Vol. 68, No. 2 | Fall 2023
 

ABS 2023 Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

ABS Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
Friday Sept 15th 3pm – 5pm CDT

Present: Adriana Maldonado Chaparro (Member-at-Large 2), Alex Trillo (Diversity Officer), Beth Jakob (2nd President-Elect), Claire O'Connell (Student Representative), Delia Shelton (Member-at-Large 1), Erica Westerman (Program Officer-Elect), Julia Saltz (Parliamentarian), Melissa Hughes (Program Officer), Norman Lee (Secretary), Scott MacDougall-Shackleton (Treasurer), Susan Alberts (Past-President), Swanne Gordon (Member-at-Large 3), Vanessa Ezenwa (President) 


4:00-4:45: Annual budget report (Scott MacDougall-Shackleton) 


On Rebalancing Investment Portfolio

Financial Assets as of Sept 1, 2023

Vanguard Investment Accounts: $2.855M

Bank of America Checking: $406,691

Generally, 8% return on investments.

18 percent of asset sitting in bond market index

82 percent in a socially responsible equity fund.

Equity funds are more volatile, but growth can be bigger.

Should we be on a regular basis transferring money into it to help it grow?

Asked a clarifying question: what fraction of journal revenue do we use up annually?

Scott - for the last two years, we’ve used more than journal revenue. About $5000 in the red last year. The year before, we were more in the hole because we knew the Costa Rica meeting was at a hotel and would be expensive.

Scott was asked whether he could put  together some models for different percentages of the revenue that we can move into investments.

Scott - could definitely put some graphs together to show different scenarios.

Goal of 6 to 10 M will be faster if we contribute.

Scott - Based on appetite for risk. How would you feel if you lost 25% of your portfolio in a month -would you panic? Generally, the longer from retirement, the more risk you should take. If we take money out of equity to bond fund, it will take longer, but we will be more buffered from the market.

Any info about what will happen with revenue from Elseiver?

Scott - Many people are unhappy with Elseiver. ASAB decided to renew from 2021 - 3 year contract. Gold open access in general will eat into journal profits. This might translate to less revenue directed to ABS.

Didn’t we see a decrease in submission/pub in Animal Behavior journal this year? Won’t that affect journal profits?

Scott - perhaps indirectly... Maybe fewer universities will want to pay if journal does less well.

Any legal restrictions on money? Not saying that we should, but could we take to vegas?

Scott - we have to comply with non-profit org rules.

Can we split funds to put some in high risk, and some lower risk? Can we fine-tune our investments?

Scott - the society did vote for socially responsible funds. Rebalancing in this way might affect our desire to keep in socially responsible funds.

Rebalancing is a standard thing to do. If there’s concerns about the amount, maybe we can do 80:20, instead of 82:20.

Scott will propose a few models and will follow up with an e-vote on rebalancing.

On Membership Dues

Membership dues increased last year. But probably better to have modest increases each year.

Given inflation over the last couple of years, probably okay to increase all dues by 5%. However, the 5% increase can be a lot for students in South America.

Vote on the 5% across all types of membership did not pass (46% approve, 46% did not approve, 8% abstain). 

Vote on increasing membership dues by 7.5% for all membership types except the following: 5% for non-developing nations students, 2.5% for developing nations students. Amounts rounded to the nearest dollar value. - 100% approve

On growing expenditures

Increased operational costs - minor

Increased request for support for workshops from standing committees.

New standing committee (Weaving Future).

Increased spending via DEI initiatives (Diversity Committee).

The new increases in dues will probably won’t cover budget shortfall.

Historically society would contribute a certain amount (e.g. $66K to meeting budget to support keynote speakers, symposia and workshops, plenary, President’s Symposium, and EC travel (recent). Now the meeting budget and operating budget are mixing together more and more. Several standing committees are asking for support for workshops not tied to the meeting. 

Should the meeting try to be organized to generate profits each year to support other aspects of the society? Should operations support meeting, or meeting support operations? Or not issue?

We are good about allocating funds that promote vision and mission of society. Also aware we are not going to make ourselves free from Elseiver. In support of what we are doing, but we can’t keep doing more.

Perhaps we should decide on how much we would allocate for meeting workshops and symposia - and everyone should apply for the same pot of money. Beyond that budget, we need to encourage proposers to look for NSF sources of funding.

Some workshops already happen regularly. They’re not new workshops (e.g. mentorship workshops). Gathering students to sign up for ABS. Also decided to support women for future animal behavior - this is mainly asking for money to support.

What is the average cost of workshops? Is there some standard that we are willing to give for a workshop? If there’s this many people, we max out at this amount. If it is a full day event, this is what you can ask for.

Diversity Committee is proposing Turner symposium (past Turners present) - but should that be considered along with other symposia?

Call for workshop and symposia for a conference should be different from standing committees putting on workshops. This is to avoid situations where committees might be competing with the general membership to put on symposia. But totally in favor of standardizing support.

The DC committee has a budget line item for a plenary, but the meeting budget also has a plenary line item. This seems redundant. We should integrate the DEI plenary within  budget to make it more inclusive.

There are duplicates of multiple things, for example, similar awards across different committees. This is one of the reasons why the budget has grown, because standing committees has pursued things independently of each other.

Need to have treasurer as part of conversation working with committees. Chairs to look at duplication. Look for where things can be merged.

The Treasurer could take first crack, but wouldn’t be something to implement at once. To start - withhold some plenaries and workshops and symposia.

On registration waivers

Number of registration waivers seems to be expanding.

Social Media Team - getting honoraria and registration waivers. Inconsistencies in compensation.

Before, EC (waiving registration and money for travel) given to allow EC members to  be at the meeting - required to be at the meeting. This is a 10K budget item.

Some have no strong thoughts about cutting or reducing support. Some think that we should meet halfway. Discount registration, or support travel for 1 or 2 of three years of appointment. Or we could provide support on a sliding scale, depending on workload. However, this might make it difficult for EC members from smaller institutions to participate. Also consider those from developing nations. We hope to have people from developing nations contribute to the EC, and eliminating support would make it not feasible.

The treasurer asks about the social media team - seems to be double compensated? Doing stuff all year round, podcast, and other things, 12 people each receive $500 as stipend. Chair receives $2000.

We need to come up with ways that allow for equitable compensation. We can make those financial decisions down the road a bit. But meeting registration waivers should be discussed.

An EC member brought up how we haven’t talked to the same degree about ways of generating revenue. Lots of slashing across all activities, but what about revenue generation.

One of the goals for the winter EC meeting  should be to come up with equitable ways of recognizing the work that people do, and how do we try to generate more revenue? The Treasurer will help prove more info on scenarios for the budget to guide discussions.

5:00-5:20: Paula Brantner (ABS Accountability Consultant) contract renewal(discussion and vote)

5:20-5:40: ABS legal services (discussion)

Paula with multiple years of experience. Harassment cases and accountability.

Helped us develop, refine, and enforce a code of ethics.

Contract renewal - same as last year. 25K. This year the only difference is article 3.5 - on services to be provided. She added a clause that discusses the fact that she is not a legal advisor to us. Paula is a lawyer but not ABS’ lawyer. Paula acts as an independent investigator that helps us investigate anonymously and comes up with a report that presents to us. When there is any potential litigation related to investigation - we need independent legal advice to protect ourselves. She has recommended that ABS should have general legal counsel for that reason. In some situations there might be cases where she advises that we get legal counsel, and if we don’t, then it precludes her from providing us her services.

We will not be able to uphold code of ethics without someone like Paula.

The President contacted some people in the Evolution society to see or understand market rate. They are also in the process of the members voting on their process. They have identified a potential contractor, they don’t have a contract, details of cost of scope of services. When they do get info, they’ve agreed to share it.

We had a meeting with a potential law firm that could offer us services. One point they made is that because ABS is incorporated in Delware - their jurisdiction of where they have Bar affiliation is DC Maryland, NY. They’re actually investigating whether they can help us. What they could do for us is if they could serve as general counsel - giving general legal advice. If we did get litigated - from a certain state, they would work to identify appropriate lawyers to work with us. We could have this general retainer agreement. Costs would be per hour - range of costs dependent on specific types of expertisement. We need someone with this expertise if we are going to uphold the ethics. We also need general legal services. They could also provide us with legal advice on other matters outside of ethics violations.

Vote on renewing Paula Brantner’s contract. 100% approve.

What we will be getting- email info about lawyers as general counsel and have a vote electronically.


4:45-4:55: 2024 and 2025 conference updates (Melissa Hughes and Erica Westerman)

Got a contract from Western. Food prices are expensive - thinking about ways to reduce cost.

Travel visas -people need to apply (this should be newsletter item).

Time to renew passport might be long (in US 2 months delay).

Erica - talking to people where we can have the next meeting. Potential for dorm and cheap flights..for all parts of the country and out of the US, and in states that have laws friendly for entire membership. Excited to say a “maybe” from UC Boulder. It's not a yes, but not no either.

Adriana - keep in mind Columbia. There's interest to host in Columbia - a convention center, or big enough to have auditoriums for concurrent sessions. Maybe 2026?


 
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