The ICA Board of Directors held its annual board meeting in Phoenix on Thursday 24 May, 2012. The annual meeting occurs on the first day of ICA’s annual conference and is open to all members of ICA. This year, several significant agenda items were debated and acted upon.

Midyear Board Meeting

The Board of Directors is comprised of the executive committee (the officers of the association), divisions and interest group chairs, five at-large regional representatives and two student representatives. Most of these members serve a 2-year term. During the meeting, the board covers a wide range of issues central to running the association, and in the past, the total meeting time has lasted approximately four hours. In addition to the annual board meeting at conference, the board holds a midyear meeting online, scheduled for 2 weeks in January in an asynchronous manner.

With the combination of a relatively short term and limited face-to-face time for discussion and debate, board members do not always feel that they have enough information on topics to make informed decisions affecting the association. With these issues in mind, the board passed a motion to meet in person for the midyear board meeting rather than online, with the total meeting taking place over a day and a half. This will permit lengthy discussion of issues, possible committee work, and rapport building amongst the board members. Additionally, the board approved that the site of this meeting will be the forthcoming year’s conference venue, 18 months in advance of the annual conference (Seattle in January 2013; San Juan in January 2014; Fukuoka in January 2015, etc.). Division and Interest Group leaders will then have the additional benefit of the opportunity to explore the venue and host city for section activities during the conference and possible preconference venues. This action carries a fiscal implication that will be evaluated on an ongoing basis.

Conference Dates and Location Rotation

The ICA conference dates and rotation were a key discussion agenda topic. ICA conference evaluations over the last few years have contained comments about possible date and rotation changes. The board considered several options and scenarios. The discussion centered on what is best for the individual ICA member and best serves the needs of the association membership at large. In looking at university schedules around the world, high season travel/vacation times, and the feasibility of having a consistent date for individual planning, the board selected the last weekend in May as the most desirable and affordable time for a worldwide conference. However, if there are extraordinary opportunities that become available during the month of June, ICA will be flexible in choosing location and date. ICA’s membership is approaching 50% non-North American. Therefore, the board also recommended that the rotation of conferences be more flexible. The goal is to promote scholarship worldwide and yet find the most affordable venues to enhance socialization and scholarly exchange. Beginning with the selection of the 2017 conference site, these factors will be taken into account as recommendations are made to the board.

ICA Adopts Best Practices Guidelines to Address Plagiarism Concerns

ICA has experienced a number of issues involving credible claims of plagiarism in our publications, for which we did not have a clear policy to deal with these issues. Larry Gross, as ICA President, appointed a task force to evaluate this issue and make a recommendation to the board. The task force recommended that ICA adopt one of the best practices documents that currently exist. The board agreed to adopt the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines in its entirety. The link to these guidelines will be posted on the ICA website. It will remain the primary responsibility of the editor of ICA journals to “perform due diligence” on manuscripts submitted to their respective ICA journal. To assist the editors, ICA, with the assistance of Wiley, will provide access to the CrossCheck plagiarism detection program. Authors of submitted articles will be required to confirm that their submission does not violate the redundant publication guidelines. Any issues regarding possible plagiarism will be referred to and evaluated by ICA’s publication committee.

ICA Awards and Nominations

Larry Gross also appointed a task force to begin an evaluation of ICA awards and the nomination process. The task force concluded that while awards are important and instrumental in assisting scholars in getting both grants and tenure, ICA has too many organization wide awards , while many are similar or unclear in both their titles and scope. At the task force’s recommendation, Cynthia Stohl, as ICA’s current president, will appoint a task force to make specific recommendations about discontinuing, phasing out, or honoring existing commitments of the ICA wide awards.

ICA’s Communication Director

ICA’s new communication director, John Paul Gutierrez, began January 1 and gave his initial report to the board. He is encouraging Divisions and Interest Groups to work with him to highlight the research of their membership. The board approved the guidelines proposed by a task force for assessing the effectiveness of the communication director. The task force is expected to conduct a formal review of the communication director position and its impact both as interim progress reports and a formal report at the end of 2014.

Additional Actions

Additional highlights of the board meeting, included:

• Approval of John Courtright as editor of Human Communication Research
• Approval of the final report from ICA’s Greening Task Force
• Ratification of Sandra Calvert, Don Ellis, John Hartley, Steve Jones, Dennis Mumby, Sandi Smith as Fellows of ICA
• Approval of the budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year (1 October 2012 – 30 September 2013)
• Approval of 2012-2013 committees
• Approval of the 2012 ICA election slate

If you have any questions regarding board actions, your Division or Interest Group chair, as well as the ICA Executive Committee, are always available by e-mail. You may also send your questions or concerns directly to me at mhaley@icahdq.org.