President

Duties of the ACL President

1. ACL Conference, Year N+1
   Take initiative in setting up ACL conference for the year after your presidency. This involves setting up the committee (as per the ACL Policy on Joint Conferences), issuing a bid (see Conference Handbook), and setting in motion the process of selecting a Conference and Program Chairs (see Handbook). The process should start at the latest as soon as you assume the presidency, so that the conference and program chairs can be announced at this year's meeting. (The conference is a good place for a meeting of past, current, and next program chair). During the course of the year, the President must interact with the conference chair to ensure that the conference preparations are proceeding smoothly.
2. Throughout the year, monitor events and discussions.
   When issues come to some kind of consensus, ask the Secretary to call a vote, and have the results recorded. Ensure that the results conform with the Constitution.
3. ACL Exec Meeting 1
   Organize the ACL Executive meeting early in the year of your presidency. This should obviously have been set up earlier. Your tasks are to work with the Secretary to establish list of open issues, create an agenda for the meeting, invite participants, chair the meeting, and see that what has been decided is recorded and, later, acted out.
4. ACL Exec Meeting 2
   Organize the ACL Executive meeting at the ACL conference the year of your presidency. Your duties are as for the previous meeting, but the meeting now includes additional people, notably the Local Arrangements Committee and Conference Chairs, who are invited to attend for a portion of the meeting and give their reports. At this time, also set a time for the next ACL Exec meeting in the following year.
5. ACL Banquet
   Give the after-dinner speech.
6. ACL Business Meeting
   Chair the ACL Business Meeting at the conference.

Notes and comments

In general, the president's position is something of a balancing act, between taking care of smallish issues (and getting them resolved and recorded) and thinking about the longer-term goals and directions of the Association. Now that you become president after two years of serving on the Exec, you will have had time to absorb the issues and decide whether you want to focus on one or the other (generally, people don't seem to have had time for both).