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PRESENT: Barker, Batson, Benson, Capps, D'Antonio, Davidson, Hammond, Gaede, McGuire, Mauss, Poloma, Robbins, Schoenherr, Shupe, Tipton, Umansky, Wright

1. CALL TO ORDER: President McGuire called the council meeting to order at 2:20 p.m., October 26. After introducing new members, McGuire presented the agenda; a motion to approve the agenda carried.

A motion was made to approve the minutes of the 1988 Meeting. Hammond asked if the issue of over lapping board membership between RRA and SSSR brought up at last year's council was on this year's agenda. In lieu of extensive discussion, McGuire (as Nominating Committee Chair) was commissioned to pick upon the general sense of the committee's thoughts on this issue. The minutes were then unanimously approved.

2. PRESIDENT'S REMARKS: McGuire thanked all persons for their cooperative spirit during her term as president.

3. EXECUTIVE SECRETARY'S REPORT: Davidson's report consisted oftwo main parts: information/evaluation and action items.

Information/Evaluation

a. Turnover on Council: Announced that Meredith McGuire will complete her term as President; she will be replaced by Donald Capps, whose term will end with the 1991 meeting in Pittsburgh. McGuire will move into Hammond's place as Past President, which also means she will serve as chair of the Nominating Committee. As Capps moves up to President, Eileen Barker moves into the post of President-Elect, which means she will head up the Research Award Committee for two years. Margaret Poloma will step down as Secretary after four years in that role to be replaced by William Silverman. Andy Shupe and Steve Tipton will cycle off Council; they will be replaced by David Bromley and Romney Moseley. Larry Greil completes his term as Program Chair and will be followed by Janet Jacobs in 1989-90 and Bradley Hertelin 1990-91.

b. Membership. We have almost same number of members now(N=1616) as we had last year at this time (N=1617).Davidson noted that we are better at retaining old members but less successful in attracting "new"members. He asked for suggestions for membership lists and the like that might be a source for recruitment.

c. Lorraine D'Antonio wants to step down as Business Manager during the next year. Since the Business Manager is an appointed staff position and is accountable to the Executive Secretary, it has been Davidson's responsibility to find a replacement. Jim asked Lorraine for a job description and the names of any people she felt could do her job. She consulted with McGuire and then recommended Anna Tassone Davidson. Anna has met with Lorraine, feels comfortable with Lorraine's system, and has agreed to take the position.

Lorraine will phase out her responsibilities during the summer of 1990, after 19 years of service to the SSSR. Anna will set up an office at Purdue, much like the oneLorraine has at Catholic University.

d. Newsletter. The newsletter is now being printed directly from a disk in ASCII format prepared by Jim's office. This process costs less than the old method, speeds up the publication of the newsletter by about two weeks, and reduces the chance of errors. With the money saved by going to the ASCII file, we have started using a color screen for the headline stories.

e. 1990 Annual Meeting. Next year's annual meeting will be in Report and Conference Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia, November 9-11. SSSR Council meeting will start at 8:00 a.m. November 8 and end by mid afternoon. The RRA board will begin its meeting late that afternoon; the boards of the two groups will meet for dinner between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.; the RRA board will finish its work after dinner. Sessions will start on Friday morning, November 9, and run through noon on Sunday, the 11th. Program Chair will be Janet Jacobs, who is in sociology and woman's studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309.

f. Gallup Survey. Davidson has talked with George Gallup about the religion survey conducted in the late summer of 1988 and his plans for the future. A session was held at last year's meeting, and another is being held this Sunday morning. Members can secure a copy of the data by calling George and asking for it. Eventually the data also will be available through the Roper Center.

Gallup has no immediate plans to do another such survey, although he remains open to the possibility. If there were another one, the financial arrangement would have to be different with less money coming from Gallup. With no plans to do another survey in the next couple of years, and not being sure what the new financial arrangements might be if one were to be done, Davidson has taken the Gallup survey out of next years budget.

Action Items

a. Meeting Site Selection. Davidson was instructed to look in the Northeast for sites for the 1992 meeting. After deleting New York and Baltimore because of room rates of approximately $125 per night, Davidson found four hotels that were acceptable to him in Washington, DC, Providence, and Albany. A motion was moved and seconded to delete Providence from the list. No consensus was reached in choosing between Washington and Albany; a vote is to be held after dinner.

b. 1993 Annual Meeting. Council recommended, in accord with a policy approved last year, that Davidson look for a site in the Southeast for the 1993 meetings.

c. Abstract Book. A few members had asked why the abstract book had been discontinued, and Davidson agreed to probe the wishes of the general membership. In a survey of 10 percent of the members with a 57% return rate, most respondents never read the abstract book and do not think it that important. Although a sizeable minority did read and use the printed abstracts, Davidson recommended that Council vote to continue the present practice of not publishing an abstract book. The motion carried with 1 no and 1 abstaining vote.

It was suggested that Program Chairs encourage authors to provide explicit and descriptive titles for their papers to compensate for the lack of printed abstracts.

d. Public Policy Stands. Davidson raised the issue of requests for the SSSR to take stands on public policies, with two possible courses of action: a Council decision to continue to act as it does now, treating issues as they emerge or the formation of an ad hoc committee to explore the feasibility of a public policy committee that would make a recommendation for action at next year's meeting.

After discussion it was recommended that Davidson draft minimal guidelines for responding to public policy proposals, and after seeking comments from some other persons, bring these guidelines to Council next year for further discussion and vote.

4. EDITOR'S REPORT. Armand Mauss reported that 125 manuscripts had been submitted and processed with the help of 152 referees. It is estimated that approximately 20% of these submissions will be accepted and published in JSSR. Average "turnaround time" for the first review was 7 weeks; average for manuscripts revised and resubmitted was 5 weeks. Volume28 of the Journal has averaged 140 pages per issue.

Mauss also commended the service of JSSR's two Book Review Editors, Hans Baer and Gordon Shepherd, who processed almost 50 book reviews; Assistant Editor Robin Perrin, who did much of the editorial management; and copy-editor Dynette I. Reynolds, who has now taken on the duties of Assistant Editor as well as those of copy-editor.

5. MONOGRAPH SERIES. Stan Gaede reported that SSSR will be publishing another monograph in the next few months. Edited by Donald Capps and James E. Dittes, The Hunger of theHeart: Reflections on the Confessions of Augustine interprets the disparate (largely psychological) literature on Augustine.

Gaede has been in communication with Horst Helle about the possibility of publishing an English translation of his Georg Simmel: Collected Writings in the Sociology of Religion .Gaede asked for suggestions of German readers who can give him an Anglo assessment of the German version.

Largely -due to promotion and the brochure, monograph Series sales for 88/89 were quite good. Of the $34,408 spent for the series, $24,124 has come back through sale of the monographs.

This will be Gaede's last year as Series editor. He suggests that a new appointment be made as soon as possible, within the next six months, in order for there to be a continuity of editorial oversight.

6. RESEARCH AWARDS. Donald Capps announced the five recipients of the research awards. The three senior recipients were GeneThursby, Madeleine Adriance, and Elizabeth Norrell; Daniel Hofrenning and Crystal Park received the junior awards. Due to the fact that the number (and quality) of applications went down this year (12 were received), only $4000 of the money allocated for the awards was given out.

It was suggested that a simple instruction form be sent out to perspective applicants, perhaps with a sample of a successful proposal. More coverage should be given in the Newsletter. A motion was made to authorize the Research Awards Committee to allow up to $1500 as stipend or salary for the researcher, which would be available upon receipt of a preliminary manuscript. This would be done on a trial basis for two years, and then the policy would be reevaluated. The motion was approved unanimously.

7. AAAS REPORT. Hart Nelsen's call for session ideas for the 1991 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was distributed. Persons were encouraged to contact Hart with ideas for sessions at the Washington, D.C. meeting no later than February 7, 1990.

Meeting adjourned for dinner at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8:20p.m.

PRESENT: Baer, Barker, Batson, Benson, Capps, Davidson, Gaede, Greil, Hammond, Hertel, Horowitz, Jacobs, McGuire, Mauss, Robbins, Schoenherr, Shupe, Tipton, Umansky, Wright.

8. BOOK EXHIBIT. Harve Horowitz reported that the book exhibit is down from last year, from a gross of $4500 to $2600.

Davidson noted some of the concerns expressed in the RRA meeting concerning display of members' books and some feeling that the publisher's fee is too high. Horowitz responded that authors need to tell him about their publications and might be encouraged to provide the information through better notices in the Newsletter. A major problem exists in that he is not informed of new publications. He felt the publisher's fee is in line, $25 for first book and $100 for unlimited number of books. To provide Horowitz with information he needs on new publications SSSR will: (1) send cards or letters to members that will facilitate authors in informing Horowitz about their books and the publishers about Horowitz's service; (2) Mauss and Baer will send titles of newly published books by members to Horowitz; (3) Baer, as book review editor, to send flyers and brochures on relevant books to Horowitz.

9. 1989 PROGRAM CHAIR'S REPORT. Larry Greil reported on the combined SSSR/RRA program which included 84 sessions, with 294 presentations and 357 participants. No attempt was made to distinguish between RRA and SSSR sessions, and papers were traded so that the sessions made sense. Jon R. Stone's (University of California, Santa Barbara) paper won the Student Paper Award.

Greil raised the question whether the Program Chair should be a two-year position, with the terms of RRA/SSSR being staggered to allow some continuity. It was noted that this option is available to the President. Janet Jacobs will serve as the 1990 Program Chair; Bradley Hertel, 1991.

10. DISTINGUISHED BOOK AWARD. David Bromley reported that two books were nominated and top books from other years were renominated for the award. The vote was 3-1 in favor of Warner's New Wine in Old Wineskins. Bromley noted that the Business Meeting was too busy a time to make such awards. It would be more appropriate to make them at the banquet or presidential address session.

It was suggested that some procedures be drawn up for selecting an outstanding article each year. Mauss is to work with a couple of people to make some procedural recommendations on which he will report to next year's Council.

11. PUBLICITY. Stuart Wright highlighted some of the work he did to promote papers presented at this year's meeting. Although Salt Lake City is not a media center, he did identify 28 newspapers within a 1000 mile radius, asking them to send people to the meeting. Preliminary programs were sent to religious broadcasters. It was suggested that authors, together with their university news services, work out press releases on journal articles that could be sent to Wright for distribution.

12. BOOK REVIEW EDITOR. Hans Baer noted that 30-40 books are presently under review. He plans to review approximately 50 books a year.

13. 1992 MEETING SITE. The site selection vote, delayed earlier in the meeting, was Washington, D.C.-10; Albany, NY-4. The site of the 1992 meeting will be in Washington, D.C.

14. PUBLICATION POLICIES. Don Capps addressed what he felt were some larger issues of the Society, particularly a failure to work with Europeans and those who are working at higher levels of theory. He felt it was important to discuss the identity and purpose of the organization--where are we and what are the issues that we are confronting. After some discussion, Davidson suggested that Capps get some people who are interested and work with Janet Jacobs (1990 Program Chair) on his concern. Capps will report back to next year's Council.

15. TREASURER'S REPORT. Richard Schoenherr recommended raising dues and library fees. Three motions were made. First, the Society will raise library subscription to the Journal from $35 to $45 beginning with the 1991 calendar year. The motion was unanimously approved. Second, the Society will raise the membership fee from $24 to $28 for regular members and from $10 to $12 for student members beginning with the 1992 calendar year. The motion carried, with one abstention. Third, the Society change the annual registration fee structure beginning in 1990 as follows: Students $10, (preregistrants) and $12 (on-site); Members, $25 (preregistrants) and $35 (on-site); and Non-members, $35 (preregistrants) and $45 (on site). The third motion was approved unanimously.

It was moved and seconded to accept the 1989-90 Annual Budget; the motion carried unanimously.

16. PRESIDENT'S REMARKS. McGuire, as Nominations Chair, will take the concern about overlapping directorates with RRA into account. Discussion on the topic will be carried over next year.

17. ADJOURNMENT. The meeting adjourned at 11:20 p.m. on October 26.

Respectfully Submitted,
Margaret M. Poloma
Secretary