Dear AHA Members:

The 2006–07 Nominating Committee will meet in early February 2007 to recommend two candidates for each of the following positions:

1. President-elect (by rotation, U.S.).
2. Vice President of the Professional Division.
3. Two places on the AHA Council, which governs the Association. One position traditionally has been held by a public historian.
4. A member of the Professional Division, which deals with the rights and responsibilities of historians, professional conduct, the job market, data collection, membership, and professional service prizes.
5. A member of the Research Division, which promotes research and new research tools, governs relationships with fellow professional organizations, establishes and awards research grants and fellowships, and oversees the American Historical Review and the annual meeting, including appointing the chair of the Program Committee.
6. A member of the Teaching Division, which supervises AHA educational activities and the Association’s educational publications, promotes history education, and encourages new methods of instruction and cooperation in the development of curricula and other teaching activities.
7. A member of the Committee on Committees, which names members to appointive committees, including book prize committees, standing committees, and grant and fellowship committees. It also appoints AHA delegates to learned and professional societies.
8. Three places on the Nominating Committee, which nominates candidates for all the elective offices and elective committee positions. Recommending nominees to the Nominating Committee is one of the most significant ways members can affect AHA policy and administration. The process is open. When making nominations, the committee tries to secure representation of all viewpoints, backgrounds, academic interests, all kinds of institutional affiliations as well as unaffiliated historians, and teachers at all levels of the educational system. In short, the committee aspires to have the Association governed by members as diverse as our profession.

To accomplish this goal, we need your help. Please propose yourself or any friends and colleagues who you believe can serve the Association in any of these positions. If you think the AHA has not adequately represented some constituency—as defined by type of institution, type of history studies, or personal characteristics—then please make a special effort to bring potential candidates who will do so to our attention. If possible, send a potential candidate’s c.v. and ask others to write in support. But even if you cannot find time to do so, the committee will take every recommendation very seriously and secure information itself. To help us do so, please send us the recommendee’s e-mail address if you can. Since the Nominating Committee (listed below) consists entirely of faculty from four-year institutions, we are particularly grateful for recommendations of people in parts of the profession where we have fewer connections of our own: public historians, community college teachers, K–12 teachers, and so on. The same is true of recommendations for the graduate student slot on the AHA Council, since the students we know best—those at our own institutions—cannot serve as long as we ourselves continue to do so.

The only restrictions are these:

1. A nominee must be a member of the Association. If you know good citizens in the profession who you hope will serve the AHA at some point, encourage them to join. You need not check on a potential candidate’s membership yourself; the committee can do so.
2. The AHA wants to avoid concentrating leadership positions in a few institutions. Therefore we will not nominate candidates from institutions that are already represented among officers and on elective committees. A list of those institutions follows. However, we maintain files of potential candidates recommended to us, so don’t let this stand in the way of recommending someone for future consideration.

List of currently "blocked" institutions: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University of California at Santa Barbara, UCLA, Central Oregon Community College, Columbia University, Cornell University, University of Houston, Johns Hopkins University, Kealing Middle School (Austin), Martin Luther King Jr. Research & Education Institute, University of Minnesota, University of Mississippi, University of New Hampshire, NYU, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, Sacramento City College, University of South Carolina, University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University, College of William and Mary.

Please forward your suggestions as soon as possible, with any supporting material you can provide, to the AHA Nominating Committee, c/o Sharon K. Tune, 400 A Street, S.E., Washington, DC 20003-3889; you may fax to the same addressee at (202) 544-8307; or e-mail, with supporting material as attachments, to any of the committee members. Please feel free to send general comments and make general recommendations about the Nominating Committee’s responsibilities to any of its members. A copy of this invitation is also posted on the AHA web site at www.historians.org.

Sincerely,

2007 AHA Nominating Committee

Neil Foley (Univ. of Texas at Austin), chair
E-mail: nfoley@mail.utexas.edu

Jan Golinski (Univ. of New Hampshire)
E-mail: jan.golinski@unh.edu

Dena Goodman (Univ. of Michigan)
E-mail: goodmand@umich.edu

Jane Gilmer Landers (Vanderbilt Univ.)
E-mail: jane.landers@vanderbilt.edu

David Northrup (Boston Coll.),
E-mail: david.northrup@bc.edu

Evelyn Rawski (Univ. of Pittsburgh)
E-mail: esrx@pitt.edu

Susan R. Grayzel (Univ. of Mississippi)
E-mail: sgrayzel@olemiss.edu

Laura Ackerman Smoller (Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock)
E-mail: lasmoller@ualr.edu

Steven H. Mintz (Univ. of Houston)
E-mail: smintz@uh.edu