AHA Offers Relief for Unemployed/Underemployed Members (August 2020)

To assist un/underemployed historians who have been financially affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, the AHA has established the Historians Relief Fund, which will provide $500 emergency grants to AHA members that can be used to cover a loss of income related to the crisis.

Applications are due August 31, and recipients will be selected by lottery. To apply for this funding, AHA members can log into their MY AHA page at historians.org/myaha and click “Available Awards” in the Awards, Grants, and Fellowships section. 

The AHA will continue to solicit donations to the Historians Relief Fund and plans to hold an additional lottery selection in late November, pending the availability of funds. Note to applicants: If you are not selected in the September lottery your application will be held over for the November drawing. If your employment situation changes so that you become ineligible, please let us know.

AHA Member Receives Research Award (July 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Rev. Steven Avella (Marquette Univ.), who was recently awarded the 2020 Haggerty Research Award. This is Marquette University's highest honor for research, and is awarded in recognition of scholarly distinction. 

AHA Executive Director Interviewed in The Tennessean (July 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was interviewed in The Tennessean's web segment on “The Confederate Reckoning: Why monuments and symbols are being removed,” by Mike Fant (July 30, 2020). 

Opening Brief Submitted in ICE Lawsuit (July 2020)

On July 24, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the American Historical Association, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations submitted a plaintiff's opening brief in support of their suit against the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) and signed declarations attesting to their standing to bring the lawsuit.

AHA Announces Historians Relief Fund (July 2020)

The upheavals wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic have led to significant economic hardship for many in the historical community. Numerous non-tenure-track university faculty, public historians, and historians in other professional fields find themselves losing all or substantial parts of their income. To help mitigate these circumstances, the AHA Council has established the Historians Relief Fund for unemployed and underemployed AHA members. The Historians Relief Fund will provide $500 grants for applicants selected by a lottery system, with applications opening in early August.

To maximize the number of grants we can provide, the AHA is seeking donations to support the Historians Relief Fund. Please donate at www.historians.org/donatenow and click on “Historians Relief Fund” to direct your donation to the fund. Donations must be received by September 1 to be used for this round of funding. If you have any questions about the fund, email us at donate@historians.org.

AHA Issues Statement on Department Closures and Faculty Firings (July 2020)

The AHA issued the Statement on Department Closures and Faculty Firings urging administrators to “respect the established principles and procedures of faculty governance and consult with faculty from all disciplines at their institution” before making budgetary decisions. The AHA emphasized that “history education must retain its vibrancy and institutional integrity” and that closing or decimating history departments “comes at immense cost to students and to colleges and universities themselves, and to society as a whole.”

26 scholarly societies have cosigned this statement.

AHA Condemns Tenured Faculty Layoffs at Canisius (July 2020)

The AHA sent a letter to the president and members of the board of trustees of Canisius College expressing grave concern about the college’s dramatic restructuring of academic departments, drastic reduction of the curriculum in history, and termination of three tenured faculty members. The AHA urged the college to reconsider its course of action, asserting that the college’s plan “diminishes the quality of a Canisius degree” and “identifies the college with employment practices that have no place in American higher education.”

AHA Issues Statement on Historical Research during COVID-19 (July 2020)

The AHA has issued a statement urging universities to make a series of specific accommodations for faculty and students whose research has been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Sustaining historical research during the COVID-19 crisis,” the statement argues, “requires flexible and innovative approaches to the conduct of research itself as well as to how we gauge productivity.” Recommendations include deferral and extension of research funding awards, increased access to online databases, support for research that does not require on-site research, and incorporation of virtual scholarship in professional evaluations.

46 scholarly organizations have co-signed this statement to date.

AHA Member Wins Book Prize (July 2020)

Lydia Barnett (Northwestern Univ.) won the 2019 Morris D. Forkosch Prize awarded by the Journal of the History of Ideas for her book, After the Flood: Imagining the Global Environment in Early Modern Europe. The prize is awarded for the best first book in intellectual history. 

2020 AHA Election Results Announced (July 2020)

In the 2020 balloting for officers and committee members of the American Historical Association, AHA members elected James H. Sweet (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison) as the next president-elect. See the full list of historians who will begin serving in January 2021.