2003 BAS Annual Report

ANNUAL REPORT 2003
BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY SECTION

Accomplishments during 2003:

Overview: The Biological Anthropology Section has continued to recruit both regular members and student members. We staffed an information booth at the Annual Meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in April 2003, passing out a flyer entitled "Ten Good Reasons to Join the Biological Anthropology Section of AAA." For the past several years, we have had a Student Paper Award, but failed to have any nominations this year. We plan to ask colleagues to encourage their students to submit papers or posters for the award, hoping that San Francisco will be an attractive venue for students. We have also continued to support a Distinguished Lecture and reception, which seem to attract a lot of our members and others in AAA. I used the email list to send announcement about our sessions and the Distinguished Lecture in early fall and again in early November. Members seemed to appreciate that gesture and I intend to send out something to the membership about once a month in the future. Only one person has asked to be removed from the list.

Website: Our website also was much improved and expanded this year with the addition of many links and a listing of AAA sessions of potential interest to our members.

Membership: Our membership stands at 559 members as of October 31, 2003, compared with 567 a year ago. This includes 341 Regular Members and 218 student members, a new category introduced in 2002 to increase involvement of biological anthropologists with the section and the AAA. The drop in number of regular members is likely reflected in the increase in student members (from 144 to 218), which may mean lower revenues, but indicates increased interest on the part of students who may remain loyal to BAS and AAA as they enter the professional ranks.

Budget: Our net assets at the beginning of the year were $14,374, and we added revenues of $4,520 for a total of $18,894. Expenses for 2003 were $5,600. We approved one change to the budget, which was to add $300 travel reimbursement for our webmaster, should he or she decide to attend the meetings.

Book Award: We continue to seek candidate books for the WW Howells Book Award, which is given to the author at the annual meeting. This year the winner was Jon Marks of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, for the book What it Means to be 98% Chimpanzee.

Distinguished Lecture: The Distinguished Lecture and Cash Bar Reception begun in 2001 continued during the 2003 Annual Meeting. This was instituted to raise the profile of BAS during the meeting and provide more incentive for members to become involved with the section. This year Dr. Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan gave the lecture. The attendance at the lecture and for the reception was good and is expected to increase on a yearly basis. Planning for a Distinguished Lecture for the next annual meeting is already underway.

Sponsored Sessions: The BAS sponsored two sessions at the 2003 meetings. These were "The Anthropology of Vulnerability: Perception and Communication of Risk," organized by Doreen Montag and Catherine Panter-Brick, and "Evolutionary Perspectives on Maternal and Infant Health," organized by Helen Vallianatos and Melissa Cheyney. In addition, biological anthropologists organized Mechanisms for Maintaining Peace in Primate Societies (AAA Executive Program Committee) [Karen Strier and Robert Wald Sussman], and Exploring the Nature of Human Biological Diversity: Myth V Reality (with the AAA Public Education Initiative on Race and Human Variation and the AAA Committee on Minority Affairs) [Wenda Trevathan, Theodore Schurr, and Miguel Diaz Barriga].

Officers: New Officers for the 2004 Meeting Year include Secretary-Treasurer Tom Leatherman (leatherman@sc.edu), Member-at-Large Jim Bindon (jbindon@tenhoor.as.ua.edu) and Student Member Deborah Weiss Bolnick (daweiss@aya.yale.edu). Officers who ended their terms in office in 2003 include President: Wenda Trevathan (wtrevath@nmsu.edu); President-Elect: Leslie Lieberman (llieberm@mail.ucf.edu); Sec/Treasurer: Rebecca Storey (rstorey@uh.edu); Members-at-Large: James M. Calcagno (jcalcag@luc.edu); and James J. McKenna (James.J.McKenna.25@nd.edu); Student member: Jennifer Johnson (jjohnson@chass.utoronto.ca)

2. Future Plans

We plan to use our listserv to send announcements of interest to our members, hoping to increase their involvement in BAS and AAA activities. In particular, we plan to survey our student members to see what other services and benefits we can offer them. A primary goal is to engage and retain our student base. If there is interest, we may plan a workshop for students to be held at the AAA meetings. As noted above, we will continue to host a Distinguished Lecture and Reception at the AAA meetings, recruit students for the student poster/paper prize, and seek nominations for the Howell's Prize. WE are also exploring possibilities of putting original papers on the website and otherwise making it more useful to our members.

In conclusion, the Biological Anthropology Section has been mostly concerned with increasing the number of members and increasing involvement in the AAA and the annual meeting. We will be urging members to submit sessions for the meeting, run for office, and join the section and the AAA. We expect these efforts to be reflected in the continuing increase in membership and revenues for the section in the future.

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