Council Decisions, January 2007

At its meetings in Atlanta on January 4 and 7, 2007 (during the 121st annual meeting), the AHA's Council reached the following decisions:

• Recommended (for approval at the Business Meeting) the reappointment of Roger Liddell of Ingalls and Snyder and C. Evan Stewart of Zuckerman Spaeder for five-year terms on the AHA's Board of Trustees, which oversees AHA's investments. The Business Meeting approved the reappointments.
• Accepted the independent auditors' report on the AHA's finances for fiscal 2005–2006.
• Approved the Conflict of Interest Statement for officers and employees as recommended by the auditor.
• Approved, as amended, official Resource Sharing Agreements with the National Coalition for History and the National History Center.
• Charged the Finance Committee to review ongoing financial oversight arrangements of the Association.
• Approved appointments as recommended by the Committee on Committees (see the complete list of committee members).
• Agreed that the should again meet jointly with the Professional, Teaching, and Research Divisions in June 2007 and that together they would further discuss a proposed constitutional change relating to the Council/Division structure.
• Approved the recommendation of the Teaching Division to endorseThe Next Generation of History Teachers; A Challenge to Departments of History at American Colleges and Universities, a white paper prepared by Edward Ayers (Univ. of Virginia). The document is available online at www.historians.org/pubs/free/historyteaching
• Approved the Teaching Division's request to support the addition of history—both U.S. and world—to the areas of assessment and accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act (see text of resolution).
• Approved the text of the open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, concerning Dr. Waskar Ari.
• Approved the Guiding Principles on Taking a Public Stance proposed by the Professional Division (see text of guiding principles).
• Approved the Guidelines for Job Offers in History, proposed by the Professional Division. (seetext of guidelines).
• Approved the statement proposed by the Professional Division on the 2006 Florida Education Bill. (see text of statement).
• Approved appointment of Felice Lifshitz (Florida International Univ.) as the chair of the 2009 Annual Meeting Program Committee.
• Accepted the resolution adopted at the Business Meeting on opposing the use of "Free Speech Zones" to Restrict Academic Freedom (see text of resolution).
• Referred the resolution recommending that the AHA subscribe to the Informed Meetings Exchange (INMEX) to the executive director for further investigation prior to making a recommendation to the Council for its June 2007 meeting.
• Accepted the resolution on "United States Government Practices Inimical to the Values of the Historical Profession" adopted at the Business Meeting, but because the resolution was not submitted before the November 1 Perspectives publication deadline, and also because of its intrinsic importance, agreed that its acceptance should be ratified by a majority of those voting in an e-mail ballot of the membership (see text of resolution in the February 2007 issue of Perspectives).
• Appointed Council members Frank Malaret to the Teaching Division and Larry Wolff to the Research Division.
• Approved the reinstatement of the category "Psychohistory" to the taxonomic list of research specializations.