Minutes of the Business Meeting
Orlando, Florida
August 9, 2004

The Business Meeting of the Public Interest Section of the American Accounting Association was called to order in the Key Largo room of the Marriott World Center in Orlando, Florida by C. Richard Baker, in-coming Chair of the Section, at 4:00, August 9th, 2004.

1. Outgoing Chair, Vaughan Radcliffe, provided minutes of the 2003 meeting in Hawaii, which were written by Lee Parker. Dwight Owsen moved to approve the minutes as written. Alan Mayper seconded. The agenda was accepted with one change.
2. The treasurer's report showed that as of May 31, 2004 the Section has an ending cash balance of $21,951. Total cash inflows for the year-to-date (as of May 31, 2004) were $3,845, and total outflows for the year-to-date were $3,972, resulting in a net cash outflow of $127. The primary source of inflows was member dues. The membership of the Section continues to be approximately 400 members. The primary cash outflow relates to the Section journal, Accounting in the Public Interest, for which the AAA headquarters charges $37 per page.
3. Richard Baker noted that the AAA reports published in anticipation of the annual meeting show that as of June 30, 2004 the cash balance of the section was $20,451, which places our section at the top of the bottom third in terms of cash balances.
4. Alan Mayper, Program Chair for the Section for the 2004 Annual Meeting, reported to the section that 62 papers were submitted and three panels were proposed. The Section was granted eight concurrent sessions and two panel sessions in the 2004 Annual Meeting. The first panel session dealing with the Sarbanes Oxley Act had an overflow crowd. There were some sessions of the PI section that competed with other PI sessions. It was recommended that the program chair for 2005 should try to monitor that. Rejections were due primarily to papers failure to address issues of public interest. To maximize number of people participating in the Annual Meeting, Alan had each discussant address only one paper.
5. Jesse Dillard, Editor of the Section Journal, Accounting and the Public Interest, gave a report on the journal. The number of submissions is 25 to 30 per year and seem to be increasing. Acceptances are 10 to 15% overall. Referee turnaround is 35 to 40 days. Editor turnaround has been longer because of personal issues, but will improve. The joint conference with the Accounting historians held at the beginning of the annual meeting went well. Dillard also discussed the announcement made at the AAA Publications Committee that the AAA is looking into bundling accounting journals and selling them in electronic media to university libraries. There was some concern that the Section journal may not be included and that revenue sharing among the journal sponsors has not been clarified. Public Interest is now in the Big Five in terms of number of sessions at the meeting. We would like to explore outsourcing of production costs. $37 per page may be high for layout.
6. Tony Tinker announced that the Critical Perspectives in Accounting conference will be held in April, 2005 in New York City. The CPA conference is on a three year rotation alternating with the IPA and the APIRA conferences. Please consider submitting to the conference and the Critical Perspectives on Accounting journal. Tony also passed out a Research in Accounting Assessment Exercise which he asked members to complete. The responses will be used as a basis for evaluating critical and not-so-critical journals.
7. Ed Arrington announced that at N. C. State Greensboro the students put out a journal called the Greensboro Journal of Student Accounting Research. All articles are by students and are reviewed by two academics. Please tell your students about it.
8. Richard Baker announced that the Professionalism and Ethics Committee hosts an ethics luncheon at the end of the annual Ethics Symposium. Karen Pincus will be the chair of the committee this coming year and Steve Loeb is program chair. The deadline for submissions if March 2005. There was no Accounting Exemplar award this year, but a committee will be formed to chose a recipient for 2005.
9. Richard discussed the election of Section officers. We have three positions — Chair-elect, Secretary/Treasurer, and Vice Chair of Research and Education. Nominations were taken from the floor and are to be posted on the section web site, with a request to AAA that they run an election via e-mail. The nominees are Tim Louwers and Alan Mayper for Chair-elect; Linda Ruchala for Secretary/Treasurer; Pamela Roush Vice Chair of Research and Education.
10. Aida Sy volunteered to be Program Chair for the 2005 AAA meeting. We are still looking for regional meeting coordinators. Charlie Culllinan volunteered for Northeast and Julia Higgs for Southeast. Richard agreed to contact Sarah Stanwick to determine whether she will continue as newsletter editor. A suggestion was made that Kathy Casper be contacted to fix the link between the Newsletter and the AAA web site.
11. A Nominating committee was elected. Members are Paul Williams, Barbara Merino, and Tony Tinker. Vaughan Radcliffe is a non-voting convener of the committee, which should nominate a slate to be elected at the 2005 meeting.
12. There was some discussion of the meaning of "public interest". Lee Parker noted that Public Interest could include public sector accounting.
13. Vaughan Radcliffe returned from the program committee and reported that there was some discussion of doctoral student development sessions and encouraging more practitioners to attend the AAA.
14. Meeting adjourned at 5:30.

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