Environmental Studies Section Business Meeting Minutes

Chicago Hilton
Friday, March 2, 2007

1. The meeting was called to order at 12:30 PM

2. Elections were held, with nominees and results as noted

Chair (2 year term)
Beth DeSombre-elected

Executive Committee (6 members, rolling 2 year terms, continuing members:
Liliana Andanova,
Henrik Selin, Stacy VanDeveer)
Karin Bäckstrand-elected
Pamela Chasek-elected
Maria Ivanova-elected
Michele Zebich-Knos

Nominations Committee (4 members, rolling 2 year terms; continuing members:
Michelle Betsill, Ken Conca)
Ronnie Lipschutz-elected
Jacob Park
Dimitris Stevis-elected
Fengshi Wu

Sprout Committee (5 members, rolling two year terms; continuing members:
Patricia Doughman; Jennifer Clapp resigned and a one-year replacement was
selected)
Allison Chatrchyan-elected
Lester Farcey
Matthias Finger-elected to replace Jennifer Clapp
Paul Harris-elected
Matthew Hoffman
Patricia Keilbach-elected
Carolyn Stephenson

The nominating Committee for 2006-07 included: Michelle Betsill, Ken Conca,
Patricia Keilbach and Wil Burns.

3. Reports
a. ISA Governing Council Meeting: Section Chair Ronnie Lipschutz reported on the following issues:
-Possibility of the ISA taking on a sixth journal, International Interactions (followed by discussion of the possibility that ISA has enough journals already)
-Discussion of issues of plagiarism and academic freedom
-Concerns about the increasing size of the annual ISA meeting, and possible remedies
(including placing increasing emphasis on regional meetings).
-Should we consider a stand-alone ESS conference?
-Report on ISA workshop grants – they’ve almost doubled the money in the pot; There will be four large ($20,000) workshop grants available next year
b. Sprout Award Committee: Reported by Carolyn Stephenson
-This year’s Sprout winner is The Logic of Sufficiency, by Thomas Princen–Congratulations, Tom!
-Honourable mention to Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change, edited by Neil Adger, Jouni Paavola, Saleemul Hug, and M.J. Mace.
c. Best Graduate Student Paper Award: announced by Ronnie Lipschutz.
-Ken Cousins, “Principals, Agents, and Public Goods: Information and Structural Complexity in Policy Implementation Systems
-Panel chairs and grad students are encouraged to submit papers for consideration for next year’s award
d. ISA Compendium Project Committee report: Beth DeSombre described the current status of the project and distributed ballots for feedback on content of ESS portion of compendium. It has been proposed that a subcommittee be constituted to handle this and to work with Bob Denemark.
e. ESS and the 2007 conference program: Section Vice-Chair Miranda Schreuers reported that there were:
-41 ESS panels plus 3 or 4 additional environment panels in the convention theme
-10 or so panels co-sponsored with other sections
-Low rejection rate of proposals
-For proposals for next year’s conference, panel proposals are better than paper proposals
f. Treasury report: The Section has no treasurer, so Ronnie Lipschutz reported that:
-There has been a membership slump, which is causing cash-flow problems.
-The annual reception costs about $3,000, and donations were required to finance it this year in addition to funds from the two cosponsors
-Ideas for raising funds and increasing membership included
i. Encouraging paper-givers to join ISA and ESS.
ii.Email to GEP-ED listserve to encourage subscribers to join ESS
iii. Can one join ESS without joining ISA? (Ronnie will find out)
iv. Run contests, offer prizes (an iPod was mentioned).

4. Announcements:
-New Journal: Journal of Information Technology and Politics, edited by Stuart Shulman
-DISCCRS (Dissertation Initiative for the Advancement of Climate Change Research)
-Symposium – details from Ron Mitchell, or at www .disccrs.org
-New conference on Climate Crisis sponsored by the Global Labor Institute at Cornell; Contact Dmitris Stevis for details
-New journal by APSA’s STEP section – Review of Policy Research
-New ESS website address: environmental-studies.org, run by Marcus Schaper
-Ideas for new panels for ISA 2008:
-Institutional sustainability
-Assessing emissions offset programs
-Biofuels and global politics
-Teaching and scholarship in global environmental politics
-Finance and climate politics
-Roundtable on sufficiency
-Militarization and the environment
-Non-regimes
-Complexity and environmental problems
-Renegotiating Kyoto
-Local answers to global problems
-Meeting adjourned at 1:30 PM (with a reminder to attend the reception) by Ronnie Lipschutz.