Historian Stanley N. Katz to Be Next President of ACLS

The American Council of Learned Soci­eties (ACLS) has announced that Stan­ley N. Katz will assume duties as the Council’s new president in July 1986. Professor Katz, who holds the AB, MA, and PhD in history from Har­vard University, is Professor of Public and International Affairs in the Wood­row Wilson School of Princeton Univer­sity, and a member of Princeton’s de­partment of history. He is also a visiting professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania.

The ACLS is the major privately administered representative of the hu­manities in the United States. Founded in 1919 by twelve scholarly organiza­tions (including the American Historical Association) for the purpose of speak­ing for the US within the Union Aca­demique Internationale, today the ACLS has grown to include among its members forty-five learned societies ac­counting for 250,000 scholars. Its con­stitution defines the Council’s mission as “the advancement of humanistic studies in all fields of learning and the maintenance and strengthening of relations among the national societies devoted to such studies.”

The Board of Directors, and one del­egate from each of the forty-five mem­ber organizations, make up the Council. The ACLS also sponsors a twice-yearly meeting of the Conference of Secre­taries—the executive directors or offi­cers of the forty-five societies.

The ACLS administers many national and international programs that sup­ port and promote humanities learning, including the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) that man­ages exchanges between the US, USSR, and most East European coun­tries; ACLS Grants-in-Aid to help schol­ars defray research-related expenses, including travel to records centers; trav­el grants for scholars presenting re­search papers at international meetings outside the US; fellowships for recent PhD recipients; support for foreign scholars engaged in research on US history and civilization, and others. More recently, the Council has initiated new ties and programs with academic officials of the People’s Republic of Chi­na.

Throughout its history, the Council has shown itself to be a responsive and moving force in meeting national hu­manistic needs. Among its many impor­tant roles, it has sponsored studies of graduate education, contributed to the enrichment of teaching and education, served as the major impetus behind the development of foreign area studies, and has facilitated the convening of international scholarly congresses and conferences in the United States-an activity that has made the Council known among humanities scholars throughout the world.

Perhaps the single, most important initiative of the Council was the creation in 1963 of the national Commission on the Humanities. The Commissions’ Re­port issued many recommendations, chief among them the need for a “na­tional humanities foundation.” The re­port’s influence was tremendous, and is credited in part with the passage of national legislation in 1965 creating the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities.

Professor Katz brings to his new posi­tion an impressive background in hu­manities scholarship and service. In his various capacities as committee mem­ber, trustee, advisory board member, committee chair, and director for hu­manities projects and programs, he has helped promote support for humanistic research and learning at the state and national levels, and in public and pri­vate-sector agencies and foundations. A recent major assignment was a term as Chairman of the Board of the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (Senior Fulbright Program), 1981-85. Trained as a US colonial historian, he is author of Newcastle’s New York: Anglo-American Politics, 1732-53 (Harvard, 1968), and is editor or author of many books and articles in his twin academic specialties, the history of law and the history of philanthropy.

Prior to joining Princeton University in 1978, Professor Katz served on the law faculty of the University of Chicago, and as a member of the history depart­ments of the University of Wisconsin and Harvard University. He has  been an active member of the AHA. He is an AHA representative on the Oversight Committee of the History Teaching Al­liance, a project jointly sponsored by the AHA; he is a past member of the AHA’s Research Division Committee, the Lit­tleton-Griswold Committee, and the Program Committee (US) for the In­ternational Congress of Historical Sci­ences.

Currently, the AHA’s executive direc­tor is a member of the ACLS Confer­ence of Secretaries; and past president of the AHA, Philip D. Curtin, is AHA’s ACLS delegate (1984-88).