Minutes of the Environment and Technology Section Business Meeting August 23, 1998

The meeting was called to order by the Chair, Tom Rudel.

Secretary-Treasurer Dorceta Taylor presented the minutes of last year's Council meeting which were approved unanimously. Valerie Gunter reported for the Nominations and Elections Committee that David Pellow and Stella Capek had been elected to the Council. She invited members to submit nominations for future positions on the council.

The Chair announced that nominations were needed for the new Chair-elect and Nominations Committee Chair positions and urged Section members to submit nominations.

David Sonnenfeld reported that as of August 14, the Section had 381 members. Section members were asked to help in the membership drive to bring the membership count to 400 by September 1, 1998. The new Section brochures were distributed and members were encouraged to use them to help recruit new members. The Chair also announced the Section would cover the first year's membership dues of graduate students. Graduate student enrollment forms should be sent to Tom Rudel.

Susan Roschke, editor of Environment, Technology, and Society, reported that the newsletter had several new features including departmental spotlights and a point- counterpoint column. Roschke has agreed to continue as editor of the newsletter for the next three years.

Timmons Roberts announced that there were 380 subscribers to the EnvTecSoc listserver group. However, he encouraged members to subscribe and play a more active role in communicating with each other through the list.

Dorceta Taylor reported a bal-ance of $1,958.86 in the Section's general funds after current meeting expenses. She also reported $3,033.33 in the Boguslaw scholar-ship fund. The Section awarded $200 to the winner of the Olsen Student Paper competition. There was no winner for the Boguslaw award in 1998.

Dorceta Taylor presented the Distinguished Service Award to Robert Bullard of Clark Atlanta Univ-ersity and Ken Gould presented the Olsen Student Paper Award to Michael Handel of Harvard University. Ken Gould will also continue to oversee the award next year. Since no one was awarded the Boguslaw Award in 1998, section members were urged to nominate people for the award because there have been very few nominations in recent years.

The Chair proposed a change in the award structure whereby the Distinguished Service Award would be a lifetime achievement award, and a new award, the Outstanding Publication Award, would be given for a single, outstanding publication. While some section members ex-pressed concern over the work that might be involved in administering the new award, and the difficulty that might arise in deciding on a single outstanding publication in a section as varied as Environment and Tech-nology, others supported the idea of a new award because they thought such an award could be presented to scholars at various levels of their careers. By a unanimous vote, it was decided to approve this new award for publications completed within three years of the time of the award. Members thought the Outstanding Publication Award could be given in alternate years.

Tom Rudel then announced that the Section was jointly hosting its reception with Race, Gender and Class and Marxist Sociology. The Chair also discussed the status of student members on the council. The by-law change that would have allowed a student to participate on the council did not make it onto the ballot because of ASA personnel changes. This change will be on next year's ballot. Until the by-laws are changed, students cannot sit on the council.

The Chair announced initiatives to co-sponsor sessions with Race, Gender and Class. As a result of these collaborations, the Environ-ment and Technology Section will organize an environmental justice session for the 1999 meetings.

Tom Rudel also announced that the Section was considering co- sponsoring sessions with Rural Sociology when the conferences for both associations were held in the same city in a given year. Therefore, the possibility existed to co-sponsor sessions at the Chicago (1999) conference and the Washington, D.C. conference. There was general support among the attendees for such initiatives. The chair announced that the 1999 meeting was being planned by the Chair-elect, Carole Seyfrit, so members should pass their ideas on to her as soon as possible.

Finally, William Freudenberg of the University of Wisconsin an-nounced that his department had an NSF grant to fund graduate students in the biological and social sciences to collaborate on projects. Faculty and students worked on interdis-ciplinary teams in the program.
 

Respectfully submitted,
Dorceta E. Taylor,
Secretary-Treasurer

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