Governance Update, November 2023

The Board of Directors met during the Annual meeting on October 28 and 31, 2023. In attendance were Abebe Rorissa, PhD (President); Crystal Fulton, PhD (President-Elect); Naresh Agarwal, PhD (Past-President); Ina Fourie (Treasurer); Joan Bartlett, PhD, Maria Bonn, PhD; Tina Du, PhD; Lisa Hussey, PhD; Aylen Imeri, PhD; Dan Wu, PhD., Lydia Middleton, MBA, CAE (Executive Director); Chris Cunningham, PhD (Parliamentarian).

Guests in attendance included: Jennifer Tan, Auditor, Jenny Bossaller, Chair, History Committee, Lisa Given, ARIST Editor, Steve Sawyer, JASIST Editor, Chirag Shah, Information Matters Editor, Luanne Sinnamon, incoming Member-at-Large

The Board discussed the following issues:

Financial Update
The Board reviewed and approved audited year-end financials. ASIS&T received an unmodified audit opinion and a clean management letter for FY23.

History Committee
The Board made the decision to put the History Committee on hiatus until the development of the 2025 strategic plan and, if there are strategic goals related to the history of ASIS&T within that plan, reactivate it.

Publications Editors Reports
The Editors of ASIS&T publications provided the Board with an update on the publications. All publications are seeing increased submissions. JASIST and ARIST report a scarcity of reviewers.

Strategic Plan & Charge Development
The Board reviewed the status of the current Strategic Plan and finalized committee charges for the year. Of note:

• The Board created the Continuing Education Committee to oversee ASIS&T continuing education including building, coordinating, proposing and evaluating the current continuing education content being provided by ASIS&T including meetings, toolkits, workshops,and webinars to make sure they meet our members and potential members needs and to advocate lifelong learning.
• The Governance Committee was charged with developing a Code of Conduct, identifying best practices for access/belonging/community in governance, and considering the development of a single set of Bylaws for all SIGs and Chapters for recommendations to the Board.
• The Board reinstituted the Membership Committee  to develop and implement member engagement strategies in line with the access/belonging/community focus and assess iConnect utilization and promote its use.
• The Publications Committee will act on recommendations 1-3 of the Open Access report and develop strategies to expand reah of Information Matters to a broader, more industry focused audience.
• The Board revised the charges of the Professional Development Committee to focus on mentoring and leadership programs. They will consolidate all mentoring programs and recommend improvements on process including potential technology to enhance engagement.
• The Research Engagement Committee has been charged with creating the criteria and process for the new Impact Award funded by Rutgers University.
• Chapter Assembly has been charged with identifying and supporting volunteers in activating chapters in US West and South America, update any out-of-date bylaws, identify existing student chapters and encourage inactive student chapters.
• SIG Cabinet has been charged with updating out-of-date bylaws, encourage the use of iConnect, educating SIGS on new financial policies, sunsetting inactive SIGS, and enforcing ASIS&T policies.

Annual Meeting Report
Record-breaking attendance and gross revenue were reported by Middleton. The Board is aware that due to the high cost of the meeting in London this does not mean exceeding net revenue expectations. 

Consent Agenda
The consent agenda was approved. It consisted of:

• Minutes of August 2023 Meeting
• YTD  Financial Information
• Committee Reports
• Proposal to Establish Impact Award