This year's meeting of the society was held at the U of M, Twin Cities.  Kate Gill, the co-president (along with Jean Keller) of the society for 2002-2003, opened the meeting.  She thanked Wade Savage, the vice-president, for all the work he did in preparing for the meeting.  Wade Savage next thanked all the presenters and commentators at the meeting, as well as Doug Lewis, Susan Wittle, Romona Lillia, and the philosophy department secretary for all the work they did in helping to co-ordinate the meeting.

    Next, John Kronen, the secretary/treasurer of the society, read the minutes for last year's meeting.  His minutes passed by voice vote.  He then informed the society that it currently has $702.13 in its bank account.  He noted that this is probably due to the fact that the society no longer needs to pay for the mailings which used to be associated with upcoming meetings since host schools now send information about meetings over the web and via email.  He asked the members of the society to think about what they might want to do with the money the society currently has.

    This was followed by the introduction of new members from the chairs of various schools.  After new members were introduced, Kate Gill asked Gene Mason to say something about the history of the society.  This was prompted in part because some members were under the impression that the society is only about twenty years old.  But Professor Mason recalled a meeting of the society in 1958 at Carleton College at which Herbert Feigl spoke on the identity of the mind and the brain.   After his brief presentation, the president asked the secretary if he had any past minutes or announcements he could assemble to inform members of the history of the society.  He said he did and that he would attempt to do this over the next year.

    Next Professor Gill announced that the University of Minnesota would host the 2003 student conference, and said that St. Olaf had volunteered to host next year's regular meeting. The discussion then turned to the question of the list of members and how to keep it updated.  The secretary said that the there is a list of members published on the Web, organized by institution, and that the most efficient way to keep it updated would be for department chairs to email him information concerning any new members they have.

    Next there was a discussion of how the list should be used.  Could schools use it to send members announcements about talks they are hosting which are not sponsored by MPS, for instance?  It seemed to be agreed that this would be no problem, and that the rule of thumb here would be that the list may be used to convey any information to members which would be conveyed to them via a society newsletter, if the society had one!

    This discussion was followed by a number of announcements concerning upcoming conferences and lectures.  Finally the president turned to the election of officers for 2003-2004.  John Kronen was re-elected to be secretary/treasurer, Wade Savage was elected to be president, and Vicky Harper was elected to be vice president.  The meeting then adjourned.

John Kronen
Secretary/Treasurer