At the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, members come together for their Business Meeting.
The minutes of the most recent Business Meeting is below.
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SSSI Business Meeting
August 13, 2017
Montréal, CA 

Meeting called to order at 3:38 pm by Leslie Irvine.

Outgoing president’s report (Leslie Irvine): Membership numbers are up a bit at this meeting. We need to recruit members to SSSI. Julie shared that we were up from last year. We are just under 300 at this moment. We have had issues with Wiley and are working hard to correct these.

We have two ways of communication with our membership, as long as they have provided their email address. Sending the newsletter through email and posting on the website.

  • Couch Stone 2018 will be held July 4 – 7 in Lancaster, England. Thaddeus Miller is organizing this effort.
  • A mini conference will be held in Philadelphia, PA ahead of the ASA meeting.

Joe Kotarba was appointed as the chair of the diversity/intersectionality/justice task force. Recommendations:

  1. Attract new members from underrepresented groups (especially students).
  2. Want to become more like “them”.
  3. Develop more formal mentorships.
  4. Develop awards for this.

Annual meeting contract has been signed with ASA in New York 2019. And will soon to be signing the contract for Chicago 2021.

  • Treasurer’s report (Lisa-Jo van den Scott): Overall the organization’s financial health is improving.
  • Secretary’s report (Laurie Linhart): The 2017 election had strong response (n=130). The following individuals were elected:
    • President-elect: Melinda Milligan, Sonoma State University
    • Vice president-elect: Stacey Hannem, Laurier University
  • Publications committee: Amanda Gengler, Wake Forest University; Melissa Lavin, State University of New York at Oneonta and Eric Silva, Georgia Southern

The by-laws amendment passed changing the annual meeting frequency. In odd years the annual meeting will be held in conjunction with ASA; in even years the annual meeting will be held in conjunction with Couch-Stone symposium.

Incoming president’s remarks (Thomas DeGloma): Our upcoming year will be challenging in many ways. One challenge is to maintain membership during this next year. Another getting people to attend Couch Stone and the mini meeting in Philadelphia. Another is the ability to register for membership and conferences through Wiley.

New business:

  1. Qualitative Conference in New Brunswick May 14 – 18, 2018
  2. William Force needs more content for the newsletter

Meeting adjourned at 5:00 pm.