AMS Midwest Student Council Minutes

AMS COUNCIL NOTES

Saturday, 13 November 2005

Seattle, Washington

A Report by Benjamin Ayotte

Midwest Student Representative, 2004-06

from Michigan State University

I. Call to Order

The meeting was called to order by outgoing president J. Peter Burkholder at 12:20 p.m. after a change on venue to West Ballroom C (from the originally scheduled Cedar Conference Room). All present were allowed to introduce themselves.

II. Approval of the Minutes

The minutes from the 2003 council meeting (15 November at Houston, TX) were approved.

III. Secretary’s Report (Andrew Dell’Antonio)

The results of the honorary/corresponding member elections were divulged. The nominating committee consisted of Howard Pollock (chair), Mauro Calcagno, and Eleonora Saavedra. The membership of the 2005 Council Election Committee was announced: Mary Natvig (chair), James Buhler, and Andreas Giger.

IV. President’s Report (J. Peter Burkholder)

a. Investments are in good shape

b. Bob Judd to be appointed to a second 5-year term as Executive Director of JAMS.

c. Contracts renewed with DDM and the CHTML

d. Mention is made of the OPUS development campaign, to be described in detail below.

e. Program committee changes (for presenting papers at the National meeting

i. For the 144 paper slots at the national meeting, the first 120 are to be chosen on the basis of the abstract alone; the last 24 are selected on the basis of knowing the author’s name as well as the content of the abstract (this has been in effect since 2002)

ii. 45-minute framework

1. 20-30 minutes for paper; 10-15 minutes for discussion

2. The length of paper proposals has been extended to 500 words, which may be edited down to 250 upon acceptance.

f. The Committee on committees intends to publish on the AMS website an administrative handbook, detailing the role and function of each committee and of each of the AMS officers.

g. Committee on Professional Development

i. Committee on Professional Development recommends travel grants of $5,000 to independent scholars.

ii. Grant for dissertation research in Europe increased from $10,000 to $30,000.

iii. An anonymous donor has initiated a 1:1 matching funds challenge grant.

iv. Three (3) new awards have been proposed, which have been named for past AMS presidents. All of these have been endowed by an anonymous donor.

1. The Claude Palisca Award for best edition or translation

2. The Lewis Lockwood Young Scholar Award for U. S. and Canadian citizens.

3. The H. Collin Slim Award for the best monograph by a senior scholar.

V. Old Business

a. Report from the ad-hoc committee on copyright and fair use

Mitchell Morris proposed that a document common to all professional music societies be drawn up to address issues of copyright and fair use.

VI. New Business

a. Report from the OPUS development Campaign (Jesse Ann Owens)

i. A campaign committee of 23 people will be formed to establish a “vision start” for the OPUS (open paths to unlimited scholarship) campaign. The official launch of the campaign will occur at the AMS banquet this evening and will conclude in 2009 at the AMS-75 banquet.

ii. A graphic identity for the campaign must be established (via brochure, mailing, or web presence).

iii. The sum of $443,000 is sought from the board to endow the campaign.

iv. A working document was drawn up to facilitate board, committee, and council feedback. Based on this document, funds of $3.2 million are requested to endow the following areas:

1. Graduate Fellowships ($600,000), including

a. The Alvin H. Johnson AMS-50 Dissertation Fellowship

b. The Howard Mayer Brown Fellowship

2. Travel and Research Assistance ($1,000,000), including

a. The Eugene K. Wolf Travel Fund for European Research

b. The Janet Levy Fund for Independent Scholars

c. The Jan LaRue Travel Fund

d. Professional Development Travel Grants

e. Committee on Cultural Diversity Travel Fund

3. Publucations ($1,000,000)

a. AMS Studies in Music

b. Music of the United States of America

c. JAMS

d. Subventions to Publishers

e. Subventions to Authors

Two funds are currently being established: the Joseph Kerman Fund for Publications and the Fund for the Publication of American Music.

4. Access to and Support for Online Resources and Bibliographies ($300,000)

a. RILM

b. Access to Online Resources

5. Increasing the Visibility of the AMS ($300,000)

a. Endowed event at the annual meeting

b. Web presence

b. Discussion of a motion for AMS support of graduate students’ right to unionize

i. It was noted that other academic associations have recently passed resolutions in support of the rights of graduate assistants to form unions. A draft resolution was circulated, and a spirited discussion followed regarding the role the AMS should take.

ii. The language of the draft resolution follows:

Be it resolved that the American Musicological Society joins with other academic associations in supporting the collective bargaining rights of graduate assistants at all universities;

Be it further resolved that the American Musicological Society deplores the NLRB decision in [Brown University v. the NLRB], which affects the academic workplaces where our members are employed;

Be it further resolved that the American Musicological Society condemns any retaliation against graduate students by university faculty members or administrators for their union activities;

Be it further resolved that the American Musicological Society recommends that the administrations of Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University and any other university where graduate assistants seek to form unions work out a fair process for graduate assistants to decide whether or not to unionize, in an atmosphere free from intimidation and coercion.

iii. A straw vote was taken on whether an ad-hoc committee should be formed to study whether the AMS should (a) support the rights of graduate students to unionize; (b) take a proactive role in such unionized activity; or (c) both.

iv. It was proposed that the committee in question would be a subcommittee of the standing committee on issued in academia.

VII. Meeting Closed

The American Musicological Society held its annual meeting "Musical Intersections" in conjunction with fifteen other North American music societies in Toronto, 1-5 November 2000. President Ruth A. Solie called the AMS Council meeting to order in the Windsor room at the Toronto Hilton at 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, 4 November 2000. The minutes from the Kansas City meeting of 6 November 1999 were accepted, and Council Secretary Lois Rosow gave her report, which included Board reactions to Council proposals. First, the Board did not act on the 1999 proposal that it create a special category for undergraduate membership in the Society, although it was sympathetic to the CouncilÕs concerns, because this action would affect few individuals and would require a change in the bylaws, an expensive and complex process. Second, Rosow announced that a Board-level Ad hoc committee, chaired by Elaine Sisman, would be developed to select conference programs and that there would be mechanisms for individual AMS members to contribute. Rosow noted that no one had communicated any comments regarding the Program Committee issue, which was much discussed the year before, and she dropped it from this yearÕs agenda with the approval of Giulio Maria Ongaro, chair of the Ad Hoc Committee. Third, the baton was passed from old committee members to the new, and Rosow especially thanked the members of the Council Nominating Committee, chaired by Georgia Cowart, and the Committee on Honorary and Corresponding Members, chaired by John Platoff. Rosow revealed that the Council had strongly recommended the names of two honorary members (Daniel Heartz and Janet Knapp) and of two corresponding members (Paolo Fabbris and Julian Rushton). The Board eventually approved the names of all four members at the Business Meeting later that afternoon. Finally, Rosow thanked the Outreach Committee, co-chaired by Daniel Beller-McKenna and Kate Van Orden, for their work of the past year and a good panel discussion on Friday afternoon.

As the next order of business, Beller-McKenna and Van Orden gave a report on the Council Outreach Committee. The committee had met that morning to review the Friday session and plan for the next few years. They summarized some main issues for the Council: 1) electronic resources, especially in regard to dissertations (this issue had been raised in the student meeting: some universities, such as University of Texas-Austin, have begun to require that dissertations be deposited on the web, a practice that poses special problems for musical scholarship); 2) interactions between scholars and performers; and 3) the panel session entitled "Sharing the Field," which featured Christopher Page, Daniel Albright, Lydia Goehr, and Tia de Nora as panelists. Beller-McKenna and Van Orden thanked Margaret Murata for writing the abstract printed in the program book, which provided a useful advertisement for the session. The session dealt with reaching beyond disciplinary bounds while maintaining the specificity of music. The committee pointed out that notion of "outreach" implied boundaries necessarily (an in/out relationship assumed) and questioned whether this was their most necessary business. Could the committee be construed better as a force for socialization or bringing in new members? The committee suggested that new discussion of their mission would helpful. Solie observed that it would be hard to proceed efficiently with the issue at present. Others were invited to contribute their ideas to Kathleen Hansell and Paul Attinello, and the question would be put onto next yearÕs Council agenda. Solie added that the committee had been established for socialization, but noted that it was hard to mandate against drift in the committeeÕs mission.

The final item of business was a proposal submitted by Mimi S. Daitz, representative from the Greater New York Chapter. The proposal noted that AMS had worked in the past to support independent scholars in finding employment outside of academia and suggested that the Council form an ad hoc committee to examine the position of unaffiliated scholars vis-ˆ-vis the AMS: 1) what portion of local chapter funds were supplied by institutions with which their officers are associated? 2) could funds be made available to chapters whose officers were unaffiliated? 3) how else could the Society contribute financially to unaffiliated scholars (e.g., financial assistance to attend national meetings)? Rosow pointed out that, as a former chapter officer, her institution provided not only support for mailings but infrastructure for her work. Andrew DellÕAntonio of the Southwest Chapter observed that his chapter absorbed most costs, although institutions provided photocopying, but noted that his was a shoestring chapter. Kitty Preston of the Capitol Chapter stated that email saved a great deal of expense. Beller-McKenna and Solie both noted that the questions were really a chapter-by-chapter issue. Van Orden suggested that this might be a task for the Outreach Committee, and Solie confirmed that the task could fall within its mandate. Leta Miller pointed out that the committee name implied an outward orientation. Attinello responded that the committeeÕs purpose was to reach excluded groups. Beller-McKenna submitted a friendly amendment that the Outreach Committee (rather than a new ad hoc committee) be charged with examining the position of unaffiliated scholars. The Council voted, and Solie noted that the motion was approved. Bertold Hšchner suggested that another "outside" group was foreign students. Attinello pointed out the challenges of geography and language, but pointed to the possibilities of internationalism in an era of the Internet an email. Solie suggested that the committee could decide how to tackle the subjects of 1) unaffiliated scholars, 2) students, and 3) language and geography.

In other business Kitty Preston raised the issue of establishing a listserve for committee chairs. The question of the old Outreach Committee webpage was also raised. At 1:08 p.m. the meeting was adjourned.

In supplement, we also attended the AMS Council student representativesÕ breakfast meeting on Friday, 5 November 2001, where a number of issues were explored. As noted above, the question of electronic dissertation filing was raised by Terry Klefstad, student representative from the Southwest Chapter. In addition, Beller-McKenna, visited the student meeting and invited students to participate in the Outreach Committee. Finally, the Pisk Prize deadline was discussed in light of the low number of submissions received in recent years. Several solutions were discussed, including the submission of papers two weeks after the annual meeting. Everyone agreed that paper quality had to be judged on the basis of oral presentations of ideas. Respectfully submitted, Christina Baade and Luiz Fernando Lopes AMS Midwest Chapter Student Co-Representatives