.

Present for all or part of the afternoon meeting:

Madeleine Adriance, Eileen Barker, David Bromley, Marie Cornwall, Stephen Glazier, Janet Jacobs, Edward Lehman, Katherine Meyer, Donald Miller, Loretta Morris, Hart Nelsen, Kenneth Pargament, Jeffrey Pfeifer, Margaret Poloma, Wade Clark Roof, Richard Schoenherr, William Silverman, Ruth Wallace, and Stuart Wright.

AGENDA:

1. Call to order
2. Approval of agenda
3. Minutes of last meeting
4. President's remarks
5. Report of executive secretary - information items
6. Report of executive secretary - site selection for 1996
7. Report of executive secretary - investment strategy
8. Report of executive secretary - site selection for 1997
9. SSSR directory
10. International travel
11. Subsidized international members
12. JSSR editor
13. Use of ASA discount coupons
14. Monograph series
15. Publicity
16. Relations with other organizations
17. Observations on program sessions
18. 1993 program chair
19. 1994 program chair
20. Annual meeting registration fee
21. Student paper award
22. Research awards
23. Distinguished article award
24. AAAS
25. SSSR history project
26. Distinguished book award
27. Career achievement award
28. Treasurer's report
29. Other business
30. Budget-expenditure committee
31. Investment-fundraising committee
32. 1993 - 1994 budget
33. President's remarks
34. Adjourn

[paragraph numbers will be inserted]

CALL TO ORDER:
President Eileen Barker called the meeting to order at 2:04 p.m., Thursday, October 28, 1993, at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, Raleigh, North Carolina.

AGENDA
Approved as revised. As was the practice at the 1992 Council meeting policy and program matters are discussed as they appear on the agenda. Only at the end of the meeting will final decisions concerning the budget be made.

MINUTES OF LAST MEETING:
Three corrections were offered to the minutes. At the top of page 1, Paul Chalfant is the executive officer of the RRA. Singular, not plural. In section 9.1 the spelling of the names of two visitors from Poland is incorrect. The correct spelling is Borowik and Moszczynska. The minutes were approved as corrected.

PRESIDENT'S REMARKS:
President Barker reported that Donald Capps, past president, is suffering from a detached retina and will not be able to attend this meeting. The Council expressed its best wishes to Capps for a speedy recovery and asked Executive Secretary Edward Lehman to write Capps to convey these sentiments.

One member of the Society died during the past year: Earl Brewer was a professor emeritus at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

Most of the reports which will be presented to the Council at this meeting were prepared in written form and were mailed to all Council members before the meeting. This practice is intended to facilitate rapid action by the Council. Job descriptions for twelve of the offices in the Society were also circulated to Council members. Council members are invited to send suggestions or comments about these job descriptions to Edward Lehman.

President Barker reminded the Council that only officers and elected Council members are eligible to vote at this meeting. Committee chairs and editors are not eligible to vote.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

INFORMATION ITEMS:

Edward Lehman noted that there will be several changes in Council membership at the end of the Raleigh meeting. Grateful thanks were offered to people who are completing terms of office: William Silverman, secretary, and Madeleine Adriance and Stephen Glazier, Council members. Wade Clark Roof is the new president-elect. Helen Rose Ebaugh and David Hackett are newly elected members of the Council. Donald Ploch is the new secretary.

Ballots for the 1993 election were included in the June SSSR Newsletter. Only 174 ballots were returned. In order to increase participation in the election in 1994 a separate mailing will be used to distribute ballots.

Membership in the Society is down slightly. On August 31,1993 there were 1513 members, compared to 1542 on August 31, 1992. Library subscriptions are also down slightly, from 1225 in 1992 to 1216 in 1993. Lehman invites suggestions for organizations which might be included in the January 1994 membership campaign. It was suggested that we try sending a mailing to former members.

Lehman wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno concerning the events associated with the Branch Davidian community near Waco, Texas. Copies of letters of reply from the Attorney General and a Deputy Attorney General were distributed.

The Radisson Plaza Hotel made several disgraceful mistakes in handling arrangements for our convention. They booked another group into the hotel at the same time. This other group will use some meeting rooms that we had planned to use. Some of our sessions will be forced to use meeting rooms in the Raleigh Convention Center which is 1.5 blocks from the hotel.

Even worse the hotel lost some reservations made by our members. Some people arrived today and discovered that there is no room reserved for them. A new computer system was installed in September and in the transition between computer systems some records were lost. A Holiday Inn will be used for people who are bumped from the Radisson. Lehman will ask for a free shuttle bus service between hotels. Some members may be able to spend Thursday night at other hotels and return to the Radisson for Friday or Saturday night. The Society did fill its guaranteed block of rooms this year.

Hart Nelsen said that the usual practice in the hotel business when room reservations are lost is for the first night in an overflow hotel to be free, paid for by the hotel that made the mistake. Nelsen and Clark Roof agreed to assist Lehman in his negotiations with the Radisson Hotel.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY -- SITE SELECTION FOR 1996 MEETING:
After discussion of the merits and demerits of the three cities, the Council voted the following ranking of meeting sites: First - Nashville - Loews Vanderbilt Hotel; Second - Atlanta - Radisson Downtown; and Third - Knoxville - Hyatt Regency. Lehman reported that he was able to negotiate a $700 subsidy from local universities which will underwrite a reception at the 1996 annual meeting. The prospective donors are Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Emory University in Atlanta, and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY -- INVESTMENT STRATEGY:
Lehman summarized a memorandum which was sent to Council members earlier in the year. Investigation by the Ad-Hoc-Committee on Investments showed that our investments were not doing well with Advest, Inc. We have recently lost money under Advest management. Our investments were moved to Fidelity Investments, Inc. In the 5.5 months since the investments were moved there has been an 8.5 % increase in value.

Hart Nelsen commented that in the early years when our investments were with Advest, the Advest investment manager was a good friend to the Society. He did help us when times were tough. Although recent results have been disappointing we should remember that past history was favorable.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY - SITE SELECTION FOR 1997:
In 1997 the Society is scheduled to go to the Western region. Council members suggested several cities which Lehman could examine for possible convention hotels. A straw vote was conducted to get a rough ranking of possible cities. The top three cities in the straw vote are: Seattle (10 votes), San Francisco (8), and San Diego (7). Other possibilities are: Vancouver (6 votes), Denver (6), Santa Barbara (2), Las Vegas (1), Portland (l), and Los Angeles (O). If Denver is selected there are two problems. A meeting in Denver should be held no later than mid-October. A meeting in the late Fall runs the risk of encountering heavy snows and heavy airport traffic of skiers. The fate of Amendment 2 concerning homosexuals is not yet determined. The Colorado Supreme Court has not yet issued its decision.

SSSR DIRECTORY:
Ruth Wallace reported for the committee which is looking into the feasibility of preparing a directory. The committee recommends that the annual dues notice should contain home address, office address, fax number, E mail number, discipline, area of expertise (perhaps by providing a list of categories which could be checked off), and whether the member agrees or rejects putting this information in a published directory. The committee thinks that it is desirable to start with a SSSR directory, holding open the possibility of a future international directory. Information on disciplines and areas of expertise will be particularly useful to several SSSR officers. Such information will assist the program chair in locating discussants, the nominations committee in finding nominees, and the publicity chair in locating media interviewees.

Clark Roof reported that the Board of the Religious Research Association has voted to produce their own directory with similar information. He suggested that the new chair of the directory committee could coordinate with them so the formats of the two directories will be compatible.

Donald Miller asked if a guide should be produced which is sent to the media. This is done by the University of Southern California. Media users of such a directory would be most interested in areas of expertise.

David Bromley urged that the directory information be put into a data base program. Such a format would make it possible to look at trends. This is done by the Southern Sociological Society. Darren Sherkat at Vanderbilt University has a copy of the compute program which is used by the Southern Society.

The consensus of the Council is that we will proceed to assemble a computerized data base by next year. Information from this data base will be made available for internal use by officers of the Society. No hard copy or published version will be made generally available until next year. The 1994 Council will decide whether to issue a printed directory after the cost of producing such a printed directory is known.

Operating a data base might require a more powerful computer than is now available at the business office. Lehman will look at the existing computer system. The Council is willing to spend up to $2000 for a new computer at the business office.

INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL:
James Richardson's report was presented by President Barker because he is now in Australia. Three people were provided with international travel grants in 1993: [INSERT details] from Brazil, from Mexico.

Marie Cornwall, program chair, reported that she wrote to international scholars whose papers were accepted to inform them about the availability of travel grants. This may be the reason we got 20 requests for grants this year. Cornwall said that her experience was that it is difficult to choose which applicant to support.

The major policy issue concerning travel grants to international scholars is whether we want to continue doing this. Barker argued that both the SSSR and the grantees benefit from this program. So the program should continue. Next year the committee members will be Kirk Hadaway (chair), Meredith McGuire, Cheryl Gilkes, and Loretta Morris (ex-officio). They will have a budget of $2,200 at their disposal. This includes $1,500 from the SSSR budget and $430 from an unexpended balance and a fund raising appeal.

Madeleine Adriance noted that air fares from Latin America are very high. This should be taken into account when making grants to Latin Americans. Other Council members favored continuance of the practice of trying to arrange lectures by visitors at various American universities to help pay for their travel expenses. A question was raised: shall our present informal policy that a person is only eligible for a travel grant once be made into a formal policy? Council members are invited to communicate their suggestions to Hadaway. Hadaway will be asked to develop a policy paper which will codify procedures and rules for the international travel program.

The Council unanimously expressed thanks to James Richardson for his hard work and the expenditure of his own money on getting his program started.

SUBSIDIZED INTERNATIONAL MEMBERS:
William Silverman (chair) reported for the committee (Stephen Glazier and James Richardson, members) which was established at the 1992 Council meeting to prepare a proposal about deeply subsidized memberships for international scholars.

The committee's proposal was discussed. Clark Roof disliked the provision which does not allow deeply subsidized members to hold office in the Society. He is opposed to creation of a category of second class members. Ruth Wallace noted that establishing a new membership category may require an amendment to the SSSR Constitution or by-laws. Hart Nelsen suggested that individual members might be invited to subsidize dues for an international member. An "adopt a scholar" program. Kenneth Pargament suggested a different approach. Perhaps the SSSR could subsidize regional conferences outside of North America. Pargament was asked to prepare a formal proposal about this for consideration by the Council in 1994.

The consensus of the Council was that the "international associate member" category which was established in 1992 should be continued. These memberships do not involve a large subsidy from the Society.

The proposal presented by the ad-hoc committee on deeply subsidized memberships for international scholars was rejected .5 votes in favor, 8 votes opposed.

A revised motion: That people who are not from Abu-Dahbi, Australia, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Kuwait, Libya, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, Venezuela, and Western Europe may apply for SSSR membership at the reduced rate of $20. If they are unable to pay $20 they can apply for a subsidized membership at the rate of $10. Individual members of the Society will be asked to contribute to a fund which will pay for subsidized memberships. Anna Davidson, business manager, is authorized to use her discretion in granting these deeply subsidized memberships. She may consult with Hart Nelsen when making these decisions. The operation of this proposal will be reviewed by the Council in 1994 when a decision will be made about whether to continue it. The motion was approved.

REPORT OF THE JSSR EDITOR:
David Bromley reported that the rate of manuscript flow and acceptance has stayed the same. It has taken a great deal of work to keep within the budget allocated for the Journal, but this has been accomplished. Increased page size, increased willingness to use the research note format, and rigidly keeping articles to 25 pages facilitated keeping within budget.

Bromley noted that in recent years there has been a decrease in the number of library subscriptions to the Journal. He strongly suggests that an effort be made next year to increase library subscriptions.

Grateful thanks were offered by the Council to Bromley and to book review editor Jeffrey Hadden for their work on the Journal.

BREAK:
At 4:00 p.m. a brief break was taken to allow Council members to stretch. The meeting resumed at 4:11 p.m.

ASA DISCOUNTS:
Edward Lehman informed the Council that it may be possible to include the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion as one of the journals which is available to American Sociological Association members at a discount through the discount coupons which the ASA provides to its members. This is a way of advertising the Journal and attempting to locate new subscribers. The ASA coupon offering is booked up for this year but we can pursue this possibility for next year.

The consensus of the Council was that Lehman is authorized to talk with the ASA and attempt to arrange inclusion of the JSSR in their discount coupons. The Society will try this for a year on an experimental basis.

MONOGRAPH SERIES:
Katherine Meyer reported that the Horst Helle manuscript of the Simmel translation is now in acceptable form. She signed off on it in August. Now that we have approved the manuscript it will be reviewed by Yale University Press. It will take at least several months for the Yale University Press to complete its review which will involve at least one outside reviewer and the likelihood of a request for revisions. Under our agreement with Yale we will be expected to pay them the $6,000 budgeted for this publication as soon as they accept the manuscript.

So we may wind up spending this money during the 1993-1994 fiscal year. Meyer said that she had expected that after her review of the manuscript was completed there would be no additional review. If, in the future, the Society decides to co-publish another monograph with a University Press she favors including exact arrangements for editing procedures in the written agreement between the Society and the Press.

Meyer has two manuscripts that are still working through editorial processes. She gets mostly dissertations submitted for her consideration. SSSR members send their own book length manuscripts elsewhere.

PUBLICITY:
Stuart Wright reported that the 1992 annual meeting had to compete with the election for coverage. We did not get any coverage in the Washington Post. But the San Francisco Chronicle sent a reporter to the meeting!

For the 1993 meeting Wright sent out three mailings to journalists. He got lots of telephone calls from reporters in 1993. The Branch Davidian episode triggered many of these calls. The FBI treated it as a hostage situation when it was not that. Nancy Ammerman served on a panel to review FBI actions.

Wright invites Council members to send him clippings of relevant press coverage.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS:
The Australian Association for the Study of Religion has expressed interest in establishing a linkage with the Society. They are an inter-disciplinary organization in Australia which publishes the Australian Religious Studies Review. Linkage will involve one official in each organization getting a complimentary membership in the other organization. This complementary membership includes the journal(s) and all mailings. SSSR members will be eligible to buy all AASR publications at member cost. News items and perhaps book reviews can be exchanged.

The consensus of the Council was that it is in favor of establishing this linkage. Hadden or Bromley may arrange for a possible exchange of book reviews.

Barker received a communication from the North American Association for the Study of Religion in which they hinted at establishing some sort of linkage with the Society. She requested further information. After they send information about their organization and make a specific proposal this matter will be presented to the Council.

OBSERVATIONS ON PROGRAM SESSIONS:
Madeleine Adriance expressed her concern that sessions at the SSSR annual meeting do not have enough time for open discussion from the audience. She favors cutting down on the number of papers in 90 minute sessions so there would be three papers at a session or four papers and no discussant. She favors regular paper sessions that last 110 or 90 minutes.

Marie Cornwall, 1993 program chair, remarked that some of the sessions with four or more papers at the 1993 meeting were set up that way by the session organizer. Cornwall did not have control over the number of papers in sessions organized by other people. With only three papers in a session the worry is that if one person is unable to attend then there are only two papers.

Holding three tracks of sessions on Sunday adds additional 90 minute sessions. A larger issue is whether we want fewer papers but better papers at the meeting. This year, Cornwall rejected 18 papers and 3 or 4 session proposals.

Janet Jacobs, 1990 program chair, commented that Sunday sessions tend to be sparsely attended. Having three tracks of sessions on Sunday is not a good idea. Next year, with the meeting located in Albuquerque, Sunday sessions will particularly be in trouble because people from Eastern and Central states will probably have to leave the hotel early to get to their airplane connections.

Motion: The normally, when possible, 90 minute sessions should only have four presenters including the discussant. Four papers are preferable to four papers and a discussant. Session proposers should be informed of this preference when they are arranging their sessions. The motion was passed.

Eileen Barker favors sessions which present work in progress. People who are working on something new are allowed seven minutes for presentations. Kenneth Pargament favors the use of roundtable sessions for work in progress.

1993 PROGRAM CHAIR:
Marie Cornwall announced, with great relief, "The program's done!!" She got lots of support from Brigham Young University and especially wants to thank Nissa. [ insert ]

There are three problems which she wants to mention to the Council: It is essential that the preliminary program is mailed to both SSSR members and non-members who will participate in the meeting. People should be discouraged from requesting registration materials from the program chair instead of the business office. The Society has stated a policy that all program participants must be pre-registered. But Cornwall does not see any way that this policy can be enforced. Janet Jacobs and Eileen Barker commented that the policy is not strictly enforced. Barker said that it provides an incentive for people to show up at the meeting.

1994 PROGRAM CHAIR:
Loretta Morris displayed three forms for 1994 meeting participants which will be inserted into the 1993 convention kit. The 1994 meeting will have sessions recognizing the work of four senior members of the Society who have done work about religion and social justice: Joseph Fichter, Joseph Fitzpatrick, Marie Augusta Neal, and Gordon Zahn. Morris invites suggestions for a guest speaker. An attempt will be made to provide a video room at the meeting.

ANNUAL MEETING REGISTRATION FEE:
Edward Lehman reported that Anna Davidson and Lorraine D'Antonio strongly favor an increase in the registration fee. The fee has stayed the same too long. Increased income will be useful to the SSSR and RRA.

Motion: That the registration fee at the annual meeting be raised five dollars. To $30 from $25 for pre-registrants and to $40 from $35 for on-site registrants. The motion passed.

Some members of the Council favored a ten dollar increase in fees. But the consensus of the Council was that this is too large an increase to make in one step. Let us see what happens for a couple of years before consideration of additional increases in the registration fee.

STUDENT PAPER AWARD:
Jeffrey Pfeifer (committee chair) reported that the award was given to [insert name, title of paper, school). Only one award of $500 was made this year. Committee members were Marie Cornwall, Armand Mauss, Jeffrey Pfeifer, James Spickard, and Larry Young.

When a student submitted a paper to the program chair she wrote back asking if the student wanted to be considered for the student paper award. 12 papers were received by the committee. The overall quality of the papers was poor. It was suggested that a call for student papers be put into the Newsletter.

RESEARCH AWARDS:
Ruth Wallace reported for the committee whose other members were Joseph Tamney and Robert Wuthnow. 15 applications were received. 7 awards were presented. [insert information on the seven awards.]

DISTINGUISHED ARTICLE AWARD:
Jeffrey Pfeifer reported for the committee. The other committee members were Alan Black and Stephen Glazier.

The winning article was not announced at the Council meeting in order to preserve suspense. At the awards presentation session on Saturday, October 30 the award was presented to Edward Reeves and Robert Bylund for "Anonymity and the rise of universal occasions for religious ritual: An extension of the Durkheimian theory",31 JSSR, 1992, 113 -130.

The committee on the distinguished article award presented a list of policy recommendations for consideration by the Council. The Council approved the following points:

* Eligible articles must have been published in the 18 monthsbefore consideration.

* No monographs will be eligible for this award.

* Articles in refereed journals and articles in refereed annuals will be eligible for this award. (So chapters in edited books which are not refereed will not be eligible for the award.)

* The committee may give honorable mentions. (We regard it as acceptable for honorable mention research to re considered for the distinguished book award.)

* All articles must be in the English language.

The Council decided that only one award will be given. It rejected awarding separate awards for the best empirical article and the best theoretical article.

Kenneth Pargament will submit a list to the committee of additional psychology journals which should be consulted for potential distinguished articles.

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE REPRESENTATIVE:
Hart Nelsen invited proposals for sessions at the 1995 meeting of the AAAS in Atlanta. Note the 16 month lead time required for this meeting!

The meeting was adjourned at 5:50 p.m. for dinner with the Religious Research Association Board.

Present for all or part of the evening meeting: Madeleine Adriance, Eileen Barker, David Bromley, Marie Cornwall, William Garrett, Stephen Glazier, Charles Glock, Jeffrey Hadden, Phillip Hammond, Janet Jacobs, Edward Lehman, Armand Mauss, Ratherine Meyer, Donald Miller, Loretta Morris, Hart Nelsen, Kenneth Pargament, Margaret Poloma, Wade Clark Roof, Richard Schoenherr, William Silverman, and Ruth Wallace.

SSSR HISTORY PROJECT:
The report of the committee on the history project was presented by Phillip Hammond (chair). The other members of the committee were Charles Glock, Armand Mauss, Donald Miller, Everett Perry, and Margaret Poloma.

After a review of the available information the committee decided that there is not enough information available for a full-scale narrative history of the Society. Instead the committee recommends that the commemorative volume published by the American Association for Public Opinion Research on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of that Association be taken as a model. (Paul B. Sheatsley and Warren J. Mitofsky (editors), A Meeting Place: The History of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, American Association for Public Opinion Research, 1992.) The committee favors the production of a joint volume produced by both the Society and the Religious Research Association. The book should not be an exclusively SSSR or RRA project. Charles Glock commented that publication of a book around the year 2000 fits the 50th anniversaries of both organizations.

The Religious Research Association Board, at its meeting this morning, agreed to support the idea of a commemorative volume.

Motion: The Council approves of the idea of a commemorative volume modeled on the book published by AAPOR. A committee shall be created to take the project further. This committee will: define an outline for the book, apply for a grant from the Lilly Endowment (and other foundations) to pay part of the cost of producing the book, appoint an editor or editors, and do whatever preliminary work is needed. The motion passed. The Council favors the appointment of voluntary editors who will not be paid for their work on the book.

Charles Glock commented that more money might be needed than the $2700 estimated in the committee report. Over the period from now to the publication of the book it might be necessary to pay for the organizing committee to meet in person.

Charles Glock and Armand Mauss (chair) were appointed members of the new committee. The RRA will be asked to appoint two members to the committee. (This could be Everett Perry/and one new member or whatever the RRA Board decides.) It would be easier for the committee to meet if an RRA member would be from the Western part of the United States.

DISTINGUISHED BOOK AWARD:
The members of the 1993 committee were William Garrett (chair), Dean Hoge, and John Simpson. In order to preserve the element of surprise the winner was not announced at the Council meeting. But at the awards plenary on Saturday night the distinguished book award was presented to Roger Finke and Rodney Stark for The Churching of America New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1992. This year the award certificate was laminated onto a walnut plaque.

Garrett moved that in the future the committee on the distinguished book award will consider a book for the award for two years. The motion passed.

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
This year a career achievement award will be presented to Bryan Wilson on the occasion of his retirement from All Souls College, Oxford. David Bromley proposed that this award be made and the Council approved Bromley's proposal via a mail consultation. A career achievement award has only been awarded once before in the history of the Society to Ralph Burhoe.

Bromley favors making this a regular activity of the Society. Some one should be assigned to monitor potential candidates for a career award. Bromley does not favor making a career achievement routinely every year. Clark Roof urged that no committee should be set up for the distinguished career award. The award should not be made every year. Members of the Society can nominate recipients to the president. The president can then consult the Council for its approval. Expenditure for a career achievement award can be made an ad hoc budget item. Although no vote was taken the general consensus of the Council seemed to favor the procedure outlined by Roof.

In 1993 the cost of Wilson's travel to the annual meeting may be picked up out of the budget item called "Presidential discretionary fund for the annual meeting". This could be done again. Ruth Wallace objected to future obligation of the presidential discretionary fund for expenses of a career achievement award. She wants to preserve that money for program expenditures.

TREASURER'S REPORT:
Richard Schoenherr summarized his written report. Income was $130,421 or 0.4% above budget. Expenditures were $120,427, or 7.6% below budget. The operating surplus was $9,994. A loss of $45,498 or 27.8% in investments was discovered. Investments are valued at $164,719 or 38.7% above our average expenditures in the last three years.

Schoenherr does not see the financial situation of the Society as requiring austerity.

OTHER BUSINESS:
The Council was asked if we should set up a formal mechanism for arranging room sharing at the annual meeting. This would be a way for people who want to share rooms to join up with each other. Madeleine Adriance cautioned the Council that the women's caucus tried to do this and it did not work out. They got few requests for room sharing. The days on which people plan to attend the meeting are often not compatible.

It would be desirable for a notice to be put in the convention pre-registration mailing identifying someone who members could write in order to arrange room sharing. Adriance will try to find someone who is willing to coordinate this service.

Ruth Wallace, president elect, nominated Peter Beyer, William V. D'Antonio, and Benetta Jules-Rosette as members of the nominations committee. The Council voted to accept these nominations. Wallace also announced her appointments for the distinguished book award committee and the distinguished article award committee. [insert]

Anna Davidson has a considerable supply of back numbers of the JSSR and would like to be rid of them. It was suggested that the back numbers should be donated to United States and overseas academic institutions that need past issues. Such an offer will be put into the Newsletter. It is not clear who will pay postage to send out these back issues.

Members of "The Family'' (formerly called "The Children ofGod") approached the president concerning ways that the Society could help them in their current problems. They were told that> we do not see anything that we can now do for them.

BUDGET-EXPENDITURE COMMITTEE:
Phillip Hammond (chair) reported on the work of the ad-hoc committee on expenditures. The other committee members were Eileen Barker, Edward Lehman, Meredith McGuire, Hart Nelsen, and Richard Schoenherr. The committee decided that they would not make specific recommendations about which expenditures should be cut. They emphasized broadly defined priorities for spending money and identified budget categories where discussion is appropriate.

Discussion of the committee report by Council members was structured around the seven major points listed in the written report which was circulated before the meeting. This discussion was intended as an opportunity to ventilate ideas. No attempt was made at this Council meeting to treat each of the committee's points as a proposal to be accepted or rejected. These minutes only summarize comments made at the Council meeting. For a complete statement of the spending priorities offered by the committee readers should examine the full text of its report.

It was suggested that research awards (Included in point 2 of the committee report) should be targeted for junior scholars. A member of the research award committee noted that this idea is already included in the guidelines for research awards. This year most of the research awards were in fact awarded to junior scholars.

William Silverman suggested that the monograph series (Included in point 2) should be phased out. He offered three reasons to support this suggestion: other publication outlets are now available for monograph length manuscripts, the quality of some recent monographs has been embarrassingly bad, and there apparently are high indirect costs of administering the monograph series. (in 1992 James Davidson estimated these indirect costs at $1.25 per member.) David Bromley said that it might be more productive to spend some (or all) of the $6,000 a year now budgeted for monographs on research awards.

Marie Cornwall suggested cutting student paper awards (Included in point 2) from $500 to $200. Madeleine Adriance responded to previously expressed complaints about the low quality of papers which are candidates for the student paper award by suggesting that the award should only be given when it is warranted. It should not be given every year. Edward Lehman commented that the quality of student papers may be less important than the encouragement which the award provides for students to write.

This year the Women's Breakfast (point 3-A) coordinator will ask participants to pay $6.00. This will go part way toward the goal of having each part of the annual meeting pay its own way.

Eileen Barker said that the Council dinner (point 3-A) is a low priority. Hart Nelsen noted that the Council dinner format has changed from year to year. It was once a lunch or toasts and drinks. It might be desirable to re-format the Council meeting schedule so it is not necessary to take a dinner break. Or perhaps less expensive food, such as a cold buffet, could be provided. Hammond commented that Council members could be asked to pay their own tab. A Council member noted that this year only $412 was spent for the Council dinner. It is not a large enough budget item to be worthy of a large amount of discussion.

Providing audio-visual equipment (point 3-B) now costs $900a year. The Council could decide to offer no audio-visual equipment to presenters. Or presenters could be asked to pay one half or one quarter of the cost of equipment. That might provide an incentive to avoid use of such equipment. Kenneth Pargament opposed these proposed limitations of subsidy for audio-visual equipment. He argued that equipment should be included in conference fees. When members pay the conference fee they get services, including audio-visual equipment.

Hammond suggested that subventions for Council member travel (point 3-C) could revert to an earlier policy of the Society when there was no funding available. Or alternatively travel funding could be provided only for emergencies. Janet Jacobs noted that with current budget stringency's universities are less likely to pay for travel by their faculty. Ruth Wallace said that we may regard travel funding as partial recognition for members who spend a full day in meetings and who pay for an extra day in the hotel while they are on the Council.

The committee said that travel grants to international scholars (point 3-D) are costly relatively to the benefit to the Society. See expressions of support for this program above.

The committee questioned continued membership in COSSA .(point 4) Ruth Wallace argued that COSSA is a central force for sustaining the prestige of the social sciences. Activity by COSSA was crucial to the preservation of sociology and political science funding at the National Science Foundation. Clark Roof urged that this item is expendable for the Society; there are higher priorities. Now that William Bainbridge is at NSF they have overcome their aversion to funding proposals concerning religion.

The committee questioned preproqram costs. (point 5.) Edward Lehman commented that this expenditure is for printing and postage. It is essential to communicate with people in order to encourage attendance at the annual meeting.

Expenditures of the business and executive offices. (point 6) Hammond said that the cost of operating these offices is a large chunk of the budget and it has grown drastically over the years. Marie Cornwall commented that based on her experiences as program chair she thinks a lot is done with the money provided to these offices.

For the Council's information it was reported that the expense account for the executive secretary does not go for site selection. It goes for general expenses. Since it is an expense account it is not taxable while the executive secretary's salary is taxable. In the past the executive secretary salary went up only when a new executive secretary takes office.

Hammond, speaking for the committee, asked whether it is now time to review the work of the business office. Is it time to review procedures and expenditures? Donald Miller said that we may want to increase the salary of the business manager and/or the executive secretary.

Motion: Executive secretary Lehman and Treasurer Schoenherr are asked to prepare a report on the work procedures and expenditures of the business office and the executive office which will be presented to the 1994 Council. The motion passed.

INVESTMENT-FUND RAISING COMMITTEE:
Jeffrey Hadden (chair) presented the committee report. The other members of the committee were Katherine Meyer and David A. Roozen. Eileen Barker, Edward Lehman, and Richard Schoenherr were ex-officio members.

The committee thinks that in the long run it will be desirable to pool the investable funds of the SSSR, the Religious Research Association, and the Association for the Sociology of Religion. This would produce a pool of about a quarter of a million dollars which is enough money to make it possible to use professional money management. At present none of these organizations by themselves have enough money to interest professional managers in taking their account. With a quarter of a million dollars a threshold amount of money needed to attract high quality management is crossed. Katherine Meyer noted that many organizations with invested money did not monitor their investments properly. The Society fell into this pattern. The committee has concluded that people must be appointed to be responsible for investments who know something about investing.

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Comments offered by committee members keyed to points in their recommendations:

I. The Society originally wanted a reserve of between 100 to 150 percent of annual expenditures in order to take care of emergencies. Once this was achieved the Society moved on to develop an endowment to provide income to support programs.

II and III. The committee favors investment of 60% of the endowment in securities.

V. With present low interest rates this is not a good time to put money into bonds or money market funds.

VI. We have so little money to invest that it is not possible for us to have a large effect on socially responsible investment policies. We can only remind the Fidelity managers about our interest in these matters.

VII. Five to six percent is a widely accepted spending level.

VIII. Members of the finance committee should be selected who know something about investments.

Richard Schoenherr favored the changes which were made in the second paragraph of part VIII of the committee's recommendations. Schoenherr wanted to make sure that the finance committee is not put into the position of overseeing all financial policies and practices of the Society. He also opposes micro management of the work of the executive secretary by the finance committee.

Katherine Meyer noted that one goal in approving these proposals is to organize the finances of the Society so people will be willing to give us money in the future. Assurance that invested money will be managed competently will encourage such contributions. Meyer favors the employment of an outside investment counselor. But at the present time we do not have enough money to allow us to employ such a professional manager.

Motion: That the proposals made by the investments committee in appendix A of their report be accepted as amended. The motion passed.

These proposals will now be submitted to the membership at the annual business meeting for approval. [On Friday, October 29, 1993 this was done at the annual business meeting of the Society. The members voted to accept these proposals.]

President Barker mentioned her intention to appoint Hadden, Meyer, and Roozen as members of the Finance Committee if the membership approves these proposals at the annual business meeting.

The Council expressed its thanks to Jeffrey Hadden for his Herculean efforts in assembling information and developing proposals for action. Hadden in turn acknowledged the dedicated work by members of the committee.

The committee urged the Council to set aside some time on the agenda at its meeting in four years to examine the operation of the finance committee in order to confirm that it is doing its work as expected.

1993-1994 BUDGET:
Various changes in the budget which was circulated by the executive secretary before the meeting were discussed and the following decisions were made:

The international travel item will remain at $1500 plus whatever unexpended balance exists from past fund raising appeals for this program.

No money is appropriated for a career achievement award because this will be handled on an as-proposed basis.

The unexpected balance of $1251 for the history project will remain in the budget. (We may need to spend about $1000 on this project in each of the years up to publication of the book around the year 2000.)

Edward Lehman is authorized to spend up to $2,000 for a new computer at the business office.

Total expected expenditure will be $124,900 and total expected income will be $132,055 with a projected deficit of $7,155.

A motion to pass the 1993 - 1994 budget as amended was made and passed.