May 1986 Council Minutes
MAY 1986 COUNCIL MINUTES
The Council met on 3 May 1986, in the West Ballroom, Holiday Inn-Inner Harbor,
Baltimore, MD at 5:05 PM. Members present were S. Armentrout, R.A. Askev,
W.W. Comfort, M.G. Crandall, W.B. Johnson, I. Kaplansky, G.D. Mostow, F.P.
Peterson, E. Pitcher, M.B. Pour-El, E.L. Stout, O. Taussky Todd, J.E. Taylor,
A. Terras, W.P. Thurston, W.A. Veech, and D.A. Vogan, Jr. Also present were
R. Hahn, K.M. Hoffman, M. Lane, W.J. LeVeque, M.H. Medeiros, J.W. Maxwell,
J.L. Selfridge, P.J. Sally, Jr., J.A. Voytuk, and W. B. Woolf. President
Kaplansky was in the chair.
Before proceeding to the stated business, President Kaplansky noted the death
on 28 April 1986, of former Presdient R. H. Bing with a brief tribute,
acknowledged by a moment of silence.
MINUTES
1.1 MINUTES OF 6 JANUARY 1986. These minutes were circulated by mail. There
are two corrections, in that William P. Thurston in fact, was not present and
William B. Johnson was present.
1.2 COUNCIL BUSINESS BY MAIL OF 13 FEBRUARY 1986. The attached minute,
recording the election of William A. Veech to the EC, was approved.
COMMITTEE AND BOARDS
4.1 EDITORIAL COMMITTEE OF THE PROCEEDINGS. The Editorial Committee requested
that the Council take action with respect to the PROCEEDINGS parallel to that
taken recently for the TRANSACTIONS. They proposed first, that the editorial
committee be enlarged to the point that all associate editors can become
editors and that the Council elect the incumbent associate editors to be
editors. In the steady state the terms will be four years, (the agenda
incorrectly stated three years, but the bylaws say four); but the termination
dates for incumbents should be set by agreement between the managing editor and
the Secretary. Second, the committee should be enlarged by one, whenever
necessary, so that the managing editor, if not already a member, can become
one. The managing editor is then in a position to be chairman of the
Committee, or to be the deputy of the Chairman on the Council. A supporting
letter from the Chairman, Paul S. Muhly, is attached. The Council followed
these recommendations in all respects.
4.2 PAGE CHARGES. The Editorial Committee of the PROCEEDINGS, recommended
that page charges for all Society journals be dropped. The Council of
6 January 1986, had already passed a resolution as the sense of the meeting
that page charges on all society journals should be dropped.
4.3 TRANSLATIONS OF RUSSIAN PAPERS AT ICM-86. The EC and BT agreed that the
Society will provide ICM-86 with preprints of English translations of papers
submitted to ICM-86 in Russian. In exchange, ICM-86 has granted the
translation rights (i.e. the right) to the AMS. The question put to the
Council is whether the Society should publish these translations as a volume in
Selected Translations (supposing that all matters of permission have been
resolved). The EC and BT recommended that the Society publish these
translations as a volume in the series of Selected Translations. The Council
approved.
4.4 TRANSLATIONS FROM CHINESE. The Agenda and Budget Committee recommended to
the Council and to the BT, that the Society bring a translation program for
both journal articles and books. Journal articles would come under
consideration, usually, from recommendations made by reviewers, just as in the
case of papers in Russian. Books might be either conference proceedings or
monographs.
The recommendation of the ABC was further to reconstitute the existing
Committee on Translation from the Chinese, which has acted as a policy
Committee, to be active as a selection Committee. Two of the members would
drop out, namely Frank Peterson, who does not read Chinese, and C.C. Lin, who
wishes not to continue to participate. Sun-Yung Alice Change, Tsit-Yuen Lam,
Chairman, and Tai-Ping Liu remain. Others would be appointed as needed. The
Council approved reconstitution of the Committee as a selection Committee.
4.5 NOMINATIOINS. The Council followed the recommendations of the Nominating
Committee and nominated the following persons to be candidates in the election
of 1986 for the offices named:
Vice-President William P. Thurston
(2 Candidates 1
position) Karen Uhlenbeck
Secretary Everett Pitcher
Associate Secretaries Frank T. Birtel
(2 positions) W. Wistar Comfort
Treasurer Franklin P. Peterson
Associate Treasurer Steve Armentrout
Trustee Ronald L. Graham
MEMBERS OF PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEES:
AMERICAN JOURNAL Richard B. Melrose
BULLETIN Morris W. Hirsch
COLLOQUIUM H. Jerome Keisler
MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS Melvin Hochster
MATH. SURVEYS &
Monographs Victor W. Guilleman
Math. of Computation Walter Gautschi
(Two positions) John E. Osborn
PROCEEDINGS Paul S. Muhly
TRANSACTIONS Ralph Cohen
(5 positions) Ronald K. Getoor
Jerry L. Kazdan
David J. Saltman
Robert J. Zimmer
Committee to Monitor
Prob. in Comm. Marian B. Pour-El
(2 positions) Sheldon Axler
Members at Large C. Edmund Burgess
(10 Candidates; David Drasin
5 positions) H. Blaine Lawson
Howard A. Masur
Eric C. Milner
Yiannis N. Moschovakis
Linda A. Ness
Marc A. Rieffel
Scott Warner Williams
Carol Wood
Audrey A. Terras represented the Nominating Committee to answer questions.
Should any suggestions for nomination appear by petition, they are to be
handled by mail ballot.
4.6 MR-ZBL. The Chairman of the Negotiating Team, Steve Armentrout, reported
on the status of merger negotiations. His report is attached.
4.7 MAT. SBORNIK. The Secretary reported on ballots currently in progress in
the EC and BT on the issue of a change in contract under which Mat. Sbornik is
translated. The report is attached.
REPORTS OF OFFICERS
5.1 REPORT OF THE TREASURER. The financial schedules and auditors' opinion
for 1985 are attached.
NEW BUSINESS
9.1 SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGE WITH LATIN AMERICA. Professor Cora Sadosky noted that
the program of Scientific Exchange and Colloboration with Latin America,
financed by the National Science Foundation, and operated in cooperation with
five South American Societies by this Society, under contract with NSF, through
a committee chaired by Richard J. Griego, has not been funded for another year.
She requested the Society to find means to continue this program. A statement
by Professor Sodosky is attached. President Kaplansky asked anyone with ideas
how to raise money to continue the program to call him. The question is to go
to the EC and BT of 15-18 May 1986.
INFORMATION AND RECORD
2.1 NOMINATING COMMITTEE. President Kaplansky noted that to date three persons
have agreed to be candidates for the Nominating Committee of 1987, namely:
Robert L. Devaney
Harry Kesten
Carl Pomerance
2.2 Seminar for NATIONAL ACADEMIES AND LEARNED SOCIETIES. A report from
Joel Leborwitz is attached.
2.3 NATIONAL MEDAL OF SCIENCE. The most recent awards in mathematics went to
Peter Lax and Antoni Zygmund. This Society has a Committee on National Awards
that does not report on its activities except occasionally after the fact. In
this instance, it can be stated that the Committee participated in the support
of both of these awards.
2.4 ARCHIVES. The contract with Brown University that its library should be
the custodian of Society archives is now in place. From the point of view of
Brown, this is a component in a larger collection of archives in mathematics.
Not only will selected material from Society records become available in this
collection, but also there is an opportunity for individuals to offer material
of potential historic interest.
2.5 CLOSED MEETINGS. The Council of 6 January 1986, passed a resolution
opposing restraints on open discussion of current research, unless that
research is explicitly classified, or proprietary. See minute 9.1 of 6 January
1986. The Association for Women in Mathematics, has passed a resolution with
almost identical wording.
2.6 JOINT COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE PROGRAMS AT TRADITIONALLY BLACK INSTITUTIONS:
The Council of 6 JANUARY 1986, discharged this Committee subject to parallel
action by the other spouses, namely the MAA and the National Association of
Mathematicians. See minute 4.16 of 6 January 1986. Both organizations
have taken that action.
The Council went into executive session from 6:15-6:30 PM to consider
nominations as reported in item 4.5. From 6:30-6:45, Kenneth Hoffman gave
an informal report on the progress by which testimony is provided to
legislative committees.
The council adjourned at 6:45 PM.
Everett Pitcher, Secretary
