ASEC Annual Business Meeting, December 2, 2021

President Clay convened the meeting at 4. p.m., passed the baton to Nadieszda Kizenko and thanked her for agreeing to serve as ASEC president for the next 3 years. Newly inaugurated President Kizenko thanked Clay and asked him to stay involved. The board introduced a motion to adjourn the meeting and reconvene at 6 p.m. so members could attend another ASEEES panel about Russian Christianity. The motion was approved.

The meeting re-commenced at 6 p.m.

Approval of the Minutes: A correction to the 2020 meeting minutes was made and the minutes were approved as amended.

Treasurer’s Report: Roy Robson was unable to attend due to a family emergency so Clay gave the report. The balance is the ASEC account as of December 2019 was $7865.14. This grew to $8899.72 as of December 2020 and $9817.98 as of December 2021. The state of ASEC’s finances is strong.

Elections: President Kizenko announced a slate of people nominated to be ASEC officers.

VP/President-Elect—Heather Bailey

Treasurer—Roy Robson

Newsletter Editor—Alice Sullivan

There was a call for additional nominations, especially for secretary. There were no nominations from the floor. Kizenko motioned for the slate to be approved without a secretary. The motion was seconded and passed.

In memory of Bill Wagner: Randall Poole discussed the tribute to Wagner that took place at the ASEEES panel dedicated to his memory in New Orleans. He was remarkably generous with his time to his colleagues and students and his last book will be published posthumously by NIUP. Poole highlighted that at ASEEES, Christine Worobec spoke to how Wagner so effectively conveyed the sacred and holy in the women’s monastery that is the focus of his forthcoming book. There was discussion about dedicating the next article prize to Bill Wagner’s memory. Eugene Clay suggested that we ask Bill’s family to agree before we move forward. Roy Robson could reach out. 

Kizenko asked for volunteers to serve on the Distinguished Scholar Prize committee. Cathy Wanner volunteered for 2023 but cannot do it immediately. Heather Bailey noted that Heather Coleman had volunteered for 2021 but we did not hold the competition. Perhaps she would still be willing to serve in that capacity.

Discussion of plans for the next conference—Scott Kenworthy suggested that planning for a face-to-face conference would be great. He added that spring 2022 would be too early, but that maybe we could hold a conference in September 2022 at Ohio State University (OSU). Pasha Johnson noted that the Hilandar Research Library has some funds but that we would need to work around home football games. There are good hotels, and we could probably get meeting rooms at OSU without having to pay. Pasha thanked Scott for suggesting it. Miami University was suggested as a backup plan. There was a little further discussion of whether the membership agreed that ASEC should continue with biennial conferences. There was a consensus that ASEC would move forward with plans for a face-to-face conference in September 2022.

Clay suggested that ASEC could sponsor a seminar through the Slavic Reference Service and the Summer Research Lab at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Johnson said the Medieval Slavic Summer Institute was being planned for June 2022. She also announced that OSU still has hard copies of ASEC’s Tapestry volume. Email her if you would like a copy at hilandar@osu.edu

The meeting adjourned at 6:40.

[In informal discussion after the meeting Luke Jeske expressed willingness to serve as secretary].