EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE & BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING REPORT
Susan Ackerman
ASOR President
Every spring, the ASOR Board of Trustees and the Board’s Executive Committee meet to engage in discussions and undertake items of business that have come forward since the Executive Committee’s and Board’s gatherings at the November Annual Meeting. This year, the Executive Committee and the Board met during the weekend of April 16-17, in Washington, D.C.
Moreover, many of our Board members stayed over in Washington to participate in the World Heritage Day events ASOR hosted on Sunday night, April 17 (in conjunction with the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University), and on April 18 (in conjunction with the Archaeological Institute of America, the Smithsonian Institution, and the George Washington University Capitol Archaeological Institute). You can read more about the World Heritage Day events by clicking here.
The ASOR Budget. The major item on the agenda for the ASOR Board’s spring meetings is always the budget, both a review of the budget for the current fiscal year (FY 16), which will come to an end on June 30, and approving the budget for the upcoming fiscal year (FY 17), which starts on July 1. The FY 16 budget is balanced – indeed, almost perfectly so, as we imagine ending the year with just a small surplus of $68.52! For FY 17, the Board approved a balanced budget of just under $2,000,000.
As I remarked in my report after last year’s spring Board meetings, this is a rather astonishing figure for ASOR, given that as recently as FY 12, ASOR’s annual budget was $965,000. The reason for this dramatic increase is the funding we have received for ASOR’s Cultural Heritage Initiatives (CHI). This funding includes monies that come via our cooperative agreement with the United States Department of State, another cooperative agreement with the Getty Conservation Institute, and other grants and gifts including support from the NEH and the J. M. Kaplan Fund. We also receive in-kind support from the Getty Conservation Institute, The World Monuments Fund, and Arnold and Porter, LLC.
It is important to note, however, that FY 17 funding from the Department of State is not yet secured. Thus, it was in the hope of receiving FY 17 Department of State funds that the Board approved the proposed $2,000,000 budget; if the funding situation changes, the ASOR Executive Committee will, on behalf of the Board, review and act to approve a revised budget.
For more, see as always, http://www.asor-syrianheritage.org/.
The ASOR Strategic Plan 2016-2020. Another very significant item of business that the Board undertook was to approve the final version of the ASOR Strategic Plan for 2016-2020. This 2016-2020 Strategic Plan has been under development now for almost two years. The process began with discussions in the Board of the Trustees and the Chairs Coordinating Council in Spring 2014, about the Strategic Plan of 2011-2015 that was then in place: evaluating what we had accomplished in terms of that Strategic Plan, what remained to be done, and what some goals for the future might be.
Armed with the feedback I received during these and other conversations, I convened a Strategic Planning Task Force six months later, in November 2014, and that Task Force began developing a draft ASOR Strategic Plan for 2016-2020 in February 2015. Feedback to this draft was solicited at the April 2015 meeting of the Board of Trustees and from the ASOR Chairs Coordinating Council during a conference call in May 2015. More feedback, to revised iterations of the draft ASOR Strategic Plan for 2016-2020, was solicited at the October 2015 meeting of the ASOR Executive Committee, at the November 2015 meeting of the ASOR Board of Trustees, and from the ASOR Chairs Coordinating Council in conference calls in October and November 2015 and in March 2016. We also asked the Chairs of ASOR’s various standing committees to solicit feedback from their committee members, and we put drafts of the Strategic Plan out for comment from the entire ASOR membership in November 2015 and again (in revised form) in February 2016.
After one last round of revisions in March 2016, the Strategic Planning Task Force presented a final version of the ASOR Strategic Plan for 2016-2020 to the Board for a vote. I am extremely pleased to report that the Board voted unanimously to adopt the Strategic Plan. I urge our members to review the Strategic Plan, as now we all take on together the goals the Strategic Plan sets out.
As the Plan itself acknowledges, these goals are ambitious, and accomplishing them will require the development of expertise in emerging areas (such as digital publishing), sufficient funding, and hard work. At this moment, though, other hard work comes to a close, and I would like to extend my thanks to the members of the Strategic Planning Task Force who got us this far: Gary Arbino, Vivian Bull, Richard Coffman, Sharon Herbert, Ann-Marie Knoblauch, Øystein LaBianca, Heather Parker, B. W. Ruffner, Frederick Winter, and J. Edward Wright. As the Chair of the Task Force, I can state unequivocally that these Task Force members have been more than generous with their time and their wisdom, and beyond patient with me as I have asked for this time and wisdom again and again. ASOR cannot thank them enough for all they have done to contribute to the Strategic Planning process.
ASOR’s Webpage and the ASOR Brand. There is, however, no rest for the weary, as in my report to the membership after the November 2015 Board of Trustees and Executive Committee meetings (click here), I noted that the Board had charged the Strategic Planning Task Force—because the Task Force was currently the body in ASOR most deeply engaged in thinking about ASOR’s work and identity going forward —with serving as a committee that should work, first, with a consultant and then a web designer to develop a new ASOR webpage, as well as updated versions of other public presentations of ASOR’s “image” (business cards, stationery, etc.).
This now reconceptualized Branding Task Force, and our consultants from C&G Partners, in New York, had an opportunity to share some preliminary ideas with the Board at its April meeting. We look particularly at C&G’s suggestions for a redesigned ASOR logo and also a new ASOR “tagline.”
C&G is currently in the process of revising their preliminary designs based on our feedback, and the Branding Task Force has in addition engaged in intensive discussions with C&G about websites, especially features of websites we like and features we don’t. We expect that website development will be the primary focus of our conversations as our work with C&G moves into its next phase.
Officer and Trustee Elections. The term of ASOR’s Board Chair, B. W. Ruffner, comes to an end on June 30, 2016, and B. W. had previously informed the Board that he had chosen not to stand for a second term. The Officers Nominations Committee, chaired by ASOR Trustee and Past President Joe Seger, thus nominated our current treasurer, Richard Coffman, to serve as ASOR’s next Board Chair. I am thrilled that Richard accepted the Committee’s nomination, and even more thrilled that he was elected by the Board to serve as chair, for a term that will run through December 31, 2019.
Yet even as ASOR is thrilled to have Richard assume the position of Board Chair, we are saddened to lose B. W. as our Chair. When B. W. stepped into the position of Chair, he had enormous shoes to fill, those of the venerable P. E. MacAllister—not an enviable position! But B. W. has excelled in carrying on P. E.’s legacy, both in his work for ASOR behind the scenes and in his role as a public face and voice for our organization.
Also important to remember are B. W.’s contributions as the Chair of the Management Committee in the mid-2000’s, during a time when ASOR was struggling with immense leadership and financial challenges. The work B. W. did was critical in ensuring that ASOR could pull itself out of the hole it was in and move forward to be the (extraordinary successful) organization it is today.
In short, ASOR cannot thank B. W. enough for all he did then, and has continued to do, and we will miss him as our Chair. Fortunately for ASOR, though, B. W. did agree to be a candidate for a position as a regular Board member, and the Board wasted no time in voting unanimously and enthusiastically to elect B. W. as a Board-appointed Trustee, serving from July 1, 2016-December 31, 2018.
The fact that our current Treasurer, Richard Coffman, will replace B. W. as Board Chair on July 1, 2016, required our Officers Nominations Committee also to identify a candidate to replace Richard as Treasurer. The Committee nominated Chris White, an accounting professional who currently serves as the Senior Accountant at Martin Marietta, a leading supplier of construction aggregates and heavy building materials in Raleigh, NC.
Previously, though, Chris worked as Senior Auditor at Romeo, Wiggins and Company, LLP, in Raleigh, the accounting firm that, since 2008, has performed ASOR’s annual audit. Chris thus knows ASOR and its finances very well, and the Board deemed ASOR very lucky to have found someone with such a deep knowledge as a candidate for Treasurer’s post. We thus wasted no time in electing him to office. Chris’s term as Treasurer will run from July 1, 2016, through December 31, 2017.
The Officers Nominations Committee was also charged with bringing forward to the Board a nominee for the office of ASOR President, as my current three-year term ends on December 31, 2016. As the Committee began its deliberations, I indicated to them that I would be interested in serving for another term, and I was thus very honored and pleased that the Officers Nominations Committee nominated me to serve for another three-year term, running from January 1, 2017-December 31, 2019.
I was even more honored and pleased that the Board elected me to a second term as ASOR President. It has been a privilege to serve ASOR as President, and to be able to get to know and work closely with so many of you. I very much look forward to continuing this work going forward.
Finally, our meeting was an opportunity to welcome three new Board colleagues: Jane DeRose Evans, Jeffrey Blakely, and Peyton Randolph (Randy) Helm. We’re very happy to have these new colleagues on our Board!
Concluding Reflections. As I think you can see, the Board and Executive Committee had a busy set of meetings—but also a productive one. We accomplished a great deal in the key areas of ASOR governance, ASOR finances, and ASOR’s goals and ambitions going forward. I left Washington thankful for all that ASOR’s Board members do to ensure that ASOR continues to thrive.
