The BSA Council met Sunday, August 6, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm in Portland, OR. This report to members of the Genetics Section is not exhaustive, but rather contains those items which your representative believes are most important or most relevant to the Section. If you would like a more complete summary, please let me know (jhigginbotham@transy.edu).

President's Report

• Doug Soltis reported the creation of two new standing committees, Publications and Annual Meeting Coordination, and two new ad hoc committees, Development and Endowment, during the year past.
• The BSA website will soon host a series of information papers providing background on various current topics.
• The proposed by-law changes were approved.
• Publication of Abstracts in AJB will be discontinued; abstracts will be available at future meetings.
• The BSA endowment received a $200,000 contribution from the estate of Drs. Richard and Deana Klein.

Past President's Report

• Twenty-one students were awarded the "Certificate of Special Achievement" and 13 were awarded the "Certificate of Recognition."

Treasurer's Report

• The BSA Endowment Fund, as of June 27, 2000, totaled $1,867,492.41.
• The BSA office will get an additional staff member, Administrative and Meeting Assistant, sometime this winter. This position will take some of the load off of the Business Manager and the Meeting Coordinator.

Meeting Coordinator's Report and Council Action

• Botany 2001 will be held at the Albuquerque Convention Center, NM, from August 12-16. The BSA local rep is Tim Lowrey.
• Botany 2002 will be held at the University of Wisconsin Pyle & Lowell Conference Centers from August 2-7.
• It was recommended and the Council approved Mobile Convention Center, AL, as the site of Botany 2003. This will be an early meeting (July 27-31).
• Sites under consideration for Botany 2004 include St. Paul, MN; Spokane, WA; Salt Lake City, UT; and Reno, NV.

Program Director's Report

• Beginning in 2002, hopefully, we will go to an expanded meeting format with educational and outreach components on Friday and Saturday. There will be a separate planning committee to help organize this. The Education Committee will also be involved. The Sections may also view this as an opportunity for involvement.

AJB Editor's Report and Council's Action

• To reduce the backlog of manuscripts waiting to be published, the Times Roman font size was reduced effective August, 2000.
• It was recommended that we switch to a lighter grade paper (50 paper-grade) and invest the savings in additional pages to further reduce the backlog of manuscripts. It was decided to try this for a year and revisit the recommendation at the next meeting.

Committee on Committee's Report and Council Action

• A new committee will be formed this year to investigate why our membership is declining. Committee members will be drawn from the Financial Advisory Committee, Publications Committee, and Membership and Appraisal Committee.

Corresponding Members Committee's Report

• There were no nominations this year because we have our maximum number (50) of Corresponding Members.

Education Committee's Report

• In cooperation with the Teaching Section, a BSA sponsored workshop was presented at the National Association of Biology Teacher's (NABT) Convention and a BSA sponsored booth was staffed at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Convention this year.
• The BSA was represented at a recent Project Kaleidoscope workshop, "The Future of Plant Biology."
• Educational posters are currently being developed. Their production is dependent on funding. Notwithstanding there intrinsic appeal and beauty, the real goal is to have a set of experiments available that furthers understanding of the images on the poster.

Elections Committee's Report

• New officers will take their offices at the BSA Banquet. New officers are Judy Jernstedt, President-elect, and Jennifer Richards, Secretary.

Financial Advisory Committee's Report and Council Action

• It was recommended and the Council approved $27,841.00 to be used from the Endowment Income for "special initiatives" during the 2000/01 fiscal year. Parts of this money will be spent on the AJB, on education to fund workshops/booths at NABT and NSTA meetings this year, and on hiring a consultant to study why our membership is declining and what we can do about it.
• It was recommended and the Council approved that a letter and brochure soliciting for the Endowment Fund be sent this fall to selected members of the BSA.

BSA/Karling Student Research Award Committee's Report

• Of relevance here, is that only one genetics proposal was submitted this year, and it was not funded.

Publications Committee's Report

• The Committee looks forward to using the estimated $10,000 saved from not publishing the abstracts in AJB to decrease the backlog of accepted manuscripts by increasing the number of pages per issue.

Web Page Committee's Report

• BSA now runs its own web servers, domain name servers, mail service, FTP and security systems.
• Steve Wolf manages the BSA Directory.
• AJB Online will continue to be free until April 2002 when the question will be revisited.
• Already with a truly awe-inspiring term in office, Scott Russell is serving his final year as Webmaster. The Committee will be searching for a new webmaster.