Challenge Gift Made for the Establishment of the James F. and Carolyn M. Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund

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ASOR ANNUAL MEETING

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CHALLENGE GIFT MADE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JAMES F. & CAROLYN M. STRANGE ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP FUND

ASOR is pleased to announce a challenge gift of $25,000, which (if the challenge can be met) will establish the James F. and Carolyn M. Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund. This fund will provide scholarships for students to participate in excavation projects.

As many of you know, securing funding for research and training support, including funding for our student field research and travel fellowship program, was one of the three goals we established at the beginning of our Building a Foundation for ASOR Campaign. It will thus be extremely gratifying to see the Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund come into being as a means of helping us meet this goal. It is equally gratifying to note that the Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund is the second such fund we will establish in a twelve month period – the other is the P. E. MacAllister Endowed Scholarship Fund, which was established last April. In total, we will now have four endowed scholarship funds (Platt, Meyers/Wright, MacAllister, and Strange), meaning that our Foundation for ASOR Campaign has doubled the number of ASOR endowed funds dedicated to scholarships and research support. That is an accomplishment of which we should all be very proud.

But not all the work is done! The James F. and Carolyn M. Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund has been established through an initial challenge gift of $25,000, with ASOR challenged to raise at least another $25,000 in matching funds to create an endowment fund of $50,000. Already, $4,000 has been pledged or contributed towards the matching goal, so we only need to raise $21,000 more.

We hope that you will lend us your support as we work to raise the $21,000 needed to fully fund the Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund. Not only will your gift honor two long-time ASOR members, but your gift or pledge (if made by January 31) will also help ASOR qualify for a major legacy gift of $475,000.

Questions, suggestions, or comments may be directed to ASOR Executive Director Andy Vaughn or to ASOR President Susan Ackerman.

Other ways you can donate:

Donate by Phone

Call ASOR at 617-437-6570

Donate by Mail

Send a check to:

ASOR
P. O. Box 15729
650 Beacon Street, 2nd Floor
Boston, MA 02215

Make a Pledge (Donate Later)

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Challenge Gift Made for the Establishment of the James F. and Carolyn M. Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund

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FY16 HONOR ROLL OF DONORS

ASOR ANNUAL MEETING

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CHALLENGE GIFT MADE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JAMES F. & CAROLYN M. STRANGE ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP FUND

ASOR is pleased to announce a challenge gift of $25,000, which (if the challenge can be met) will establish the James F. and Carolyn M. Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund. This fund will provide scholarships for students to participate in excavation projects.

As many of you know, securing funding for research and training support, including funding for our student field research and travel fellowship program, was one of the three goals we established at the beginning of our Building a Foundation for ASOR Campaign. It will thus be extremely gratifying to see the Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund come into being as a means of helping us meet this goal. It is equally gratifying to note that the Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund is the second such fund we will establish in a twelve month period – the other is the P. E. MacAllister Endowed Scholarship Fund, which was established last April. In total, we will now have four endowed scholarship funds (Platt, Meyers/Wright, MacAllister, and Strange), meaning that our Foundation for ASOR Campaign has doubled the number of ASOR endowed funds dedicated to scholarships and research support. That is an accomplishment of which we should all be very proud.

But not all the work is done! The James F. and Carolyn M. Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund has been established through an initial challenge gift of $25,000, with ASOR challenged to raise at least another $25,000 in matching funds to create an endowment fund of $50,000. Already, $4,000 has been pledged or contributed towards the matching goal, so we only need to raise $21,000 more.

We hope that you will lend us your support as we work to raise the $21,000 needed to fully fund the Strange Endowed Scholarship Fund. Not only will your gift honor two long-time ASOR members, but your gift or pledge (if made by January 31) will also help ASOR qualify for a major legacy gift of $475,000.

Questions, suggestions, or comments may be directed to ASOR Executive Director Andy Vaughn or to ASOR President Susan Ackerman.

Other ways you can donate:

Donate by Phone

Call ASOR at 617-437-6570

Donate by Mail

Send a check to:

ASOR
P. O. Box 15729
650 Beacon Street, 2nd Floor
Boston, MA 02215

Make a Pledge (Donate Later)

Send an e-mail to ASOR[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684098866{margin-right: 5px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 10px !important;padding-left: 10px !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_wp_posts title=”BROWSE THE NEWS ARCHIVE” number=”4″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684008271{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 20px !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] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

ASOR Qualifies for Major Legacy Challenge Gift ($475,000)

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FY16 HONOR ROLL OF DONORS

ASOR ANNUAL MEETING

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ASOR QUALIFIES FOR MAJOR LEGACY CHALLENGE GIFT ($475,000)

As ASOR moves into the final five months of our Building a Foundation for ASOR Campaign, we are pleased to report that we have qualifyied for a major legacy gift. An anonymous ASOR trustee pledged to make a legacy gift that has a current market value of $475,000 and gave ASOR two challenges. We have met the challenges, Please see the official announcement from President Susan Ackerman that was posted on January 31.

  1. Donor Participation: 300 donors in this fiscal year by January 31, 2014. As of January 31, we have received gifts from 321 separate donors. We have one more day to exceed our goal further.
  2. Total Contributions to ASOR this fiscal year: Receive $200,000 in total gifts and pledges by January 31, 2014. As of January 31, we have received $258,775. We have met and exceeded our challenge goal with one day to go!

Challenge Gift Ensures Successful Foundational Campaign

The Foundational Campaign was officially launched with a unanimous vote by the ASOR board at the 2011 Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The primary goals of the first phase of the campaign were to expand ASOR’s donor base, while concurrently seeking to make substantial progress on the $1.3 million goal of the campaign. We are pleased to announce that the campaign has met and exceeded both of these goals! We set a new record last year with 352 different donors—equivalent to more than 1 in 5 ASOR members—who made a charitable contribution, and we have received $1 million in gifts and pledges toward the campaign!

Now that we are entering the final 5+ months of the campaign, we have set our sights on meeting the $1.3 million goal by June 30, 2014. We need $200,000 in five months to reach our goal. We also have a goal of reaching 400 separate donors this fiscal year, which ends June 30. Any gifts made to ASOR for the annual fund, scholarships, or any other program or area, will count towards our comprehensive campaign goal.

Highlights of Achievements Made Possible Last Year by the Foundational Campaign

The following are some of the highlights of things that we accomplished because of your generous particpation in this campaign:

  • Expanded the annual page count of BASOR by 25%
  • Moved BASOR to full color and the journal was completely redesigned
  • Launched an outreach e-newsletter, titled The Ancient Near East Today and the Friends of ASOR program through the assistance of trustee Stevan Dana and the Lanier Theological Library
  • Launched a new member-oriented e-newsletter, News@ASOR, with the assistance of the Kershaw Family Trust
  • Awarded 55 field scholarships and excavation grants
  • Awarded 3 complete scholarships to enable one scholar from Iran and two scholars from Jordan to attend the Annual Meeting
  • Awarded 15 travel scholarships to help students attend the Annual Meeting
  • Established a new endowed scholarship fund in honor of Board Chair Emeritus P. E. MacAllister
  • Our endowment accounts (for operations and scholarships) have grown from $750,000 in 2007 to over $1.1 million today in spite of some turbulent years in the stock market
  • Began a new digital archives project with the assistance of the David Berg Foundation to make ASOR’s Nelson Glueck collection more accessible online
  • Published four books and site reports in the last year
  • Continued to publish NEA, JCS, and BASOR on time, and continued to maintain and increase their quality
  • Experienced growth in the ASOR Facebook page—grew to more than 6,500 “Likes”
  • Experienced dramatic growth in the readership of the ASOR Blog—more than 12,500 unique visitors per month and more than 1.5 million hits in the last year
  • Partnered with 67 affiliated excavation projects (34 field and 33 publication)
  • Supported the work of our three affiliated research centers in Jerusalem, Amman, and Nicosia.

Other ways you can donate:

Donate by Phone

Call ASOR at 617-437-6570

Donate by Mail

Send a check to:

ASOR
P. O. Box 15729
650 Beacon Street, 2nd Floor
Boston, MA 02215

Make a Pledge (Donate Later)

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2021 Annual Meeting Recap

ASOR 2021 Annual Meeting Recap

In-Person Component | Chicago, November 17-20
Virtual Component | Online, December 8-12

ASOR welcomed more than 525 attendees to the Hilton Chicago, November 17-20, for the in-person component of our first-ever dual-component Annual Meeting. It was a great pleasure to see friends and colleagues in-person after the pandemic necessitated a virtual-only meeting in 2020.

Dr. Morag Kersel opened the meeting on November 17 with her Plenary Address titled, “Living with Legacies: ASOR Archaeo-activism and a Future for 21st Century Archaeology.” This was a timely presentation that called for action that reflects the changing times we live in, and the changes that we need to drive ASOR and our field into the 21st Century.

With a special tribute to the legacies of those who are no longer with us, #EverydayActivism and other themes from this important presentation will be continued as part of a Virtual Plenary Panel Discussion. Dr. Kersel will moderate the Virtual Plenary on December 8 at 2:00pm ET and the discussion will feature more perspectives from different voices in the field. You can find a link to view Kersel’s Plenary Address and read more about the Virtual Plenary Panel Discussion here.

Tom Parker and Bert DeVries were among the members memorialized at the Meeting.

While the in-person meeting was more intimate and academic program was smaller than pre-pandemic Annual Meetings, the sessions and presentations that were offered were of a high caliber and reflected the wide breadth of research represented by ASOR’s members. More than 300 presentations were given in 68 sessions and workshops.

We were particularly pleased that the pre-pandemic trend of growth in the geographic and chronological breadth of sessions continued, and we expect this to expand even further with the program for the virtual component where we will feature 8-10 sessions with simultaneous Arabic translation.

The meeting included several sessions and functions geared toward Early Career Scholars including a member-organized workshop, Navigating the “in-Between”: Identifying a Career Trajectory in Academia for the Early Career Scholars, and the ASOR standing session, Career Options for ASOR Members: The Academy and Beyond. The Early Career Scholars group organized a Brown-Bag Lunch Panel featuring BASOR editors, and a very well-attended reception was held for Early Career Scholar on Thursday night.

Many of the traditional features of ASOR’s Annual Meeting were continued and added a sense of normalcy during this particularly unnormal time. The poster gallery was open throughout the meeting, and the Poster Session on Saturday attracted a good crown and generated great conversations. Coffee breaks in the Exhibit Hall provided opportunities for attendees to talk, and view the latest offerings from publishers, and options to sit and spread out (safe social distancing) were added to the format. The Members’ Meeting included important updates, as well as honors and awards announcements.

Was there something missing from this year’s program you would have liked to see offered? January 15 is the deadline to propose a Session or Workshop for ASOR’s 2022 Annual Meeting.

See below for a recap of ASOR’s Virtual Annual Meeting.

ASOR Virtual Annual Meeting, December 8-12, 2021
Thank you to everyone who participated in the virtual component of ASOR’s 2021 Annual Meeting. It was a privilege to provide a platform for our global membership to connect, share, and engage on subjects from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. We are thrilled to report that there were nearly 1,100 registrants from 41 countries and six continents!

More than 400 presenters shared their work in 95 sessions and workshops on the virtual schedule. Recordings of virtual sessions and workshops are being added to the virtual schedule this month. These recordings, as well as the recorded paper presentations and poster PDF files, will continue to be available to registered attendees through June of 2022. If you didn’t register in time to attend the virtual component of ASOR’s 2021 Annual Meeting, purchasing access to ASOR’s Online Library includes the recorded Annual Meeting content.

The virtual component began on December 8th  with a Members’ Meeting for virtual attendees that included the 2021 Honors & Awards that were announced in Chicago, as well as a few additional awards and highlights. Following the virtual Members’ Meeting, Dr. Morag Kersel moderated a virtual panel discussion on the plenary address she gave in Chicago, Living with Legacies: ASOR Archaeo-activism and a Future for 21st Century Archaeology. Virtual panelists included Lisa Çakmak (Art Institute of Chicago), Geoff Emberling (Kelsey Museum, University of Michigan), Alexandra Jones (Archaeology in the Community), and Michael Rakowitz (Northwestern University). You can watch Kersel’s Plenary Address here, and view the Virtual Plenary Discussion which will be posted on the virtual meeting website in the coming month.

Thanks to federal and non-federal grants, ASOR was pleased to feature simultaneous Arabic translation for the Virtual Plenary Panel Discussion, as well as 5 other sessions and workshops, including Archaeology, Community, and Mentorship: Celebrating the Legacy of Bert and Sally de Vries; Protecting Libyan Cultural Heritage;  Archaeology of Lebanon; and the workshop, Cultural Heritage: Before, During and After Crisis.

ASOR’s Early Career Scholars were a major part of both programs. In addition to holding a workshop (Navigating the “In Between”: Identifying a Career Trajectory in Academia for the Early Career Scholar), both in-person and virtual receptions were hosted for Early Career Scholars, and a brown-bag lunch panel featuring some of the BASOR editors was offered in Chicago. Many thanks to Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, Vanessa Workman, and Owen Chesnut for all of their work on the many offerings for Early Career Scholars.

Plans are already underway for ASOR’s 2022 Annual Meeting with both in-person (Boston, November 16-19) and virtual components (online dates to be announced).  2021 meeting attendees are reminded to use their ASOR Bucks now (they expire on 12/31/21) to save on 2022 registration and membership renewal. We hope you will join us in-person and/or online!