March and April are the customary months for our spring-cycle Divisional committee meetings. The first to meet in 1986 was the Professional Division (mid-March). Because of the generous lead time, we are able to review its actions in Washington Notes (pg. 2). The Research and Teaching Divisions are meeting after our in-house deadline for Perspectives copy, and so a “blank” page was reserved for a “stop press” insertion of a report on the business of the two committees which follows.
The Research Division’s agenda was very full, as it usually is in the spring, with applications for various AHA fellowships, honorary membership nominations (every other year), and new and continuing Division business.
Thursday evening, April 17, was spent disbursing almost $18,000 among thirty-three winners of small research grant awards. There were twenty-seven Beveridge grants approved, five Littleton-Griswold awards, and the first Kraus fellowship award. The names of those receiving awards will appear in the September issue of Perspectives.
Friday was spent in a full-day meeting. With the assistance of a comprehensive options paper on historical bibliography and guides prepared by a committee of our affiliate, the Association for the Bibliography of History, the Division discussed the question of a successor to the 1961 Guide to Historical Literature. The Division (pending Council’s review) wishes to examine further a one- or two-volume guide-to-literature prospectus (the option preferred of the several examined). The Division anticipates for its next meeting an opportunity to review a series of treatments.
As part of its ongoing review of book and paper preservation efforts (to rescue acidic paper from the ravages of time and use), the Division will sponsor a session at the 1986 annual meeting on “Rotten Books and Holey Manuscripts.” The Division also received a briefing from Margaret Child, assistant director of the Smithsonian Libraries. She is serving as an informal liaison between AHA and the Council on Library Resources, which is studying preservation efforts.
Archival issues came up in a number of contexts. The Division has taken exception to recent Office of Management and Budget and Justice Department draft guidelines that will have a chilling effect (by extending the reach of executive privilege) on scholarly access to presidential papers. The ban on use of personal copiers at the National Archives and Records Administration, the subject of continuing complaints from historians, is being investigated. And the Division is giving friendly advice to a leading journalist in Washington, DC setting up a national security archive. The Division is attempting to ensure that standard professional archival procedures and practices are followed.
At the request of the Professional Division, the Research Division reviewed the Conference of Editors of Learned Journals guidelines, Guidelines for Journal Editors and Contributors (Modern Language Association). Previously, several journal editors in history were asked to review and comment on CELJ’s guidelines. Comments generally were favorable, with some concerns about the application to history journals and lack of coverage of new technology in publishing. Therefore the Division intends to invite the Conference of Historical Journals, an AHA affiliate, to study the need for a similar set of guidelines in the discipline.
Also, the Division is submitting names to the Council of the candidates for honorary foreign membership in the American Historical Association. We should add that they are doing so with a sense of frustration, as the entire list of nominees submitted by AHA members comprised a truly distinguished roster. The Teaching Division met April 25, chaired by the new Vice-President for Teaching, Patricia Albjerg Graham. It also welcomed new Council member Robert Forster and Sharon Harley, newly elected to the Division. Eugene Asher attended the meeting as observer for the Society for History Education (SHE). A portion of the meeting was spent reviewing past activities of the Division and long-term policies of the Association related to the encouragement and support of teaching. Over the next three years the Division will continue to move to strengthen teaching priorities within the Association. This year it will sponsor two teaching-related activities at the annual meeting. The Division will also jointly sponsor with SHE several follow-up sessions for history teachers after session presentations to discuss the teaching implications of new research. Presenters of papers will meet with interested teachers to discuss ways of incorporating recent research into teaching. Second, the Division will organize sessions of its own. It will contact the 1987 program chair to encourage more representation of teaching sessions in the annual program. In the past two years, the percentage of teaching sessions in the annual program has declined.
The Division is studying a proposal for a distinguished teaching award, and is preparing a plan for Council’s review in late 1986.
A series of regional conferences by the AHA in 1986-87 in Texas. Organized by the Texas Association for the Advancement of History, these conferences (at North Texas State University in October, 1986; Pan American University in February, 1987; and the University of Texas, Austin in April, 1987) will coincide with new state secondary school content standards emphasizing the teaching of the “essential elements” of history.
The Division discussed the progress of the NCSS-sponsored National Commission on History and the Social Studies in the Schools now being planned; the growth of the History Teaching Alliance from a report by Director Deborah Welch; reviewed the Division sponsored project on the moving-image media (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities) with Project Director John O’Connor; and received an update on the new pamphlet series in US history and the status of a parallel effort in non-US history.
The later portions of the meeting were spent discussing possible future initiatives of the Division and the Professional Division’s draft statement on ethics and professional standards.
