UO Art History Association Agenda Meeting Minutes

October 31, 2003 4:00 pm | Hearth Café, Lawrence Hall

Attendance: Gayle Goudy Kochanski, Heather Russell, Amanda Clark, Marleda Jones, Khristina Fuller, Elizabeth Wages, Clare Redhead, Liz Parr, Kat Russell, and Adrianne Hamilton.

Symposium (Liz Parr)

• Discussed whether to hold symposium next year rather than this year because of budget restraints (100% needs to come out of fundraising)
• Decided it is better to do things on a shoestring budget
• Have only coffee and juice catered (because of the equipment)
• Bake our own muffins and buy our own fruit
• Instead of taking presenters out to dinner we will have either a pizza party or dinner hosted by a member
• Invite a keynote speaker from Eugene, Corvallis, or Portland so that hotel accommodations or airfare is not needed
• Make thank you cards
• Invitations made with letter rather than stationary
• Publicity through Emerald and other free sources only, photography by member (only cost of film and developing)
• Clare Redhead will invite a keynote speaker
• Liz Parr will send an email asking for volunteers to gather contact info of local schools (we should also invite UO Historic Preservation and UO Arts Admin students)
• Liz is recruiting another reader. The committee currently consists of Liz Parr, Nissie Ellison and Gayle Goudy Kochanski.

Art Collecting (Crystal Gauger)

• Crystal sent this report via email:

We are off to a great start. We have formed a network with the Art Department so they are helping to support our first acquisition submission request. They have sent the application to the entire Art Department list serve (including faculty and graduate students). They have also asked for hard-copies of the application to hand out. So they are our number one recruiting source right now. It is great to have their department on our side, so in the future hopefully our “Art History Permanent Collection” will become a prestigious award that the art students appreciate. 

The deadline for the first competition is December 15, 2003. Laurel in the Art History office is collecting the applications. After the Art Acquisition Committee meets to select a work(s) we will continue our search for a suitable place for either an exhibition or displaying a single work (depending on the submissions). So look for our first exhibition the beginning of Winter term! We are planning to have a second submission competition in the Spring term as well. 

“The Triumph of French Painting” -- Portland Museum Exhibits trips (Dawn Borgardt)

• Because there is not much interest in French painting and concern of spreading our financial resources and time too thin, the trip to PAM’s fall exhibit is cancelled.

Volunteers for upcoming PAM Events

• Helen Frankenthaler, Dec 13 – Feb 15 (Adrianne Hamilton)
• Fabergé and His Menagerie, Feb 7 – May 9 (???)

• Waking Dreams: The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites, Mar 19 – May 29 (Elizabeth Wages)

Resource Room

• Discuss suggestions for using the space better – tabled until next spring after the symposium and the conferences.

Conference Travel (Heather Russell, Clare Redhead, Amanda Clark)

• SAH will cost approximately $1000 (with travel, lodging, etc.). We will contact Historic Preservation to try to share expenses (if possible).
• CAA travel: Dawn called the Amtrak. We will travel by train ($70 each). We will need to buy 20 tickets to get a group rate. Clare will look into discounts from AAA.
• CAA Lodging: Clare called the Vance Hotel in Seattle. Each room is $99, each additional person in a room is $10. A room with two people would cost $109 a night, plus tax (15.6%). If we cram 4 people into a room it would only be $34.32 a night ($102.95 for 3 nights).  
• CAA Volunteering opportunities: CAA hires projectionists and room monitors, which are paid positions ($10 an hour) and a complimentary registration is part of the deal. Projectionists are required to work a minimum of four 2 1/2 hour shifts while room
  monitors are required to work 4 hours. If you are interested, please email a very short letter of interest, which includes your contact info and your position preference (projectionist or room monitor). To Lauren Stark, Manager of Programs, College Art Association (lstark@collegeart.org)
• AIA: Heather found volunteer opportunities and is looking for cheaper lodging than the conference hotel. 
• The conference committee will meet to review each other’s letters to the faculty requesting money for the trips.

Travel Funds – The student’s recommendation to the faculty

Professor Kate Nicholson requested that we make a recommendation to the faculty to help them draft their guidelines for travel funds disbursement.

• Have an early deadline for pre-application. For instance, if students are submitting abstracts for conferences or planning to travel to research a topic abroad (even if plans are nebulous as first-year student's plans most likely will be by the end of their first term) let the faculty know by, say, Jan. 7. This would give them an idea of what to expect so they can come up with a $ amount allotment per traveler.  
• Guarantee a certain dollar amount per approved traveler (like $300 person or whatever the faculty thinks the department can afford). This will help the student plan.
• The $ amount per student should be equal regardless of destination. Is a student's interest in a topic or conference in a remote or more expensive location more important than another student's interest in a topic in a less costly place? Also, with the economies of nations and industries constantly in flux, it is impossible to predict travel costs and assign rules to them. Sometimes it is more expensive to travel to New York than to Paris or
  Rome. If a percentage is guaranteed, the faculty cannot clearly anticipate need.
• The stipulation that the research traveler must propose their thesis topic before they apply should be eliminated. It prohibits people who want a 2-year master’s degree from traveling and forces people with topics that require on-site investigation to return for at least a fall term. Since most Ph.D. programs begin only in the fall, this encourages the student in this situation to wait another year to finish their M.A. degree so that they can have the security of GTF positions and health insurance for another 6 months.
• At the end of the budget year, the faculty could look at their surplus (coming from those that did not travel) and award it to students who have traveled based on their actual costs. This could be based on percentages since at this point, the numbers are concrete.  

Fundraising (Elizabeth Wages, Gayle G-K)

• We will set up a fundraising table on November 24-25 in AAA that will combine Holiday cards, baked goods, and book sale with faculty contributions. Sign up sheet was passed around and will be posted on Elizabeth door on Monday.
• We will ask Justin to organize the book portion of the sale, Elizabeth will handle the card portion, and anyone who wants to bake things just bring them to the tables in the morning.
• Elizabeth will have two more card making sessions. The first is next Friday evening.
• Elizabeth will set up a display in the Art History foyer and take pre-orders for the Holiday cards so that we have an idea of how many we should make.
• Garage sale has been postponed until spring because of weather.
• We will have another card sale for Valentines Day.
• ASUO – 2004-5 ASUO budget request is finished. We are waiting on Adrian Gilmore, our ASUO TAC, to get back to us with an account number. We are also waiting for him to find out if we should submit our true needs or a request for the maximum that they will give us of $300. The due date is November 17. Gayle will turn it in on Wednesday of this week. Copies are available on the website.
• Please remember to tell your family and friends about the cards!

AAA Student Advisory Committee (SAC)

• We are not represented in the AAA and therefore, our needs such as office security, and ventilation in the resource room are not met. Additionally, we are not notified of AAA travel money or scholarships. SAC has asked that we send a representative to their weekly meetings on Wednesdays at noon. Since a weekly commitment is too much for any one person’s schedule, we want to form a SAC committee where the members rotate meetings and communicate with each. Ideally, SAC would like an undergraduate and a graduate student who will be returning next fall. We would like two undergrads and two grads so the individual commitment is monthly.
• Tina and Adrianne volunteered to represent us and we will continue to recruit two more. Anyone interested?

Next meeting: Friday, December 5 at 4:00 pm in the Hearth Café

Adjourned to Halloween Party at 5:00 pm