Minutes:  UCGIS Board of Directors Meeting

Monday, February 10, 2003

Capitol Hill Club, Washington, DC

 

1)      Call to Order.  The meeting was called to order by Art Getis at 1:00 p.m..

2)      Minutes.  Adoption of Minutes of June 29, 2002 meeting in Athens, GA.  Usery moved to accept minutes. Seconded by Merry.  Motion passed.

3)      Secretary.  Wiggins appointed as temporary Secretary for this meeting.

4)      Treasurer.  Wright moved to accept Doug Richardson, Executive Director of the AAG, as the new UCGIS Treasurer.  Seconded by Usery.  Motion passed.

5)      Executive Report.  Getis reported on the state of UCGIS.  He reported that there was good organizational progress, but pointed out that UCGIS needs our attention and energy this spring.  Some points of progress during the past year:

a.       Progress on international relationships with other organizations (AGILE). 

b.      Change in organization accounting services this year. 

c.       Homeland security is still an issue, and funding to UCGIS from ESRI remains in the budget for an activity in this area.

d.      Association with CSISS at UCSB, proposal to NSF includes UCGIS workshop participation.

e.       UCGIS was one of the sponsors of a successful GIScience 2002 conference in Boulder.

f.        Various members represented UCGIS at a variety of meetings, workshops, etc.

g.       Model Curricula Committee made good progress this year.

h.       Virtual Seminar from Hunter College was successful this fall.

6)      Financial Report.  Richardson presented the UCGIS Profit and Loss statement (January through December 2002), attached; the Balance Sheet (as of December 31, 2002), attached; and the Draft Budget (January through December 2003), attached.  The Association is in sound financial shape and the 2003 budget is conservative.  Wilson moved to accept the financial report.  Second by Wright.  Motion passed.

7)      Committee and Chair status reports.

Policy and Legislative Committee.  Craig and Merry have put together an excellent program for the Congressional Briefing on February 12th, 2003 (8:30 – 11:00 a.m.) and the Federal Agency Briefing on February 12th, 2003 (11:30 – 3:00 p.m.).  The Board extends their appreciation to Craig for his effort.

Education Committee.  Wiggins reported on the progress of the Model Curricula Committee, the Virtual Seminar (fall semester, Hunter College), the Educator Award for 2003, and the special Education Issue of the URISA Journal (joint UCGIS/URISA issue), December 2002. 

Getis read the written report from the chair of the Model Curricula Committee (Marble).  The Web Surveyor software license for the Model Curricula survey is also available for UCGIS for the year to conduct additional surveys (with the restriction that only one survey can be active at a time).

Research Committee.  Wilson reported that 14 out of the 19 research priorities developed at the Athens meeting were written and are available here at this meeting.  The documents have been printed with a common format.  The Researcher award announcement is ready for distribution with a return deadline of Friday, March 21st.  

The UCGIS Research Agenda book on the original research priorities was declined by John Wiley and is now under consideration for publication by Taylor and Francis.  The draft volume contains 14 chapters. 

The Vespucci Institute requested that UCGIS be a sponsoring organization (with no financial commitment).  The Institute is a new think tank for GIScience research activities and includes a summer institute (2003) in Tuscany.  The UCGIS Board, via email, agreed to become a sponsoring organization and to be represented on their Board.  Usery moved that UCGIS be a sponsor of the Vespucci Institute, without financial commitment.  Wilson seconded.   Motion passed.

NSA (National Security Agency) and ARDA (Advanced Research and Development Activity) have expressed interest for several years in cosponsoring a conference with UCGIS on data mining and visualization.  Funding is available, but requires a short proposal.  Buttenfield had agreed this summer to begin writing a short proposal.  Action item:  Usery and Wright will evaluate any material sent by Buttenfield; Usery, Wilson, Wright and Merry will meet with the agency representatives for lunch on Wednesday, February 11th 2003.         

Research Projects Committee.  Action item:  Merry will follow through to develop a proposal to use the existing ESRI funding for a workshop (or other activity) on homeland security.

Membership Committee.  Mark reported that a number of existing members are due for their membership renewals.  Mark suggested that this committee needs attention and more member participation.  No new members applications are up for review at this meeting.  Action item:  Merry will contact Bob Rugg to ask about his interest in contributing to this committee.

Communication Committee.  Tasks for this committee from the last meeting were to change the list serve to a commercial service, switch over to new web page graphics, update the organizational database, and create an online brochure.  Progress has occurred on all four tasks. 

Nominating Committee.  Albrecht reported that the committee completed its work and that the slate is ready for this meeting.  The Board thanks the Committee members for its work.

Strategic Planning (Task Force).  Merry has started some updates on the prior strategic plan. 

8)      Summer Assembly 2003.  Asilomar in Monterey, California is the site for the Summer Assembly, to be held on June 16-20 with Board Meetings on the 16th and the 20th.  The draft schedule was distributed.  Jampoler suggested a $125 registration fee, $75 student registration fee, with room and board rates between $90 and $170 per day. Usery moved to accept these registration fees. Wilson seconded.  Motion passed.  Jampoler suggested paying the students’ room and board, registration, plus $300 for expenses for the 18 students presenting papers, and room and board and registration for students presenting posters (up to 1 per school).  Wilson moved to accept this funding.  Wright seconded.  Motion passed.  Jampoler reported that ESRI and Intergraph are likely to continue their Young Scholar programs for the 2003 Summer Assembly.

9)      Resolution for Executive Director to act on Board’s behalf.  Miller moved to allow Jampoler to act on the Board’s behalf for official UCGIS business from February 2003 to February 2004.  Merry seconded.  Motion passed.

10)  Private Affiliates.  Intergraph Team GeoMedia Registered Research Lab wishes to provide $5000 research grant(s) and $50,000 software grant(s) to selected UCGIS member(s).  A review group composed of Intergraph representatives and UCGIS members would select the awardee(s).  The Research Project Committee would be responsible for coordination.  Wright moved to establish this relationship.  Miller seconded.  Motion passed.

11)  Adjournment.  Wright moved to adjourn the meeting at 4:55 p.m.  Usery seconded.  Meeting was adjourned.