline to the 26th. ALA’s deadline is the 30th. We will be having 2 panels.
“Wharton & Emotion or Affect”
Next year Arielle will organize.
Treasurer Mary Carney:
As of December 31, 2023, the Edith Wharton Society has $35,464.47 total assets. This indicates the society is financially healthy in 2023. We had a gain of $2,424.97 and expenditures of $2,675.81 in 2023. Memberships and royalties are bringing in enough income to sustain the Society. We have $605.02 in donations for the Wharton memorial upkeep. Myrto will send email remind folks to renew membership and asking for donations.
Membership Coordinator (Shelia Liming) absent – report delivered by Myrto
111 Active Individual members
3 Active Institutional Membership
Multi-year membership campaign was successful.
Liming has served in this role for 5 years and would like to be replaced.
Rita Bode – EWR
Everyone should have received 39.1 – We’re only one issue behind now.
The Wharton and Ecology issue helped us catch up. (Thank you Jennifer and Melanie!)
Always inviting submissions!
The upcoming issue will publish the Elsa Nettles prize winner.
Donna Campbell – Website and social media.
Website bibliography redone and updated.
The subscriber portal has a password: Duke1234!
You can access JSTOR and the Scholarly Publishing Collective from there – the sign-in is up in the top corner.
We get 1,500 – 2,000 folks a month accessing this feature of the site.
Carole Shaffer-Koros – Archivist (not present)
Has been working on an EWS history to be published in the EWR
New Officer Appointments and Elections:
This time next year, Jay will be president and Arielle will be president.
We need a new secretary. Please let Myrto and Jay know if you have suggestions.
Mary has been doing a terrific job as a treasurer but her term will be up at end of year. So, we need a new candidate identified soon so that they can shadow Mary.
We need a new membership coordinator this Spring.
We should also seek new officers at-large.
There are no current plans in the works for next EWS conference, but we encourage suggestions and nominations (or self-nominations!) for potential conference directors.
Some ideas that emerged :
Jennifer suggests we should increase the amount of the archive award.
Arielle suggests we should send out swag to encourage membership renewal and perhaps the new award should come with a requirement that the scholar writes a “Pleasure Reading”-style essay about appreciating a single Wharton work.
Jennifer suggests a special issue post-conference on the conference theme.
Stacy suggests a themed issue of new digital access to Wharton materials.
Arielle suggests a feature in the EWR “New Archival Finds”
Conversation about possible new award will continue, as will suggested additions to EWR.
The Edith Wharton Society 