PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION SOCIETY
2006 Business Meeting Minutes
Philosophy of Education
General Business Meeting
Sunday, April 23, 2006
5:00 -6:30pm About 50 members in attendance
1. Call to Order – Sharon Bailin. 5:10 PM
2. Approval of minutes of 2005 Business Meeting
Bob Floden moves, Harvey Seconds. Motion carries
3. Announcements
•
Executive Board and COPA Election Results. Ron Glass is elected to COPA,
Megan Bler to the Executive Board.
•
Daniel Vokey: Reminder to Submit Papers online.
4. President’s Report – Sharon Bailin.
It’s been an interesting year, not without a few challenges, but
largely smooth and productive. One of the primary challenges was the
necessity of finding a new Kneller lecturer after the late cancellation
by Seyla Benhabib. The logistics of holding a conference in Mexico also
kept us all busy and creative, but I feel that the rewards were worth
the additional effort. Heartfelt thanks to all those who contributed
to the working of the Society, in particular: Daniel Vokey, who, along
with the rest of the Program committee, did an admirable job, especially
considering the new challenge of refereeing submissions in Spanish; Shelby
Sheppard, who stepped into the breach as Hospitality Chair with great
aplomb; and Sasha Sidorkin, who mastered an extremely steep learning
curve as Executive Director on the first day, and was innovating and
revising our systems by the second.
To serve in this role has been a pleasure and an honour. Thank you all.
5. Executive Director’s Report – Sasha Sidorkin
Membership
At the start 2005 meeting, 397 members have paid for 04-05; some paid
later, so we had 447 paying members in 04-05 FY. On April 18, 2006, 465
members have already paid their 05-06 dues, more can be expected. Here
are the membership numbers for recent years:
1989-90 239
1990-91 250
1991-92 279
1992-93 310
1993-94 322
1994-95 358
1995-96 465
1996-97 441
1997-98 459
1998-99 527
1999-00 522
2000-01 479
2001-02 459
2002-03 445
2003-04 477
2004-05 447
2005-06 465 (plus expected late payers)
Conference Registration
At the start of the conference, only 94 people have paid or pre-registered
without pay. If we add those names on the program, 148 people plan
to attend. This is lower than usual because of the cost of travel.
However, we have a number of new participants, especially from Mexico.
New Members
We have 54 new members so far this year, which is about the same as in
the last few years.
Financial Status
Here is the snapshot of our assets on April 18, 2006:
FUNDS April 30, 2003 April 30, 2004 April 30, 2005 April 18, 2006
OPERATIONAL FUND 32,243.06 32,997.40 53,131.19 48,063.60
KNELLER LECTURE (3.22 % annual growth,
after withdrawing $2500 each year) 67,669.06 70,328.42 75,550.91 74223.74
LEGACY FUND (11.46% annual growth) 15,407.94 17,850.98 20,355.15 20,704.77
TOTAL 115,320.06
121,176.8
149,037.25
145,492.11
The performance of our investments has been lousy, because we are invested heavily in bonds. We’ve missed out on a lot of income in the last few years. I suggest at least 50/50 split between bonds and stocks, with some of it aggressive (international stocks). You need to approve such a reallocation, because it involves higher risk.
I have not transferred money from either Kneller Fund or the Legacy Fund, because the operational account looks OK for now, and we need a rainy day fund. We have saved approximately $1200 on switching to mostly electronic communications with members. I only mail about 60 letters, instead of the usual 500. Members, please opt out of the hard copy option.
Ed Theory mailings
It has been difficult to figure out who needs which journal, because
of the catch-up mailings. Right now, members continue receiving one
extra issue of the journal after their membership lapses. However,
many pay later in the financial year, and are entitled to back issues.
The trick is to figure out which ones they have and have not received.
Discussion point: Should we mail to anyone who paid last year for the
entire next financial year? The new or returning members will then
begin to receive the journal after they paid dues (which maybe an incomplete
year), but then will have another year. The financial impact is hard
to estimate, but it cannot be that great, because we have a core of
constant members.
Website transition
I have taken over from Craig Cunningham maintenance of the site. He did
a great job, but it was an extra step in communications. In the future,
Executive Directors may consider whether to learn Dreamweaver or appoint
a webmaster. The site is now hosted on a private server, for free.
We still pay for the domain names, some of which we should probably
let expire. Pesyearbook.org is not needed.
Move to Greeley
Sasha has accepted a position at University of Northern Colorado. No
effect on PES except for a new address.
6. Call for Reports from Committee Chairs
•
Educational Theory/Yearbook – Nick Burbules
Ed. Theory is doing well: it has a 20% raise in institutional subscriptions,
same with individual ones. 60,000 downloads, 10-time increase in downloads.
We bring 10 years back issues online every year, till we bring them all
online. AESA was approached to become another sponsor. We are in three-year
trial agreement with them. Such affiliation will be good for the journal
and for AESA. The journal now has more international; exposure and more
international authors. We have switched to OJS, which will help with
tracking submissions. Associate editors list will be reviewed to include
more international members.
The Yearbook is partially switched to OJS, but not for submissions yet.
The back issues are being put online; Exec Board will consider bringing
them all online. Nick asked to consider the future of YB, and if can
be converted to entirely online form. Hard copies cost a lot, and it
is not clear whether we should keep it.
Leonard Waks: Electronic version of YB will allow for more conversation,
if we make it more fluid and flexible, like at PESGB.
Nick: We only publish certain things in YB, but we could publish everything
online. This is a discussion worth having.
•
Hospitality Committee – Shelby Sheppard
I hope you all enjoyed the conference. We had some problems with registration
and room arrangements. Catering was very efficient, and will be thanked.
•
Program Committee – Daniel Vokey
Report from the Chair of the 2006 PES Program Committee, Daniel Vokey
Building the 2006 PES Program was a collaborative process from the very beginning, which was the selection of the members of the Program Committee. President Sharon Bailin and I drew up a list of people to invite to serve on the PC with a mind to representation of diverse points of view. Sharon handled communication with prospective members until the team was assembled. We opted for a larger than usual number of members due to the decision to invite papers in Spanish.
A total of 99 papers were received (four in Spanish) plus 21 alternative session proposals (two in Spanish). Of the twelve members of the Program Committee, ten received roughly an equal share of the English submissions; two of that ten received papers in Spanish; the two other members reviewed only Spanish submissions. I blind reviewed about a third of the highly ranked paper submissions and a few additional papers in cases where I only received two reviews or the reviews were greatly at odds. I also reviewed all of the proposals for alternative sessions.
I selected papers for the program prioritizing overall quality as judged by reviewer numerical ratings and comments. The importance of diversity of topics and traditions came into play only in a very few cases where papers on the borderline appeared to have equal merit (in terms of the criteria on the review form). I exercised judgment in cases where reviewers appeared to be either more sparing or more generous in their assessments than the Aaverage@ and in the few cases where there were wild disagreements; taking into consideration the backgrounds of the reviewers. In the end, 35 papers were selected included in the program, three as general sessions.
Based on the recommendations of the reviewers, I selected eight of the proposals for alternative sessions and created one other by combining submissions on a similar theme. Program space was reserved before and after the concurrent sessions for events sponsored by the Commission on Professional Affairs (COPA), Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession (COSW), the Jobs for Philosophers of Education Committee, and the Ethics SIG.
Respondents were selected from among (1) members of the Program Committee, (2) authors of rejected papers who were extended invitations, (3) PES members and others recommended by program committee members, (4) volunteers from the PES membership, and (5) people with recognized expertise in the relevant areas and so qualified to respond to the paper in question.
Chairs were selected primarily from among volunteers, including authors of rejected papers who were extended an invitation to serve as respondents or chairs. When I had exhausted the list of volunteers, I found likely candidates by “Googling” names on the list of conference registrants kindly supplied by the Executive Director Alexander Sidorkin.
The general guidelines and precedents I followed in assembling the program
included:
(1) accepting approximately 30 papers each year; (2) assigning three
reviewers to each paper, (3) including in both acceptance and rejection
letters the comments intended for the authors provided by the reviewers,
(4) not communicating numerical scores, which can be misleading, (5)
using a standardized evaluation form (sub-categories were useful), and
(5) exercising my judgment as Program Chair when deciding how long after
the deadline to accept late submissions.
Recommendations
o Consider using OCS to speed up the process, save paper, and save costs of distributing papers for review.
o Organize processing of submissions in a way that allows the Chair to blind review papers if necessary.
o Include in the call for papers information on how and when those submitting proposals will receive confirmation that their submissions have been received (a) to avoid premature requests for such confirmation and (b) to signal to those submitting that, if they receive no such confirmation, then their submission might have gone astray.
o Post on the PES website the criteria on which papers and alternative session proposals will be assessed.
o Decide whether or not people can submit more than one paper, and note this policy in writing on the PES website and in the Call for Papers.
o Send out papers over the maximum word count (by up to but no more than 10%) only after receiving confirmation that the authors will revise the final version to meet limitations.
o Include in acceptance letters reminders that maximum word limits must be observed in the final versions and that final versions should not be substantially different from the papers reviewed and accepted.
o Clarify purpose and criteria for alternative sessions. At the moment this category of submissions appears to exist to serve a number of different purposes, not all of which are always compatible.
o Advise reviewers whether or not their numerical scores will be used to calculate averages.
o Acknowledgements
o Barbara Applebaum submitted an excellent paper that was accepted for a general session. However, she withdrew her submission because, due to the conference beginning so soon after Passover, she was unable to find a way to travel to Mexico before the Sabbath.
o Pedro Cortina is due special thanks for his exemplary service in his role of Graduate Assistant to the Program Chair.
• COPA – Cris Mayo, the Chair is absent.
Barb Stengel: None of COPA members were able to attend, but we had a
good section.
•
COSW – Barbara Thayer-Bacon
Barb Thayer Bacon: We had a good section, discussed current political
concerns. I was keeping track of gender representation; this year we
are totally even.
•
Membership Committee – Emily Robertson, no report.
•
Jobs for Philosophers – Scott Fletcher
We had a breakfast meeting about getting a job in philosophy.
Fran Schrag: Any numbers about available jobs? Scott: no
Nick: Any plans to create a central website collecting jobs for philosophers?
Scott: no.
7. Old Business
•
Change in Constitution passed–Executive Secretary to Executive Director.
8. New Business
•
Change in Constitution to eliminate Council of Learned Societies Committee.
Item withdrawn for further consideration by the Executive Board.
•
Diane Becket’s retirement
Nick: This is my first chance to publicly thank Diane Becket for all she did.
She represents the institutional memory, and helped to support the journal
during many difficult transitions. For many of us the conference will not be
the same without Diane at the registration table.
•
Terry Mclaughlin has recently passed away. Tone Kvernbeck, Paul Smeyers, Shirley
Pendelbury, and David Hansen spoke about Terry.
Paul Smeryers: “As interim convener of INPE I would like to pay tribute to Professor Terry McLaughlin who headed the Steering Committee for a decade. He was also a wonderful colleague, who contributed a lot to the area of religious education and recently to the discussions about citizenship. More personally, I have known Terry for 20 years and we became good friends. I would like to remember him with the image that is created in the following and that reflects his feelings to every other who crossed his path. He often said, if you give something to a beggar, hope then that he smiles, so that you know that he forgives you. I always thought that this characterized him deeply”
9. Resolutions
See text of resollutions.
10. Passing of the Gavel - from Sharon Bailin to Susan Laird
11. Announcement of President-Elect. Susan: our new president-elect is
Michael Katz.
12. Announcement of Site for 2007 Conference.
March 15-19 in Atlanta.
Derron’s pitch for Atlanta. Sheraton Midtown hotel is surrounded
by cultural amenities and restaurants. This central location is very
beneficial. Reduced rate for grad students. We need to have as many people
as possible to book rooms at the conference hotel, otherwise we will
be penalized with high meeting rooms charges. There will be a web-site
for on-line bookings.
14. Announcement of New Committee Chairs and Plans for 2006-2007.
Barb Stengel will be program chair. Jeff Milligan will be a co-chair
of the evening program discussed at COPA session last year. Wendi Kohli
will be in charge of the special international project, the festschrift.
Richard Shusterman will be the Kneller lecturer.
15. Kal Alston Moved to adjorn
Bob Floden seconded.
MEETING ADJORNED AT 6:10
CONTACT: PES Executive Director Jeff Milligan
850-644-8171; milligan@coe.fsu.edu