At the January 1995 annual meeting, the Professional Division sponsored a session on the employment of historians as part-time and non-tenure-track faculty, and the division moved forward at its spring meeting with plans to expand that discussion to other disciplines and more specific plans of action. Council representative Mary Elizabeth Perry (Occidental Coll. and Univ. of California at Los Angeles) proposed a two-step strategy—a fall 1995 meeting of representatives of disciplinary organizations, followed by a larger conference in 1996 that would include administrators and faculty from institutions willing to develop model programs. The division endorsed that proposal and forwarded it to the AHA Council for action. For further discussion of this issue, see pages 9-15 of this issue of Perspectives for two papers based on presentations at the session and excerpts from “The Status of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty,” a report issued by the American Association of University Professors and endorsed by the AHA Council in January at the recommendation of the Professional Division.
Other Business
- Approval of revisions of the Employment section, the Statement on Plagiarism and Related Misuses of the Work of Other Historians, and the Addendum on Policies and Procedures of the Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct, all of which will go to Counci1 for action in May.
- Preliminary review of a draft advisory opinion on age discrimination.
- Review of two formal complaints and 12 informal complaints.
- Discussion of possible new initiatives to improve the Job Register and increase history departments’ commitment to appropriate search procedures.
- Review of recommendations from the Membership Committee regarding the role of graduate students’ in the AHA.
- Planning for a session on family leave policy at the 1996 annual meeting.
