Minutes of the 58th Meeting of the Board of Directors,
Meeting of the Fellows, and Open Meeting of the Members

In conjunction with The 1999 ASME Mechanics and Materials Conference held in Blacksburg, Virginia, the combined Meetings of the Board, the Fellows, and the Members were held on June 27, 1999. These minutes were taken during the entire meeting, but are submitted as those of the Meeting of the Board.

Members present were Robert Haythornthwaite, Robert Heller, Dusan Krajcinovic, Dean Mook, Francis Moon, Charles Taylor, and Chien Wu.

1. President Bogy being absent, the Meetings were called to order by President-elect Krajcinovic at 13:20 EDT in Donaldson Brown Continuing Education Center on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

2. F. Moon moved to accept the Minutes of the 57th Meeting, which was held in Anaheim, CA on November 19, 1998 at 14:00 PST, D. Krajcinovic seconded the motion, and the motion passed unanimously by voice vote.

3. D. Mook reported that the Academy has 723 paid Members and 136 Fellows.

4. R. Heller reported that the Academy appears to be in reasonably good financial shape with a surplus of about $38,000. The full report is attached to these Minutes. R. Haythornthwaite moved to accept the report, F. Moon seconded the motion, and the motion passed unanimously by voice vote. There followed a discussion about what to do with the surplus, if there is any. A suggestion was made to invest it in stocks. No action was taken.

5. R. Haythornthwaite reported on the publication of the latest additions to the serial entitled Applied Mechanics in the Americas, which contain the extended abstracts from the Sixth Pan American Congress of Applied Mechanics and the Eighth International Conference on Dynamic Problems in Mechanics, which were held together during the first week of January 1999. AAM applied to the Library of Congress to identify the Proceedings of the PACAMs as a serial and has received an ISBN. The proceedings of the next PACAM will be the first to use this number. The full report is attached to these Minutes. Haythorthwaite reported that he did not have good contact with the editorial committee.

6. D. Mook, the North American Chairman for PACAM VII, which is planned for Temuco, Chile, reported that there had been some progress in organizing. He said that he was concerned that not many people would be interested in travelling to the south of Chile on their own. It was suggested that a tour be arranged. (Since the Meeting, D. Mook asked the Chilean organizers to see if they could find a tour or travel company familiar with this region that would be interested in organizing such a tour. So far he has not heard from them.)

7. H. Espinosa sent an e-mail containing a report on the status of Mechanics. This report is attached to these Minutes. There was some discussion about the frequency of reporting the expenditures for Mechanics. R. Heller said that frequent, somewhat detailed reports are necessary to satisfy the IRS. (Even though AAM is a nonprofit organization, it must file a tax return. An earlier failure to do so resulted in a fine.) There was also some discussion about whether to rely on a website entirely and drop Mechanics or to continue as we are doing. The consensus was that having the redundancy is good. No action was taken.

8. F. Moon reported that now that he has become the President-elect, a new Director has to be chosen to replace him. (Since the Meetings, B. Tabbarok, the Canadian Director passed away and so two replacements are needed.)

9. There was no old business.

10. New Business: F. Moon brought up the possibility of having AAM act as the lead agency in applying for a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to "Conduct a Workshop and Write a Planning Document on Mechanics at the Beginning of the new Millenium". An information sheet is attached to this report. R. Heller moved that AAM act as the lead agency and that F. Moon and D. Krajcinovic prepare the proposal to NSF. C. Taylor seconded the motion, and the motion passed unanimously by voice vote.

There was a brief discussion of what to do with members that join during the year. The current policy is to send them back issues of Mechanics, if any remain at the time when they join, and to charge them half of a subscription if less than six months remain in the year. No action was taken, and the current practice will continue.

11. D. Krajcinovic was installed as the new President of AAM replacing D. Bogy. There was a unanimous motion, second, and favorable voice vote to thank D. Bogy for serving as President during the past year.

12. The Meetings adjourned at 15:30 EDT.


Comments and Suggestions to mech1@clifton.mech.northwestern.edu