Held in person at the University of Connecticut, June 14, 2023 with 38 people in attendance, and lasting approximately 55 minutes.

ACAL President Laura Downing opened the meeting, profusely thanking Vicki Carstens and her team for hosting ACAL on fairly short notice. After two years of virtual meetings, “It’s good to be back in person!”

Elections

Each year we elect a new Executive Committee (EC) member, to serve for three years. Laura Downing emphasized that an EC member should be a regular attendee at ACAL and should answer emails promptly! We thanked Katie Franich, stepping down this year, for her service on the Committee! Jenneke van der Wal was nominated to serve as EC member, elected with close to 100% of attendees voting.

Laura Downing’s term as President ends in 2024, with James Essegbey, currently Vice President, becoming President. We will thus be electing a new Vice President next year; nominations can be sent Laura Downing ahead of time.

Future conference locations

We are grateful to have future hosts lined up for the next few years, unlike the usual situation in recent years. We do thank the following for their part in keeping ACAL running smoothly. The 2024 ACAL will be held at McGill University (Montreal) 2-4 May, with abstracts due in early to mid-September, under the leadership of Martina Martinovic. The 2025 ACAL will be at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities under Claire Halpert and Ettien Koffi. In 2026 ACAL will be at the University of Buffalo (under Jeff Good, with Matt Faytak), with Syracuse (Chris Green), and the University of Rochester (Nadine Grimm, Scott Grimm, and Asia Pietraszko) all collaborating in the planning.

Proceedings volumes

The ACAL 49 papers from Michigan State University are now published on the Language Science Press site! (ACAL 50 papers were previously published.)

For ACAL 51-52 Proceedings (University of Florida), James Essegbey reported that they currently have 18 papers ready. Half of the papers were submitted in LaTeX. Michael Diercks got a student assistant for the summer to do the remainder of conversions. They hope to have their Proceedings done by next year.

For the ACAL 53 Proceedings, Sharon Rose reported that of the 28 papers submitted, 7 were either rejected or withdrawn, with 21 expected to be published. Of these, 7 are in final version, 13 are being finally checked, and one has not yet been resubmitted following reviews. 14 papers were submitted in LaTeX, and 7 papers were submitted in Word and need to be converted to LaTeX. With editing, formatting, and submission to Language Science Press, their goal is to have this volume out by the next ACAL meeting.

For ACAL 54 (University of Connecticut) there is no call for submissions yet, but it will come, including instructions and page count. It was noted that the call for submissions usually comes within 2 1/2 months of the conference.

We do thank the LaTeX Committee again for developing tools for authors which they must use in preparing their submissions.

Mike Marlo notes that Language Science Press’ Contemporary African Linguistics (CAL) series publishes monographs and edited volumes, besides ACAL Proceedings. People are welcome to submit monograph-length works, even dissertations (which will be reviewed…). A principle for suitability: consider for the broader CAL if there isn’t already another series that’s a better fit (e.g. African Grammars and Dictionaries).

Discussion from floor on funding and visas

The question was raised about funding for those from Africa to come, since the cost is challenging. The possibility of attending by Zoom was raised, though it raises costs for the host university. (Vicki Carstens said that running ACAL as a hybrid conference on Zoom would add thousands of dollars to their university budget.) The ACAL as an organization is doing OK financially (see Financial Report below), but doesn’t have lots of money. Could we do a fundraiser such as GoFundMe? This is only for one individual at a time. We will take this issue to the EC for further discussion.

A related concern is for visas for the USA and Canada. The current Kenya backlog for visas is about a year. Thus, the earlier the deadline for ACAL submissions and acceptance the better. We can’t do this deadline now, since ACAL 55 is less than a year away. In the future, would there be a possibility of an early submission date for Africans?

Matthew Faytak suggested that ACAL have a standing committee for Resources, like we do for LaTeX.  Michael Diercks suggested that such a Committee would decide and define issues.  Matthew volunteered to head it. When we send out the Minutes, we can ask for volunteers who have a commitment to ACAL and this issue and respond well to email.

An African participant asked if he could have a letter or certificate of participation to show their funders. Answer: write to Vicki, who will be happy to send it.

Thanks to Sharon Rose, our ACAL Treasurer, for her report below. At this point, we have a healthy surplus. Some possibilities for using ACAL funds are: the EC could look into a better website, with smoother financial options than the current PayPal, and possibly help to pay registration fees from African countries. ACAL participants are encouraged to write President Laura Downing for any other ideas.

Respectfully submitted,

Mike Cahill, ACAL Secretary

2022-23 ACAL Financial Report – June 14, 2023

Sharon Rose, Treasurer

Carry forward (August 31, 2021)                            $15073.01

2021-22                                                                                            

Income
1 lifetime membership x $400                       $  400.00
34 x $25 memberships                                         850.00
40 x $15 memberships                                        600.00
Amazon Smile                                                         29.38
    1879.38

Total revenue 2020-21                                         -$2275.93

Expenses
Statement of Information (State of CA)         $  25.00
PayPal charges                                                      130.31
African Linguistics School                                3000.00
Conference payment (to UCSD)                      1000.00
Total                        4155.31

Balance (August 31, 2022)                                    $12797.08

Sept. 1, 2022-June 12, 2023 – Summary for this year                   

Income
2 lifetime memberships x $400                    $800.00
26 x $25 memberships                                       650.00
50 x $15 memberships                                       750.00
Amazon Smile                                                        40.75
Total                                                               $2240.75

Expenses
LinguistList for web hosting (back pay)        1200.00
LinguistList for web hosting (annual)              600.00
PayPal charges                                                       93.16
Total expenses                                               $1953.16

Total revenue (2022-23)                                      $ 287.59

Balance as of June 12, 2023                           $13 084.67

The ACAL 53 Business Meeting was held virtually on April 9, 2022, with an average of about 61 in attendance over the course of the meeting, and lasting 1 hour and 15 minutes.

President Laura Downing opened the meeting, profusely thanking this year’s host Sharon Rose and her colleagues at the University of California San Diego for this year’s second-ever virtual ACAL, which has gone quite well, with “great talks, including the plenaries.”

Future conference locations
There is not a 100% certain location for ACAL 54 next year, but Vicki Carstens has been diligently exploring the possibility with the University of Connecticut. There is not financial backing at this point, but the biggest challenge is where people would stay. The local hotel is reluctant to block off rooms ahead of time. Suggestions from the floor included getting the University Dean to apply pressure and looking to other nearby towns for accommodation (with shuttle buses). Vicki will keep the ACAL EC (Executive Committee) informed of the situation.

For future ACALs, some possibilities:

• Claire Halpert –Minnesota, though not next year
• Matthew Faytak, Chris Green – in 2-3 years, possibility of central and western New York universities working together
• Mike Marlo, Missouri, though need to check with Rebecca Grollemund, possibly combining with the Bantoid conference

There was considerable and lengthy discussion on the pros and cons of virtual conferences. Pros include the possibility of more people attending (since there’s no travel expense or visa issues), and the organizers don’t have to line up housing. The main cons were the lack of personal interactions (including meals and reception with dancing), and the chance to meet people one has only read about. San Diego did have the Discord platform for not only comments, but potential for some personal interactions, which some used, and some did not find helpful. The idea of hybrid conferences, with both virtual and in-person attendees, was discussed with mostly favorable reactions, though its additional complexity was also recognized. Matthew Faytak offered to form a hybrid technology committee to help out future ACAL hosts and ensure there can always be a hybrid component offered at ACAL. Somewhat of a consensus reached was that the university sponsoring ACAL should have the decision.

Elections
Review: with no Business Meeting of the Association in 2020 (the cancelled Rutgers ACAL), all of the Executive Committee (EC) officers had continued for an additional year.

James Essegbey’s term as a member of the EC has expired, and Harold Torrence was nominated as the new member. No others were nominated from the floor. A Zoom poll was used to tabulate votes, and Harold was elected with 100% of the people who voted.  

Normally a new Vice President/President-Elect would have been elected last year, but time constraints and lack of nominations meant no one was elected. The ACAL Bylaws state that the President can appoint someone to fill a vacant position, and Laura Downing appointed Lee Bickmore to fill in for one year. This year, James Essegbey was nominated, with no other nominations from the floor. He was elected by 100% of people who voted.  He will fill the remainder of the term – 2 years, after which he will assume the position of President.

Proceedings volumes
ACAL 49: Galen Sibanda (Michigan State) reported that LSP’s holiday break had delayed processing, but now has the final proofs. Five papers need small corrections. All authors will be sent their proofs soon for final confirmation.

ACAL 50’s Proceedings are published.

ACAL51-52:
Brent Henderson (Florida) reported that by the end of the month, people should have revised their papers, then comes the formatting. Though initial submissions did not need not to be in LaTeX, final submissions must be. Michael Diercks and his team have set up a series of information and tutorials on this under https://acalafrica.org/annual-conference-proceedings/, and one person mentioned these had gotten him “80% of the way.” Diercks is quite willing to help people on an individual basis as well.

Sharon Rose noted that there will probably be a deadline of July 31 for submissions to ACAL53.

Financial report
Sharon Rose, ACAL Treasurer, reported a “healthy carryover” from last year, even though revenues were lower than usual. This is at least partially due to a large number of people who have decided on Life memberships previously. Also, we did not make a contribution to the ALS last year, but plan to do so this year. As usual, ACAL contributed $1000 to the sponsoring university (UC San Diego this year). There were a number of ACAL presenters who have not paid their (required) ACAL dues. It was recognized that the system for tracking these, as well as posting members on the ACAL web site, could use some automation, and Brent Henderson said he could potentially help on that. There are other opportunities for disbursal of funds, such as financial assistance for those coming from Africa to attend ACAL. Such possibilities will be discussed by the EC. The full report (the presence of which was a bit surprising, given Sharon Rose’s responsibilities in organizing ACAL this year) is below.

The meeting ended slightly later than planned, at 1:15, with many expressions of thanks to the ACAL team at San Diego.

Respectfully submitted,
Mike Cahill
Secretary, Association of Contemporary African Linguistics

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

2021 ACAL Financial Report
April 24, 2022

Carry forward (August 31, 2020)                                                    $11382.08

2020-21                                                                                                                    

Income
6 lifetime membership x $400                                             $2400.00
1 lifetime membership x $200                                                   200.61
55 x $15 memberships                                                               825.00
46 x $25 memberships                                                            1150.00
Amazon Smile                                                                                42.67
  4618.28

Expenses
$ PayPal charges                                                                                  $177.35
$ Proceedings editing                                                                           750.00
    927.35

Total revenue 2020-21                                                                $3690.93

Balance (August 31, 2021)                                                             $15073.01

Sept. 1, 2021-April 24, 2022 – Summary for this year                                          

Income
1 lifetime memberships x $400                                        $400.00
33 x $25 memberships                                                           825.00
40 x $15 memberships                                                           600.00
Amazon Smile                                                                              24.38
Total                                                                                      $1849.38

Expenses
Conference                                                                                1000.00
State of California                                                                        25.00
PayPal charges                                                                          128.57
Total expenses                                                                     $1153.57

Total revenue (2021-22)                                                       $ 695.81

Balance as of April 24, 2022                                                $15 768.82

prepared by Sharon Rose, Treasurer

The Business Meeting for ACAL 51-52 was held virtually ‘at’ the University of Florida, April 20, 2021. There were 61 in attendance, averaged over the hour.

Outgoing President Akin Akinlabi opened the meeting, reviewing the past year and the regrettable but necessary cancellation of ACAL51 at Rutgers. Because of this, with no Business Meeting of the Association last year, all of the Executive Committee (EC) officers continued for an additional year. He noted that Laura Downing as Vice President/President-Elect has been doing much of the work of the EC the last year, and at this point, Akin turned over the Presidency and chairing of the meeting to her.

Laura Downing first profusely thanked the University of Florida for this year’s first-ever virtual ACAL, which had many challenges.

Elections
Laura McPherson’s term as a member of the EC has expired, and many thanks for her service were noted in the Zoom chat box. Galen Sibanda was nominated as the new member, and was approved/elected by display of Zoom hands.

Normally this year a new Vice President/President-Elect would also be elected, but time constraints did not allow the EC to contact potential nominees, nor was one nominated from the floor. The Bylaws state that the President can appoint someone to fill a vacant position, and Laura Downing appointed Lee Bickmore to serve for one year. We will elect a new VP at next year’s business meeting to fill the remainder of the term. The EC asks for input for possible nominees, including self-nominations.

Akin Akinlabi was thanked for his service as first VP (3 years), its second President (4 years) and also as one of the founders of the ACAL association, besides being heavily involved in publications and other areas. Quite a few chat box comments also thanked him.

Future conference locations
In 2022, the ACAL53 conference will be hosted by the University of California at San Diego, with support from Pomona. Sharon Rose (UCSD) affirmed an online conference, but is not sure that an in-person conference will be possible or allowed by the University at that point. She also noted with regret the additional time difference for those in Africa. A hybrid conference, with both in-person and virtual parts, was suggested as a possibility, with several in the chat box supporting the idea.  The additional complexity was also noted. A virtual component would help those who have problems with visas or travel funding. Michael Diercks would be the main contact for Pomona. He mentioned the possibility of financial support from there.

No one specifically volunteered to host ACAL54 for 2023, but after entreating from several EC members to ask people’s home universities, there were some possibilities:

• Katie Franich at University of Delaware – sometime in the next four years
• Matthew Faytak – maybe at Buffalo
• Chris Green – possibility of central and western New York universities working together [Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse (Green), perhaps Albany]
• Claire Halpert – 3 or 4 years from now at Minnesota
• Vicki Carstens – will explore with University of Connecticut

Those on the verge of tenure were warned against taking on the task of organizing the conference. It was also mentioned that potential new hosts would be helped by having financial data from previous ACALs available.

Proceedings volumes
ACAL 49: Galen Sibanda reported that COVID issues had delayed processing, but should be done soon.
ACAL 50: Akin Akinlabi noted that since the hosts at University of British Columbia said they couldn’t handle the proceedings, the ACAL EC took up the entire responsibility. Michael Diercks was crucial in helping on LaTeX formatting and setting up online instructions for beginners. The Proceedings are finished; publication should happen in the next month or two.

LaTeX training discussion was led by Michael Diercks, who headed a LaTeX Committee last year, as noted above. This format is required by our publisher, Language Science Press. Initial submissions for the Proceedings can be submitted in other formats, but some formats make a conversion to LaTeX easier. A tutorial on LaTeX was planned for ACAL51 at Rutgers, but with its cancellation, didn’t happen. A virtual tutorial, possibly multiple ones, is envisioned, after email input on possible interest. Those interested in helping others with LaTeX formatting are requested to join in and to email Michael Diercks,

ACAL51-52: An email with submission instructions will be sent out soon. The due date for initial submission will probably be early July or thereabouts. Though initial submissions need not be in LaTeX, final submissions must be.

[note from the Secretary: all Proceedings, including links to recent free online ones, are listed at https://acalafrica.org/history-and-past-conferences/ -mc]

Other CAL publication
[the following was not presented live due to lack of time, but is part of ACAL business – mc]

Language Science Press, besides our conference Proceedings, can publish other monographs in the Contemporary African Linguistics series (https://langsci-press.org/catalog/series/cal). Michael Marlo is the new series editor, and communicated the following:

CAL has published one monograph outside of the ACAL Proceedings – Bastian Persohn’s book on the Nyakyusa verb, which was recently published as a 2nd edition. We’ve had a few expressions of interest and fielded some questions about the possibility of publishing a few other monographs. We have one monograph that was submitted and has been through a round of review. And another monograph where we expect to receive the first submission in later this year.

Financial report
Sharon Rose, ACAL Treasurer, said “we’re flush” with money, largely due to a lack of spending the last two years, and six new Life memberships, We have a balance of $15,020.08. We haven’t given to the ALS or the annual ACAL meeting recently, but will in the future. The possibility of helping defray costs for people coming from Africa for ACAL was voiced, but with so many coming, this would involve difficult choices. A complete report is included below.

Respectfully submitted,

Mike Cahill
Secretary, Association of Contemporary African Linguistics

2020 ACAL Financial Report
April 10, 2021

Carry forward (August 31, 2019)
PayPal                                                         $7281.18
Bank                                                              2876.52
$10157.70

2019-20
Income
     1 lifetime membership x $400            $400.00
13 x $15 memberships                             195.00
13 x $25 memberships                             325.00
Amazon Smile                                                41.50
                                                                             $961.50
Expenses
     $ PayPal charges                                         $37.12
$ CA Statement of information               20.00
                                                                                $57.12

Total revenue 2019-20                           $ 904.38

Balance on August 31, 2020 (end of fiscal year):
PayPal                                                           8484.06
Bank                                                              2898.02
     Total                                                          $11382.08    (includes cash deposit of $320 – ACAL 2019)

Sept. 1, 2020-April 10, 2021 – Summary for this year
Income
      6 lifetime memberships x $400                                  $2400.00
1 African lifetime membership x $200.61                    200.61
45 x $25 memberships                                                      1125.00
54 $15 memberships                                                            810.00
Amazon Smile                                                                           27.70
      Total                                                                                       $4563.31

Expenses
      Editing of ACAL50 Proceedings                                      $750.00
PayPal charges                                                                         175.31
      Total expenses                                                                        $925.31

Total income                                                                           $3638.00

Balance as of April 10, 2021                                           $15020.08

PayPal:            12,844.36
Bank:                 2,925.72
                                                                          15,770.08   (-$750 not yet paid out)

(Note from the Secretary: Since ACAL at Rutgers was cancelled, the usual ACAL business meeting was not  held. In place of that, the Executive Committee met; these are the results of that meeting.)

March 24, 2020

Chaired by Akin Akinlabi, ACAL President

Present: Akin Akinlabi (President), Laura Downing (Vice President/President-Elect), Laura McPherson (EC member), James Essegbey (EC member), Katie Franich (EC member), Lee Bickmore (Past President), Sharon Rose (ACAL Treasurer), and Mike Cahill (ACAL Secretary). This meeting was held by Zoom, with thanks to Laura McPherson for arranging this. When necessary to avoid ambiguity, the ACAL meeting and the ACAL association will be labeled as such.

Much of the business below is a result of Rutgers University making the difficult decision to cancel hosting the ACAL 51 conference due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Generally the EC meets at ACAL before the general business meeting, at which time the necessary decisions and information are passed to those meeting attendees. ACTION: Cahill will pass on  selected notes of this meeting to the general ACAL association membership, and post this on the ACAL association web site in the place of the normal business meeting minutes.

1. Name of conference

It was decided that the cancelled Rutgers ACAL meeting would still be referred to as ACAL 51, and next year’s meeting at the University of Florida will be termed ACAL 52.

2. Term extension of ACAL EC members

Election of a new Vice-President/President-elect and a new EC member was scheduled for the 2020 ACAL general meeting. With a physical meeting impossible, the current President, Vice President, and EC member whose term was due to expire (Laura McPherson) all agreed to extend their terms one more year, and elections will be held in 2021 at the University of Florida.

3. ACAL dues and the cancelled ACAL 51

It was decided that the collection of ACAL association dues would proceed normally, with those desiring to present a paper at ACAL 52 to be current on dues payment. [Sharon Rose reported that no one so far has requested a refund of dues due to ACAL 51’s cancellation. We decided that if anyone objects to paying dues without the opportunity to present at Rutgers, this will be handled on a case-by-case basis, with financial hardship being taken into account.]

4. Language Science Press issues

It was pointed out that local university editors of ACAL proceedings do not always have all the information they need (e.g. it is possible to publish one or a few papers at a time, and not wait for the full volume, and there have been issues with the BibTex references format). A better system is needed to pass on publication information.

There are still many issues with the format of submissions. The LaTeX Committee (established at ACAL 50) could help with this. We need a “How To…” document to help authors in formatting submissions, to be posted on the ACAL association web site and also communicated to authors by the sponsoring university. Action – Franich to communicate this to Michael Dierks, LaTeX Committee head. Cahill to post this document on the ACAL association web site.

5. ACAL50 Proceedings

The current members of the ACAL EC have assumed responsibility for publishing ACAL 50 Proceedings. Getting reviewers for the submissions has been sometimes difficult. Also, submissions have arrived in a variety of formats, from LaTeX to Word to PDF, in spite of instructions to the contrary. For those submissions that are accepted, it will be required that the authors submit in either the Word Stylesheet or the LaTeX format. ACTION: all EC members, keep processing these.

6. Abstracts Accepted by Rutgers and Florida

About 110 oral papers and 25 posters were accepted by Rutgers (with external reviewers). It was decided that any of these presenters who would like to present the same paper at Florida can submit these to Florida, and they will be automatically accepted. ACTION: Akinlabi to send a list of these presenters to James, so their acceptance at Rutgers can be confirmed.

The next Proceedings volume will be labeled Proceedings of ACAL 51-52. If the Rutgers-accepted presenters would like to submit their papers for publication in this volume without presenting them in person at Florida, they can submit them (to Florida) at any time. However, they will be warned that decisions on acceptance will not be made until after ACAL 52, when all submissions will be processed. Rutgers and Florida will share responsibility for co-editing this volume.

The normal practice of a presenter being limited to one solo and one shared presentation will be followed at Florida, and this would include presentations previously accepted at Rutgers.

7. Possible resource sharing with Florida

Since ACAL 51 will not be at Rutgers, their university funding will not be available. Rutgers has spent money already, including buying conference bags, which if possible, would be good to re-purpose for ACAL 52.  ACTION: Akinlabi will check the cost of these, send to Assegbey, who will ask about Florida buying these. Presumably registration fees and other funding would cover the cost. Our usual ACAL association practice is to donate $1000 to the hosting university, and we will do that for both Rutgers and Florida. ACTION: Rose will send this money. ]

Sharon Rose reported that we have approximately $9000 in the ACAL association account at present – a healthy balance.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael Cahill, ACAL Secretary

The Business Meeting for ACAL 50 was held May 25 at University of British Columbia, from 12:20-1:20 p.m., with 39 people in attendance and ACAL association President Akinbiyi Akinlabi chairing. The host organizers at the University of British Columbia were thanked for putting on ACAL50

Elections
The term of Jonathan Choti as a member of the ACAL Executive Committee (EC) expired this year. Galen Sibanda and Kathryn Franich were nominated, and Kathryn Franich (University of Delaware) was elected for a three-year term.

Conference Proceedings
Berkeley (ACAL 47, 2016) has all but 5 articles pre-published and available online, and the others will be done soon.

Indiana (ACAL48, 2017) papers will be sent to the publishers next week and expect to be published shortly.

Michigan State (ACAL49, 2018) reports that some reviews still have not come back, and they will make their selections of papers to be published very soon.

A long discussion was held on the challenges of publishing in LaTeX with Language Science Press (LSP). An email from Peter Jenks (Berkeley) detailed the challenges of this, and suggested that the LSP connection was unsustainable long-term. Samson Lotven (Indiana) said with them, the conversion itself wasn’t the biggest headache, but the cleanup after conversion is very time consuming. (Berkeley did have twice as many papers as Indiana.) 50% of the accepted papers for Indiana came in in Word format, and they had funding to pay people to convert to LaTeX. Papers were submitted (in increasing difficulty of processing) in LaTeX, Word following the template, and Word not following the template. LSP can and does help, but only if they’re asked.

Sharon Rose mentioned that the AMP conference published with LSA, with a charge. Submissions are in Word, and are converted to PDFs. Two downsides are that there is no physical book, and the interface is terrible. Also, there’s some question if LSA could or would handle a Canadian submission.

Other ideas and suggestions related to publications that were mentioned:

• Typesetting tone papers is difficult. We could charge authors for typesetting (with possible differential charges for different groups). The ACAL organization could help with author charges. This was not received positively.
• Assuming 10 hours work to convert one paper to LaTeX, this would be approximately $200 per paper, and 20 papers would cost $4000. Some universities have money for “subvention” (targeted financial assistance).
• Every ACAL, have a LaTeX conversion tutorial, OR more generally, “How to publish with ACAL” This seems a real possibility, though finding time in the schedule could be a challenge.
• Have an ACAL-specific template, with trees, autosegmental representations, tables, etc.  A real possibility.
• Put sample papers on the ACAL website – a possibility
• ACAL organization could give more money to the hosting university to help with conversion costs (to be considered by the ACAL EC).

A committee to consider and help with LaTeX matters was proposed. Michael Marlo could possibly chair, with Michael Diercks, Hazel Mitchley, Peter Jenks, and Matthew Faytak on it.

The upshot is that we will continue with LSP for this 50^th ACAL, but investigate LSA possibilities.

Future ACAL locations
2020 – ACAL51 will be at Rutgers, 21-24 May, Thursday-Sunday. Six rooms are reserved for possible parallel sessions. It’s scheduled after graduation, because of more hotel space available. Thursday may be reserved for workshops.

2021 – ACAL52 will be at the University of Florida.

2022 – offer of the University of California at San Diego (possibly in partnership with Pomona)

Later ACALs – possibly Delaware.

The possibility of an African venue was briefly mentioned, with little response.

Having the conference in May, as in 2019 and 2020, is awkward for universities on a quarter system, since they are forced to miss a few days of class. (ACAL has often met during spring break in the past – mc.)

Visas for ACAL
From the floor it was brought up that Nigerians and others are having problems with visas. (There was only one from Nigeria at ACAL this year.) The problem is largely in timing of sending out acceptance letters, and that it often takes months to process a visa. (One Nigerian at WOCAL told me – Cahill – that we should allow 4-5 months. Indiana had only a 2-month lead time, but there were not as many problems at that time.) The host university needs to get out acceptance letters quickly. One suggestion was that the host university will ask submitters if they need more time, and if they do, process those applications first.

Retiree dues rate
It was proposed, and approved by voice vote, that retirees would pay the reduced ACAL dues rate that students and Africa-centered people pay. It was also suggested that the host university adopt a similar position for conference fees, though the ACAL organization cannot legislate this.

Financial report – Sharon Rose, Treasurer
The ACAL association has a healthy balance right now, due partly to us not having contributed to the African Linguistics School (ALS) for two years (it occurs every 2 or 3 years). The ACAL EC decided to increase our contribution from $2500 to $3000 for the next ALS. Also, several people joined as Life members (probably not sustainable long-term). One new item was that ACAL is now a featured organization on Amazon Smile, and we received almost $100 from that (see below). It is possible that we could increase our contribution to the ACAL host university, which the EC will consider.

Respectfully submitted,

Mike Cahill, ACAL Secretary

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2018 ACAL Financial Report – May 21, 2019 (prior to conference)
Sharon Rose, Treasurer

Carry forward (August 31, 2017)                                           $7236.51

Summary for 2017-18
    Income                                                                                    $3350
$  800  2 lifetime membership x $400
$  975  65 x $15
$1575  63 x $25

    Expenses                                                                                $1138.69
$1000 to MSU for conference
$  118.69 in charges (PayPal)
$     20 to State of California (Statement of Information)

Total revenue 2017-18                                                           $2211.31

Balance on August 31, 2018 (end of fiscal year):                  $9447.82
PayPal                         7384.81
Bank                            2063.01

Sept. 1, 2018-May 21, 2019 – Summary for this year
    Income                                                                                    $3523.51
$2000              5 lifetime memberships x $400
$  525              35 x $15
$  825              33 x $25
$    98.51         Amazon Smile

    Expenses                                                                                $1135.71
$1000              to UBC for conference
$ 135.71          PayPal charges

Total revenue 2018-19                                                            $2387.80

Current balance:                                                                   $11,835.62

The Business Meeting for ACAL 49 was held March 24 at Michigan State University, from 5:10-6:00 p.m., with 49 people in attendance and ACAL President Akinbiyi Akinlabi chairing.

Elections:
Michael Marlo was thanked for his 3-year term on the ACAL Executive Committee (EC). James Essegbey was nominated to replace him for a 3-year term on the EC, and was elected by acclamation.

Conference Proceedings:
ACAL Vice President Laura Downing presented information on proceedings in process, with input from representatives of Berkeley, Indiana, and Michigan State.

ACAL 45 proceedings (Kansas, 2014) is the first ACAL proceedings to be published by Language Science Press (LSP), and papers were initially submitted in the format of our previous publisher. They have been running behind schedule, but report they are in the very last stages, and the proceedings should be out within a month.

ACAL 46 proceedings (Oregon) were published a little over a year ago.

ACAL 47 proceedings (Berkeley) are underway, with 36 papers in the last proofreading stages with LSP, and will be available after the proofreaders are done. An appeal was made for crowdsourcing proofreading volunteers for this volume earlier this month, with good response.

ACAL 48 proceedings (Indiana) are in the LaTeX conversion process for their 19-20 papers. A paid grad student should be done with this stage by the end of the semester.

A call for submissions for ACAL 49 (Michigan State) proceedings will go out soon, with an estimated timeline of 2 months for initial submission (LaTeX will not be required at that point).

The challenge of the LSP LaTeX format was brought up. LSP also has a Word template that people can use to submit in and if followed well, can easily be converted to LaTeX. It was proposed that the ACAL association web site have links to the template.

It was suggested that ACAL members be encouraged to volunteer as crowdsourcing proofreaders for LSP, to help speed the editorial process.

Future ACAL locations:
It was confirmed that in 2019, ACAL 50 will be held at the University of British Columbia. Dates will be approximately May 15-20. Rose-Marie DeChaine of UBC mentioned the possibility of other, thematic conferences on either side of these dates, e.g. dealing with diversity of various sorts. She asked people to contact her if they have ideas. She also noted that visas to Canada were not as easy to get as in past years, and urged people to start that process early.

Possible future hosts were mentioned for the next several years. None of these are firm commitments, but possibilities are Rutgers for ACAL 51, San Diego/Pomona for ACAL 52, Minnesota for ACAL 53 or 54, Florida for ACAL 54 or 55, and Missouri in about 6 years.

Honorary one-year memberships
The EC of ACAL announced that one-year memberships would be provided to faculty host organizers, as a token of appreciation for their work on the conference. The point was brought up that graduate students also do a lot of work for the conference, and are equally deserving. (One student pointed out that $15 was not a huge amount to begin with.) An alternate suggestion was that the ACAL association award a certain number of free memberships to the host university, to be divided as the university decides. The topic will go back to the EC for further deliberation.

Finances:
Secretary Mike Cahill, in the absence of Sharon Rose, Treasurer, passed on some highlights of her report (see full report at the bottom), and noted some things that we spent money for. Two years ago, we gave $2500 to the African Language School, the latter being mentioned specifically in our articles of incorporation in California. ACAL is healthy financially.

The point was made from the floor that PayPal does not accept payments from Ghana, and we were urged to find an alternate online payment option for those located there. Also noted was that noting the specific restriction for Ghana on ACAL’s web site reflects poorly on that country, and a more general wording (“certain countries”) might be better. [Note: after the meeting, it was pointed out that there are at least 3 other African countries that PayPal does not service.]

Also brought up from the floor: with a large number of students coming to ACAL from Africa, is there some way ACAL could help with finances for them? A partial answer: the ACAL as an association cannot give money to private individuals, but there may be a chance we could increase our donation to the sponsoring university, who could then do as they wish. The EC can explore some options.

Web matters:
Either from the floor or from EC deliberations, the following changes have been suggested to the ACAL web site:

• As mentioned, an alternate method of online payments from Ghana
• A button to donate to ACAL (apart from membership)
• A way to renew membership (with payment) without having to go through the entire questionnaire as if you’re registering for the first time.
• A link to the LSP Word template
• Record of ACAL awards should be kept on the ACAL site (see “New Awards” below).

A “Guide to Running an ACAL Conference,” after a few years of talking about it, will be produced, with the ACAL Secretary heading the project and getting input from the last few hosts. To be of maximum use to the 2019 host, it should be done in the next few months. A separate Google Doc may be a more appropriate location than the ACAL website.

New Awards
The EC has decided on some ACAL awards:

• The “Lifetime Achievement Award” honors someone who has contributed to ACAL significantly over a number of years, and has a recognized body of achievement. The first recipient is Dr. Eyamba Bokamba, of the University of Illinois, who has been an integral part of ACAL conferences for many years, and was the main impetus for forming an ACAL association. He was unfortunately not at this conference; a framed certificate of appreciation will be mailed to him by the ACAL President.
• The “Best Student Abstract” award will be started next year, and determined by the host university.
• A “Best Dissertation” award was put forth as a possibility, but has not been settled yet.

Miscellaneous ACAL conference discussions:
A few suggestions were made from the floor, but since these all related to the agenda topics above, they have been combined with them.

Respectfully submitted,

Mike Cahill, ACAL Secretary

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ACAL Financial Report —‐ March 20 2018 (prior to conference)
Sharon Rose

 Carry forward from 2016:                                                   4351.70

 2016‐2017 (Sept. 1 2016‐ Aug. 31 2017)                                                      

Income                                                                                    $4125.00
$1600              new lifetime memberships of $400
$1065              71 x $15
$1425              57 x $25
$50                  $50 in donation

Expenses                                                                                $1240.19
$1000              to Indiana University for ACAL
$75                  Reviewer for LSP book in ACAL series
$5.99               bank charges (for payment to reviewer)
$22.00             bank charges
$137.20           PayPal charges

Total revenue 2016‐17                                                            $2884.81

Balance on August 31, 2017 (end of fiscal year):               $7236.51

2017‐18 (Sept. 1 2017 ‐ March 20 2018)                                                       

Income                                                                                    $2145
$400                1 new lifetime membership
$495                33 x $15
$1250              50 x $25

Expenses                                                                                $1133
$1000              to MSU for ACAL
$90                  PayPal charges
$20                  Annual California registration fee

Total revenue 2017‐18 as of March 20, 2018                         $1032

Balance on March 20, 2018                                                  $8268.51

Balance on August 31, 2018 (end of fiscal year):                  TBD

The Business Meeting for ACAL 48 was held Saturday evening, April 1, 2017 at Indiana University, from 5:50-7:00 p.m., with 41 people in attendance.

Amendments to Bylaws:
A pair of connected Amendments were proposed, having been sent to the Secretary and proposed by the required 10 eligible voting members. After slight modifications proposed from the floor, the following were voted on:

1)      Add to Article 3.2: “Upon expiration of his/her term, the Immediate Past President shall have the option, upon approval by the Executive Committee, to serve as an ex-officio member of the Executive Committee for 3 years, with vote.”

2)      Add a phrase to the first sentence of Article 3.5, changing from
“There shall be an Executive Committee, composed of the President, the Vice President, and three other members of the Association, one of the three being elected each year to serve for three years and to be ineligible for immediate reelection.”                                                                                                                                       to
“There shall be an Executive Committee, composed of the President, the Vice President, Immediate Past President (optionally), and three other members of the Association, one of the three being elected each year to serve for three years and to be ineligible for immediate reelection.”

These were passed by a show of hands, with the required 2/3 majority of those present voting for this, some abstentions, and none against.

Elections:
Laura Downing was thanked for her 3-year term on the ACAL Executive Committee. Laura McPherson was nominated to replace her for a 3-year term, and was elected by acclamation.

Lee Bickmore was thanked for his term as the founding President of the ACAL association by incoming President Akin Akinlabi, and received a standing ovation. Laura Downing was nominated as the new Vice President/President-Elect, and was elected by acclamation.

Conference Proceedings:
The proceedings from ACAL 46 (Oregon) were recently published, and Doris Payne was thanked for her intense involvement in this. Language Science Press (LSP) said they would have a small window of opportunity for us to purchase this volume at half price ($15), but this has not shown up yet on Amazon.com in the USA (though it has in other countries). We will continue to communicate with LSP, and upon receiving word, will notify the membership of the sale.

Proceedings from ACAL 45 (Kansas) are in the final stages with LSP and will be out soon. Proceedings from ACAL 47 (Berkeley) are underway, with 39 submissions. 16 in the LaTeX format, 7 in the LSP Word template. It was noted that LSP has recently updated this template, hopefully to a more user-friendly system.

Samuel Obeng said that submissions for ACAL 48 proceedings (Indiana) would probably be due in a couple months, and will be communicating with presenters.

There was discussion of the history of our publications, and why we now publish with LSP. Important considerations are 1) no charge from the publisher (our previous publisher was set to charge us $200 per paper) and 2) open access. LSP provides both of these. Also, the prestige of LSP is increasing.

Finances:
Sharon Rose, ACAL Treasurer, reported that ACAL is healthy financially. Last year, we gave $1000 to Berkeley to assist in the conference, and $2500 to the African Language School, the latter being mentioned specifically in our articles of incorporation in California. This year there were 4 new life members and 121 regular members, for an income of $4025. The current balance is over $7000. See the appended financial report. We are committed to giving $1000 annually to the university sponsoring the ACAL conference. We could spend some of our balance for LaTeX processing for LSP if needed.
A comment from the floor was that we need to be careful in spending, so we do not run out of money, since it is likely that our balance may go down, partly because new lifetime memberships will probably not be as common in the future.

Future ACAL locations:
It was confirmed that next year, ACAL 49 will be held at Michigan State University, March 22-25, 2018. ACAL 50 in 2019 will be held at the University of British Columbia. Volunteers for 2020 were elicited, and Rutgers, Florida and San Diego are considering it.

Miscellaneous ACAL conference discussions:
Can we advertise things like crash space on social media? Answer: this is usually done by the university.

From the floor, there was lively discussion of two topics connecting to poster presentations.
The first noted that there were gaps (because of no-shows) in the oral presentations in the schedule; what about the possibility of having poster sessions transferred as oral presentations to these gaps? One way of doing this would be to notify the highest-ranked poster presenters that they are also “alternates” for oral presentation.
The problem of the perceived lower status of posters compared to oral presentations, both for students and for faculty, was discussed. At some institutions, it may be harder to get conference funding for a poster presentation. Would the “alternate” idea above make a difference? Also, the possibility of a “best poster” or “best student poster” prize was raised. It was also pointed out that a better metric of quality than oral/poster was acceptance to the conference proceedings volume, a real publication.

Can the ACAL association give a travel award to international scholars (not students)? Or perhaps students as well?
Sharon Rose pointed out that we are limited by our incorporation in California as to who we can contribute to. Direct fellowships would be a problem. We can contribute to the sponsoring university, who then can give.

The question of rigor of refereeing for acceptance was raised. Variables like number of submissions and number of meeting rooms available make a huge difference. One idea floated was separate refereeing for students and non-students, but was widely dismissed.

Respectfully submitted,

Mike Cahill, ACAL Secretary

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ACAL Financial Report – April 1, 2017
Sharon Rose, Treasurer

Carry forward:                                                                        $4606

2015-16   

Income                                                                                    $3530
$  400  1 lifetime membership
$  200  1 lifetime membership – Africa
$1005  67 x $15                                  143
$1900  76 x $25
$     25  donation

Expenses                                                                                $3745
$2500 to ALS
$1000 to UC Berkeley
$  200 in charges (PayPal, bank)
$     45 to State of California

Total revenue 2015-16                                                    – $   215

Balance on August 31, 2016 (end of fiscal year):     $4391

2016-17

Income                                                                                    $4025
$1600              4 new lifetime memberships of $400
$1050              70 x $15                                  121
$1325              51 x $25 (+ 2 for next year = $50)
$     50             $50 in donation

Expenses                                                                                $1133
$1000              to Indiana University
$   133            PayPal charges

Total revenue 2016-17                                                            $2892

Current balance:                                                                      $7283

ACAL President Lee Bickmore opened the meeting, which by the end had 43 people present.

Nominations for an Executive Committee member to replace Mary Paster were entertained. Mary’s term expired at this ACAL, and she was thanked for her two years of service. Jonathan Choti was nominated and elected by acclamation. In conformity with ACAL’s Bylaws, he will serve three years, with a term expiring in 2019.  Next year, we will elect not only an Executive Committee member to replace Laura Downing, but Akin Akinlabi (Vice President) will move up to the President’s role, replacing Lee Bickmore, and we will elect a new VP/President-Elect.

Sharon Rose, Treasurer, gave a report on ACAL association finances:

Financial Report Sept. 1, 2014 – August 30, 2015

REVENUE
Memberships   (cash, check, money order)                 $1630
Memberships via PayPal                                                        4190
Donations                                                                                      250
Total Revenue                                                                         $6070

Note: 7 lifetime memberships ($400 x 7 = $2800)

EXPENSES
Conference at U. of Oregon                                        $1000.00
Bank Charges                                                                             5.00
PayPal Charges                                                                     173.79
Total Expenses                                                                 $1178.79

Revenue less expenses:                                               $4891.21

Lee Bickmore presented the idea of a new category of membership: Lifetime ACAL membership for African-centered people of $200, rather than the general $400. This category was accepted.

Mike Cahill, Secretary, gave a brief update on the ACAL association web site. We want to keep adding member-access only features to make it more attractive to ACAL members. There is progress in adding a page with other members’ information (name, email, linguistic interests, language interests), accessible only to members. So far it has a very basic layout. Sometime in the next few weeks, current ACAL members will get an email asking them to create a password to gain access to this. People were asked to send suggestions for any other enhancements to the site, or to other possible benefits to members.

The status of publication of ACAL proceedings by Language Science Press (LSP) was presented. The University of Kansas (ACAL45, 2014) is getting quite close to publication, and University of Oregon (ACAL46, 2015) is in process. This is complicated by the LSP’s requirement for LaTeX format for submissions, with a possible input being a Word document that conforms to their template with specific paragraph and character styles. For ACAL’s first submission (Kansas), LSP is providing some help, but with Oregon and on, they expect us to do all the formatting. It is likely that we will recruit some grad students who are LaTeX savvy, and who can commit at least 2 years, to do the formatting, and ACAL may make a donation to the relevant host university to provide for the cost.

Samson Lotve, student from Indiana University, talked about the next ACAL in 2017 being held at Indiana. A plea for possible future venues beyond that was made, and Johnathan Choti brought up Michigan State for 2018. Since it was mentioned last year also (see 2015 minutes), he has already started some organization. Since the University of Illinois has traditionally hosted every ten years, we will consider their current suitability  to host ACAL50. Rose-Marie Déchaine from the University of British Columbia indicated their eagerness to host ACAL in the future.

The meeting closed with no further business.

Mike Cahill, ACAL Secretary

President Lee Bickmore welcomed the approximately 30 attendees and chaired the meeting. Secretary Mike Cahill gave a brief update on the ACAL website, noting plans to add more features such as access to the ACAL membership list and interests in the near future.

Amendments to the Bylaws, having been supported by more than 10 ACAL members, were voted on and approved. The force of the amendments was to 1) bring the nomination as well as election of ACAL officers into the annual business meeting and 2) adjust wording so that the first EC members had 1-, 2-, and 3-year terms. See old and new text in the Appendix below.

The Bylaws amendments having passed, Tucker Childs was thanked for his year of service, and nominations were entertained for a new member of the Executive Committee. Michael Marlo was the sole nominee, and was duly elected.

Treasurer Sharon Rose gave a report on finances and membership. This was the first year that ACAL presenters were required to be dues-paying ACAL association members. As of that day, ACAL had 172 members, 150 of whom had paid dues (including 7 lifetime members). This produced $5585 in income. $510 was paid to register the ACAL as an organization, and $1000 was given to the University of Oregon to help with the conference, leaving a balance of $4175. (More members have paid dues since then.) We anticipate using some money for the African Linguistics School (held every two years). There are other possibilities, and the EC welcomes suggestions.

Vice President Akin Akinlabi reported on talks he had with the new ACAL publisher, Language Sciences Press (LSP). The proceedings will be free and online, and not labeled “Proceedings.” They need a series editor; at this point Bickmore and Akinlabi will fill that role. Each proceedings volume will also have a volume editor, who will be connected to the host institution. LSP wants submissions to be in LaTeX, but will do the conversion from Word this year, and assist in subsequent years as our ability grows. LSP does have an online Word to LaTeX converter/template which reputedly is easy to use. For this year’s proceedings, the University of Oregon hosts under Doris Payne, will send out an invitation to submit papers. LSP desires to have the volume posted this calendar year, so a deadline of July for papers looks probable.

The Proceedings from Georgetown (2013) are the last in our Cascadilla Press series, and are close to publication. The Proceedings from the University of Kansas (2014) will be the first with LSP, and are being edited now.

Future ACALs will be held in 2016 at the University of California-Berkeley, in 2017 at Indiana University, and 2018 at Michigan State University.

Michael Cahill, Secretary

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

APPENDIX: Changes to ACAL Bylaws

Former Bylaws

Article 3. Officers and Committees.

6. Each year, the Executive Committee shall nominate at least one person for the at-large position to be filled on the Executive Committee, and every third year, one person as Vice-President (President-elect). Members may suggest potential nominees to the Executive Committee.
7. A ballot shall be submitted to all members in good standing not less than two months in advance of the annual meeting. The ballot shall contain the nominees for the position to be filled on the Executive Committee, and in every third year for the position of Vice President. In order to be elected, a nominee for a given office must receive a majority of those replies received by the Secretary as of the announced date of the close of the election. If no nominee for a given office receives a majority of the votes cast, the office shall be filled by a special election at the next meeting of the Association.

Article 6. Ratification.

1. These Bylaws shall be considered in force and binding upon the Association after approval by a meeting of the Association called for that purpose.
2. Upon adoption of these Bylaws the aforesaid meeting of the Association shall elect a President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. It shall also elect three members to the Executive Committee, one to serve the same term as the Officers previously elected, the second to serve one additional year, and the third to serve two additional years.

Revised Bylaws

Article 3. Officers and Committees.

6. Each year, at least one person shall be nominated for the at-large position to be filled on the Executive Committee, and every third year, one person as Vice-President (President-elect).
7. A ballot shall be submitted to all members in good standing at the annual meeting. The ballot shall contain the nominees for the position to be filled on the Executive Committee, and in every third year for the position of Vice President. In order to be elected, a nominee for a given office must receive a majority of votes cast at the annual meeting.

Article 6. Ratification.

1. These Bylaws shall be considered in force and binding upon the Association after approval by a meeting of the Association called for that purpose.
2. Upon adoption of these Bylaws the aforesaid meeting of the Association shall elect a President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. It shall also elect three members to the Executive Committee, one to serve one year, the second to serve one additional year, and the third to serve two additional years.

There were approximately 60 people at the ACAL business meeting, more than average.

Appeals were made for an institution to host ACAL next year and in subsequent years. Florida is a possibility, and we will hear later. Berkeley is the probable site for 2016.

The question of conference proceedings publication was raised. Cascadilla Press, our publisher for several years, has this year announced a charge of $200/paper. Georgetown would like to publish 25-30 papers, but has enough money to publish 20 or less. Several options were discussed, including switching immediately to another publisher. Conclusion: Georgetown (Ruth Kramer) will first contact Cascadilla to see if a more economic deal can be settled on. If not, we will pursue other publishers.

Bylaws – Sharon Rose was thanked for working on these, as well as the other legal paperwork involved in creating an ACAL organization. Mike Cahill read through the revised Bylaws and we accepted several more minor corrections. The amended Bylaws were voted on and passed unanimously.

Election of the first officers to the ACAL organization was held, with results as follows:
o   President – Lee Bickmore
o   Vice President – Akinbiyi Akinlabi
o   Executive committee member serving for one year – Tucker Childs
o   Executive Committee member serving for two years – Mary Paster
o   Executive Committee member serving for three years – Laura Downing
o   Treasurer – Sharon Rose
o   Secretary – Mike Cahill