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SUMMARY: Actions & Decisions of the Third 1999 Council Meeting Mineralogical Society of AmericaAttending: John Ferry, PresidentNote that motions are presented in <>; S = second; BB = Bluebook. The third meeting of the 1999 Council of the Mineralogical Society of America was held at the Marriott City Center, Denver, CO, on October 24, 1999. The meeting was called to order at 8:15 a.m. by President John Ferry. ITEMS President Ferry welcomed those returning and the new incoming councillors and officers. He thanked everyone for their continued commitment of time and effort to the MSA. 1. Reports with no action items or questions< S. Sorensen moved to accept reports of the Financial Advisory Committee, Meetings Committee, Representatives to GIA and ICDD, Chairs of Mineral Surfaces and Interfaces, Planetary Mineralogy and Teaching Interest Groups, which contained no actions or questions.> S = J. Banfield. Motion passed unanimously. 2. Secretary's Report<B. Luth moved to accept the minutes as amended.> S = S. Sorensen. Motion passed unanimously. 3. Award and honor recommendationsa. Roebling Medal Committee J. Holloway presented the committee's work and outlined the voting procedure. <J. Holloway moved to accept the committee's nomination of selecting Robert C. Reynolds as the 2000 Roebling Medalist.> Motion passed unanimously. b. Public Service Award deliberations and provide council with a recommendation.> S = B. Watson. Motion passed unanimously. The V.P. will contact the PSA committee chair. c. Mid-Career Award J. Banfield summarized the voting procedures and rankings of the nominees. Discussion continued over the definition of the award and the need for a redefinition. <J. Banfield moved to accept the committee's nomination of George Rossman for the 2000 Mid-Career Award.> Motion passed. d. MSA Award J. Ferry summarized the procedures and methods used for analysis. <J. Banfield moved to accept the committee's recommendation of Quentin Williams for the 2000 MSA Award.> President Ferry will telephone awardees. Pending notification, awardees will be announced to the membership by Dutrow in the Secretary's Report at the 1999 MSA Business Meeting.
e. Fellows J. Ferry summarized the committee's report. <J. Ferry moved that ten candidates be selected as Fellows of the MSA: Achille Blasi, Carl Frost, Mickey Gunter, Calvin Miller, Jean Morrison, Simon Redfern, Shu-Chun Su, Vittorio Tazzoli, Peter Ulmer, and David Vanko.> S = J. Banfield. Motion passed unanimously. f. Kraus Grant M. Carpenter summarized the committee's activity. Suggestions are needed for soliciting more applications; councillors should be proactive. M. Carpenter will rewrite the ad, including proposal titles for successful awards and that applicants do not have to be MSA members. <Committee moved to accept Mikala S. Beig as recipient of the 2000 Kraus Crystallographic Grant.> S = B. Hanson. Motion passed unanimously. g. Mineralogy/Petrology. S. Sorsensen presented a summary of the Min-Pet Grant committee's deliberations. < J. Ferry moved to award the Mineralogy/Petrology Research Grants to Julia Baldwin and Ci-Tu Aeolus Lee as recommended by the committee.> S = J. Holloway. Motion passed unanimously. 4. Committee on Committees Reporta. Best Paper Award (BPA) committee. This item was tabled from the Spring 1999 meeting and brought up again by the Editors. A stand alone committee is needed. Suggested committee structure is: one of the Editors of the American Mineralogist; three committee members at large, each serving 3 year terms with one rotation per year; and an additional member to be a councillor who would also serve as chair of the committee. Each A.E. will be asked to nominate one paper for the award and the committee will choose among those nominated. < S. Sorensen moved to create an Am. Min. Best PaperAward Committee consisting of three members at large, plus a councillor who acts as chair, and one of the Am. Min. Editors as an additional member. Each at-large member will serve a three-year term with one rotation per year.> S = M. Carpenter. Motion passed unanimously. The best paper for the previous year will be recommended and voted on at the Spring council meeting. b. Committee on Committee Report B. Carlson presented the list of committee members for the 2000 term. These members have been contacted and all have agreed to serve. Discussion followed. <J. Banfield moved to accept the committee appointments with amendments and with the exception of the Publications and the Benefactor's committees.> S = B. Hanson. Motion passed unanimously. c. Changes to IMA Representatives C. Burnham, MSA's Representative to IMA, requested that appointees be reviewed. d. Benefactor's committee J. Ferry summarized the problems, responsibilities of the committee and the difficulty of finding members to serve. <B. Hanson moved to accept the appointments to the Benefactor's Committee.> S = S. Sorensen. Motion passed unanimously. e. Other committee work MSA members are encouraged to contact a member of the Committee on committees if they wish to serve.
5. Nomination's Committee ReportB. Luth presented the committee report. B. Hanson noted the importance of having the new Treasurer attend the Spring meeting, prior to taking office, in order to prepare the follwing year's budget. The list of councillor candidates was separated into two portions; Crystallography and Petrology with two councillor candidates to be chosen from each list. Council accepted the ranked list.
6. Management committee report of staff evaluationsJ. Ferry summarized the Management Committee meeting held Saturday, October 23 at 4 p.m. Evaluation and procedures for setting raises for MSA's five salaried positions were discussed as well as salary ranges for each job; ranges move up each year in concert with the Cost of Living (CoL). Yearly job performance evaluations are to be completed by the supervisor and used to help determine raises. Job descriptions were distributed to council. Raises are separated into two components: CoL and merit. The CoL will be tied to the Consumer Price Index - Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI - W) September value. The merit component is suggested to be capped at 3% or $1000 whichever is greater. As of Sept. 20, 1999, the CPI-W is 2.8%. < Committee moved to have council approve job descriptions and the salary ranges for the five MSA salaried positions and to approve the recommended raises for individuals.> S = J. Holloway. Motion passed unanimously. 7. Report and Requests of the Administratora. Ballots < B. Hanson moved to allow J. Alex Speer, MSA Admistrator, to destroy the ballots upon acceptance of the 1999 election results.> S = S. Sorensen. Motion passed unanimously. b. Scheduling of Second 2000 Council meeting M. Carpenter requests a visit to the MSA office in conjunction with the meeting.
<It was the SoC to schedule the second 2000 MSA Council meeting on the Saturday following Spring AGU in Washington D.C. with an associated visit to MSA Headquarters, at a site to be determined in the future.> 8. Treasurer's ReportB. Hanson summarized MSA's budget and reviewed budget highlights. MSA's NSF grant to partially fund the website expires in August, 2000. Significant cost reduction occurred with the move to DTP for American Mineralogist, even with more volumes being published. Printing RiM volumes is a very large cost item, five will need to be printed in 2000. Questions were taken. RiM volumes are packaged with the American Mineralogist for libraries at a single price, this insures libraries receive RiM volumes. Approximately 1000 libraries subscribe. Foreign subscriptions decline about 15-20%/yr due to a variety of reasons; causing uncertainty in the budget. 9. American Mineralogists Editor's Reporta. Best Paper Award B. Dymek summarized the procedures for selecting the Best Paper Award. <Editors moved that the Best Paper Award for 1999 be given to R. Dohmen, s. Chrakraborty, H. Palme, and W. Rammensee for their paper on "Solid-solid reactions mediated by a gas phase: an experimental study of reaction progress and the role of surfaces in the system olivine + iron metal".> S = B. Carlson. The motion passed unanimously. b. A.E.'s Several Associate Editors have resigned. Council suggested several potential new A.E.'s. <Editors moved to approve several new A.E.'s as suggested by council. > S = J. Banfield. The motion passed unanimously. c.Production Manager The change in title of the Production Editor to Production Manager was approved by the Management committee and Council. d. Staffing issues at Editorial Office The staff in St. Louis are overworked. In order to alleviate problems in the Editorial Office, Editors have hired three part time students for help. Currently this setup is working well. President Ferry noted that council is very supportive of other alternatives and that the editors should hire as many students as necessary. Editors note that their maximum capacity is 8 volumes/year. Currently, 165 papers are in the system. e. Letters in Am. Min. As originally conceived, Letters were to be a rapid venue for timely and exciting reports (i.e. Science-type material). It has evolved to being a "short communications" venue instead. Discussion centered on the purpose of the letters. Council felt that Letters were an asset to the journal and enhanced interest. < It was the Sense of Council that the Letters portion of Am. Min. is important and should be maintained, and that the Editors should strictly control those manuscripts that are treated as Letters, to be commensurate with the requirements. > <It was the Sense of Council that Letters are should be timely innovative and cutting edge, that they should be submitted electronically to move through the system more quickly and that a "short communications" section should not be added. > J. Holloway noted that in the "Instructions to Authors" the purpose of "Letters" must be clear and that Editors can reject a paper if it does not meet the criteria. 10. Lattice Editor<It was the Sense of Council to increase support of the Lattice Editor from $200 to $400 to help with help for translation to web format.> 11. Report of the Reviews in Mineralogy and Monograph Series Editora. Printing of RiM volumes P. Ribbe reviewed volume to be reprinted: Spear, Bloss, and RiM volume 18. Three new RiM volumes are under development for 2000 and three for 2001. Included is the new volume on Natural Zeolites to replace the out-of-print RiM volume 4. D. Bish reviewed progress on the revised zeolite issue. <It was the Sense of Council to separate the Natural Zeolites volume into two portions, geology/mineralogy and applications, and to move forward with publishing the geology/mineralogy portion.> < It was the Sense of Council to have "Transformation Processes in Minerals" edited by S. Redfern be the first in the RiM&G series but with numbering to continue sequentially from the previous RiM volume.> b. Re-negotiation of the MSA/GS RiMG agreement It was suggested that the MSA Administrator be empowered to re-negotiate the original agreement because the situation with GS has changed. MSA will print and sell all GS/MSA books. <It was the Sense of Council to re-negotiate the GS-MSA agreement so that MSA prints and sells all MSA as well as GS contributed books. In addition, joint opportunities should be explored, both to be reported at the Spring Council Meeting.>
f. Additional business: MSA received a request to (re)publish "Papers from a National Academy of Sciences colloquium on Geology, Mineralogy, and Human Welfare". Because this has already been published by NAS (who owns the copyright and is available on the NAS website), MSA will advertise these papers in the Lattice. g. Proposed RiM volume Proposals for additional RiM volumes were discussed. h. Support for RiM Editor J. Ferry requests that the RiM Editor submit a request to councl for equipment necessary to fulfill his RiM editorship role. 12. Report of the Short Course committeeSeveral new Short courses are in the wings. a. GSA 2001 <It was the Sense of Council to proceed with further arrangements for the approved course on "Stable Isotope Geochemistry" by John Valley to be held in conjunction with the GSA 2001 meeting.>
b. Goldschmidt 2001 < It is the Sense of Council to proceed with the course on "Molecular Modeling Theory and Applications to the Geosciences" by Randy Cygan and Jim Kubicki to be held in conjunction with the Goldschmidt conference 2001.> d. 2003 - < It was the Sense of Council to encourage further development of the course on "Biomineralization" by Patricia Dove, J. DeYoreo and S. Weiner, to be held in 2002. > This was enthusiastically supported by the SC committee. c. AGU 2001 Two short courses have been proposed for 2001: "Plastic Deformation and Deformation Microstructures of Minerals and Rocks" by S. Karato and H-R. Wenk; and "Nanocrystals in the Environment and Technology" by A. Navrotsky and J. Banfield. Both were enthusiastically supported by council and the short course committee. < It was the Sense of Council to strongly encourage both courses; to encourage the conveners of "Deformation" to consider holding the course in conjunction with Fall AGU; and to encourage the convenors of "Nanocrystals" to explore other venues such as Spring 2002 or MRS for holding their course.>
13. A working Lunch Break occurred between 12:40 - 1:40 p.m.14. Report of the Lecture Program AdministratorG. Hovis noted the ever increasing popularity of the MSA lectureship program. The "successfulness" of the program has lead to a number of requests from new sources such as Mexico and Europe. At the last council meeting, expansion of the program to Europe was discussed as a possibility. G. Hovis requested that council answer several questions concerning the role of the lectureship as it regards the goalsand missions of the MSA. B. Hanson noted that nearly 50% of our membership is outside the U.S.and that the European lecturer is a positive step in outreach to this community. The lectureship program can potentially help in recruitment of undergraduate and student members. J. Ferry thanked Guy for his years of service to the Program and for the exemplary job that he did as Coordinator. Discussion of European lecturer followed. J. Holloway questioned the role of the lecturer in Europe, considering the different academic cultures (concentration on graduate vs. undergraduate.) A European coordinator would be needed, with a European Assistant. Several Europeans who could serve as a lecturer were suggested.. <It was the Sense of Council to add a third MSA Lecturer who will be based in Europe and will service European requests. If there are insufficient requests to fill a schedule, then they will also travel to the U.S. Thus, offering lectures in Europe will not diminish the number of lectures offerred in North America.> 15. President's Report, continuedJ. Ferry summarized correspondence with EMU President Muller concerning sponsorship of the MSA short course to be given in advance of the 2000 Goldschmidt Conference in Oxford. <It was the Sense of Council to approve EMU sponsorship of MSA's Short Course on Mineral Transformations to be given in advance of the 2000 Goldschmidt Conference in Oxford, and to add a page in the front of the associated volume which displays sponsor's logos.> 16. Other itemsJ. Ferry and A. Speer summarized their recent discussions with Rocks and Mineral's (R&M) magazine concerning MSA's potential association. A. Speer reviewed the history of the journal; published by a non-profit educational organization designed to produce journals which might not be economically viable. Currently, R&M have a circulation of 10,000 - 15,000. J. Ferry, A. Speer and their publishers suggested an association with no obligation. J. Ferry emphasized that this association would bring MSA and MSA's activities to a wider audience. <S. Sorensen moved to accept the discussed items for association with R&M.> S = J. Holloway. The motion passed unanimously. 17. A short break 3:10-3:25pm.18. Report of the Publications CommitteeJ. Ferry reviewed the important issues that effect MSA's publications, as well as the makeup and focus of the committee. He noted the reasons of the committee such as offering an appeal mechanism when authors feel they have not been treated fairly, as well as the need for strategic planning. He suggested replacing the Publications committee with a Planning and Advisory Board. This board would assist in developing guidelines, expectation, policies, etc. for the journal, provide strategic planning and guidance, and provide a mechanism for appeal to be handled on a case by case basis. The roll of the committee would be clarified. B. Hanson noted that the publishing world is changing very rapidly, the editors can not be expected to keep pace with technological advances. The board could keep abreast of these activities and bring them to the attention of the editors. S. Sorensen suggested that the Advisory Board meet in person for policy and planning meetings. <It was the SoC to establish an Advisory Board, consisting of 3-4 members to be chosen by the Editors, and to have council ratify these choices. > c. Names of awards J. Ferry opened a discussion of the naming of the Mid-Career Award and the Best Paper Award, perhaps after a donor. <It was the Sense of Council to postpone naming of the awards.> Items 18:d, b and e were tabled for discussion at the first council meeting of 2000. 19. Adjournment<J. Ferry moved to adjourn.> S = J. Banfield. The motion passed unanimously. The Third council meeting of 1999 adjourned at 4:20p.m. Respectfully submitted, Barb Dutrow, 1999 MSA Secretary (now emerita) |