While I believe that some aspects of your comments unfairly characterise
mine, I do agree with other aspects. I will focus on potential common
ground. Some of your comments/suggestions have prompted me to perform some
basic inquiries, and obtain some potentially useful information and ideas,
which I intend to share with you.
> Just to add a few points to this discussion:
>
> First, I think it's fine to say "IEEE should run a leaner ship" - as long
> as the suggestions are concrete and realistic, rather than vague
> generalities
I very much agree with you. It is always easy to criticise in the
abstract, but proposing specifics and showing why they may help is quite
another matter.
On the other hand, it is difficult to make concrete proposals "blindly".
In particular, as others have pointed out, itemised statements of revenues
and expenses for conferences are not being made public. Since you are in
touch with the IEEE president, could you kindly suggest to make possible
the release of this information at least for a representative sub-set of
recent major events? Then we could all study the information, and perhaps
make specific suggestions. If confidenciallity agreements prevent certain
information from being released, then specific items may be removed, with
an explanation. Still the rest could be analised.
Another reason to release such information is that, since a very large
number of conference attendees are funded by public agencies, it seems
that the general public (represented by the funding agencies) does have a
legitimate interest in ascertaining that their funds are appropriately
utilised.
Anyhow, I understand that this information is not presently available and
may take some time before it is. What to do in the mean time? I am
separately making some suggestions.
>
> Those dissatisfied with the current society sponsorship model (as opposed
> to simply wanting to improve it) are also welcome to organize their own
> events, and to make it more reputable and cheaper than the existing
> alternatives.
> One can think of this as somewhat related to franchise models,
> such as Hyatt hotels or Starbucks. In franchises, the franchisee pays for
> the privilege of using the brand name, typically as a fraction of revenue.
Electoral action sounds reasonable, but it is complicated especially when
the voting population is relatively large, and heterogeneous. For
instance, many IEEE members are practicing engineers who may not share the
concerns and goals of academic research engineers (see migratory
labor-force issues, for example)... nothing inherently wrong with that...
it just complicates matters.
I do agree with the basic model you propose, though: franchising.
Business-owners do change ocassionally from a franchise firm to another
(BK<-->McDonald, etc) and possibly to a new firm. Your suggestion is
useful and deserves separate exploration.
> I think the discussion will be more productive if
> such accusations, implied or stated, are avoided - or, if you truly
> believe in this, you should contact the NSF Inspector General, the entity
> within the NSF responsible for such issues.
I don't know which are the accusations you refer to. A lot of people have
said or implied that IEEE (ComSoc) conferences are over-priced, for a
variety of reasons (see record). I simply asked whether that could be
ground for a funding agency (particularly the NSF, which had just been
mentioned by Joe) to demand a refund from IEEE. I still believe that the
basic question is legitimate and important, even if the wording may have
been non-ideal, and that it deserves a definite conclusive answer. I
understand that certain grant contracts from certain agencies indeed do
have some language involving refunds.
In any case, I respectfully suggest that it may be better that the IEEE
itself request a legally binding opinion from the officer that you
mention. If favourable, everyone would feel better (at least concerning
that agency). If unfavourable, corrective measures could be implemented,
including refunds if any. Often, self-reporting is viewed as a sign of
good faith, and normally leads to lesser sanctions when applicable.
> Finally, reserves and endowments are common ways that not-for-profits
> smooth income and expenses, as well as leverage interest/investment income
> to provide additional operating revenues.
I basically agree with you. The issue is simply whether a contribution to
IEEE endowment by paying some type of (alleged) "mark-up" over fair-market
value for certain conference services is a legitimate use of research
public funds(from any funding agency including foreign ones). The use may
sound reasonable in principle. But it may not be consistent with the
applicable regulations.
Additionally, do consider that there may be other worthy endowments to
contribute to. As an example, the endowments of the following respected
institutions near IEEE (according to Internet sources) are/were:
NJIT 70M and Stevens 115M, both appreciable lower than IEEE's.
Brooklyn Poly (now part of NYU) had 173M, about same as IEEE's, and
Illinois Tech 258M. But these are institutional endowments for an entire
campus. The IEEE should probably be compared to the endowment's share of
the correponding ECE department. Then the IEEE endowment starts looking a
lot bigger.
In any case, a reasonable person may argue that any public money that
could somehow be transferred to the IEEE endowment (one way or another)
should instead be transferred to some of the institutions mentioned (or
many other worthy causes).
With my best regards,
Virgilio
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