One of the major activities of the summer months—and of the past several years—is the gathering of his torians from the fifty-eight member nations of the International Congress of Historical Sciences in Stuttgart, West Germany, in the last week of August. A later issue of Perspectives will carry a report from Nancy L. Roelker, who attended the Congress as part of the AHA’s official delegation and who served as chair of the AHA’s program committee for the Congress. Almost fifty US scholars participated in the program. In addition to Roelker, the AHA was represented by President William McNeill, Research Division Vice-President Mary Beth Norton, past AHR editor Otto Pflanze, Gordon A. Craig, former AHA president and first vice-president of the CISH Bureau, and executive director Samuel Gammon.
Much of the inhouse writing for this issue of Perspectives is done during Washington’s steamiest (climactically speaking) month, August, and therefore much of the Association’s usually hectic fall schedule can only be alluded to.
All three divisions, Research, Teaching, and Profession, have scheduled their meetings this month and will be reported on in December’s newsletter. Many of the items on their agendas are new. For example, a committee of the National Council for the Social Studies has asked the AHA’s Teaching Division to comment on teacher preparation guidelines now under review. Other items are carried over from past meetings, some ripening for decision.
The fall also sees the first meeting of the 1986 AHA Program Committee, though it is busy well before then. The Call for Proposals for the 1986 meeting has already been issued. The committee’s second and final meeting is usually held the following March, and the draft program reaches headquarters at the end of May. The summer is a busy period for the staff assembling it for press, contacting the over 600 participants for final checking of the information, and working with the affiliated societies on their own specialized programs. It finally comes off press in October for the December annual meeting. The whole process of putting together the annual meeting takes fifteen months, and it is “a grind.” But what a product!
The Committee on Committees also meets in the fall. This important committee makes recommendations to Council to fill vacancies on the many appointive committees occurring at the end of the year. The quantity (not always evident to our membership) and the quality of the work done by the AHA members who serve on these committees is impressive. These include four standing committees, sixteen prize committees, and a number of committees with special commissions. The expenses of these committees are usually very modest since most of their business is conducted through the mail and by telephone; the expenses of the prize committees are paid for by the endowed gifts earmarked for this purpose. Much of the Association’s activity as a learned society can be traced to these important but “low profile” committees.
We continue to be pleased with the growth of the History Teaching Alliance, which has received applications and enquiries from university and secondary teachers in all fifty states. The success of the five Alliance teaching collaboratives, begun last summer, has attracted a good deal of attention. The Florida Endowment for the Humanities awarded a grant to the University of Florida-Alachua County School collaborative and was sufficiently impressed by their evaluator’s report that they have extended an invitation to reapply not only for the Gainesville project, but for other collaboratives organized elsewhere in the state. In Kentucky, Superintendent Donald W. Ingerson of the Jefferson County Schools, whose teachers participated in an Alliance collaborative at the University of Louisville, has appointed an Instructional Improvement Task Force to bring university and secondary school teachers together to discuss increased cooperation across the curriculum. The Alliance is sponsored by the AHA, the Organization of American Historians, and the National Council for the Social Studies. More news from the Alliance (and news on how to become involved) can be found on page 6.
The Alliance’s first oversight committee meeting will take place in early November. The committee members consist of Stanley Katz, Paul Murphy, Donald Bragaw, Clair W. Keller, Maeva Marcus, and Harold Hyman. The chairman is Kermit Hall, and the executive directors of the three organizations serve as permanent members.
Added to the busy fall agenda of the Association is the meeting of the Joint Committee on Historians and Archivists, this year hosted by the AHA in Washington, DC. These meetings offer historians and archivists an important opportunity to discuss a range of mutual interests and, at times, to orchestrate responses. This fall’s meeting will hear status reports on legislation affecting NEH, NHPRC, and NARA; it will review SAA’s Goals and Priorities Proposal, and the findings of the Committee on the Records of Government (see Noteworthy, page 12), as well as 0ther items.
This issue of Perspectives carries an article by a historian, reprinted from Humanities, calling on his colleagues in academe to become more involved in humanities activities in the community. We are also carrying the first in a series of brief articles on “history in the states,” history projects funded in whole or in part by NEH-supported state humanities councils. We all know the value of the National Endowment for the Humanities; both NEH’s magazine Humanities and the existence of the state councils are two important reminders. The National Humanities Alliance, of which the AHA is a member, is encouraging organizations to celebrate this twentieth anniversary year of the NEH through special programs or events.
Several notable profile events already have been scheduled to celebrate NEH’s twentieth anniversary. The first was held on September 14 at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and featured a symposium on the humanities chaired by John Brademas, President of New York University. Prominent scholars, including AHA President William McNeill, and other public and media persons were invited to participate. The symposium will form the core of a special edition of Harper’s Magazine, one of the event’s sponsors. Plans were made for the symposium to be carried on the Chicago PBS station, with expectation that it will be edited and packaged for nationwide distribution to other PBS affiliates.
All of our members should be acquainted with Project ’87’s magazine, this Constitution: A Bicentennial Chronicle, published by the AHA and the American Political Science Association with the assistance of a grant from the NEH. Containing articles and information pertinent to the celebration of the drafting of the federal Constitution in 1787, as well as materials for classroom use in each issue, this Constitution is capturing the attention of a growing national, and international, audience. The following cable (excerpted) arrived in the magazine’s editorial offices via the United States Information Agency. It originated in the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia:
The post wishes to commend the Editors and Publishers of this Constitution for their work and inform them that their product is drawing much favorable comment from the highest levels of Colombian society, especially among those involved in administering the nation’s judicial system.
We, too, commend managing editor (and historian) Cynthia Harrison, executive editor Sheilah Mann, and the staff of this Constitution.
