AMS President Ruth Solie responded to the report. She pointed out that there already are guidelines for the Program Committee. For the Boston meeting some of the guidelines just were not followed. The current 20-minute time limit on papers had been proposed by the Program Committee. The issue of anonymity is left to the Program Committee.
Conflicts are hard to foresee.
The Council passed the motion to have each panel session judged as a whole, with the option of individual papers being considered separately. This will be sent on to the Board. There was a motion made that the entire Program Committee decide on the session chairs, with reasonable sensitivity to broad representation from year to year. To the best of my knowledge, the Council did not have a chance to vote on this due to lack of time. Participation Atlanta will host the annual national meeting of the Society from 15 to 18 November 2001.