Minutes of the IADA General Assembly – Nancy, 28 August 2015

1. Call to order
The present members are called to order. All members are provided with the following documents: the General Assembly (GA) agenda, the financial statement of IADA for 2013-2015, the minutes of the GA in Turku in 2013, and the list of candidates for the board election.

The President asks whether further topics should be added to the current GA agenda. No further changes are called for. The present members accept the GA agenda unanimously.

2. Approval of minutes
The President asks the members to read through the minutes of the GA in Turku from 2013. The minutes are approved unanimously.

3. Membership
With reference to the relatively small pool of IADA members amounting to 60 members at the time of the GA, the President introduces the idea of a best student award. This topic will be discussed in more detail at a later point in the GA.

The President then introduces a revision of membership fees along the following lines:

• tier a countries: increase of membership fee from EUR 80 to 100
• tier b and c: increase of membership fee from EUR 60 to 80
• students: membership fee of EUR 60 for all countries
• tier a retired faculty/non-affiliated members: 80 EUR
• tier b and c retired faculty/non-affiliated members: 60 EUR

In addition, it is pointed out by a member in the plenum that the passage on discounted fees for IADA members on the IADA website is to be deleted.

Subsequently, the revision of membership fees is accepted unanimously.

4. Our website
The President opens up the IADA website on the theater’s projector and walks the present members through the different sections of the site. Special attention is paid to the IADA newsletter, the access to the IADA online publications including the IADA conference proceedings, videos, and the access to the Language & Dialogue journal through the John Benjamins (JB) website.

It is pointed out that IADA members have a 30% discount on the Dialogue Studies (DS) volumes, which comes automatically with the IADA membership.

The present members are encouraged to think about potential recipients of the IADA newsletter.

5. Finances
The members read through the financial statement of IADA accounting for the period of Dec 2012 to 2015. The current balance reads EUR 1730,68.

Selected positions on the statement are briefly discussed: costs for website app, webmaster, payments to previous IADA events. The President alludes to the fact that there should be no more payments to IADA event organizers in the future due to the limited financial means of IADA.

The President explains that EUR 50 from the membership fee is paid to JB for the journal subscription. The question is raised whether there should be an option for automatic membership renewal.

With regards to IADA’s payment to JB some of the present members allude to the fact that other publishers pay royalties, once the publications of an organization are picked up by the market. The President points out that the initial arrangement with JB is of a different nature. It is agreed that the issue should be discussed with JB in the near future with a view to possibly renegotiating the conditions of the arrangement.

6. Publications
The members are reminded about the three types of IADA publications available to them: the online proceedings on the IADA website, the Language and Dialogue (L&D) journal, and the Dialogue Studies (DS) book series via the JB website.

A member mentions that L&D is not indexed in any catalogs relevant for the field of psychology. In addition, the online description of the journal does not make a reference to psychology, either. It is then agreed that the journal’s description will be amended and that, if possible, it should be indexed accordingly.

The organizers of the Nancy conference 2015 give an overview of the publications planned with reference to the conference. The conference publications should be published in L&D, the conference proceedings, and two additional books under French publishers such as the Press of the University of Lorraine and which should contain articles in French only.

One member suggests that the payment to JB should be pro-rated in accordance with the distinct types of membership fees. This suggestion is rejected. Another member suggests that members should have the option of opting out of receiving hard copies of the L&D journal. It is agreed that this option should be discussed with JB in the near future.

The President mentions that JB should provide IADA with the sales numbers for L&D. Again, it is agreed that this should be discussed with JB. Another member expresses their concern with regards to renegotiating the arrangement with JB, as current advantages such as no extra charges for special issues, among others, might be dropped by JB.

7. Outreach activities
To increase the membership, the President suggests to offer a discounted membership fee of EUR 80 for members of the Language and Social Interaction group, a subdivision of the International Communication Association with about 200 members. The main aim is to increase IADA’s visibility in the research community with a view to attracting new members. It is pointed out that the LSI offer is not subject to any special terms from either side. A present IADA member, who is also chair of LSI, encourages this move, pointing to the common research interests of both associations.

8. Prizes and awards
The President introduces the idea of a student paper award. It is suggested that students, i.e. anyone who is enrolled in a postgraduate academic degree program, should have the opportunity to send in their full paper about two months ahead of an IADA event. Selected board members should then evaluate the papers and determine the awardee. How the selection process will be arranged exactly as well as the exact nature of the prize are subject to further discussion among the IADA board members. With regards to a top/best paper award, it is argued that the selection process would be too tedious for IADA. The top/best paper award should therefore not be introduced in the near future.

9. Future activities
The President announces IADA’s future activities as follows:

In 2016, Ronald Arnett will organize an IADA workshop on “Dialogic Ethics” at Duquesne University in Pittsburg, US, from 1-4 June. It is pointed out by one of the IADA members that the date conflicts with another important conference in the field of communication studies/sociology taking place in Canada. It is furthermore mentioned that the ICA conference in Japan is scheduled shortly after the Pittsburg workshop. Arnett agrees to check whether the workshop date could possibly be changed to a few days prior. He remains hesitant, though, as the university management has already indicated that space might be an issue.

The President then announces that Letizia Caronia will host the next IADA conference in Bologna, Italy, in 2017. The exact date will be announced in due course.

This gives rise to a brief discussion on a potential workshop in Modena, Italy, in the same year. Concerns are expressed about having another IADA event close to Bologna within a short period of time, as this might cause IADA members to visit only one event and thus leave out the other.

Louisa Granato suggests another IADA conference for Argentina in the future under the condition that the Argentinian IADA organizers/members are excluded from the conference fees and that additional financial help is provided through IADA, as the Argentinian affiliations do not possess the financial means to cover any sort of conference expenses.

10. Elections
The President calls for the election of the IADA board members. The ballots are distributed among the25 present members. They are asked to vote nine members from a pool of thirteen candidates. After the ballots are handed out to the present members, Martine Batt announces that she withdraws from her candidacy.

The President and the Secretary collect the ballots after the members have given their votes. The President announces the votes on each ballot. The Secretary marks and counts the votes for each candidate.
The results of the election are as follows: Ronald Arnett: 23 votes
Nicolas Bencherki: 5 votes Letizia Caronia: 16 votes Huey-Rong Chen: 7 votes François Cooren: 25 votes Sebastian Feller: 19 votes Luisa Granato: 18 votes
Mariion Grein: 17 votes Alain Létourneau: 24 votes Maria Gallo: 9 votes
Răzvan Săftoiu: 22 votes
Alain Trognon: 19 votes

The nine candidates with the top number of votes are selected for the new IADA board.

11. Announcements
The President announces that the new IADA board meets after the GA for the election of the

executive board.

12. Adjournment The GA is adjourned.
Respectfully submitted

Bottrop, 30 August 2015

Sebastian Feller (IADA Secretary)

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