CAA News Today

COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION
109TH ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2021 2:00 P.M. EST

MINUTES

1. Call to Order/Opening Remarks
   1. President Elizabeth Schlatter called the meeting to order at 2:02 p.m. EST. She thanked the staff for their enormous efforts. She then acknowledged the diverse people linked to the land on which she works and lives, particularly those who have been displaced from that land.
2. Executive Director’s Report
   1. Meme Omogbai offered a reflection on the importance of this conference. It is amazing we were able to offer the extensive content we did during a pandemic, specifically:
      1. 365 sessions, over 1100 individual presentations in addition to a book and trade fair.  Intersectionality between the visual arts, climate change, eco-feminism, and many other topics.
      2. The virtual format of the conference has offered a new level of access. Content is available across the world and for a month after the conference.
   2. The conference will serve as an important turning point in the history of CAA toward achieving the four pillars of its Strategic Repositioning:
      1. Long term sustainability of the organization through attention to meeting the needs of all segments of our constituency and maximizing the value of membership
      2. Social Entrepreneurship and e-commerce
      3. Technological infrastructure towards a digital transformation to ensure effective and efficient operations and delivery of content
      4. Robust development activities
3. Approval of the minutes from the February 2020 annual meeting.    
4. Approval of Minutes of 108th Annual Business Meeting, held in two parts, February 12, and February 14, 2020  
   1. Jaqueline Francis moved; Laura Anderson Barbata seconded. The minutes were approved unanimously.
5. Financial report
   1. CFO Bob Tofolo reported on the following items:
      1. The association posted a breakeven operating budget for FY20.
      2. The association continues to operate under a break-even budget for FY21. This includes $3.3M in current expenses against equivalent revenue.
      3. A PPP loan of $372,000 was awarded to CAA. That loan was subsequently forgiven last December.
      4. The endowment market value on June 30, 2020 was $9.825M vs prior year of $9.6M
      5. Member count for this year vs. last: As of June 30, 2020, there were 6,699 (7,773, -14%) individual members. There were 443 (464) organizational members and an additional 586 (617, -5%) subscribers to The Art Bulletin and/or Art Journal through our co-publisher Taylor and Francis. These numbers are not exactly comparative as prior year memberships reflect exaggerated increases due to discounts that are absent this year.
      6. 3938 registered attendees at the conference as of this morning. It is expected to be over 4000 by tomorrow.
      7. Question (posed by a member in attendance): how did numbers compare to the last NYC conference? 2019 attendance was over 5000, but the numbers from this year’s count include registrations for Free and Open sessions which we would not have tracked in prior years so some additional work needs to be done so that we can compare apples to apples.
6. New Business
   1. The following question was posed by a member in attendance: Considering technical issues that have emerged this year, will CAA be evaluating Confex and considering whether they are the best vendor to use moving forward? Elizabeth indicated that the organization would be evaluating all aspects of the conference, including the platform. Meme added that in the midst of this digital transformation, there will be a consolidation of different systems that will address some of the issues that emerged. She encouraged people to fill out the conference surveys that are being administered.
7. Results of Election of New Directors 
   1. Elizabeth announced the newly elected CAA Board Members:
      1. Roland Betancourt
      2. Lara Evans
      3. Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz
      4. Kelly Walters
      5. Kelvin Parnell Jr. (Emerging Professional)
8. Adjournment
   1. The meeting was adjourned at 2:25 p.m. EST.

Respectfully submitted by Colin Blakely, Secretary.