Report of the 1998 Nominating Committee

On behalf of the Nominating Committee, I am pleased to report the results of the 1998 election for AHA offices. (Elected candidates are indicated with an asterisk.)

President (one-year term)

*Robert Darnton, Princeton Univ. (early modern Europe, 18th-century France, his­tory of the book, anthropology and cultural)

President-Elect (one-year term)

*Eric Foner, Columbia Univ. (19th-cen­tury American, American political culture, African American, American radical and reform movements)

Gordon S. Wood, Brown Univ. (colonial/Revolutionary /early Republic America)

Vice-President, Professional Division (three-year term)

*Barbara D. Metcalf, Univ. of California Davis (South Asia, comparative, Islamic studies)

Peter Stansky, Stanford Univ. (modern Britain)

Council Members (three-year terms)

Place 1

Robert C. Ritchie, The Huntington (early America, maritime, early modern England)

*Linda Shopes, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (late 19th- and 20th-century U.S. social and cultural, pub­lic and community, oral history)

Place 2

Jean H. Quataert, State Univ. of New York at Binghamton (German women, nationalism and state building, modern global)

*Vicki L. Ruiz, Arizona State Univ. (Chicano, U.S. women, U.S.-Mexico border, 20th-century American West/labor/immi­gration studies)

Division Members (three-year terms)

Professional

Gary W. Reichard, California State Univ. at Long Beach (recent U.S., U.S. political, American immigration and ethnicity)

*Charles Anthony Zappia, San Diego Mesa Coll. (U.S. labor, social, ethnic)

Research

*Richard L. Greaves, Florida State Univ. (early modern England and Scotland, Restoration Ireland, world)

Robert A. Rosenstone, California Inst. of Technology (cultural, modern, history in visual media)

Teaching

Bryan F. Le Beau, Creighton Univ. (pre-Civil War American cultural and reli­gious)

*Maxine Neustadt Lurie, Seton Hall Univ. (colonial America, American Revolution, New Jersey)

Committee on Committees (three-year term)

Gil Joseph, Yale Univ. (Mexico and Central America since Independence, agrarian, legal, U.S.-Latin American rela­tions)

*William B. Taylor, Univ. of California at Berkeley (colonial period Latin America and modern Mexico, American representations of Mexico, peasant studies, church and religion)

Nominating Committee (three-year terms)

Place 1

*Allison Blakely, Howard Univ. (modern Europe, Russia, comparative populism, African diaspora)

Maghan Keita, Villanova Univ. (African intellectual and medieval, African American, world, medieval, historiogra­phy, cultural criticism)

Place 2

*Donald Teruo Hata Jr., California State Univ. at Dominguez Hills (modern Japan, Asian-Pacific American, U.S. social/cul­tural, history of education)

Anand A. Yang, Univ. of Utah (South Asia, China, Asian American, comparative, social and cultural, world)

Place 3

Brian P. Levack, Univ. of Texas at Austin (early modern Britain and Europe, legal)

*Sara T. Nalle, William Paterson Univ. (early modern Spain, early modern European cultural and religious)

 

The total number of ballots cast was 3,237. Forty-eight ballots arrived alter the November 1 deadline and could not be counted. Survey and Ballot Systems,  Inc., of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, scanned the ballots and tabulated the results. Only 27 ballots needed to be hand counted. Some voters registered their opinions about can­didates, and the committee will review these criticisms and comments at its next meeting in February 1999. The committee felt strongly that the final vote should  not be published in Perspectives; it will be available in the AHA’s Annual Report and reported to the Business Meeting.

The Nominating Committee met in Washington, D.C., from January 31 to February 2, 1998. This was the second year that the committee had met from Saturday to Monday. Although some tele­phone calls had to be made by the chair after the meeting had adjourned, the new schedule allowed us to reach nominees more easily. We elected to continue the new schedule for the 1999 meeting, which is tentatively scheduled to be held on February 6-8, 1999. The chair of the 1999 Nominating Committee will be Leo Spitzer (Dartmouth Coll.).

Every year the Nominating Committee issues several appeals to the membership for nominees. In addition to soliciting nominees in the letter published in Perspectives, the chair solicited names directly from the present officers, who responded enthusiastically. We were very successful in having a large group of nom­inees and vitae provided by the member­ ship and committee members. The committee felt strongly that AHA mem­bers should know how much it appreciates their nominations, especially self-nominations. At least three of the 1998 nominees were self-nominated. We also retained and reviewed the vitae of mem­bers whose names had been submitted to the committee in previous years, but who had not been selected to stand for office. The process of identifying nominees was also improved with the availability of the AHA membership database at our deliber­ations. The major impediment to the process continues to be the search for home telephone numbers, which were often missing from the vitae, nominations, and the AHA database. Perhaps most dis­appointing for the committee was the dis­covery that some of the people whom we wanted to nominate were not members of the AHA, or they had allowed their mem­berships to lapse.

As much as we appreciate those who sent in nominations or indicated their own desire to serve, the committee needs more nominations from the membership. While the Association tries to assure that the Nominating Committee is broadly repre­sentative of the membership, nominations from the members play a critical role as the first step in defining and implement­ing the AHA’s mission.

The second step in that process is the election. There was little difference in the level of participation this year (3,237 votes cast) and last year (3,292 votes cast). While the number of votes cast during the past two years represents an improvement over the number of votes cast in 1996 (2,730), the committee continues to be con­cerned about the low rate of participation in the election process.

The Nominating Committee had hoped that the revised layout and content of the candidate biography would invite greater participation in the election. These changes included: (1) an introductory paragraph describing the nominating process; (2) a list of members currently serving on Council, divisions, and com­mittees and a brief description of their duties; (3) a list of the abbreviations most often used in the biographies; (4) limits placed on the number of publications and awards listed in candidate biographies so that members could identify more clearly those items that candidates deemed to be the most important in their career and­ most relevant to the position which they sought; and (5) more space for the candi­dates’ statements describing the relevance of their service and interests to the position for which they had been nominated. The candidates for president-elect were also asked to write a statement about the responsibilities, goals, and problems of the AHA and how they would use the presi­dency to address them. Members who wanted more details about any candidate could access the candidate’s vita on the AHA web site.

The 1999 Nominating Committee will continue to discuss ways to improve the election process, including soliciting nom­inations, monitoring the effectiveness of the candidate biography booklet, and increasing the number of members who vote in the election. The chair of the com­mittee will submit to the AHA office revisions to the “Manual of Policies and Procedures.” As always, the committee welcomes members’ comments, sugges­tions, and nominations. These should be sent to the 1999 chair, Leo Spitzer, in care of Sharon K. Tune, Assistant Director, AHA, 400 A St. SE, Washington, DC 20003-3889.

In its effort to understand the needs of the AHA and how those needs change from year to year, the Nominating Committee relied on the expert counsel of the executive director, Sandria B. Freitag. Her understanding of the Association’s mission and goals brought clarity and focus to our deliberations. The Nominating Committee reports for the past several years have indicated how Sharon K. Tune has brought immaculate order to our very complex process. The 1998 committee adds its profound grati­tude to her and other staff members of the AHA. I would also like to thank the eight other members of the committee and the members of the previous two Nominating Committees who gave me this opportu­nity to serve the profession. I am espe­cially grateful for the spirit of congeniality that allowed us so effectively to complete the nominating process and so adeptly to respond to the challenge of improving the ballot.