Report From the ISBA Executive Committee and Board of Directors. December 1996

Among the actions of the Executive Committee and Board are the following:

1. Terms of Office. The timing of terms of office is not clearly specified in the Constitution. In anticipation of the new By-Laws, the Executive Committee and Board voted to make the terms of office coincide with the calendar year. Thus the current officers and Board will hold office through 1997, and those elected next year will take office officially on January 1 1998.
2. The recent election included a Vice President but the Constitution specifies no such position, and instead has a position of President Elect. As part of the transition to the new Constitution, the Executive Committee, with the approval of the Board, has converted the position of Vice President to that of President Elect. This means that M.J.(Susie) Bayarri is now President-Elect, and will succeed the President in that office.
3. The Constitution specifies that the Secretary (called the Executive Secretary under the Constitution) and Treasurer should have staggered 3-year terms. To allow for a transition it was decided that the current Secretary's term will therefore end December 1997, with a replacement to be elected for a full 3-year term, and the current Treasurer's term will run through December 1998.
4. Change of the Title of the Board. An International Board of Advisors was elected but the Constitution specifies a Board of Directors, with somewhat different duties. The Executive Committee voted to change the title of the elected Board and to work with it during the coming year as the Board of Directors specified in the Constitution. A new Board will be chosen in the next election with appropriately staggered terms of office as specified in the Constitution.
5. Formation of a Program Council. This council will be in charge of scheduling ISBA conferences and meetings, and all related publications. The members are: Alicia Carriquiry, Iowa State University, USA (Chair), John Geweke, University of Minnesota, USA (Past Chair) and Mark Steel, Tilburg University, The Netherlands (Vice Chair). The Vice Chair will take over the duties previously held by the chair of the publications committee. In particular, this involves organizing the material for ISBA submissions for the Joint ASA/ISBA Bayesian Proceedings volume published annually.
6. Frank R. Kleinbergen of the University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands was chosen as the next editor of the ISBA Newsletter, for a 2-year term beginning January 1, 1996. The Executive Committee and the Board commend Jeffrey Dorfman for the outstanding job he has done as Newsletter editor.
7. Creation of ISBA regional chapter in India (organized by J.K. Ghosh) and a chapter in Chile (organized by Pilar Iglesias). These are the first approved regional chapters of ISBA. Currently, there are no ISBA by-laws specifying the existence of chapters and no rules for how they should be handled. Thus the Executive Committee has authorized the India and Chile chapters for 1997, and hopes to have a an interim plan in place soon. The arrangements for chapters will then be revisited by the Constitution Committee, which will ultimately report to the Board and the membership with what we expect will be more formal arrangements in the form of proposed by-laws.
8. Dues were set at $25 per year for 1997, and the Executive Committee decided to have individual dues statements sent out to the members.

Executive Committee:

Board of Directors:

Program Committee: