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Association-Wide Journals

The Executive Committee benefited greatly from the advice Council offered regarding the recommendations related to the Association-wide journals. In particular, we spent the majority of our Sunday meeting addressing two questions raised by Council: Why not improve the two existing journals rather than start a new one? Why not survey the membership before making a decision? In the process of addressing these questions, we thoroughly and forcefully argued virtually all of the issues that were raised by Council. I have summarized the key points that were considered during these discussions later.

After extensive deliberation, the Executive Committee voted unanimously in favor of the four recommendations we presented to the Council on Saturday, which were put forth by the task force and supported by the Publications Committee:

1. We recommend that a single Association-wide journal be developed that meets the needs of those with interests in applied scholarship and instructional development.  This journal would include submitted and commissioned articles on curriculum innovation, teaching materials and strategies (cases, assignments, novel approaches and methods), applied research on issues and controversies in practice and teaching, and integrative applications of research to teaching and accounting practice. Like TAR, the focus would be on all sub areas of accounting (managerial, financial, etc.).  In addition, book reviews should be moved from TAR to the new journal. 2. The new journal will continue in print form and be published quarterly, but will also rely more on technology to improve service to subscribers. Cost, timeliness of dissemination, and use of multimedia applications suggest that some of the submissions may be better suited to summary hardcopy publication combined with complete online publication. Articles relying on software and data bases, extensive case materials, and AAA policy-related committee reports are excellent candidates for this approach. Without a decrease in page count, savings on printing and mailing alone should exceed $25,000 per year.

3. The peer review process should be designed to ensure that the journal is known for supporting the highest quality applied scholarship and instructional development.  Coeditor and department editor models similar to those used by many journals should be seriously considered for the new journal. Editor transition issues must also be addressed.

4. TAR should focus exclusively on basic scholarship and be the only association-wide journal with that focus. As detailed later, Saturday’s session with the Council:

• Greatly influenced our decision to support these recommendations.

• Gave us a clearer understanding of the risks associated with replacing Horizons and Issues with the new journal.

• Suggested ways to manage these risks.

• Gave us a deeper appreciation for the opportunity costs of going with the new journal, which caused us to scrutinize the benefits more closely.

• Increased our confidence that the new journal will succeed because its underlying concept incorporates the most important success factors associated with outstanding meetings, as identified at Saturday’s Best Practices session.

• Demonstrated again the benefits that are accrued when the Council and Executive Committee work together on an important issue and gave us great hope that the Council will help insure that the new journal becomes a great success.  Before getting into the details, I would like to preview three big-picture factors that greatly influenced my thinking on this issue and probably had similar effects on others on the Executive Committee:

• The lessons I learned from the Best Practices session profoundly affected my decision to vote in favor of the recommendations. Joe Carcello’s "something for everyone" theme and Ann e Christensen’s story about how tax "researchers" and "teachers" have gradually recognized their common interests by attending practice/teaching sessions clarified and amplified my justification for supporting a single journal that combines applied scholarship and instructional development.

• After considerable reflection, I concluded that we needed to make the decision on Sunday rather than delay it until we could survey members. After spending significant time Sunday analyzing the feedback we received from Council, the Publications Committee and the task force, the Executive Committee was leaning heavily towards favoring the new journal. We also agreed that a membership survey would likely not inform our decision significantly (for the reasons discussed later) and that related delays could aggravate the risks associated with the transition to the new journal. Based on these points, I concluded that if we were likely going to go ahead with one journal eventually, we should make the decision immediately to minimize the transition risks.

• I anticipate that we will encounter some initial resistance when the membership learns that we plan to replace Horizons and Issues with the new journal because the Executive Committee, Publications Committee, and task force have encountered similar reactions whenever we have proposed the idea to new audiences. However, for reasons detailed later, we believe that we can begin to overcome this resistance by holding a "town hall" forum at the annual meeting. In addition, I plan to discuss the issue at the regional meetings I attend during the next couple of months. I am also hoping that many of you on the Council will help us explain the reasoning behind the new journal to colleagues in your sections and regions.

Next, at the risk of omitting important perspectives that influenced our analysis, I will share some points that were raised when the Executive Committee addressed two questions that were posed by Council on Saturday.

Why not improve the two existing journals rather than start a new one?

We had a lengthy discussion comparing the costs and benefits of creating the proposed journal versus improving the existing journals. In particular, we analyzed the following issues that were raised by Council: (a) the brand equity risks associated with library subscriptions, (b) the brand equity risks associated with members’ resumes — the concern that discontinuing Horizons and Issues could potentially devalue previously published articles, and (c) the short-term brand equity risks associated with new submissions — the concern that authors may be reluctant to submit to Horizons and Issues once they know that the journals will be discontinued in the future. We also addressed a question raised by Amelia Baldwin: Why can’t we apply whatever strategy we have in mind to insure that the proposed journal is first rate to the two existing journals? Related to this question, we also assessed the synergy benefits of combining applied scholarship and instructional development into a single journal (discussed above).

Here are some of the key points that were made when we discussed these issues:

• The Executive Committee believes that the financial risks associated with library subscriptions can likely be managed to acceptable levels if not eliminated altogether by working closely with the intermediaries who sell the subscriptions.

• The risks associated with members’ resumes may be more problematic. As indicated in the background notes that were distributed Saturday, concern about the perceived quality of Horizons and Issues is one of the factors that motivated the Executive Committee and Publications Committee to start this initiative, and these risks will be more than offset by providing an exciting new outlet for applied research and instructional development. However, it is difficult to gauge the extent to which the perceived quality of these journals will be diminished when the proposed journal replaces them. We hope to mitigate this risk by communicating to the membership that (a) This does not mean that the perceived quality of these journals is low — they have published many notable papers over the years and they have had respected and dedicated editors, editorial boards, and authors, and (2) We will do our best to communicate the change with library subscribers as a renaming.

• The short-term brand equity risks associated with new submissions could also be problematic. There are at least two ways to try to manage this risk. First, the Publications Committee can try to control it as best as possible by working with the editors of Issues and Horizons. Second, the Executive Committee has already helped reduce this risk by not delaying the decision on the new journal. This should shorten the transition period and encourage everyone involved to focus on ways to best manage the transition. As indicated earlier, concerns about delay risk greatly influenced Sunday’s decision to go forward with the new journal as soon as possible.

• We also spent considerable time addressing one of Amelia Baldwin’s questions:  Why can’t we apply whatever strategy we have in mind to insure that the proposed journal is first rate to the two existing journals? We believe that we could take steps to improve Horizons and Issues but there is at least one compelling reason why the resulting journals would not be as good as the new one: We do not believe that the two existing journals can achieve the teaching-practice-research synergies discussed earlier and thus they can not help draw us together by highlighting our common interests. We also believe that a "clean slate" and the innovative concept for the new journal will attract a deep pool of outstanding prospective editors, editorial board members, reviewers, and authors.  Again, this believe was reinforced by Saturday’s Best Practices session. We have plenty of evidence from the section and region meetings that: (a) there is a large demand for forums that offer "something exceptional for everyone" by focusing on teaching-practice-research synergies and (b) there are numerous talented AAA members who have proven that they can produce first-rate mid-year meetings to meet this demand, and by extension can likely help produce a first-rate publication that will be built on a similar concept.

• Another way to appreciate the power of capturing these synergies in a single journal is to consider the following hypothetical question. Would the sections that have had highly successful mid-year meetings have been anywhere near as successful if they had conducted separate mid-year meetings for teaching and research? Based on what I learned at Saturday’s Best Practices session, my answer is definitely not. The sections would likely not have captured these synergies and they would likely not be as unified because the mutual respect that Ann e Christensen mentioned would not have occurred.

Why not survey the membership before making a decision?

At least three of you suggested that we survey the membership. After debating this proposal extensively, the Executive Committee decided not to conduct a survey for the following reasons:

• We have already solicited input from the Council, which represents the diverse interests of the membership. I hope by now that I have convinced you that the Council’s input has had a significant productive influence on our deliberations. We have already expanded the task force to include the Chairman of the Membership Committee and Vice Chairperson of the Teaching and Curriculum Section.

• We were concerned about delaying the decision for the reasons mentioned earlier.

• We suspected that the survey results would be predictably unreliable. As Bob Libby indicated on Saturday, thus far we have met great initial resistance when we have recommended to a new audience that Horizons and Issues should be replaced with the new journal. We have met similar resistance, but to a lesser degree, when members initially see the background points, goals, and recommendations that we distributed to the Council on Saturday. However, we have also found that most members support replacing Horizons and Issues with the new journal once they debate the issues with us thoroughly and gain a better understanding of the costs, benefits, and risks of the various alternatives. These experiences lead us to conclude that the underlying issues are complex and difficult to communicate in writing. Also, even if we were to debate the issues extensively with a random sample of members, we doubt that we would learn much that we have not already learned from the Council, Publications Committee and task force. Still, the survey suggestion and the above analysis motivated us to plan a discussion forum at the annual meeting. Hopefully this forum will help members gain a better understanding of the costs, benefits, and risks associated with the proposed new journal. We also expect that attendees will help us identify additional risks and ways to manage them.

Again, I want to thank the Council for all of the valuable insights that you provided on this issue and, more generally, throughout the Saturday sessions. As we enter the implementation stage, I hope that you will help us make the new journal a great success and help us manage the transition risks. We have a great opportunity to significantly strengthen the value proposition through this journal but we must continue to work together to realize this value.

Sincerely,

Pete
Boston College
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Goodbye to my two most prized American Accounting Association journals.
Wow Bummer of the Week ---- I vote NO!

The President of the AAA, G. Peter Wilson, stated the following:

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"... we have also found that most members support replacing Horizons and Issues with the new journal once they debate the issues with us thoroughly and gain a better understanding of the costs, benefits, and risks of the various alternatives." 
President Wilson
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President Wilson also stated that: 

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After debating this proposal (to survey the AAA membership) extensively, the Executive Committee decided not to conduct a survey ..." President Wilson
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Bob Jensen's Commentary

There does not seem to be any link between President Wilson's conclusion and research. If there was no membership survey or even a systematic sample survey, how can he draw a conclusion the members really want to drop the two journals and replace them with one journal (actually Accounting Horizons content is not really intended to be replaced)?

Furthermore, I find his conclusions about costs, benefits, and risks to be heavily biased and not based upon full and fair disclosure of the facts.  My comments on this are shown below.

My perception of quality of Issues and Horizons is far different than those who perceive them as low quality.  I worry that the leadership of the AAA is getting more and more detached from the educators and teachers of accountancy in colleges around the world.  For example, I find the cases published in Issues in Accounting Education to generally be outstanding and useful to me in my teaching.  I have previously written commentaries praising these cases.  For example, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q3.htm#IAE  

Put me down for a NO on this decision to drop these particular important journals!

The current AAA Executive Committee is totally out of touch with the membership on this decision and is afraid to put the issue to the entire membership in a mail ballot.  I am virtually certain that it would not pass.  I imagine that the Executive Committee is afraid to poll the membership regarding the perceived usefulness of the Issues and Horizons journals to teachers of accounting vis-a-vis The Accounting Review.  

Pete Wilson refers mentions "low quality" of Horizons and Issues without providing a shred of evidence in this regard.  The Accounting Review is held out to be the premiere research journal of the AAA, but the Executive Committee does not consider the research papers important enough to even publish replications.  See "Are accounting researchers really seeking truth?" at  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book02q4.htm#Replication 

When you do comment on the AAA's Executive Committee's contention that Issues in Accounting Education has low quality content, you might note that the latest (May 2003) issue takes up a huge block of pages for Joel Demski's "The Curriculum Challenge." Joel is the immediate Past President of the AAA and is currently on the AAA's Executive Committee. I think he feels that "The Curriculum Challenge" is high quality work or he would not have given it prizes and praise (see Page 22). I note that he chose to publish this work in Issues in Accounting Education.

I might also point to Pete Wilson's publication "Teaching and Learning can be Energizing," Issues in Accounting Education, June 1999 Professor Wilson is the current President of the AAA who has expressed the greatest concern over quality of publications in that journal.

Considerations for the Cost Side of the Argument

I am astonished that anyone could suggest that this change makes financial sense.  There is a serious matching problem here -- citing cost savings without referencing revenue that will obviously be lost as a result of this decision.  The decision should stand on its academic, programmatic, or other merits, and not be buttressed by a clearly false (presumably mistaken) or incomplete and misleading financial analysis.

Dealing first with the electronic versions -- the agreement  negotiated with the company that handles the electronic publishing is on strictly a revenue-sharing basis. The electronic versions of Issues and Horizons each generated substantial revenue both from members (included in the $20-for-all-3-journals package) and nonmembers (via individual or bundled subscriptions and pay-per-view access).  There was no financial risk to the AAA in continuing the electronic versions of both these publications.

 There shouldn't be with the electronic version of the new journal, unless the AAA gets hit with another $400 "start-up fee" by the electronic publisher for the new journal -- hopefully both the electronic publisher and the US Postal Service can be persuaded that the new journal is a continuation of one of the existing ones with nothing more than a name change, or there will be some unnecessary start-up costs.  With the Postal Service, these would be substantial in the short term -- I think it took the AAA two years after Issues went quarterly before the Postal Service agreed we qualified for the lower quarterly rate and finally issued us a substantial refund.) 

Moving on to the hard-copy version:

A quote from Pete Wilson's notes says, 
"<<Without a decrease in page count, savings on printing and mailing alone should exceed $25,000 per year>>

That number cannot be considered in isolation. 

Let's assume that non-member revenue remains the same -- that is, that the subscription revenue from libraries and nonmembers for the new journal will equal the total revenue from subscriptions for Issues and Horizons combined, and that all the advertising revenue that would otherwise have gone to both existing journals now finds its way to the new journal.  I think this assumption is unlikely, given that libraries will be asked to subscribe to something new in a time when they're trying to cut back, so it's a very generous assumption indeed.

But even with that assumption, AAA members who have voted with their (or their employers') wallets have voluntarily paid more than $50,000 annually to receive EACH of these extra journals in print format (in addition to the one journal included in their base dues).  At least three-quarters paid either $10 or $20 extra to receive 2 or 3 printed journals; a strong majority of members paid $20 to receive all 3 printed journals.  And this is despite the fact that they can receive access to the electronic versions for a flat $20 fee covering all three journals.

The thought that anyone could cite in favor of this decision "savings" of $25,000 in printing and mailing costs for 2 publications that members voluntarily pay more than $100,000 to receive in hard copy on top of their one "base" journal simply boggles my mind.

If there is a case to be made for this change, it is not financial and I am surprised that Pete, of all people, would cite this "savings" to buttress the logic behind the decision. 

Historically, the AAA had recorded the member revenue related to the selection of extra journals under "dues" rather than under "journals" -- a point that I or the VP-Finance had to explain at each meeting when we looked at the financial statements -- but I thought we had fixed that in 2002. Perhaps that change came un-done, so that Pete forgot or did not understand that the $25,000 savings cited for printing and mailing costs is dwarfed by the amount that has each year been voluntarily paid by or on behalf of members who selected each of these two "extra" journals in addition to the base one included within their dues? Otherwise citing the savings without referencing the foregone revenue does not reflect the transparency that Pete always emphasized as being so important when dealing with members.

When looking only at the hard-copy versions, each of the three journals was consistently profitable once you allocated the additional $10 or $20 voluntarily paid by the large majority of members who wished to receive hard-copy issues of more than one journal. The financial equation is even better once 25% or more of members also paid $20 for a year's access to electronic versions of all 3 journals. As I've noted, except for a one-time $400 set-up fee for each journal, there is NO additional cost to the AAA of producing the electronic versions -- we use the same Postcript/pdf files that go to the hard-copy printer for the electronic versions and no longer do any additional processing for the electronic versions as we did when we handled the first 8 electronic journals totally in-house. (This is why you can't "hot-key" to and from the footnotes any more -- that capability was beyond the capacity of the electronic publisher, but it also saved us $3 per page in internal processing costs that we incurred when we offered that capability in our earlier internally hosted electronic versions.) The AAA retains $15 of the $20 paid by members for electronic access to the three association-wide journals, and also gets 75% of any money from pay-per-article or nonmember or library subscribers who select the electronic versions.

Even without allocating any of the extra member revenue for hard-copies -- pretending that the $10 or $20 were voluntary donations by members without recognizing that they were actually purchasing more hard-copy journals -- the three journals as a set were always profitable, though this appeared to be only because of TAR. Largely because of its much higher set of library subscribers, TAR appeared to be subsidizing the other two journals -- but only when you ignored the voluntary purchases of a second or third printed journal by a large majority of members.

Allotments for editorial support were always MUCH higher for The Accounting Review than for Horizons and Issues; although the AAA made some progress toward equalizing these at least at the budget stage, certain recent AAA presidents were quite explicit that we should do anything possible to pump more resources to The Accounting Review (TAR) --- at the same time they almost ejected an editor of one of the other journals who stayed under the allocated budget but spent some of the funds in unanticipated budget categories.

And lastly on the cost/revenue side of things (and related somewhat to what Kate says below), has the Executive Committee really thought about what will be the impact of the lost subscriptions to the Horizons and Issues journals?  It has taken years to build up those subscription revenues, especially in libraries.  If the AAA Executive Committee really decides to replace these journals with a new journal, it may be very hard to build up the lost revenue with new subscriptions, especially in this disaster era for college and library budgets.

Political Considerations

Let's now focus on the Nominations Committee that in reality controls the direction of the main body of the American Accounting Association.  It consists of the 3 most recent past presidents willing to serve and 4 members selected by the non-Executive-Committee members of Council at the meeting that occurred just over a week ago. I don't know who they selected, but this was clearly the opportunity the Sections and Regions have to select the future leadership of the AAA. There was one President who changed the selection process in the middle of the voting because that President didn't like the way it was going, and the next President argued publicly with his Secretary/Treasurer in the middle of the voting process on what the selection process would be. 

The bottom line is that, if Section and Region representatives don't elect 4 commonly minded Nominations Committee members, there is a large likelihood that the past Presidents will control the meeting. And there are reports that most of them do exercise that control.   

It only takes 100 signatures to force a contested election by petition, and the one time that was tried the Nominations Committee designate only won by 7 votes.  Since it is an electronic/fax/mail-in ballot, those who do not attend the Annual Meeting are no longer disenfranchised.

Please don't give up on the AAA. Always remember many good things come to us from the AAA. The AAA formally recognizes sections, publishes section journals, and dedicates annual meeting time slots to sections. There are geographic regions and regional meetings as well. What you get out depends upon what you put into all of these constituencies.

The AAA can be as much or as little as we want it to be if we stay involved and informed. If there are things you do not like about governance rules and procedures, there are processes for changing these rules and procedures. I think that we should have some voting choices like exist in other academic associations such as the Financial Management Association (FMA). Think about possibly working toward this goal.

If and when you raise a concern, please be courteous and factual. Our AAA leaders are dedicated volunteers. I know some of you are not happy with the way the present Executive Committee reached a decision (which may be rescinded by the incoming Executive Committee) to drop the Horizons and Issues journals. You should voice your unhappiness with the right degree of facts and the right degree of courtesy and respect. Please take care as to when and how you try to voice your concerns if you want to be heard. But eventually do make yourself heard!

On the AECM we can drift and go off-the-wall. The AAA Executive Committee probably does not understand this since virtually none of them contribute to our discussions.

I guess I am rambling too much, so I'll quit for now. I remain a loyal member of the AAA and am proud of the way it has become respected around the world as a community of accounting scholars. No organization is perfect, but in balance this is a great organization.

Hang in there Mary E.

Bob Jensen
Trinity University

AAA Executive Committee Members:

I wish to ask the Executive Council to reconsider the proposal to eliminate Issues in Accounting Education and Accounting Horizons and to start a new journal. According to a report by Tracey Sutherland, 4,167 or 54.8% of AAA members subscribe to all three journals, 947 to The Accounting Review only, 348 to Accounting Horizons only, and 943 to Issues in Accounting Education only. These figures indicate that a large portion of AAA members value all three journals. Of those individuals who choose to subscribe to only one journal, there is not a meaningful difference in the number choosing The Review and the number choosing Issues. With a 10 to 17 percent manuscript acceptance rate at Issues, a steady supply of submissions, and an extensive subscriber list, Issues appears to be well supported.

The AAA is quite concerned about declining membership. At such times, it is important to ensure that the organization is perceived as inclusive. In addition to AAA members employed at research oriented schools, many of our members are employed at teaching oriented schools. Another segment of AAA members are in the practice community. If we wish to maintain and grow the AAA membership in all these segments, we should continue to have three journals that appeal to our broad constituencies. In addition, moving from publishing three journals to two journals is likely to create the perception that there are fewer opportunities to publish in AAA journals. I worry that increasing the AAA dues and simultaneously decreasing the number of AAA journals will exacerbate the decline in AAA membership. Further, untenured individuals who have published in Horizons or Issues may find that those publications are valued less in the tenure process because the respective journals are no longer in existence. Before eliminating two journals and creating a new journal, at a minimum there should be a vote of the membership to determine their preferences.

Thank you for considering my request.

Sincerely,

Anne Christensen 
College of Business Montana State University 
443 Reid Hall PO Box 173040 Bozeman, MT 597171 
406-994-2043 406-994-6206 (fax) annec@montana.edu 

AAA Executive Committee Members:

I request you reverse your decision to cancel Horizons and Issues in Accounting Education. In my opinion, the executive committee's handling of this issue was inappropriate. I think the decision was based on the views of a small sample, but the problem is that the sample wasn't random! If the overriding issue is quality, I think that at the very least you should provide solid evidence to support your contention. If the overriding issue is cost, I have a few suggestions:

Cost of publishing journals/newsletters Put all the journals out for bid. I just learned that AAA thinks that publishing JATA costs $80,000. That number seems high to me, and I would like to request the costs of publishing all the journals be made public to the AAA membership, including how the costs are allocated among the journals. Regarding newsletters, ATA is fully capable of publishing its own newsletters on its server. AAA's concern about quality should not apply to a newsletter.

Reimbursement policies What are reimbursement policies for AAA officers, board members, committee members etc? For example, the ATA does not permit any travel expense reimbursement (hotel, food, transportation) to be paid for members with ATA funds. In addition, all hotel comp rooms are used for speakers. No benefit inures to ATA members. I( was amazed that the Hilton, where the ATA Midyear Meeting was held this year, actually thought that it was common policy for an organization's officers to have a suite of rooms.) Our reimbursement policy saves ATA a lot of money.

Food costs at annual meeting Cancel one of the luncheons and cancel one of the receptions. I bet most members don't attend both luncheons. Food costs for a meeting are enormous, and surely there are some cost savings to be had. If you tell members why you are doing it, most members will be sympathetic. If there ever was a year to scale back, this is the year.

Photographer costs Cancel the photographer. Surely there is a member who can take electronic pictures. Very few pics show up in the AAA newsletter anyway, so why do we incur the cost?

AV costs I was surprised at the high AV costs that will be incurred by those of us presenting CPE sessions. These are the regular AV costs. Why isn't AAA negotiating a deal? At the ATA Midyear Meeting, we were able to save money by including all AV costs in one package.

Once the membership has a chance to see the detailed costs incurred to run our large organization, I'm sure that more cost-cutting moves can be suggested. For example, I think the membership would prefer to have annual meeting costs reduced rather than eliminating journals. If you have any doubt, please poll the membership. Give us a say in our organization.

Amy Dunbar 
University of Connecticut

Professor Jim Largay, Editor of Accounting Horizons, is pleased to announce that Horizons is receiving the Emerald Management Reviews’ (EMR) 2003 Golden Page Award for “Readability of Research” in the Accounting and Finance journal category. Based in the UK, Emerald publishes 150 journals. In addition, each year it evaluates articles in the top 400 management periodicals in the world in six research and readability areas. Specialist reviewers examine over 18,000 articles each year and EMR recognizes the highest-ranked journal in each functional management category, such as accounting and finance, general management, marketing, and operations and production management, with Golden Page Awards in one or more of the six research and readability areas. Other journals honored with 2003 Golden Page Awards include Financial Management, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Strategic Marketing, and Management Science.

Professor Largay is attending the April 24 Awards Ceremony in London to receive the Award on behalf of Accounting Horizons and the American Accounting Association. He is gratified by this award and wishes to acknowledge the contributions of Horizons' Associate Editors, external referees, authors of published manuscripts, and of course his own green pen, that make Horizons the accessible widely-read research journal that came to the attention of the Golden Page award Evaluators.

March 31, 2003

Re: An Open Letter to the Members of the American Accounting Association regarding Need for a Vote on Journals of the Association

From: Wanda A. Wallace

Last week I became aware of the following accounts of recent events in our Association:

1. The Executive Committee had voted unanimously to abolish two of the three journals of the Association and to create a new journal as a replacement.
2. The decision of the Executive Committee was to be implemented without a membership vote, although the Executive Committee Members were well aware that substantial resistance had been expressed--by constituencies who had been approached by a past committee and recently by Council.
3. Neither editor of the two journals to be abolished had even been informed of the deliberations, let alone the Executive Committee decision--indeed recent announcements have included the selection of a new editor for one of these journals.
4. Both internally inconsistent and contradictory representations have been made about the basis for the decision and, importantly, the rationale for not permitting the membership a vote.
   

After receiving the above news and contemplating what action might be appropriate, I decided to write this open letter to fellow members of the American Accounting Association and to request the Executive Director of the AAA to forward it to all members of the AAA to ensure (a) that they are made aware of the situation in a timely manner and (b) they consider the propriety of demanding a membership vote be taken on such an important initiative.

In my view, an academic association of professors in a learned discipline has a number of responsibilities. One of these missions is to establish and responsibly operate independent forums for peer review and publication of contributions to the literature. Over twenty years ago, the leaders and members of the Association recognized the three-legged stool commitment to research, education, and service. Moreover, a value was placed on (a) pure academic research dialogue within the profession, (b) a forum for education-related research and associated educational resources, as well as debates associated with education, and (c) a means of sharing the results of research that addresses both practice and policy questions in a rigorous venue that takes a form that can be read by a much broader community than the academy.

My understanding is that two well-established journals have been summarily abolished by the Executive Committee and a unilateral decision made to create a different single journal with a mission of blending research, education, and practice in one forum. My personal reaction is threefold. First, The Accounting Review for years tried to serve all three audiences, and it was the inability to do so effectively and sufficiently that led, in part, to the creation of the additional two journals. Second, the pages of Association-wide journals are already severely limited relative to our world-wide membership and a decrease in that available forum, given very severe acceptance rates in all of our outlets, would not be in keeping with the Association's responsibility of maintaining independent journal space. Third, I know of no barrier to developing departments within all three existing journals that explore the interface of research, teaching, and service--integrating policy and practice considerations. Indeed, much could be gained from permitting cooperation among the three editors on the unique manuscripts that are apparently in the "mind's eye" of Executive members. A call for papers, a statement of those papers' placement--perhaps across the three journals--and even a creative role for a synergistic editor who worked with the three journal editors, could build on a strong foundation. The Executive Committee need not raze that which has been created and nurtured by the broad membership in order to pursue their stated interests.

I have never believed that critical planks of a not-for-profit membership-based association should ever be decided solely by a small group of Executive members, or even a broader Council. Membership votes are essential to ensure that the paths navigated are in accordance with those to whom the Association is committed. All of us should reflect on the events over the past few years of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Consider the representations made by the leaders of the Association regarding the 'XYZ' Certification and the very clear and decisive position of the members--at total odds with the leadership's assertions. I suggest that a formal vote on the question as to whether the existing journals should be abolished and whether a new journal should be established is both prudent and essential.

Wanda Wallace
College of William and Mary

My position, which I expressed at the meeting, was that we should go back to the old days and publish everything in The Accounting Review. With electronic publishing capabilities and even with modern print technologies, there is no reason why TAR cannot be published 6 or 8 times per year like AOS, CPA, or AAAJ. TAR could have sections for education, commentary, etc. We could publish everything under our flagship journal (like we used to) and save considerable money as a result. Here is where our forgetting of history inhibits our ability to see beyond this being merely an issue of eliminating the two journals. Why do we have these two in the first place? We have them because JAR and JAE were perceived by the "intellectual elite" as threatening the status of TAR. The AAA serves largely as the instrument by which accounting academics earn scholarly reputations -- the principal currency of academe (some of you out there are likely familiar with the work of Pierre Bourdeau, for example). Every academic discipline is organized; they are societies of scholars with complex mechanisms for deciding who among them are the most "successful." Those societies that are the most "open" (bow to Carl Popper) are the most "progressive." For example, the achievements of biology over the last 50 years (since Watson and Crick) are, to say the least, astonishing. In the sociology of science literature we note that the key to academic success in biology is driven largely by the ability to establish a successful lab, regardless of where you "went to school." Of course, among all of the hard sciences, one's politics are irrelevant to academic success. 

The AAA is our structure; it is decidedly not an "open society", but a very, very closed society. The "empirical evidence" (which we are led to believe is the only thing that we are to base our beliefs upon) is compelling on this issue and I will provide a reading list for anyone who is genuinely interested in understanding something about why these events are taking place. The structure of the AAA makes it the last remaining Politburo on earth. TAR, our journal, has been taken away from from the members by a group of folks who unilaterally declared themselves to be our intellectual superiors and proclaimed that an uncritical parroting of our superiors in academe (new classical economists and monetarist financiers) is the key to academic success (a tried and true formula of the one eyed man is king in the land of the blind). Robert Heilbroner remarked that mathematics brought great rigor to economics, unfortunately, he noted, it also brought mortis (thus we have to reinvigorate accounting scholarship; well, who anesthetized it in the first place?). 

The AAA exists so that we can pay our $135 dues (yes, they will go up by $50) to subsidize a system for creating politically correct academic reputations access to which is precluded for most of the people paying the tax. The AAA's financial troubles are to no small extent attributable to this system of subsidization. At the Council meeting, we were also informed about the results of a "cost study" to determine what the cost of services are that the AAA headquarters provides to sections and regions. My advice to you is to keep your eyes open on this effort, too. There is money in section and region coffers (the only part of the AAA prospering). There was a great deal of effort put into this analysis, but the analysis is faulty because it presumed that over half a million dollars of AAA expenditures were "Association costs," from which we allegedly all benefit (TAR is included in this amount). The cost structure of the AAA has to be understood in light of what goal(s) created it. Nothing can be taken for granted!! 

If the AAA is a closed system for creating politically correct academic reputations, then, before we can conclude what the sections and regions "cost," we need to reassess whether the goals of the AAA are really what we want to pay to achieve. The response to the proposed elimination of ISSUES and HORIZONS suggests that they are not. The reason we used to make college students study the classics was in the belief that there was "ancient wisdom." The tragedies that befell protagonists in Greek tragedies were invariably the result of hubris. The continuing "financial tragedy" of the AAA is simply an old lesson relearned. 

Paul Williams paul_williams@ncsu.edu 
North Carolina State University

March 31, 2003 reply from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU] 

Paul and Amy,

In a sense, I agree with both of you.

I liked the politburo metaphor (I probably would have preferred a junta or a pilates metaphor better, considering the ridiclous weight placed on some of these journals in tenure evaluations).

The main problem is the greasy pole (apologies to Benjamin Disraeli) established by tar, whereby everyone aspires to reach the "top" of the greasy pole if only to proclaim having done it, as Disraeli did. I have published in one of the so-called top journals, but would be ashamed to proclaim to have reached the top of the greasy pole. Even to date I feel nausea when people refer to that paper as the evidence of my credibility as a "scholar". We need to distinguish between research and scholarship.

Paul's proposal, which I like very much, gets rid of this ridiculous divinely inspired (or politically conspired?) hierarchy of journals. There is no reason we can not do what many other organisations do: to have one umbrella populist journal and either one or a bunch of journals ALL OF WHICH ARE CONSIDERED PEERS (EQUALS). ACM and IEEE for example have Communications/Spectrum/Computer for the former, and a bunch of Transactions for the latter.

As for the democracy bit, let me add to the chorus. I am a member of about half a dozen societies, and AAA is VERY special in that it is the least democrartic, and arguably the most pretentiously scholarly organisation I have had an occasion of being a part of. It is the only association from which I do not receive the ballot. I feel disenfranchised.

If I am not mistaken, even the editor of the tar used to be an elected position once upon a time, until AAA moved to the smoky rooms for transacting its business.

I hope we all begin to practice what we have been preaching from our rooftops to the rest of the world: democracy.

Respectfully submitted,

Jagdish

April 11, 2003 Reply from Dan Stone

I have some modest proposals for the AAA that are partially in response to the recent journal decision fiasco:

1. The accounting review should be a monthly publication, should be expanded to twice it's current size, and should include associate editors who are appointed by each of the sections of the AAA. The editor's position should be elected by a vote of the AAA membership. The purpose of this proposal is to reflect the diversity and excellence of the ENTIRE AAA membership.

2. Nominations for AAA leadership should come exclusively from member nominations. All those nominated for positions should be voted on by the membership. (Note that this approach includes the current method of insider only nominations).

Now..... who is with me? How can we make these proposals happen?

Dan Stone
University of Kentucky

April 11, 2003 Reply from Paul Williams

Dan, et al, In answer to your question about how we accomplish what you suggest is probably most effectively done by amending the AAA bylaws. I believe with the discontent being expressed over this most recent journals decision, it should not be difficult to get the signatures necessary to put proposed bylaw changes before the membership. Somewhere in my files, I already have the wording of a bylaw change that would require competitive elections for the Executive Committee, which almost passed the last time it was put before the members. As you will recall it was that effort to change the bylaws that prompted Joe Schultz to investigate governance and actually propose some steps toward contested elections. His successor as president threw all of that in the bin and nothing has happened since. A change calling for the direct election of the editor of TAR (who, by the way, has always been a graduate of one of the "persistent 14" elite schools) can be fairly easily drafted. The apathy of the membership has been exploited for years by the insiders to create a reputational system that excludes the interests of most accounting academics (and practitioners as well). I suggest the members quite complaining about this decision; it is just a more egregious example of the way decisions in the AAA have always been made (the process always reminds of the BBC series "The Old Men at the Zoo"). Discontent should not be with this one particular decision, but with the underlying process by which it was made. If you don't want this to happen to you again, you have to change the process. 

Go for it Dan. 
PFW
North Carolina State University

April 11, 2003 Added Reply from Paul Williams

Per your request: the persistent 14 are Illinois, Ohio State, Stanford, Texas, Minnesota, Washington (U of) Rochester, Chicago, Mich. State, Mich., Berkeley, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Iowa and to add a 15th Wisconsin. Penn is a school that has recently emerged in prominance. It may seem unremarkable, but it is remarkable when one looks at how graduates of these schools dominate the ability to decide the scholarly agenda. By chance, one would think that occasionally some unsuspecting accounting genius would venture to graduate from a non-elite school and succeed (after all, logit analyses of financial statements isn't exactly string theory). But that has not happened; the data are clear on this. For those interested see:

Williams and Rodgers, "The Accounting Review and the Production of Accounting Knowledge," Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 1995, v. 6, 263-287.

Rodgers and Williams, "Patterns of Research Productivity and Knowledge Creation at The Accounting Review: 1967 - 1993," The Accounting Historians Journal, June, 1996, 51 - 88.

Lee and Williams, "Accounting from the Inside: Legitimizing the Accounting Academic Elite," Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 1999, v. 10, 867 - 895.

In conjunction with the above see, Brown, L.D. "Influential Accounting Articles, Individuals, Ph.D. Granting Institutions and Faculties: A Citational Analysis," AOS, 1966, 723 -754 (there is not one dominant paper published in the 3 U.S. premier journals that is theoretical -- accounting theory died in the U.S. 35 years ago. All of the papers are empirical, i.e., tests relying on theories that don't belong to us). In that same issue of AOS, see Lukka and Kasanen, "Is Accounting a Global or a Local Discipline? Evidence from Major Research Journals" 755 - 773. (don't be surprised, it isn't global)

We live in a very closed society; Bob's analogy with the Republican Guard is spot on! PFW

PFW
North Carolina State University

 

The Executive Committee of the American Accounting Association has voted to eliminate two of the Association’s journals: Accounting Horizons and Issues in Accounting Education. The intention of the Executive Committee is to create a new journal. This new journal will not be a merger of Horizons and Issues but will start with a clean slate. It is expected that many items in the new journal will be similar to those in Horizons and Issues.

I have just returned from the American Accounting Association Southeast Regional Meeting. The journal decision was the topic of discussion during several sessions. At the Accounting Journal Editors Panel, Tom Howard, present editor of Issues, reported no one from the Executive Board has discussed this journal decision with him. He learned of the decision only six days prior to the SEAAA meeting. Marshall Geiger, the associate editor of Horizons, found out about the decision upon arriving at the SEAAA meeting and only two hours prior to his panel presentation.

At the AAA Southeast Regional Business Meeting, the journal decision was discussed by the members. Bill Felix, AAA President Elect, answered questions during the journal discussion. Subsequently, the members attending that meeting voted unanimously for the following resolution: The members of the Southeastern Region of the American Accounting Association are disappointed with the Executive Committee’s journal decision and would like the Executive Committee to reconsider their journal decision after receiving input from AAA members..

I have been appointed as Chairperson of a committee to follow up on the journal decision. Since there are several AAA regional meeting coming up, I felt that it is necessary to quickly disseminate information to the members to allow for open and informed discussion. I have attached two PDF files to this email message. The first file is entitled “Recommendations on the Association-Wide Journals,” dated March 3, 2003. The second file is Association President G. Peter Wilson’s summary of the Association-wide journals recommendation, dated March 23, 2003.

In the Recommendations (first PDF file), it is stated that educational research submission to Issues have dropped dramatically in recent years. Tom Howard reported submissions to Issues has remained steady at approximately 100 submissions per year for each of the past five years. He reported an acceptance rate of 17%.

Prior studies have shown Horizons and Issues are highly regarded journals. Both journals rank among the top 25 Accounting journals. Unfortunately, a ranking study of journals has not been completed in 10 years. A composite ranking of five previous journal surveys is presented as part of a publication study that is forthcoming in Advances in Accounting. A copy of this paper is available on my web site: www.jrhasselback.com. Click on “Articles” in the left column and then click on “Prolific Authors.”

In the President’s Summary (second PDF file) discusses Council’s involvement in the journal decision. The Council did not take a vote on the journal proposal. Several members of Council appear not to be in favor of the journal proposal. The Executive Committee then met and voted for the journal proposal. Two Council members have reported to me that they thought that Council input was ignored.

I hope to share any further information I receive with the AAA membership.

Jim Hasselback
Florida State University

March 30, 2003 Reply from Dennis Beresford (former Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board)

I was informed about this decision a few days ago by Jim Largay, the current editor of Accounting Horizons. I found it interesting that the Executive Committee did not inform Jim that this matter was even under consideration until after the decision had been made. In fact, even after that Jim received the word indirectly.

I've been a member of the editorial board of Accounting Horizons since its inception. And I've been proud to serve as an Associate Editor during the past three years under Jim Largay's leadership. Throughout its history, I think that Horizons has done a very good job of helping to bridge the gap between educators and practitioners, as was one of its original and main purposes. I've also been proud to have had several articles published in Horizons over the years (I hope that that isn't what led the AAA leadership to the conclusion that quality wasn't as high as they wished!).

Bob Jensen forwarded in the message above just the portion of President Wilson's notes that related to the journal matter. I found it interesting that in another part of those notes that wasn't forwarded by Bob, President Wilson pointed out the great idea of having practitioners make regular presentations to regional meetings of AAA and other similar meetings. It seems somewhat ironic to me that this enthusiasm to have practitioners contribute to those sessions comes at the same time as the principal journal that attempts to bridge the educator/practitioner gap is being abolished.

In addition to contributing to Horizons and reading it regularly (as a practitioner, a standard setter, and now an educator), I've found the archives of articles to be very useful reading for my students. For example, articles by Professor Zeff on the economic consequences of accounting standards and by Professor Samuelson on the determination of liabilities are better than anything else written on these topics, in my view. They are just as valuable to my students in this semester's classes as they were when I first read them many years ago. The Accounting Review certainly contributes greatly in its way, but it really isn't useful to the vast majority of students. Horizons seems to be the only forum in which professional/technical issues can be analyzed and debated by excellent accounting thinkers.

I also enjoy reading Issues in Accounting Education, as it is a way for me, as a relatively new educator, to learn about interesting new ways to reach my students. The book reviews are particularly valuable to me as well.

As a final note, I share the concern that some other AECMers have already expressed about the process by which this decision was reached. President Wilson says that the Executive Committee concluded that any further input would be predictably unreliable. And the Committee also doubts that they would learn much. Putting aside the pure arrogance of those comments, I've always thought that the AAA went overboard to encourage input and debate before making important changes like these. In fact, the Association has been criticized for moving too slowly on some matters because of this.

The FASB might have concluded on several occasions that it was sufficient, for example, to discuss a topic with its Advisory Council and not expose it for comment by all constituents. That would have been a violation of the FASB's rules of procedure. More importantly, it would have been a terrible judgment that the people who are affected by such an important decision are not entitled to participate in its outcome.

Denny Beresford 
University of Georgia

I have prepared a comment on the recent decision to eliminate Issues and Horizons. Dan Stone tells me that you have created a place for those of us with an opinion on the matter to chime in. I am attaching my comment for inclusion if you think it appropriate.

Thanks.

Thomas P. Howard 
PricewaterhouseCoopers Professor and Director, 
Von Allmen School of Accountancy 
University of Kentucky

A Comment on Recent Actions of the Executive Committee of the AAA
Thomas P. Howard, Editor, Issues in Accounting Education

The Executive Committee of the American Accounting Association (AAA) recently voted to discontinue publication of two Association-wide journals, Accounting Horizons and Issues in Accounting Education, and to replace them with a single journal that would publish applied and educational scholarship and educational materials.  Two documents relating to that decision have recently gained wide distribution.  Those documents are the “Recommendations on the Association-Wide Journals” by a AAA Task Force (TF) and the “Follow-up to the St. Louis Meeting” by Pete Wilson. 

After a careful reading of both documents and following numerous telephone conversations and email exchanges with members of the TF and attendees at the Spring Council Meeting, I conclude that the Executive Committee made a very bad decision, based on a TF report containing errors and highly debatable “observations” and that both the decision and the TF report resulted from an ill conceived and indefensible process.  Furthermore, I’m concerned that the leadership of the AAA is no longer connected to the overwhelming majority of the membership of the AAA.

The Task Force

At the annual meeting of the AAA held last August, word leaked out that the Executive Committee was considering eliminating Issues in Accounting Education.  The original responsibility for making that happen fell to the Publications Committee.  That committee met twice to discuss the matter.  A potential problem of a political nature came up, however, since no one on the Publications Committee had ever published in Issues or shown the slightest interest in the journal.  To overcome this, a Task Force was formed that included members of the Publications Committee, but also included a few individuals with a history of involvement with the journal.  Had the newly constituted TF been allowed to proceed, and had the charge been to review all association-wide journals, perhaps something positive would have resulted.  Unfortunately, the TF never met (its “deliberations” were limited to a one-hour conference call) and the charge was not to review the journals, it was to eliminate one or more of them.  One of the TF members who was added to represent those of us with an interest in Issues told me that his total involvement consisted of the single conference call, that he never saw the report until well after the Executive Committee had voted, and that had he seen a draft of the document, he would have disagreed with several of its “observations”. 

The Task Force Report

Since the TF recommendations were the basis for the actions of the Executive Committee, and the sole basis for the discussion held at the Council meeting of March 15, it is important that they be examined.  To the extent that the TF recommendations were based on erroneous information, it calls into question the decision reached based on those recommendations.  It is worth noting that no one on the Publications Committee or the Task Force ever contacted the editors, former editors, members of the editorial boards, or anyone else associated with either Accounting Horizons or Issues in Accounting Education to verify the “observations” on which they based their recommendations. 

The following observations seem reasonable to me.  TF “observations” are shown in quotes, my comments follow and are not in quotes:

1. “The Accounting Review (hereafter, TAR) is the premier basic scholarship journal of the association. TAR is doing very well now, growing in submissions and perceived quality.”  I agree.  Further, I believe this is primarily due to the actions of the immediate past editor who opened the door to a broad range of scholarship and got away from the previous notion that research was defined by a narrow band of methodology.
2. “The section journals are focused primarily on basic and applied scholarship, and many are doing quite well.”  A fair statement, although it is bit gratuitous, since these journals were not part of the charge (i.e., Association-wide journals).

7. “The best articles published in Horizons have tended to be commentaries and integrative applications of research to current accounting issues.  Many of these papers are used in the classroom.”  I am not sure of the point being made here, however I believe the observation is true and, accordingly, I commend Horizons.
8. “The current print format of Issues limits the publication of innovations that incorporate technology, especially web-based technology.”  The current print format is imposed in Sarasota , not by either journal.  Both journals would more than welcome changes.

10. “The majority of AAA members have strong interests in applied research and instructional development.”  Amen, brother.  I might have used the phrase “overwhelming majority,” but this conveys the thought.  That is what makes the decision to eliminate journals devoted to these areas reprehensible.

There are, however, five “observations” that I think need discussion:

3. “Issues runs an annual deficit of approximately $40,000 and $20,000, in 2001 and 2002 (per the last budget report).  More data on this is pending the report of the Transfer Pricing Task Force.”  First, the reason for the new task force is that everyone agrees that the last budget report (and several preceding it), were unreliable.  The fact is that neither the revenue allocation process nor the cost allocation process that produced the reports have been explained by anyone I have spoken with.  Certainly using the numbers included in the TF as the basis for a decision is premature, at best.  Second, a number of members of the AAA will tell you that the primary benefits they get from membership are the journals.  Part of the difficulty with the revenue allocation scheme as it now exists is that it under allocates the portion of dues that should go toward the journals.  Put another way, if you eliminate the journals, you may well eliminate the only reason some members have for joining the AAA and invite them to drop their membership.

4. “Issues and to a lesser extent Horizons are sorely lacking in submissions.”  This is untrue.  Issues has had a steady state of 100 submission annually for several years.  “This has resulted in the first three issues of both journals for 2002 having an average page count of approximately 100 pages.”  Wrong again.  When I assumed the editorship I instituted the policy of making all teaching notes available on line.  Previously, teaching notes were published in the journal.  Anyone taking the time to become familiar with instructional materials would realize that often the number of pages taken up by the teaching notes greatly exceeds the number of pages of the instructional material itself.  For example, a case might be 10 pages in length, while the related teaching notes are 20 pages in length.  In short, had I not changed the policy, the average number of pages in recent issues would have been much higher, but the usefulness of the material would have been much less.  Finally, I think it is illogical in the first place to assume a relationship between the number of pages and the number of submissions, since the number of pages is more closely related to acceptance rate than it is to submission rate.
5. “Issues is perceived to be the weakest of the three association-wide publications in terms of quality of content and perceived stature in academe.”  The obvious question is “perceived by whom?”  What is the source of these data?  There are a number of studies that have Issues as the highest ranked education outlet available.  When judged on its own terms and against its own mission, there is no higher ranked journal.  What then is the basis for this unsupported statement?  The TF explains, “… few highly respected academics publish in Issues.”  If one accepts this statement as true, and I don’t, then I would ask the question, How can you be considered a highly respected academic and not have been willing to share your thoughts, ideas, and educational innovations with your fellow members of the academy?  For the last 20 years the most established and respected forum for doing so has been Issues in Accounting Education.  I think a more reasonable statement would be, Some highly respected academics have confined their scholarly activities to contributions to basic research, others to applied research, and still others to educational research.  A select few highly respected academics have published in two or, in a few rare instances, all three areas, and they are to be particularly commended.  I would hope everyone would agree that the statement of the TF is, at best, highly offensive, and should never have been the basis for concluding that Issues lacked quality.  “As a consequence, it has been difficult in recent years to solicit good editors candidates for Issues (and to a lesser extent Horizons) …”  The reason for the difficulty is that the Publications Committee confined their search to “highly respected academics” as defined by themselves.  A phone call to the current or recent past editors of either journal would spark a long list of highly respected academics (as I define them) who have demonstrated an interest in the area, and who would do a superb job.  But as was the case with the TF report, apparently the last place the Publication Committee would think to seek input from is from those of us in a position to know.

6. “Educational research submissions to Issues have dropped dramatically in recent years, and the focus has turned to teaching materials related to current issues.”  Research submissions have not dropped; instructional materials submissions have increased, and this is a cause for celebration.  Every so-called Blue Ribbon panel for the last 15 years has urged accounting academics to produce “teaching materials related to current issues” and we have responded!  The Publications Committee charged my predecessor, David Stout, with the responsibility of increasing the quantity of these materials.  Accounting educators have responded to calls from Blue Ribbon Panels, and editors have responded to the charge of the Publications Committee, and that is now being cited as a reason to eliminate the journal. 

9. “There are several other published journals in accounting with an education focus.  All of these seem to have the same difficulties with quality and quantity of submissions that Issues does.”  Here we go again.  What is the evidence supporting this observation?  Seems to whom?  Given the financial concerns of the TF that were previously noted, it is interesting that the other journals referred to are all proprietary in nature and are happily staying in business and earning a profit. 

The Process

As objectionable as I find the TF report and resulting Executive Committee decision, the aspect of this situation that I find the most appalling is the process that was employed.  The TF conference call was on March 3rd and the vote of the Executive Committee was on March 16^th!  Thirteen days start to finish.  The question raised by at least one member of the TF and