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[/vc_column_text][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-fb-icon4.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”https://www.facebook.com/ASOResearch/” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-tw-icon4.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”https://twitter.com/ASOResearch?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-in-icon4.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-schools-of-oriental-research” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-ml-icon_7.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”mailto:asor@bu.edu” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/blog-icon3.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”http://asorblog.org/” margin_bottom=”0″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496683923840{margin-right: 20px !important;border-left-width: 2px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;border-left-color: #99422f !important;}”][mk_divider divider_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.01)” thickness=”1″ margin_top=”3″ margin_bottom=”3″][vc_column_text] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1487276122024{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 30px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_column_text responsive_align=”left”]2013 SPRING BOARD MEETING
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]The ASOR, AIAR, and CAARI boards met in Indianapolis, IN over the weekend of April 19-21, 2013. One of the highlights of the weekend was a gala celebration honoring P. E. MacAllister’s service to ASOR on the occasion of his transition from Board Chair to Chairman Emeritus. Previous issues of News@ASOR have covered the celebration, and the present article presents a summary of the action items and reports from the ASOR Executive Committee and Board Meetings. The minutes of both meetings as well as the minutes from previous meetings are found on the ASOR website.Summary of action items and other reports from the Spring 2013 Executive Committee and Board Meetings:
- Election of a New President of ASOR: Susan Ackerman was unanimously elected to the position of ASOR President for a term beginning January 1, 2014 and continuing through December 31, 2106. Ackerman’s election followed an extensive search led the Officers’ Nominating Committee (chaired by Gary Arbino.)
- Trustee Nominations: Committee Chair Beth Alpert Nakhai reported that there will be a number of vacancies this year with incumbent trustees choosing not to stand for reelection. She encouraged ASOR members to consider serving in this capacity and reminded all trustees of the trustee pledge.
- Executive Committee Actions (Not Brought to the Whole Board): The Executive Committee voted to extend Andrew Vaughn’s contract as Executive Director for one year (through June 30, 2016) with a 3% raise for the 2014 Fiscal Year. The EC voted to accept the recommendation of the Executive Director with regards to a severance request from Kelley Herlihy. Finally,the EC charged President Tim Harrison with the task of developing language to ammend the bylaws to create a standing personnel committee and to report back at the September EC meeting.
- Finance Committee Report: Treasurer Richard Coffman reports that ASOR should have another balanced budget for Fiscal Year 2013. Investments are doing well, and the Endowment Account is $67,000 higher than last year. The Board accepted unanimously the Finance Committee Report and voted unanimously to approve the budget for Fiscal Year 2014.
- Foundational Campaign Report: President Tim Harrison that ASOR is on target to reach 350 donors for Fiscal Year 2013 (July 1, 2012 – June 30, 2013.) The total raised to date for the fiscal year is $320,000. For the three-year campaign (ends June 30, 2014), ASOR has reached $834,000 with $1.3 million as the goal. We are on target, but the hardest work remains. President Harrison called on all trustees and ASOR members to help us reach our goal.
- Election of Committee Members and CCC Report: The board voted unanimously to accept the recommendation of the Program Committee that the following people be elected to the Program Committee for a three-year term (Class of 2015): Asa Eger, Stephanie Langham Hooper, and Geoff Emberling. ASOR Vice President and chair of the Chairs Coordinating Council reported that the CCC would be holding a retreat in Detroit the following weekend.
- Membership Report (Jennie Ebeling): Jennie reported that ASOR reach a high of 1,600 in March and currently has 1,523 members versus 1,511 at this time last year. The Social Media initiatives have been extremely successful. The Facebook page has over 5,000 likes, and the ASOR Blog has 12,000 unique visitors each month. The Membership Committee is contributing articles to News@ASOR and soliciting articles from the membership and ther committees.
- Status of Women Report (Beth Alpert Nakhai): Beth reported that a formal steering committee and a presence on the ASOR website have been developed. A luncheon is planned for Saturday at the Annual Meeting, and there are initiatives underway to provide mentoring for women in the field. The committee is working with the ASOR office on mapping and research projects. The committee is also exploring ways to create a scholarship in the name of Prof. Mary Inda Hussey, an early female ASOR leader.
- Friends of ASOR Initiative and Webinar Initiative: The Board heard a report from Andy Vaughn and Stevan Dana on the Friends of ASOR program, the monthly e-newsletter The Ancient Near East Today, and a webinar initiative. The board voted unanimously to charge the CCC to “put into place the structures and functions necessary to get a webinar program up and running by September 10, 2013.” [See the Webinar Announcement in the September News@ASOR.]
- Reports from the Research Centers: The Board received reports from ACOR, AIAR, and CAARI. (See the minutes posted online.)
- President’s Report: Tim Harrison commented that ASOR has successfully been through a transition of leadership that would culminate with Susan Ackerman becoming President in January 2014. He mentioned a new Board Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, and President. He observed that a successful transition was a sign of a healthy ASOR. Lynn Swartz Dodd then presented a summary of the work of the Ethics Policy Task Force. Tim called on Susan Ackerman to say a few words, and she made a statement about the state of ASOR and indicated that she took this job based on her confidence in ASOR which is a tremendous tribute to the leadership of our President, Executive Director and Board Chairman.
- Chair’s Report: P. E. MacAllister presented incoming Board Chair, B. W. Ruffner, with a gavel and made a charge to Ruffner citing Ezekiel. MacAllister then presented tokens of appreciation to Past Treasurer (Sheldon Fox) and Past Secretary (Jim Strange) for their service to ASOR. MacAllister concluded his report with a reflection on the history of ASOR an his involvement (previously published in News@ASOR.)
years or so when P.E. was either on the Board of ASOR or chairman of it, we marvel at the fact that both P.E. and ASOR have survived the cataclysmic events that have rocked that region time and time again and affected ASOR and its overseas institutes, the Albright in Jerusalem, ACOR in Amman, Jordan, and CAARI in Nicosia, Cyprus: The Yom Kippur War in 1973, The Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July of 1974, two Iraq wars in 1991 and 2003, two intifadas and continuing unrest in the Palestinian Authority and Israel, the Gaza War, the current chaos in Syria that has spilled over to neighboring regions, and the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring. And this is by no means an exhaustive list of what has happened during these years. All of this has been happening while ASOR continued to flourish and put before the public and the scholarly world of Near Eastern Studies and archaeology amazing discoveries from each of the countries where ASOR has worked including Iraq, Tunisia, Syria, and Turkey where we do not have local research institutes. Some of us even were fortunate enough to talk about those discoveries on P.E.’s local TV show, right from the heartland here in Indianapolis.
we are talking about when it comes to matters of history or ASOR. A number of years ago, just as the ASOR Archive Project was getting launched with a major grant from the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH), I received a call from a gentleman in a retirement home in Florida claiming to have a large cache of old photographs of the Holy Land that were left to him years ago by a distant relative and that he would like to sell. I asked him to describe over the phone what kind of pictures they were and in what sort of condition they were and he began by saying some were from Jerusalem and other places like Nazareth, and that they dated to the 19th century. His distant relative had somehow been associated with a project to photograph the Holy Land and the negatives were generally well preserved and were stored in a brass shell casing and were rolled inside it. I began to get excited and asked him to send a few digital images to me to be sure I knew what they were and if they were valuable and I asked him to promise not to sell them to anyone till ASOR had chance to evaluate them and bid for them.
matters. Our teacher whom we honor today is our beloved mentor, P.E. MacAllister. If I were to sum up what he has meant to ASOR and to all of us who have spent time with him these past years, I would quote Cicero who wrote:
On April 20, 2013, the ASOR family gathered in Indianapolis to honor one of its most loyal and generous members, P. E. MacAllister, with a gala dinner and with the announcement of an endowed scholarship fund bearing the MacAllister name (see below for a 
It was with a sincere feeling of gratitude that the boards of ASOR, AIAR, and CAARI met in Indianapolis over April 19-21, 2013 so that all of our organizations could be on hand for this festive event. On Saturday evening (April 20), almost 100 friends and family (including Indiana Gov. Mike Pence) gathered at the Skyline Club for a gala dinner where we thanked Mr. MacAllister for his service and leadership to ASOR. The event began with a welcome reception where ASOR friends, the MacAllister family, and friends from Indianapolis were able to share stories and get to know each other. The remarks and toasts (and roasts) by past ASOR Presidents Eric Meyers and Joe Seger gave Indianapolis friends a sense of how much P.E. has meant to ASOR. Current ASOR President Tim Harrison, President Elect Susan Ackerman, and Board Chair Elect B. W. Ruffner shared how P.E.’s leadership has been unparalled in ASOR and how much we have appreciated him. There were also special comments from Bob Massie (a close friend of P.E.’s from Indianapolis who is also an ASOR Trustee). While he was unable to attend in person, a statement was read from former ASOR Trustee Edward F. Campbell—the person who invited P.E. to join the ASOR community in 1968 and the ASOR Board in 1976. The night would not have been complete without a stirring address filled with historical references from the honoree himself, Mr. P.E. MacAllister. Last, but certainly not least, Gov. Mike Pence surprised P.E. and the rest of the audience by arriving just in time to make the concluding comments and a toast. Gov. Pence identified Mr. MacAllister as the person who had been most influencial in his political career, and said that he would not have become governor without him! It was truly an elegant and special evening, and Gov. Pence’s address was the perfect summation and ending.
of the P.E. MacAllister Endowed Scholarship Fund for Archaeological Volunteers (see below for a 
Honorary Gala Co-Chair Governor Mike Pence Addresses the ASOR family
Benefactor ($20,000 or more)
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ASOR is pleased to announce that Dr. B. W. Ruffner began a three-year term as Chairman of the Board on July 1, 2013. The ASOR Board unanimously and enthusiastically elected Ruffner to the position at its November 2012 meeting in Chicago. Ruffner follows P. E. MacAllister who served as Board Chair for 19 years and became Chairman Emeritus on July 1.