Dear EMAC Members,
When I took over the presidency at the end of the Braga Conference, I had imagined the workload as president to be a rather light bundle of staggered tasks, e.g. chairing executive board meetings and discussing EMAC’s year-to-date performance. After almost one year, my perspective has changed. The work of the president and the vice-presidents is a continuous engagement to stimulate and organize innovative projects. We are striving to improve the attractiveness of becoming and remaining a member of EMAC.
The upcoming year holds a few important changes in store. First of all, for over two years, the executive committee has been discussing a modernization of our statutes. This process is almost resolved. The new statutes will better define the aim of the organisation as well as the tasks and responsibilities of the officers. The whole complex of regulations will be adapted to Belgian law. EMAC will in the future have a somewhat stronger steering committee (President , VPs and Executive Secretary) to run the day-to-day business. This committee will be able to react much more flexibly to emerging problems and provides the president the necessary consultation support in exceptional cases, also when face-to-face meetings are not possible. In addition the new statutes will also take into account the growth and changing financial situation of the organization since the drafting of the first statutes. To better control the financial processes, the new statutes define the position of a treasurer, who will be responsible for controlling the annual accounts and presenting reports e.g. to the Executive Committee.
Another hurdle to improve the attractiveness of EMAC, from my point of view, is developing guidelines about running the annual conference. Here Graham Hooley and Suzanne Beckmann (as VP and former president) did a great job to record their experiences with conference organization. The newness of this collection of guidelines contains, understandably, certain limitations, but continued input helps its perfection . The other issue involves helping the organizers to develop a conference program that is attractive and high quality. The key for an attractive program is the submission of papers that present high quality research. As such the review process and acceptance of good quality papers is essential to keep EMAC a strong organization. If the quality of the conference program goes down, we risk losing the targeted attendees to other conferences. Similarly, this debate is ongoing in German academic societies. One proposal to attract and ensure high quality presentations entails hosting invited sessions at the conference. At the Glasgow Conference e.g. there will be one session organized by Mike Hanssens (UCLA). In Murcia it is already announced that this conference will improve the reviewing process through a “Track Chair” system. The present review process was the subject for many complaints because of either rejection or the insufficient feedback. Perhaps the combination of invited speakers and sessions and the implementation of Track Chairs is the solution to guarantee high quality at future EMAC conferences. But there is much more that has to be discussed at the Glasgow Conference in May. With the help of their colleagues, Mike Saren and Jan Whiteford have put together a very attractive program. And it will also be worthwhile to visit this year’s General Assembly. Hope to see you there!
Lutz Hildebrandt |