At its meetings held on January 6 and 9, 2005, the AHA Council took the following decisions:

•  Approved the minutes of the June 6–7, 2004, Council meeting in Washington, D.C.

•  Resolved to hire Lazard Company of New York to be the new financial investment managers of the Association.

•  Approved renominating Fay Gambee (United States Trust Company of New York) and Barbara H. Chacour (Brean Murray & Co., Inc) for the Board of Trustees. The nominations will be presented to the membership at the Business Meeting.

•  Approved the slate for the 2005 committees.

•  Resolved to have the Committee on Committees select only authors of books to serve on AHA book prize committees. This rule would not apply to the Herbert Feis Prize or the awards or prizes relating to film, teaching, mentorship, service, research grants, or fellowships, etc.

•  Accepted the wholly revised Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct.

•  Resolved that:

  • Generally speaking, the responsibility for public history, broadly defined, appropriately lies throughout the AHA, its Council, and committees. This is in keeping with the Task force on Public History’s emphasis on integrating public history throughout the profession. But in practical operational terms, in keeping with the sense of Council, the Professional Division, and the AHA staff, and in light of the Professional Division’s revision mission statement, particular responsibility for the concerns of public historians and the practice of public history lies with the Professional Division.

• Approved a Resolution of Thanks to the Task Force on Public History (see box on this page for text of the resolution and membership of the task force).

• Approved the recommendation that the Herbert Feis Prize be awarded for “distinguished contributions to public history” for the 2006 prize (which will be announced in January 2007) and thereafter.

• Approved the nomination of Andrew Lees (Rutgers Univ., Camden) as the 2006 Local Arrangements Committee Chair.

• Commended Philip M. Katz for his outstanding work on the Committee for the Master’s Degree in History and the Committee on Graduate Education.

• Approved the recommendation from the Task Force on Public History that the AHA consider initiating a project to research the structure of state-level history organizations and advocacy for history at the state level.

• Approved the recommendation from the Task Force on Public History that the Professional Division and the Council reopen the discussion about “what counts” in the work of history faculty with the goal of encouraging history departments to
  recognize a wide range of scholarly activities in hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions.

•  Accepted the resolution passed at the Business Meeting.

•  Approved nomination of Barbara Welke (Univ. of Minnesota) as the 2007 Program Committee Chair.

•  Approved Council committee appointments:

  • Pamela Smith assigned to the Research Division
  • Art Gomez assigned to the Professional Division
  • Anthony Grafton and Linda Kerber assigned to the Finance Committee.