American Historical Association

Dear AHA Member,

AHA news and updates for the history profession.

In this issue:

Executive Director James Grossman

Calling All Contingent Faculty

Task Force on Disability Survey

Perspectives on History Online – October 2010

125th Annual Meeting Updates

Annual Election of Officers

National History Center – Washington History Seminar

AHA Today – Recent history news

News from Washington – Updates from NCH, NHA, and COSSA

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From Executive Director James Grossman

This week marks the beginning of my second month at the AHA. I can already tell that learning about the world inside the beltway will take some time. I arrived in September with a reasonable sense of what the AHA does, having served on the Professional Division and Nominating Committee, in addition to a committee tasked with thinking about the organization’s future. Co-chairing the Program Committee of the Organization of American Historians, and serving on its board afforded me valuable comparative context as well.

But it all looks different on the inside. As a volunteer I was always impressed with the work of the AHA staff, and it’s a pleasure to realize that these impressions were on the mark. I am fortunate to have them as teachers as I move into this new world. University teaching, public history consulting, work in a research library, writing books: all of this helps me to understand the role of the AHA in our profession, but none of it resembles the actual workings of a scholarly society.

In my October column in Perspectives on History I sketch the experience of “settling in” at the AHA. I am grateful for the opportunity to build upon the significant accomplishments of my predecessor, Arnita Jones, and will be asking our members for their help in some new initiatives that I will introduce in future columns.

Calling All Contingent Faculty:
We Want to Know More about You

On behalf of the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW), the AHA invites all historians and other faculty employed in the contingent academic workforce in U.S. colleges and universities to participate in a survey about course assignments, salaries, benefits, and general working conditions. We invite participation from all instructional and research staff members employed off the tenure track, including faculty members employed either full- or part-time, graduate students remunerated as teaching assistants or employed in other roles, and researchers and postdoctoral fellows.

This is an exceptionally important study, as most of the data on the working conditions of the contingent academic workforce exist in large data sets that are only aggregated and averaged at the national level. This obscures the similarities and differences that contingent academic workers experience across different institutions and institutional sectors, geographic regions, and disciplines. The survey collects institution- and course-specific information to create a more textured and realistic picture of contingent academic workers’ working lives and working conditions.

With your assistance, this survey will develop a rich dataset to help CAW and its member organizations advocate on behalf of professional compensation and working conditions for the contingent academic workforce. To that end we deeply appreciate the time and effort given by all who fill out this survey. Individuals who wish to be entered in a drawing for one of several $50 book gift cards may include contact information at the end of the questionnaire, but this information will not be used to connect survey data with specific persons.

Please visit the following URL:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VNNNRVS

We hope you will fill out the questionnaire today, but if you cannot, please do so by November 30, 2010. Winners of the gift cards will be notified the following week.

Task Force on Disability Survey

The American Historical Association’s Task Force on Disability is gathering information about the status and concerns of historians with disabilities in order to propose concrete, practical solutions for as many of them as possible.

Please participate in our survey so that we may ascertain and assess the issues facing historians with disabilities in graduate school, on the job market, in promotion and tenure, in teaching, research and service-related activities, as well as overall functioning on campus. With this information, the Task Force on Disability will make formal recommendations to the AHA on how to improve accessibility and accommodations in our field.

Please complete the applicable survey:

These are confidential surveys. Your privacy will be respected and protected. Data will only be reported in the aggregate and no one will see individual responses.

Each person who completes a survey will have the option to enter a random drawing to receive a $100 Amazon gift card. Information provided for the drawing will not be connected to survey results. Responses should be submitted by Friday, October 22, 2010.

Perspectives on History Online – September 2010

The online version of the October issue of Perspectives on History is now available to AHA members (sign in to member services to gain full access).

In this Issue
After one month as the AHA’s new executive director, James Grossman, considers what it takes to settle in to his new position. Also starting off the issue this month, AHA President Barbara Metcalf reflects on women in the historical profession, and compares a recent picture of the AHA’s past presidents (five women) to a image of the original executive committee of the AHA (all men).

News
In the news section this month, acting AHR editors Konstantin Dierks and Sarah Knott describe what can be found in the October issue of the American Historical Review, Robert B. Townsend looks at the number of students earning history degrees in 2008, and Debbie Ann Doyle laments the passing of David Weber, vice president of the Professional Division, at age 69.

Teaching and the Profession
Teachers may be interested in checking out articles on Rubrics for History Courses (by Daniel McInerny) and Articulating Learning Outcomes in History (by Marianne S. Wokeck). Also learn The Ability to Recognize a Good Source from David L. Ransel. The Masters at the Movies series continues with an introduction from Robert Brent Toplin and Ron Briley’s article, Terrorism on Screen: Lessons from The Battle of Algiers.

Robert B. Townsend also contributes A Profile of the History Profession, 2010, while Leisa Meyer takes a look at health insurance for graduate students.

Find it all of this, and much more, in the October issue of Perspectives on History.

2011 Annual Meeting

Boston, MA
January 6–9, 2011

Pregregistration
Preregister now for the 125th Annual Meeting in Boston, MA, January 6-9, 2011. Members can preregister by logging in to member services and clicking the link to “Meeting Registration” on the main page Members Services page. For information on how nonmembers can register see this page. For the 2011 meeting, the AHA has combined the registration and hotel reservation process. After preregistering for the meeting, attendees will receive an acknowledgment of preregistration that will include information on making a hotel reservation. The registration resource center is up and running to provide receipts and links to housing.

Job Center
Are you on a search committee planning to interview at the annual meeting? Will you be arranging a private suite or using the Job Center facilities? Please log on to the Job Center page on October 15 to find all the information you’ll need for a successful meeting.

The Job Center offers:

Free tables
Rooms that can be reserved for $80 for a half-day or $140 for a full day (prepayment will be required this year)
An information center that will help your candidates find your interview location, even if it’s in a privately arranged suite

Questions? Contact Liz Townsend.

More Information
See the AHA’s Annual Meeting web page for more information on hotels, venue locations, registration, exhibit hall details, transportation, and the Job Center.

Annual Election of Officers

Ballots for the 2010 election were sent to all members in good standing on September 1.

If you need assistance with the online voting process or to change your preference (from paper to online, or online to paper), contact the AHA's Help Desk at (866) 720-4357 (toll free) or e-mail: ahahelp@electionservicescorp.com

Changes of address requests or non-election related questions should be forwarded to the Membership Department by e-mail or phone call (202) 544-2422 (ext. 123).

Please return your completed ballot no later than 11:59 p.m. on November 1.

National History Center

Washington History Seminar Hosts Ritchie, Bozo, and Elkins

The Washington History Seminar, sponsored jointly by the National History Center and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars with support from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Policy, has hosted three distinguished historians so far and welcomes Joan Wallach Scott (Institute for Advanced Study) on October 4 before taking a break for Columbus Day. The seminar meets each Monday afternoon at 4 p.m. at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. Videos of the seminars are available at online here.

Historian of the Senate Don Ritchie opened the series September 13 with some reasons Congress seems to work better for the United States than a parliament might. The following week, Frédéric Bozo, a Wilson Center Fellow from the Sorbonne, outlined the role French President François Mitterrand played in ending the Cold War and reunifying Germany. On September 27, Caroline Elkins (Harvard) reflected upon advances in historical understandings of the Mau Mau insurgency since the 2005 publication of her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya.

For October 4, Joan Wallach Scott, the Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science at the IAS, considers the complex and sometimes contradictory relationship between secularism and gender equality. Author of the seminal article, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," her most recent book is The Politics of the Veil (2007).

Call for Applications for the 2011 Decolonization Seminar

The National History Center is now accepting applications from early-career scholars to participate in the sixth international summer seminar on decolonization, which will be held for four weeks, from Sunday, July 10, through Saturday, August 6, 2011, in Washington, D.C. The seminar is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and takes place at the Library of Congress.

The application deadline is November 1, 2010 and due via e-mail at the following address: decol2011apply@nationalhistorycenter.org.

See the call for applications page online for more information.

AHA Today

Keep up with the latest information on history and the profession on the AHA’s blog, AHA Today. Recent posts include:

Calling All Contingent Faculty: We Want to Know More about You
On behalf of CAW, the AHA invites all historians and other faculty employed in the contingent academic workforce in U.S. colleges and universities to participate in a survey about course assignments, salaries, benefits, and general working conditions.
Annette Gordon-Reed Named MacArthur Fellow
AHA member Annette Gordon-Reed is amongst the ranks of this year's MacArthur Foundation’s 23 new fellows for 2010.
Docs Teach: A New Site from the National Archives
Docs Teach offers teachers access to over 3,000 primary sources along with tools to use them in the classroom.
Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Workshop at Annual Meeting
The National History Center will partner with the AHA’s Teaching Division and its Graduate and Early Career Committee (GECC) to present a workshop on “Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching” at the AHA’s 125th Annual Meeting.
BookTV: Writers on Writing
The Writers on Writing interview series from BookTV “gives viewers an insider’s look” at the writing habits of an assortment of authors and historians.
Also, see the most recent What We’re Reading (September 23 and September 30) and Grant of the Week (The K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award and Travel Fellowship in the History of the Academic Health Center & Health Sciences) posts.

News from Washington

In addition to AHA Today, the Association also draws on the efforts of a number of coalitions that support the Association's agenda to keep track of issues in the nation’s capital that will be of concern to historians. Here are news updates from some of them.

National Coalition for History

History Organizations Fight to Save Teaching American History Grants
In July, the National Coalition for History (NCH), and ten other NCH members joined forces with over 20 educational organizations representing other K-12 academic disciplines in issuing a statement to Congress and the Administration calling for the continued robust funding of core academic subjects including history.

National Humanities Alliance

Congress Passes Continuing Resolution Stopgap measure to fund government through December 3.
Recent Nominations Made to the National Council on the Humanities Three nominations currently pending with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
IMLS developing web-based census of museums Agency will collaborate with museum field in data definition process..
Library of Congress to Hold Preservation Symposium on October 20 "Preservation Roadmaps for the 21st Century: Understanding the Physical Environment" is first in a three-part series.
NEH Holds Digital Humanities Event in D.C. Participants see sneak preview of 46 projects.

Consortium of Social Science Associations

September 27, 2010Washington Update

Please feel free to forward this email on to a colleague or friend.

Contributions to this issue of Fortnightly News came from: David Darlington, Debbie Ann Doyle, Kelly Elmore, Elisabeth Grant, James Grossman,Vernon Horn, Pillarisetti Sudhir, Sharon K. Tune, Liz Townsend, and Robert B. Townsend

Last Updated: October 1, 2010