PRELIMINARIES: The meeting was called to order by President Michael Taaffe. Those in attendance (listed at the end of this report) introduced themselves to the group.
REPORTS: Susan Sanchez circulated the minutes from the WSC `98 business meeting for approval, and gave the Treasurer's report. An updated version is available in this newsletter. The checking account balance is lower than in previous years, largely due to increased outlays for various awards and web page maintenance expenses. However, a healthy balance remained, particularly since the final disbursement for WSC `98 had not been received prior to the Cincinnati meeting.
John Charnes reported on the sponsored sessions at the INFORMS conferences. He asked everyone interested in submitting session proposals or papers for the Fall 1999 INFORMS conference in Philadelphia, PA to do so without delay.
The number of INFORMS-CS members is much greater than the number on the e-mail list. Any interested in adding their names to the e-mail list should contact Steve Chick at sechick@engin.umich.edu. Members of various standing committees reported on the awards given out at the 1998 Winter Simulation Conference. Calls for nominations for the various awards have gone out or will shortly go out, and attendees were urged to give careful thought to nominating candidates for these prestigious awards in 1999. Simulation area editors reports were given, including statistics on the numbers of papers received, rejected, and accepted during 1998. Dave Goldsman described the forthcoming special issue of IIE Transactions (in honor of Alan Pritzger) and mentioned that a short time remained for submitting articles for potential publication in this issue.
Arrangements are progressing well for the 1999 Winter Simulation Conference, which will be held December 5-8 at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix, Arizona. Jerry Evans (University of Louisville) has been ill, so Jim Wilson (NC State University) is overseeing the Program Chair's responsibilities.
OLD BUSINESS: Mike Taaffe gave the new web address for the INFORMS-CS home page (informs-cs.org). He passed along Jim Wilson's request that the College try to standardize the notation "INFORMS-CS" rather than "INFORMS/CS" or other abbreviations in order to make it easier for the members to remember the web address. Brief overviews of the INFORMS-CS Archive Project and INFORMS-CS History Project were given to the attendees. Any who have materials or information to contribute should contact Jim Wilson or send them to the special collections archivist of the North Carolina State University Libraries. Address information is available from the INFORMS-CS web pages.
NEW BUSINESS: The new members of the Publication Award Committee were announced. They are Perwez Shahabuddin (Columbia University) and Michael Fu (University of Maryland at College Park). John Charnes discussed the College's role in future INFORMS annual meetings. The College has had limited representation in recent meetings, particularly in terms of the number of invited sessions. Those who haven't been involved and would like to be are encouraged to organize sponsored sessions and/or submit papers to the INFORMS meetings for the simulation track. Suggestions were made for creating ties with other related areas (such as sessions on simulation in finance, simulation in logistics, etc.). Barry Nelson reminded the group that the INFORMS papers should not duplicate papers given at the WSC conference, since that would reduce the potential audience.
OTHER BUSINESS: John Charnes opened the floor to a brief discussion of the attendees' views of the merits of having the WSC 2000 held in Monterey, CA or San Diego, CA. Costs for the hotels will be noticeably higher than in previous years, continuing a trend away from a discounted rate for conventions held in early December, though Monterey hotel prices were lower than those in San Diego. Some attendees expressed concern over the ease of getting into and out of Monterey via air.
ATTENDEES: Mohamed A. Ahmed, John Charnes, Steve Chick, Mark Fleischer, Dave Goldsman, Dean Hartley, Jeff Joines, Sandeep Junys, Larry Leemis, Pierre L'Ecuyer, Christine Lemieux, Douglas Morrice, Shahid Mujtaba, Marvin Nakayama, Barry L. Nelson, Chuck Reilly, Deb Sadowski, Susan Sanchez, Bruce Shultes, Kevin L. Stamber, Enver Yucesan
Respectfully submitted by Susan M. Sanchez, Secretary/Treasurer