ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING <> 9 May 1998
University of Portland, Portland, Oregon

President Michael Williams called the meeting to order at approximately 12:20 PM with a big round of "Thanks" to Dan Danner, Debbie MacKinnon & Linda Duffy for organizing the annual meeting. Fr. Donald Stabrowski, C.S.C., Academic Vice-President of the University of Portland welcomed our gathering to this special place, and hoped our meeting was successful. Attendance this year was 105 total registrants: 24 (23%) AAR, 23 (22%) SBL, 23 (22%) Joint AAR-SBL, 31 (30%) students, and 4 (3%) other registrants, representing 11 states and 2 provinces.

Barbara DeConcini, AAR Executive Director, welcomed us and expressed her pleasure being in the Northwest for the (wet!) start of spring. She shared an update on the larger Annual Meetings and their locations, and outlined the Public Understanding of Religion initiative, which is designed to bring religion scholars and various media into closer fiduciary contact. She informed us of the pending appointment of an additional Associate Executive Director, whose primary responsibility will be implementing the Institutional Initiative, envisioned to support teaching of religion in all venues.

Judith Streit, SBL Program Director, extended her greetings, and indicated that the central office has identified five main areas of interest, with regional affairs as one of those areas. She invited us all to share ideas, hopes, dreams, frustrations with the central office staff in a spirit of advancing the field in any way necessary. She solicited nominations for the academy-wide Vice-President, to be elected at the Annual Meeting. Anyone with potential candidates should contact Judith directly at the SBL central office.

The minutes of the 1997 Regional Meeting were distributed at the registration table, together with the current financial reports for both the AAR and the SBL. The minutes were corrected by Gary Chamberlain to include John Sandys-Wuncsh name in the appropriate spot. Dan Danner moved acceptance of the corrected minutes. Motion passed.

Jeff Staley asked about the financial accounting for the 97í regional meeting. Hank acknowledged those figures had been omitted inadvertently from the current report, since we had a mid-year change in fiscal accounting periods. The audit committee received the full year reports (7/1/96 ñ 6/30/97) including those figures, and had approved them. The current report includes only a half-year, with no meeting expenses. The missing reports will be posted to the webpage for member access. Anyone desiring copies before they appear electronically may contact Hank. Paul Danove moved acceptance of the current half-year reports. Motion passed.

Student Paper Competition Chair, Gary Chamberlain, gave his report, although competition winners would be announced at the banquet. The committee has some statistics and some feelings to discuss. Undergraduate papers have been increasing each year by a significant factor. Papers submitted by year: 6 in ë96, 17 in ë97 (283% increase), 23 in ë98 (135% increase). During the same period graduate papers have remained fairly constant at 9-10 +/- per year. Some concerns of the committee are: 1) number of papers submitted by a single author; 2) length of papers; 3) range of paper topics, from other disciplines. The committee made several suggestions which were condensed through discussion into a final form offered by Gary Chamberlain.

MOTION: In addition to the current paper competition requirements, 1) paper must be written under the sponsorship & supervision of an AAR-SBL member, unless the student is a member already; 2) papers must be submitted double-spaced, 12 pt font, 3750 word maximum undergraduate length, 5000 word maximum graduate length; 3) only one paper by a single author may be submitted each year; 4) establish two general paper categories, AAR for religion-theology-general, and SBL for Bible, students submitting papers must declare a category for the paper; 5) awards shall be presented in these categories of 1st grad-AAR ($100), 1st grad-SBL ($100), 1st undergrad-AAR ($100), 1st undergrad-SBL ($100), 2nd undergrad-AAR ($50), and 2nd undergrad-SBL ($50); and 6) if no papers qualify for an award in a category, the award money is accumulated in the award fund. This very complex motion was thoroughly discussed, and acceptance moved by Paul Danove. Motion passed.

With this new format, more readers are required, and Gary solicited volunteers. Please help if you can.

[Student paper winners were announced at the Saturday evening banquet: 1st graduate paper ($200 prize) Steve Young, Fuller Theological Seminary, "An Exegetical Study of Romans 6:1-4;" 1st undergraduate paper ($200) Benjamin Leech, Reed College, "The Aesthetics of Theophony: Mysticism and Charles Williams;" 2nd undergraduate paper ($100) Anne Oravetz, Reed College, "God is a Function: Christian Mysticism and the Birth of the Infinitesimal Calculus."]

Nick Gier volunteered to serve on the nominating committee to replace Bob Thompson. Committee is now: Carol Dempsey (Chair), Nick Gier, Bob Stivers, and Mike Williams.

Jeff Staley gave a summary of the SBL Regional Scholarís program. Carol Dempsey was our region awardee in 1996-97. A candidate needs to be an untenured junior faculty member, with less than five years experience. Please contact Jeff with nominations.

Patricia OíConnell Killen reported on the Lilly Foundation Teaching Workshops held in cooperation with the Rocky Mountain-Great Plains Region. The final workshop will be held this summer at PLU. For further details please contact Patricia.

Mike Williams announced the "Religion in the News" workshop being held this summer, July 12-13, at the University of Washington. This workshop is intended to bring together scholars of religion and editors and journalists for discussion of media coverage of topics in religion, and the establishment of more productive working relationships between academics in this field and media. The workshop is being funded by the Lilly Endowment and organized in collaboration with the American Academy of Religion and the Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, and it will be chaired by Mark Silk, director of that Center.

New Section Chairs for 97-98 are: History of Christianity, Patricia OíConnell Killen; Philosophy of Religion, Mike Lodahl.

Mike Williams lamented that not enough attendees purchased lunch tickets, so the food service vendor declined to provide lunch. Tough buns, guys! Someone suggested the unused tickets could be donated to augment the student paper fund. That led to an old-fashioned pass-the-hat routine that netted $160 to boost the fund! Congratulations, and thanks to everyone!

The new regional meeting format was discussed. The general response was positive overall. There was some concern that attendees from distant global sites (Alberta, for one) had to make airline reservations far in advance to secure economy fares. Those who delayed making reservations were stuck with unworkable connections at the lowest fares, and were delayed in arrival. Some members felt the old Thursday start time was an incentive for departments to acknowledge the professional status of the meeting.

Hank Keeton gave a report from the AAR central Board meeting, held in Orlando, Florida. After initially stumbling over his tongue and assigning out-of-context duties to the Section Chairs, Hank reported on various meeting refinements used by other regions. If any of these seem useful, please take the initiative to pursue them. Hank can provide more details. (See attached)

Mike Williams reviewed the regional meeting schedule. Jeff Staley suggested a modified meeting rotation sequence of Cascades West-Cascades East-Canada rather than the Puget Sound-Oregon-Cascades East-Canada.

PNW AAR-SBL REGIONAL MEETING SCHEDULE

YEAR	INSTITUTION
1999 (7-9 May)	Pacific Lutheran University
2000	Gonzaga
2001	University of Alberta
2002	(Portland<>somewhere)>
2003	(Puget Sound<>somewhere)
2004	University of Idaho
2005	(Canada<>somewhere)

ANNUAL MEETING FORMAT

FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
	7:00 - 8:00 Breakfast	7:00 - 8:00 Breakfast
	8:30 - 10:30 Sections (2 hrs)	8:30 - 12:00 Sections (3-1/2 hrs) (10:00 - 10:30 Break)
	11:00 - 12:00 Regional Plenary
12:00 - 1:30 Registration (Lunch available)	12:00 - 1:30 Annual Business Meeting & Lunch	(Lunch available)
2:00 - 5:30 Sections (3-1/2 hrs) (3:30 - 4:00 Break)	2:00 - 5:30 Sections (3-1/2 hrs) (3:30 - 4:00 Break)
5:30 - 6:30 Brain Break	5:30 - 6:30 Brain Break
6:30 - 7:30 Dinner	6:30 - 7:30 Banquet
8:00 - 9:00 Presidential Address	8:00 - 9:00 Plenary Speaker
9:00 - later Reception	9:00 - later Mingling

Nominating Committee Chair, Bob Stivers, gave his report. The committee nominated Linda Shearing for Executive Secretary, as Karen Barta regrettably offered her resignation just before the regional meeting, for personal reasons. Nominations were opened from the floor. None were offered. Dan Danner moved acceptance and election of the nominee. Motion passed.

The committee nominated Doug Clark as President-Elect. Nominations were opened from the floor. None were offered, and Dan Danner (again) moved acceptance and election of the nominee. Motion passed.

Hank Keeton gave a webpage report. We have received a $300 grant from the AAR to help establish our webpage in a more permanent form. The webpage committee (Jon Taylor & Hank) communed with the meeting coordinator, Dan Danner, to find ways our electronic capabilities could be expanded and better utilized for registration, database information, and professional development. It was decided we should apply as a region for our own URL (Universal Resource Locator) and select a professional ISP (Internet Service Provider) to provide us with uninterruptable secure service. This will require a modest monthly expenditure and budgetary approval. Our new URL is WWW.PNW-AARSBL.ORG and will be directed to our established links when our ISP is selected. Look for more in '98!

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 1:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Hank Keeton
Recording Secretary-Treasurer

GENERAL IDEAS FROM SPRING 98 AAR BOARD MEETING

#	TOPIC	DESCRIPTION
1.	Meeting Sections	Maybe have an "open category for general papers.
2.	Board Retreat	Add a day before or after the annual regional meeting to utilize as planning / brain-storming time for Executive Committee.
3.	Section Chair Retreat	In conjunction with Board retreat, have a time set aside for section chairs to brainstorm together.
4.	Program Chairperson	Some regions have the V-P, Pres-Elect, or immediate past-Pres function as the Program Chairperson. Is this an idea we might want to try?
5.	Meeting Host / Coordinator	Some regions include this person as a member of the Ex Com for the year they serve as Host. Is this something we want to try?
6.	Student Papers	Some regions require that these be presented in formal sections, and be evaluated during the presentation as part of the award process. Do we want to try something like this?
7.	Associated Societies	Do we want to invite other societies (MLA, APA, etc.) to meet concurrently with us during our annual meeting?
8.	Regional Grants	This year (1998) we are proposing a grant to complete data gathering for all institutions/groups in our region, names of faculty, general demographics, etc, which we can include in our interactive database.
9.	Doctoral Programs - Employment - Enrollment (Pipeline Issues)	There has been an on-going discussion about issues of graduate religious education: Admissions, placement, decreasing tenure-track openings, increasing use of PT-adjuncts, employment standards for PT-adjunct positions, accreditation standards for percentage of PT-adjunct to FT-tenure track, institutional down-sizing. How can we contribute to this discussion?
10.	Institutional Initiative	The Academy office is hiring an Associate Director to establish communication directly with institutions, especially ones where religion programs are endangered. Do we know people who would like to serve on the academy committee to work with this new staff person?
11.	Student Liaisons	We need to develop a student liaison at each institution, to represent the students on the academy level. Please submit the name of a contact person on campus who can pursue this.
12.	Book displays	It has been suggested by Scholars Press that publishers who desire, be allowed to submit books for display through SP to the Regions. These books would be shipped to the host institution, displayed by volunteers, sold on an "order" basis, with display copies for the regionís use or sale. Comments?
13.	Mentoring	There are well established programs of faculty mentoring for grad students. Is this something we can establish at schools in our region? AUGSBURG COLLEGE - LUTHER SEMINARY TEACHER-MENTOR PROGRAM This cooperative venture provides ABD doctoral students from Luther Seminary with the opportunity to teach introductory college courses at Augsburg College with the aid of a n experienced professor as a teaching-mentor. The director of Graduate Studies at Luther Seminary will recommend up to four ABD students to the chair of the Religion Department at Augsburg College. The Religion Department will select up to two students to participate in the program in an academic year. Each student-instructor will teach two courses during the year, either Introduction to Theology or Biblical Studies. The field of doctoral study will determine which courses are taught and may influence which professor is the mentor. The mentor agrees to aid the student-instructor in selecting books, constructing a syllabus, preparing examinations, grading, developing and improving teaching skills, and being available to answer any questions the student -instructor may have. The mentor will visit the classes of the student-instructor regularly. The mentor also agrees to write letters of recommendation in regard to teaching skills upon request of the student-instructor. The student-instructor will teach the assigned course sections and will maintain office hours, two hours per week in addition to class time, which is three hours per week. The mentor and student-instructor will arrange to meet regularly during the academic year, including sessions in which student evaluations of the courses will be examined. Student-instructors will also visit the classes of the teaching-mentor. Augsburg College will pay each student-instructor the scale rate for part-time per course instructors less 20 %, which will go to the teaching-mentor.
14.	Sexual Harassment Policy	The academy board has adopted a sexual harassment policy which will be published for all membersí information. It is an educational, not a punitive policy and seeks to ensure prevention rather than destructive reaction. Please be aware that this policy will be effective at all AAR activities.

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