Dear AHA Members,

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

1. President-Elect (by rotation, Europe).
2. Vice President of the Teaching Division.
3. Two places on the AHA Council, which governs the Association. Traditionally, a faculty member at a two-year college has held one of these positions.
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.
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. Traditionally, a faculty member of a two-year college has held this position.
7. A member of the Committee on Committees, which names members to appointive committees, including book prize committees, standing committees, 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, particularly because the graduate 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: Boston College; University of California at Los Angeles; Columbia University; Cornell University; Indiana University at South Bend; University of Iowa; Kealing Middle School, Austin; University of Maryland at College Park; University of Michigan; University of Minnesota; National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; University of New Hampshire; Northwestern University; Ohio State University; Pennsylvania State University; University of Pittsburgh; Princeton University; Rice University; University of South Carolina; University of Southern California; University of Texas at Austin; U. S. Park Service; and Vanderbilt University.

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, SE, 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 with hotlinks to members of the committee.

Sincerely,

2006 AHA Nominating Committee:

• Clarence E. Walker, chair, University of California at Davis
  E-mail: cewalker@ucdavis.edu
• Antoinette Burton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  E-mail:aburton@uiuc.edu
• Olivia Remie Constable, University of Notre Dame
  E-mail: constable.1@nd.edu
• Neil Foley, University of Texas at Austin
  E-mail nfoley@mail.utexas.edu
• Jan Golinski, University of New Hampshire
  E-mail: jan.golinski@unh.edu
• Dena Goodman, University of Michigan
  E-mail goodmand@umich.edu
• Jane Gilmer Landers, Vanderbilt University
  E-mail: jane.landers@vanderbilt.edu
• David Northrup, Boston College
  Email: david.northrup@bc.edu
• Evelyn Rawski, University of Pittsburgh
  E-mail: esrx@pitt.edu