2015Q1 Reports: NAACL

Report from NAACL, February 2015

Hal Daume - Chapter board chair

Chris Callison-Burch - Past NAACL chair

Joel Tetreault - NAACL treasurer

Elections

The results of the most recent NAACL election were released in December 2014. Matt Post and Fei Xia were elected to serve on the board, replacing out-going members Katrin Erk and Julia Hirschberg. Joel Tetrault has be re-elected treasurer.

Here is a list of all current members of the NAACL board: http://www.naacl.org/officers

Executive Committee Meetings

The board communicates regularly via email. The board met in person at ACL 2014 in Baltimore and will meet at NAACL 2015 in Denver.

NAACL Treasurer's Report

This report is from Joel Tetreault, the NAACL Treasurer.

The NAACL Chapter's bank account held $​34,268.60 as of January 31, 201​5​. However this number does not reflect the ​$8,121 ​surplus we have from NAACL 201​3​, so the bank account really stands at $​43​k.​ To put the above figures in perspective, last year's (2014) end of year balance was $29k and 2012 was $41k. So with the $8k surplus we are at a highest point in the last two years, so the building back from the NAACL 2010 loss continues, albeit slowly. In 2014, our expenditures were once again the sponsoring of external events: NACLO ($5k), two emerging regions funds at $1.5k apiece ($3k) and the LSA Summer Institute ($4.8k), for a total of $12.8k. In 2013 our outlays (NACLO and an emerging regions fund) totaled $6.5k.

While​ 2015 has begun on a promising note, there is still work to be done to rebuild the NAACL account. This is important because it allows us to better grow the field of Computational Linguistics in North and South America through the sponsorship of conferences and other novel events (such as NACLO). ​ ​ ​As in the previous year, my recommendation is to be very selective on sponsorship while finding novel ways to keep costs down in organizing the NAACL conference, as we did in 2013.

Results of NAACL 2014 initiatives

• Reinstated two-year rotating terms for pubs-chairs
• Question for ACL: how will this affect years when NAACL is ACL?
• Emily and Matt are in charge of the Emerging Regions initiative
• We are working to get more "local"/"startup" funding for conferences (in particular NAACL 2015)
• ACL's policy is that supplementary materials need not be anonymous. NAACL disagrees with this policy and is requiring NAACL submissions to be fully anonymous. NAACL encourages ACL to revisit this decision.
• New policies for best paper: there will always be awards for best long, best short and best student, and up to six runners-up will be publicized. This is consistent with ACL though more specific on number of runners up.
• NAACL has adopted ACL's policy on arxiv
• NAACL instituted an anti-harassment policy; Emily and I reviewed reactions to the policy as well as confusions. We revised the policy immediately and included a question about it in the post conference survey. It seems that there is a vocal very tiny minority opposed and everyone else is in favor or neutral.
• NAACL continues to support NACLO.

North American conference in 2016

The location of NAACL 2016 is San Diego. June 12-17, 2016. Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina. The guest room rate is $189 for regulars and I got a small block of student rooms at the same hotel for $129 (this block may be increased from the current 50 rooms per night when we get closer to the time). They gave some really good concessions to save us money (especially 10% of **2014** menu prices and 20% off AV and internet although I may get more of a discout).

The board is in the process of selecting a general chair.