SJE Board Meeting

SJE Board Meeting Thursday, January 3, 2008 Embassy Room, Hilton Atlanta

Present: David Teutsch, Toby Schonfeld, Aaron Mackler, Adrienne Asch Guest: Louis Newman

Absent: Jonathan Crane, David Novak, Elliot Dorff, Dov Nelkin

President Teutsch convened the meeting at 6:40 p.m.

Minutes from the 2007 SJE Board meeting were unanimously approved.

Financial Report: The board reviewed the Financial Report prepared by Dov Nelkin (see attached). Because we were able to raise almost $5800 this year, our financial situation is ok. Therefore, fundraising is essential. We must be aggressive about this and about advertising scholarships. After general discussion, Aaron moved that we: 1. approve the financial report and a general budget for the upcoming year based on the past year’s expenditures, 2. continue the current fee structure, 3. actively pursue further fundraising 4. (to the extent that fundraising efforts are successful) aggressively promote scholarships for students and junior faculty Toby seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

Report from SCE Board Meeting: Toby reported several items of interest from the SCE Board meeting she attended on 1-3-2008. Included among those items were: 1. The number of meeting attendees is up this year, both for SCE and SJE. SJE is having its largest meeting attendance ever with 27 registered (as of 12-28-2007); this is up from 19 in 2007 and 18 in 2006. 2. Annual meeting registration fees will remain the same for the 2009 meeting as SCE finds no fiscal reason to raise them 3. SCE is covering the costs of the annual meeting with the current registration fees 4. The Program Committee will meet March 14-15 in Chicago to plan the 2009 meeting. 5. The 2011 Annual Meeting will be in New Orleans. 6. The SCE is currently discussing possible sites for the 2012 meeting, which will be on the east coast. Several cities are in the running, including: Washington, D.C. (Crystal City), Baltimore, Boston, Raleigh/Durham or Charlotte in North Carolina, and a Florida city (Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, and Orlando were all discussed). After discussion, the SJE board felt that North Carolina was likely less than ideal for our members, but that we had no strong preferences regarding the other site choices. Toby will report this to the SCE board at the meeting on Sunday. 7. Toby informed the SJE board of how invaluable Linda Schreiber of the SCE has been again this year, and asked the board to authorize her to send Linda a token of gratitude following the annual meeting on behalf of SJE. The board approved $100 for this purpose.

Board Nominations: The SJE board discussed several issues regarding nominations to the SJE board, including: (1) David Novak has not participated in the work of SJE all year. In response to a phone call from David Teutsch, David Novak suggested that we replace him on the SJE board. David Teutch recommended that we take him up on this offer. That means that the following positions are open: a. A one-year position to complete David Novak’s term: b. A two-year position to replace Aaron Mackler, whose term on the Board has expired and who is ineligible for re-election; and c. A two-year position to replace Adrienne Asch, whose term on the Board has expired.

After much discussion, the SJE board nominates the following individuals for the positions mentioned above: 1. Marc Ellis to finish out the term of David Novak; 2. Jonathan Schofer for a new 2-year term on the Board 3. Adrienne Asch is re-nominated for a 2-year term. These nominations will be presented to the general membership at the SJE Business meeting on Saturday night.

In addition, Toby moved for a change in the bylaws to enable the creation of a nominating committee. The recommended change is as follows:

Article VII: Nominating Committee. A nominating committee, composed of the most recent two past presidents, will nominate candidates for open board and officer positions to the SJE board. If one of the past presidents is unable to serve, then the current president will appoint someone to fill that position.

Adrienne seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. This change in the bylaws will be presented for ratification to the general membership at the Business meeting on Saturday night.

Fundraising: Listed on the program are individuals and institutions that gave $100 or more to SJE this year. David’s proposal is that (a) we each commit to making a gift ourselves as members of the board, and (b) that anyone who has the ability, try to ask 2 people or institutions for a gift.

Adrienne’s motion is that we make a category for institutional membership for $1000 and that we list institutional members on our website and on the annual meeting program. Institutional membership is a category of support, not a voting membership in the organization. The motion was seconded by Toby and was unanimously approved. Membership: The operation of the new dues structure has gone smoothly and there is no reason to change it. Louis will try to work on getting more members (or at least donors) for the annual meeting.

Administration: (1) Office (Carleton): Things seem ok with the office. The board suggested an end- of-year thank-you gift in recognition for Jill’s hard work on our behalf all year. (2) Paypal: Issues with payments continue, despite all efforts. Toby and Jill will create a “frequently encountered difficulties” list and post that on the website. The list will also be sent with annual meeting information. All efforts will be made to try to maintain an online registration and payment system. In addition, Toby will keep in contact with Linda Schreiber as the SCE updates its website and considers online payment features themselves.

2009 conference: Jonathan Crane has agreed to chair the 2009 annual meeting.

David raised the issue about whether or not it helps us as an organization to have a keynote speaker. We discussed some possibilities of people who are in or around Chicago:  Peter Knobel  Leon Kass  Laurie Zoloth

Toby suggested that perhaps instead of a keynote speaker, we instead have an invited panel. This would achieve two purposes: (1) ensure a certain level of quality of one of the SJE concurrent sessions, and (2) feature individuals prominent in the field. The board discussed both possible topics and possible individuals to serve on such a panel:  Bioethics panel  Ethical leadership panel: Walzer? Shalom Carmi? Norman Lamm? Saul Berman? Denny Statman? o Maybe this topic for a text study  Ethics of states: Zohar, Walzer, Martha Minow at Harvard Law School (reconciliation using Jewish sources/text  Adrienne is contact for this); Robert Burt (Yale law professor); Seth Kreimer (Prof. Constitutional law at Penn and is serious activist on civil rights issues and Jewishly thoughtful); Jonathan Cohen (JD, ethics at HUC-Cincinnati)

The board decided that we will brainstorm for topics and/or people at the business meeting on Saturday night. The list that is generated will be passed along to the program chair.

Meeting with ACJB: This year’s trial of a joint meeting with ACJB has had pros and cons. It has gotten us more attendees to the annual meeting, but working with them on the meeting arrangements has been significantly challenging. ACJB has not had a staff person and that accounts for some of the difficulty. Toby expressed serious reservations at having them join us for next year’s conference. The board decided that we will not work with them again unless they hire a professional that we feel is adequate.

Other business: Adrienne brought up the issue of preparing a publication-ready response for the SCE plenary. The board advised her that we think that it’s nice for her to be a respondent orally, but publication is her choice.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 9 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Toby Schonfeld Vice President (on behalf of Dov Nelkin, Secretary/Treasurer)