ACSP Executive Committee Meeting

April 15, 2000

New York City

Members present: Christopher Silver, Vice President, Susan Bradbury, Secretary/Treasurer, Sandra Rosenbloom, Past President, Rolf Engler, Bursar, Phil Clay and Salah El-Shakhs, Northeast Representatives, Sanda Kaufman and Johanna Looye, North Central Representatives, Daphne Spain, Southeast Representative, Elise Bright, South Central Representative, Genevieve Giuliano and Deborah Howe, Western Representatives, Caitlin Janson Waddick and D. Gregg Doyle, Student Representatives, David Amborski, Conference Chair, Nancy Frank, UPDATE Editor/webmaster, Patricia Pollak, Institutional Governance Committee Chair, Barbara Becker, FWIG, Cheryl Contant and Lewis Hopkins, PAB Representatives, Beatrice Clupper, PAB Director, Mickey Lauria, Michael Hibbard and Edward Weeks, JPER Editors, Tom Harper, Canadian Liaison, Wim Wiewel, President-elect, and Pat Gleason, ACSP Association Administrator.

The meeting was called to order by Vice President Chris Silver at 8:45am.

The agenda was reviewed and item number VIII concerning Constitutional Revisions was struck as an action item from the agenda.

Motion: to accept the agenda as altered with the Constitutional Revisions to be discussed but not an action item was made by Sandi Rosenbloom. The motion was seconded by Johanna Looye. The motion passed without dissent.

The Consent Agenda, which contained resolutions honoring Professor Melvin Levin, Professor Moss Madden, Professor K.C. Parsons, Professor Robert Reiman, Professor Lloyd Rodwin, Professor Richard Smith and Dr. David Allor, were read and acknowledged. Another resolution commending the University of Illinois, Chicago and Wim Wiewel for their contribution and work on the 1999 ACSP conference was also made.

Motion: to approve the Consent agenda was made by Sandi Rosenbloom and seconded by Salah El-Shakhs. The motion passed without dissent.

Minutes - Susan Bradbury

The minutes from the last ACSP Executive Committee meeting which was held in Chicago on October 20,1999 were reviewed.

Motion: to accept the minutes as written was made by Deborah Howe and seconded by Gen Giuliano. The motion passed without dissent.

Bursar's Report - Rolf Engler

The Summary Budget report was reviewed. Revenues are greater than expected mainly due to the fact that the Chicago conference made a profit of $17,300 when it was anticipated that it would break even. As a result, ACSP is expected to have an operating surplus of $15,014 at the end of the 1999-2000 fiscal year. Thus it is expected that ACSP will have a projected balance of $167,960 at the end of this fiscal year. The proposed budget for 2000-2001 anticipates revenues to be $142,865 and expenditures to be $158,630. Thus the projected balance at the end of the 2000-2001 fiscal year is expected to be $152,194. Two CD's which matured this spring were re-invested at the Cambridge Savings Bank since the FDIC limit is $100,000 and ACSP's investments at Bank Boston were approaching that amount.

Examining the Financial Report for the current fiscal year (1999-2000) it is expected that overall income will total $361,310 and expenses will total $346,295. Therefore ACSP should have an overall surplus of $15,015 for fiscal year 1999-2000.

The financial activity report for the period October 14, 1999 until April 12, 2000 was also reviewed.

Motion: to accept the Bursar's Report was made by Sandi Rosenbloom and seconded by Phil Clay. The motion passed without dissent.

President's Report - Sandi Rosenbloom (filling-in for President Bruce Stiftel)

Information on the ACSP awards is available on the website. The deadline for most of the awards is either June 1 or June 15. The deadline for the Ritzdorf award is wrong on the website (it currently states October 1) but it will be changed and notices will be sent out.

Fannie Mae has once again agreed to provide $5000 for a Ph.D. dissertation award on Housing and Community Development. This is not an on-going award but rather it is offered once again this year. ACSP would like it to become a permanently funded award.

The Finance Committee's duties have been expanded to include seeking and identifying new sources of funding for ACSP. In order to accomplish this task, policies to guide ACSP's acceptance of funds need to be developed. President Stiftel has assigned to the Finance Committee, the duty of bring forth to the Executive Committee a set of policies which will guide ACSP's acceptance of funds. As a result, the Finance Committee has been expanded to include Sandi Rosenbloom and Wim Wiewel.

A written President's report was given to the members of the ACSP Executive Committee. The report written by President Stiftel outlines some committee membership changes, the new contract with Pat Gleason and Associates for the year 2000, discussions concerning the Joint ACSP/AESOP conference in 2003 and ACSP's relationship with the Fannie Mae Foundation specifically regarding funding support.

Secretary/Treasurer's Report - Susan Bradbury

ACSP's first financial review was conducted by Purvis, Gray & Company. The review itself was completed in December and Bruce Stiftel, Rolf Engler, Pat Gleason and Susan Bradbury met with the accountants in early January to review the final report and recommendations. The accountants reviewed ACSP's receipts from July 1, 1998 to June 30, 1999 and also reviewed our financial practices. ACSP's net assets at the beginning of the fiscal year were $145,729 and at the end of the fiscal year they were $157,746. Our main sources of revenue were identified as our annual conference and JPER. They also reviewed our internal financial controls and made recommendations regarding our financial practices. Purvis, Gray recommended that we purchase a simple accounting software package (either Peachtree or Quickbooks) so that we can keep better track of our revenues and expenditures, especially for our different funds. The cost associated with purchasing the software is relatively little, approximately $250. Purvis, Gray also made recommendations regarding financial controls, implementing checks and balances internally with our handling of monies. We have implemented these recommendations. The accountants also pointed out that although we are a 501(c)3 organization any sales of JPER to non-members is taxable according the federal tax law. Given the complexity of the tax situation, the Finance Committee and the Officers have decided to have Purvis, Gray handle ACSP's IRS tax forms in the future. Lastly, the accountants pointed out that our accounts were approaching FDIC insurance limits. As a result, they suggested that we shift some of our investments to other banks to protect our investments and, as Rolf mentioned in his Bursar's report, this has indeed been done.

Mickey Lauria asked if University library subscriptions to JPER are taxable. The Treasurer will ask Purvis Gray that question and report back.

It was also noted that Purvis, Gray noticed that ACSP's sources of revenues are drying-up while at the same time expenditures are expanding.

Gen Giuliano asked about ACSP's insurance needs and requirements. In order to get Professional Liability and Fidelity insurance ACSP needed to conduct a financial review. In other words we now qualify for the insurance. However, the annual cost of such insurance is approximately $1200 and given our budget for the next year (which will be discussed later) it has not been submitted in this year's budget.

UPDATE/Website - Nancy Frank

Nancy has worked hard on improving and enhancing the website.

JPER - Mickey Lauria

A summary report was distributed to members of the Executive Committee. In 1999 131 manuscripts were submitted to JPER. A budget report was also submitted. This is a transition year for JPER. As a result, bills for printing and mailing may appear and need to be paid in August or September after the formal transition date has occurred. Thanks were expressed to Mickey and Bob Washington for their work as JPER Editors over the past five years. The journal has increased not only in size but also in quality and circulation under their Editorship. Thanks were also expressed to the University of New Orleans for their support and contribution to ACSP and JPER.

Motion: to formally recognize Mickey Lauria and Bob Washington's contribution to ACSP as Editors of JPER. The motion was made by Sandi Rosenbloom and seconded by Salah El-Shakhs. The motion passed without dissent.

The new JPER Editors, Mike Hibbard and Edward Weeks then made their report. The new editors began receiving and reviewing manuscripts in January. Currently a formal search for a book review editor is underway. Also efforts are underway to name a pedagogy editor. The idea behind this position is to ensure and encourage quality submissions in the area of teaching and pedagogy.

JPER currently requires that all submissions be reviewed by a member of the editorial board. After reviewing how well editorial board members have responded, this policy will be reviewed and discussed at the JPER Editorial board meeting tomorrow. It is expected that members on the JPER editorial board may be asked to review up to six manuscripts a year. Editorial board members who fail to satisfy their obligations have been dismissed or have not been reappointed. The average turnaround time for a submission is on average 60 to 120 days.

Chris Silver then reported on the proposal to publish JPER using a commercial publisher. A four page report was distributed to members of the Executive Committee. ACSP prepared and circulated a detailed RFP to potential publishers in the fall of 1999. Four proposals were received from Blackwell, Elsevier, Sage and University of California Press. The committee reviewed the submitted proposals evaluating them based on four criteria -- cost, quality of marketing, level of service and quality of production. The committee reached a consensus and recommended Sage. The Sage proposal was superior in terms of cost/revenue potential, level of service and also in terms of quality of production. Thus, if ACSP decides to go with a commercial publisher, it should be Sage. If ACSP decides to go with Sage as publisher of JPER it will result in an additional cost of approximately $4789 next year. It should never cost more than that amount and it should decline over time.

Discussion then focused around the pros and cons associated with a commercial press, separately from the issue of cost. Concern focused on amount of control ACSP would have over charges to our members, to libraries, over copyright and over content. The proposals received were very specific and have satisfied these concerns in the proposals. As long as a good contract is negotiated we should be able to ensure control. A number of associations have recently gone with a commercial publisher. These include Urban Affairs and Urban History, both of whom have gone with Sage. This is an opportunity for us as an organization to increase the exposure of JPER. Sage has the ability to market the journal in a way that we have been unable to, not only nationally but internationally as well.

Motion: to accept the recommendation of going with a commercial press, Sage, for JPER.  Thus negotiations will proceed on a contract with Sage to begin working with JPER Editors as of July 1, 2000. The motion passed without dissent, however there was one abstention.

PAB - Lew Hopkins

The accreditation document will be reviewed again. The diversity language that ACSP voted on last year will be circulated and reviewed by the various organizations and committees including the APA Board. Also to be considered is the possibility of extending the accreditation period from 5 to 7 years, some non-controversial adjustments to language in the document and a proposal of implementing term limits for site visitors. People who are appointed to the site visitor pool are often never removed from it, regardless of whether they are active or not. Also, we were reminded that a PAB dues increase will go into effect next year. Reminder notices have been sent out. The PAB is also currently being reviewed by the national accrediting body to ensure that the PAB meets their standards for accrediting bodies.

The reason for considering an accreditation period of between 5 to 7 years is varied. More time would permit real changes and improvements to be implemented. Also it would help schools from a cost point of view. One question that was asked was if PAB accreditation could be better coordinated with other accreditation reviews. Although this will be considered and examined by the PAB, it was pointed out that this may not necessarily be a good idea because it may increase the likelihood that the PAB accreditation may be ignored or watered down.

Constitutional Revisions - Patty Pollak

The Institutional Governance Committee has been working since the fall of 1997 to evaluate and revise the formal governance structure of ACSP. A draft document of by-laws has been developed by the committee based on the ACSP Constitution. The draft by-laws have been circulated to the Officers and Executive Committee and comments and suggestions are welcome. For the most part the development of the new draft by-laws is mainly a housekeeping operation designed so that our activities and policies are indeed consistent with our written rules and procedures. If you have any comments, please send them in writing to Patty by the June 1. Any comments will be circulated to the Committee. The Committee will make a presentation and recommendation on the by-laws in the fall at the Business meeting in Atlanta.  

Some suggested recommendations and/or comments focused on staggered elections especially those for Regional representatives, clarification concerning what constitutes a winning vote or how are elections decided if there is a tie, what constitutes a quorum, and some indication of how committee members are selected. It was also suggested that Canadian schools should have the option of being full members in ACSP. Concern was also expressed about the finances particularly the reserve fund which has been twice the annual base dues of all classes of membership and in the draft by-laws only refers to full member schools. It was also requested that if possible the recommended by-laws be placed on the website so that people can review and examine them before the fall Business meeting.

Guide/Institutional Data/Recruitment Brochure - Sandi Rosenbloom

The 11th edition of the Guide is about to go to press. The Guide is a combined document of bachelors, masters and Ph.D. programs. Some examples of pages have been provided. APA has agreed to provide a subsidy to the Guide by agreeing to purchase 500 copies. The print run will be 9500 copies, APA will purchase 500 copies, each school that is in the book gets 3 copies and then the remaining copies will be sent out to list of guidance councilors, libraries, relevant undergraduate departments and so on. The next step will be to place this information on the web. The cover of the Guide and the recruitment brochure are consistent, so that all ASCP publications will have a similar look.

The new recruitment brochure was distributed. The last time this was produced it cost 20 cents a copy, this time it cost only 22 cents a copy. These are now available for purchase in boxes of 400. The cost for each box is $88 plus a shipping fee of $11. The brochures came back from the printer just two weeks ago and already one-third of them have been sold. The next step with this project is also to place it on the web.

A draft summary report of the institutional data collected was circulated. Sandi mentioned that she did have concerns about the quality and accuracy of the data received. Also this has been a difficult process circulating a questionnaire and getting back responses. If possible, it would be preferable to do the next data gathering on the web. There were concerns expressed by several people about the data and more specifically about circulating the data. If the data is "questionable" it could be dangerous if it is used for political purposes. However, it is the best data that we have and we should be able to label it a work-in-progress and circulate it internally to avoid it being miss-used. It can be argued, however, that even though the data is not reliable it is only by collecting it and having people examine it that its quality will improve because you develop a constituency who have an interest in improving it. Perhaps we should consider this first run as really another test and use these results as a means to improve the data collection in the future. It was also noted that the instrument tended to only record publications as evidence of scholarly work and perhaps it could be changed to record other kinds of scholarly work.

Motion: to distribute the institutional data document as revised and to send it out to all the Chairs as a preliminary document with appropriate qualifications concerning the interpretation of the data as well as reliability of the data as excluding all references to specific schools. The motion was made by Sandi Rosenbloom and seconded by Gen Guiliano. The motion passed eight yeas votes to five nay votes and no abstention.

Given the results of the vote and the discussion that took place the Executive Committee would like to suggest to the President that an advisory committee be formed to revisit this process and the data collected. The committee should review the data already collected, consider revising the data collection instrument and the distribution mechanisms.

Conferences - David Amborski

David gave us a status report on the various past and forth-coming ACSP conferences. The 1999 Chicago conference had 653 paid attendees and made a profit of $17,306.

The Atlanta conference has a draft budget in place. At this point in time it is expected that the Atlanta conference will basically break-even (the budget shows a $60 deficit). Thus ACSP does not anticipate earning any revenue from the Atlanta conference. There is no capitation revenue as part of this budget. ACSP would like to make a $25 per registrant capitation to the General Fund but this will not happen as part of the Atlanta conference. It is the Conference committee's intention to keep the registration fee at the same rate that it was last year -- $265. However, the conference registration fee may need to be re-examined given our budget situation. It is ACSP's policy that conferences be a revenue generating activity. Right now the only additional source of funds to the conference is Fannie Mae and in order to keep fees down we do need to find additional sponsors or decrease expenses (such as food and beverages). Fannie Mae will be holding a one-day conference the day before ACSP's conference begins and the theme for that conference is Social Equity and Social Impacts of Urban Development and Sprawl.

The Conference committee has been asked to develop financial policies to guide or limit conference spending. This will include placing some of the responsibility on the local hosts to raise money if they wish to exceed the spending limits and how much money do we expect the conference to make in terms of profit each year.

World Planning Congress - Shanghai 2001 Mike Hibbard is ACSP's representative to the Congress. The budget for the conference has been established so that it will break-even with 300 participants paying $280 each in registration fees. This is a very conservative budget. It is expected that 50-60 people from North America will attend this conference. The web site for the conference is up and running and can be linked through the ACSP site. The call for papers will be going out shortly. The dates for the conference are July 11-15, 2001. The steering committee will be meeting again in August.

2001 Cleveland Conference will be held November 8-11, 2001. ACSP has signed a contract with the Sheraton Cleveland City Center Hotel. We are still looking for sites for the reception. Dennis Keating is the local host.

2002 Baltimore Conference is being jointly sponsored by Morgan State and University of Maryland. A site visit will take place this summer in order to select the conference hotel.

2003 Joint ACSP/AESOP Conference - Robin Boyle has been selected as ACSP's representative. A memorandum of understanding still needs to be signed so that each organization understands their obligations and responsibilities. A city has been selected, Brussels but the actual site still needs to be selected. Both David Amborski and Robin will be attending the AESOP conference in Brno this summer and will meet with AESOP's Executive Committee to get the details ironed out.

2004 Conference. Three schools have expressed interest in hosting the ACSP conference in 2004. The three schools are Portland State University, St. Louis University and University of New Orleans. Work on this will continue and the three schools will be asked to submit formal proposals so that they can be reviewed and a selection can be made and announced in Atlanta.

Student Representatives Report - D. Gregg Doyle and Caitlin Waddick

D. Gregg Doyle is the new student representative. He is a Ph.D. student at UCLA. A listserv for Planning Ph.D. students was started in October. Currently there are 215 students on the listserv. The Masters student survey conducted last year is now available on the ACSP website. At the up-coming Atlanta conference there will hopefully be two sessions for students -- one dealing with research expectations and another concerning writing for scholarly publications.

Standing Committee Reports

The format for committee reports has been changed somewhat. In an effort to trim our agenda, committees will be asked to report to the Executive Committee once a year. Thus, some committees will report to the Executive Committee in the spring, others will do so in the fall. Those committees who will be reporting in the fall will include: Academy and the Profession, Faculty Mentoring, Nominating, Reassessing Scholarship, Strategic Communications, Global Planning Educators Interest Group and the Canadian Liaison.

ACSP/AICP Joint Committee on Planning Education and Practice - Barbara Becker

The Collaborative Project Symposium will take place on Monday as part of the APA conference and they will also be included as part of the APA awards presentation. The call for submittals for this year will be going out soon and the deadline is in November. This year's winners will also be presenting at the ACSP conference in Atlanta. This year there were two winners: Bill Kelley, Eastern Washington University and Kent W. Anderson, AICP and Victoria Basolo, University of New Orleans and Karen Fernandez, AICP.

As part of this committee a smaller committee has been formed for the Applied Research Assessment Project. Members of this project committee include: Charlie Hoch, David Hart and Genie Birch. The purpose of this project is to establish a research agenda and identify projects that will bring educators and practitioners together. If possible the committee will also help to identify funding sources as well. At the State level the Oregon APA Chapter has worked to bring academic and practitioners together to identify and discuss research interests.

Diversity Committee - Daphne Spain

So far the main focus of the diversity committee has been on encouraging minority and women students to seek educational opportunities in planning and to provide guidance and support for those students while they are in school. The committee is trying to expand its mission by providing information to minority institutions about the field of planning and about various planning programs in their regions. The idea is to build relationships or partnerships between institutions. The cost of mailing out information would be between $400 to $800. The Committee would also like one of the Officers to be on the Diversity Committee in order to ensure continuity and momentum. Lew Hopkins will be cycling off the diversity committee and the committee would like to secure another PAB representative.

It was suggested that the Committee consider several options, particularly different ways to finance this activity (possibly work with APA Chapters) and report back to the Executive Committee in the fall.

Doctoral Committee

Gen Guiliano has agreed to Chair the Ph.D. workshop. Other members who have agreed to work on the Ph.D. workshop include: Deb Howe, John Forester, Sanda Kaufman and Scott Campbell. The ACSP Ph.D. workshop will provide a selected group of students and faculty to get together to talk about research, the research process, the dissertation process and general issues associated with life as a scholar. The target date for the first Ph.D. workshop will be summer 2001. Any suggestions regarding either content and/or possible sources of funding support can be sent to Gen.

Last year the Fannie Mae Foundation funded three students to attend the AESOP student workshop and some funding will hopefully be available for students again this year.

Technology Committee - Bill Page

The Technology Committee has taken on the issue of distance education. The committee will examine and report on the potential impacts of distance education on planning programs. The report will be completed next year although some preliminary work will be completed by the conference in Atlanta.

Faculty Women's Interest Group - Barbara Becker

The 13th Edition of the Resume Guide is at the printers now and so should be out to departments very shortly. An announcement concerning nominations for the Intellectual Leadership Award will be circulated soon and the award will be presented at the Atlanta conference. Ballots will soon be going out for the election of officers for FWIG.

Budget - Sandi Rosenbloom

The budget consists of the General Fund, JPER with Sage, JPER without Sage, UPDATE, Website, Recruitment fund, Guide and Conference Funds.

One of the major issues concerning this budget involves the decision of whether to go with a commercial publisher for JPER. This decision does impact the budget significantly. This is the second year in a row in which the ACSP Officers have proposed a deficit budget. Last year a negative budget was proposed, however, it looks as though that will not occur but rather ACSP will have a $4000 surplus thanks in large part due to Wim Wiewel and the University of Illinois and their work on the Chicago conference.

The budget that is proposed for 2000-2001 is a conservative revenue estimate budget. Looking at the JPER fund, if Sage takes over publication of JPER, ACSP looses some of the revenue that we normally receive but in return we get $5000 in editorial assistance and $7861 in profit sharing. What all this means is that if we decide to go with Sage, the ACSP General Fund will need to subsidize the JPER fund by $6834, whereas last year we subsidized JPER around $10,500. Also there is a need to index volumes 16 thru 20. We are hoping to negotiate a deal with Sage regarding the indexing of volumes 16 thru 20. We need to consider regardless of whether we go with Sage or not, that we have to budget yearly for the cost of indexing so that we don't take a hit every five years. We have begun to do this in order to off-set the costs associated for the transition of editors every five years.

In comparison if we continue to publish JPER ourselves, we keep the revenue but we continue to also have expenses such as for copy editing and so on. We have no method for estimating what our costs will be over the next five years.

The Officers feel that in the long run going with Sage will save ACSP money. If we decide to go with Sage we would negotiate a five year contract.

Motion: to charge the President or the Vice President to negotiate a contract with Sage and authorize them to spend appropriate funds as necessary to hire legal advice to examine the terms of the contract. The motion was made by Phil Clay and seconded by Gregg Doyle. The motion passed without dissent.

The General Fund budget was then reviewed. The main sources of revenues for ACSP are dues and conferences (sometimes). This demonstrates how important it is to ACSP that the conference makes revenues. ACSP needs to find other sources of revenues. ACSP has received money from the Fannie Mae Foundation but it is not a permanent source and must be negotiated every year.

Given our decision to go with Sage, if you look at the General Fund budget for 2000-2001 given revenues and expenditures ACSP will run a deficit of $5021.

It was recommended to increase the President's discretionary fund from $1000 to $2500. Thus with this change, revenue minus expenditures will increase the budget deficit to $6521.

Motion: to accept the budget as amended with the President's discretionary fund increased from $1000 to $2500. The motion was made by Deborah Howe and seconded by Phil Clay. The motion passed without dissent.

Other Business

The Executive Committee has asked that no one approach the Fannie Mae Foundation for ACSP related funds.

The phone number for D. Gregg Doyle, Student Representative is incorrect in the ACSP roster. It should be (323) 654-3444.

Pat Gleason was acknowledged for organizing the meeting and the lunch. Carissa Schively was also acknowledged and thanked for her hard work on behalf of ACSP especially under difficult circumstances. Emily Leunk was also thanked and acknowledged.

Motion: to adjourn the meeting was made at 3:55pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan L. Bradbury, Ph.D.

ACSP Secretary/Treasurer