Society for Ethnomusicology, Southern California Chapter
Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting, 22-23 February 2002
Pomona College, Claremont, CA

President's Report

To the members of SEMSCC and participants of SEMSCC 2002 meeting here at Pomona College:

We are meeting here at Pomona College thanks to Katherine Hagedorn who graciously offered her campus as the meeting site. On behalf of chapter members, I'd like to thank Pomona's Music Department and especially the Department Chair, William Peterson for hosting us. In addition, I would like to recognize the efforts of members of the Department who aided Katherine with local arrangements, especially Cathy Endress for her secretarial support, Joe Brennan for his technical support, Graydon Beeks for support with facilities, and Paige Weinheimer for her outstanding, overall assistance.

I also want to thank this year's program committee whose members were Wendy Debano of UCSB, Helen Rees of UCLA, Tim Cooley of UCSB, and Henry Spiller of Cal Poly, who ably served as committee chair. Henry will be leaving the Southern California area after this academic year to take up his new position as an Assistant Professor of Music at Kenyon College. Congratulations to Henry! This year the program committee received 23 abstracts. They accepted 20 and 3 rejected. Thanks to their timely efforts of the program committee conference participants were given e-mail notification of paper acceptance about three weeks prior to the conference.

In addition to all of those who made this meeting possible, I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of Rene Lysloff, who has continued to oversee the chapter website and e-mail list serve.

This meeting marks the end of my two-year term as Chapter President. It has been both an honor and a pleasure to serve the Southern California Chapter. This chapter has been, and continues to be, one of the largest and most active of all of the local SEM chapters. The chapter business involves mainly the annual chapter meeting and the awarding of the Ki Mantle Hood Prize. The organization of the meeting and the awarding of the prize involve the efforts of numerous chapter members who take time out of their busy schedules to serve.

During my first year as President, I discovered that some Chapter governing documents have failed to be passed down from officer to officer. The missing documents included the chapter by-laws. I reported on this lapse in transmission last year in my Presidential Report. Throughout the past year, I continued to search for the missing documents and have recovered three items: the SEMSCC Chronicle (which lists the officers, meeting sites, and prize winners); the Prize Guidelines (for the Ki Mantel Hood Prize for Best Student Paper); and, the Planning Document (a time table for conference preparation). There is still no sign of a bylaw document and there are some who question if such a document ever existed. As I leave office, I will pass these documents onto the new officers. Unfortunately, I am also passing on the mystery of the missing bylaws and the question of whether or not they should be re-constituted (or constituted).

This meeting also marks the end of Paul Humphrey's two-year term as Chapter Secretary/Treasures. I would like to thank him for all of his hard work over the past two years. With the close of this meeting, Vice President Cheryl Keyes will become the new Chapter President. I would also like to thank her for chairing the prize committee over the last two years. Today, we need to elect two new officers: the new Chapter Vice President (President Elect) and Secretary/Treasurer.

To close, I want to thank all of you for your support during my term as Chapter President. To facilitate a smooth transition, I would like to offer any help the newly elected officers may want.

Many thanks and best wishes to all of you.

Respectfully submitted,
Nancy Guy