ESA Governing Board Fall 2023 Meeting Minutes Washington, DC and Zoom Meeting 8 – 9 November 2023

Attending

President Naeem Presiding; meeting called to order at 9:00 AM EST

A. Adopt Agenda

Motion: Bruna moved to adopt the agenda. Seconded by Ramirez. All aye.

B. Conflicts/Dualities of Interest

The ED discussed the Conflict and Duality of Interest policy and requested that anyone who has a new conflict of interest declare so; none were reported.

A. Report from the Tellers Committee (Bruna)

Governing Board

Motion: Bruna moved to accept the results of the 2023 ESA election. Seconded by Ramirez. All aye.

B. Report of the President (Naeem)

President Naeem attended SACNAS and was surprised to find relatively few attendees that were working in Ecology; he would like to see greater engagement and consideration of how to increase representation at SACNAS. He would also like ESA to be bigger, bolder, and more agile; that includes greater participation in the COP meetings (ESA is an official observer and currently badges participants).

The President also summarized recent AAAS and ASLO articles on publishing revenue and societies. He informed the GB of a draft editorial being prepared on the topic; there was a discussion of the best outlet for publishing this article as well as some of the important issues to address in the discussion.

C. Report of the Executive Director and Staff (O'Riordan)

The ED presented a high-level overview of ESA's activities, including the Annual Meeting in Portland, where there was high attendance (4000) and a robust turnout of past presidents and editors. Other items raised in the review included the status of ESA's income streams, manuscript submissions, education programs, diversity initiatives, and other grant-supported projects such as the LEAPS Diversity Initiatives, 4DEE, and the Vegetation Classification Panel.

A. Strategic Planning Exercise (Hampton/Pratt)

President-Elect Hampton provided an update on efforts to take the temperature of the membership, allowing the Strategic Planning (SP) Working Group to work on the SP draft.

It was noted that the previous strategic plan had excellent goals, so there was no need to start from scratch.

Planning consultant Pratt then introduced the SP working group planning process, and the GB was invited to provide input on the topic “Defining the Desired Future.” The GB was asked to break into small groups to discuss the prompt “What does the ESA of 2030 look like?” with questions for discussions including “What do revenue streams look like? How many members does it have? What do the focal programs look like?”

Among the issues raised by the small groups and then discussed by the GB were how big the ESA could or should become, the importance of predictable revenue streams, and expanding the scope of ESA membership. There was also discussion of how to promote and facilitate membership in multiple societies, the concerns of early career members, a lack of understanding among the membership in how the leadership of the ESA was selected, and if diversifying revenue could potentially lead to conflicts of interest and the compromising of ESA or member values.

Pratt encouraged GB members to send her feedback, including recommendations for any programs or activities to eliminate. She noted feedback would remain confidential and aggregated for review by the SP Working Group.

B. Financial Update (Funk/Biggs/O'Riordan)

D. Report from the Council Speaker (Graves)

Council Speaker Graves provided an overview of the ESA Council Meeting held at the Portland Annual Meeting. This was also an opportunity for chapters and sections to describe their major challenges, which included the recruitment of leadership. The Council has formed a working group to address guidelines for section and chapter governance, protocols for record-keeping and knowledge transfer, and thresholds for participation or sunsetting sections and chapters. The group will deliver draft recommendations in February. Finally, two new sections were approved: (a) Women in Soil Ecology and (b) Public and Private Sector Ecologists

GB asked about the process for forming new chapters and sections, and the potential for “interests groups,” which can be primarily for networking and simpler to organize and administer than chapters or sections.

E. Board Self-Assessment Action Items (Bobowick)

Bobowick joined the GB to discuss the Board Self-Assessment and Proposed Board Action Plan. The four main sections of the plan were (1) How leadership is shared between the GB and ED, (2) using meetings to focus the GB on long-term sustainability, (3) improved ED support and supervision, and (4) reviewing GB composition and identifying diversity and expertise gaps. Bobowick also reminded the Board that their GB's focus is “big picture,” which empowers staff and members to do their work and allows the GB to focus on strategic issues. The role of the Council in passing information along to the GB was also discussed, including the best way to discover the priorities of the Membership. Another issue that was raised was the potential of holding Board Retreats for in-depth focus on important issues.

Following this conversation, the board discussed shared leadership and decision-making by breaking into groups and discussing scenarios illustrating governance decisions that should be made by the GB, decisions shared by the GB and ED, and management decisions made by the ED.

President Naeem presiding, meeting called to order at 9:06 AM EST

F. Statement on Open Science (Sponberg)

Sponberg presented the results of an internal GB survey in preparation for ESA drafting a position statement on open scholarship. The statement could include elements such as encouraging language in Tenure and Promotion Guidelines to reward open scholarship activities. There was also a review of the potential ways in which mandatory data archiving will influence ESA activities and journal operations (e.g., burdens on the editors and staff).

The GB emphasized the need for a sensitive and adaptable open data policy, particularly in environmental fields, and acknowledged the challenges scientists face in managing their data.

GB members then discussed the importance and relevance of the FAIR principles and whether members of Editorial Boards had the background necessary to understand issues of data archiving surrounding human subject, indigenous communities, etc. There was discussion of specific, practical things that ESA could do to advance open science, including straightforward items such as workshops and webinars on data management, working with partners such as Dryad and Data One, and putting the name of the ESA behind efforts to convince university leadership to modify T&P guidelines.

I. Wrap-up discussion

Staff will implement the changes to the Bylaws and the procedures approved by the GB. The Board provided additional feedback on the nomination process and the value of a single slate vs. running candidates against each other. The Next meeting will be a 2-hour virtual meeting in the winter primarily to approve the audit report and the 2024 Awardees and Fellows. Other topics on the winter meeting agenda will include progress on the Board action plan, a draft statement on open science, and approval of a new strategic plan.

Collinge motioned to adjourn, seconded by Hampton. All aye