The AHA’s Community Action and Resource Exchange (CARE) program brings historians together to discuss shared professional issues and concerns, exchange ideas, and collaborate on strategies and solutions that strengthen the discipline.

CARE is composed of working groups organized to discuss and share ideas, resources, and guidance to issues or concerns of professional interest to historians. CARE groups are select, member-organized, and member-led. They convene on a regular basis to discuss and study their issues, establish and pursue explicit goals using platforms and support provided by the AHA, and share their insights with the broader historical discipline.

 

Why Participate in CARE?

AHA CARE groups are intended to:

  • Provide spaces where historians can identify, discuss, and pursue solutions to issues of common professional interest
  • Foster peer collaboration and engagement among historians, both within and across roles, institutions, and career stages
  • Generate resources and insights to benefit historians everywhere
  • Support professional growth through shared problem-solving and provide opportunities for professional service that transcend institutional boundaries

How Does CARE Work?

AHA members may apply to join an existing CARE group (to be listed below) or propose the creation of a new CARE group. Each CARE group must have at least one, and ideally two or three, designated facilitators to guide the work of each group.

Each CARE group receives:

  • A dedicated, private online community forum
  • Access to Zoom meeting rooms for synchronous meetings
  • The option to schedule an in-person working meeting at the AHA conference, and to have the meeting and participants listed in the online conference program
  • Support from AHA staff, as well as staff advising on how to best share outcomes and resources developed by the group

What Types of CARE Groups Can Members Propose?

CARE groups may organize around any professional issue or concern of relevance to the historical discipline, providing that 1) the group believes the issue or concern would benefit from the group’s sustained attention and 2) that their efforts would produce actionable insights. Example issues could include: changes in student enrollment in history departments; state-level social studies standards; challenges facing independent scholars; non-tenure-track precarity; or others.

How to Participate

1. Propose a new CARE group

Submit an application to establish a new group organized around a clearly defined professional issue. An application to propose a new group should include:

  • A clear definition of the issue, concern, or interest(s) on which the group plans to focus
  • A tentative timeline indicating approximately when the group anticipates finishing their work
  • A list of group participants who have already agreed to be listed on the application and to participate, if the application is accepted OR an indication that the applicant would issue a call for participants if the application is accepted.* (Either option is permissible.) Each group may determine how many participants they need, and if they want to limit who can join (for example, a group focused on an issue concerning two-year college faculty may want to limit participation to two-year college faculty)

*All group participants must be members of the AHA at the time the group begins its work.

2. Apply to join an existing CARE group

Existing CARE groups will be listed here. Please check back for updates.

An application to join an existing CARE group will be reviewed by AHA staff and the group’s facilitators. Proposals to create new CARE groups will be reviewed by AHA staff. Once a new group is accepted, facilitators will meet with AHA staff to discuss expectations and AHA support for the group’s work.

Participation Guidelines

  • Participants must be current AHA members.
  • Each CARE group will meet regularly to discuss and strategize, develop actionable insights, and consider how best to share their group’s findings with the broader discipline. Group facilitators must demonstrate consistent efforts to engage their participants.
  • The AHA will monitor group progress and offer staff support as needed and requested.
  • Guidelines for interactions within CARE groups:
    • Participants will behave in a professional manner and treat fellow participants with respect and consideration in any interactions related to the group’s work.
    • Any debate within a group should be civil and grounded in evidence-based arguments. Respectful disagreement is expected and encouraged, but all interactions should adhere to the standards articulated in the AHA’s Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct.
    • Participants agree to abide by the Code of Professional Conduct at Officially Sanctioned AHA Activities.
    • Participants should not engage within the group in any marketing activity that leads to personal or institutional financial gain. This includes, but is not limited to, advertisements of merchandise, books, or jobs.
    • Participants should not engage in the promotion of candidates for AHA elected positions.
  • To encourage frank conversation, any correspondence between participants, in any form, is not to be quoted or screenshotted or otherwise shared outside the group.
  • If part or all of a CARE group opts to meet in person at the AHA annual meeting, each attendee must register for the annual meeting.
  • Noncompliance with these guidelines may lead to the disestablishment of the group. The AHA reserves the right to discontinue any group at any time.

Timeline

  • The AHA will accept applications to establish new CARE groups on a rolling basis.
  • The AHA will cap the number of groups active at any one time when staff capacity is reached. Once staff capacity is reached, new proposals will be placed on a waitlist until space becomes available.

Questions?

Contact Hope Shannon, director of engagement, at hshannon@historians.org for more information.