Editor’s Note: Readers are reminded that this call from the Nominating Committee reiterates the first invitation to submit nominations that was published in the October 2009 issue of Perspectives on History. Members may find it helpful to read this notice in conjunction with that article, which is also available online at www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2009/0910/0910aha1.cfm.

Dear AHA Members:

The Nominating Committee will be meeting in late January 2010 to recommend two candidates for each of the following positions:

1. President-Elect (by rotation, U.S.).
2. Vice President of the Professional Division.
3. Councilor Profession, serving on the AHA Council and on the Professional Division, which deals with the rights and responsibilities of historians, professional conduct, the job market, data collection, membership, and professional service prizes.
4. Councilor Research, serving on the AHA Council and on the Research Division, which promotes research and new research tools, governs relationships with fellow professional organizations, establishes and awards research grants and fellowships, oversees the American Historical Review and the annual meeting, including appointing the chair of the Program Committee.
5. Councilor Teaching, serving on the AHA Council and on the Teaching Division, which supervises AHA educational activities and the Association’s educational publications, promotes history education, and encourages new methods of instruction and cooperation in the development of curricula and other teaching activities. A K–12 teacher traditionally has held this position.
6. One member of the Committee on Committees, which names members to appointive committees, including book prize committees, standing committees, grant and fellowship committees.
7. Three places on the Nominating Committee, which nominates candidates for all the elective offices and elective committee positions.

Recommending nominees to the Nominating Committee is one of the most significant ways members can affect AHA policy and administration. The process is open. When making nominations, the committee tries to secure representation of all viewpoints, backgrounds, academic interests, all kinds of institutional affiliations as well as unaffiliated historians, and teachers at all levels of the educational system. In short, the committee aspires to have the Association governed by members as diverse as our profession.

To accomplish this goal, we need your help. Please propose yourself or any friends and colleagues who you believe can serve the Association in any of these positions. If you think the AHA has not adequately represented some constituency—as defined by type of institution, type of history studies, or personal characteristics—then please make a special effort to bring potential candidates who will do so to our attention. If possible, send a potential candidate’s c.v., and ask others to write in support. But even if you cannot find time to do so, the committee will take every recommendation very seriously and secure information itself. To help us do so, please send us the recommendee’s e-mail address if you can. Since the Nominating Committee (listed below) consists entirely of faculty from four-year institutions, we are particularly grateful for recommendations of people in parts of the profession where we have fewer connections of our own: public historians, community college teachers, K–12 teachers, etc. The same is true of recommendations for the graduate student slot on the AHA Council, since the graduate students we know best—those at our own institutions—cannot serve as long as we ourselves continue to do so.

The only restrictions are these:

1. A nominee must be a member of the Association. If you know good citizens in the profession who you hope will serve the AHA at some point, encourage them to join the AHA. You need not check on a potential candidate’s membership yourself; the committee can do so.
2. The AHA wants to avoid concentrating leadership positions in a few institutions. Therefore we will not nominate candidates from institutions that are already represented among officers and on elective committees. A list of those institutions follows. However, we maintain files of potential candidates recommended to us, so don’t let this stand in the way of recommending someone for future consideration.

List of currently “blocked” institutions: University at Albany-SUNY, Boston University, Bowdoin College, University of California at Davis, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Colorado at Boulder, Emory University, Florida State University, Harvard University, Horace Mann School, New York, Houston Community College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Maryland at Baltimore County, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, University of Texas at Austin, and Vanderbilt University.

Please forward your suggestions as soon as possible, with any supporting material you can provide, to the AHA Nominating Committee, c/o Sharon K. Tune, 400 A Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003-3889; you may fax to the same addressee at (202) 544-8307; or e-mail, with supporting material as attachments, to any of the committee members. Since the Nominating Committee meets over a weekend (Saturday and Sunday), please provide home and/or cell numbers, if possible. Please feel free to send general comments and make general recommendations about the Nominating Committee’s responsibilities to any of its members.

Sincerely,

The 2010 AHA Nominating Committee

Lisa Forman Cody (Claremont McKenna Coll.), chair
E-mail: lisa.cody@claremontmckenna.edu

Carol Anderson (Emory Univ.)
E-mail: canderson@emory.edu

Marshall C. Eakin (Vanderbilt Univ.)
E-mail:marshall.c.eakin@vanderbilt.edu

Poshek Fu (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
E-mail: poshekfu@uiuc.edu

David G. Gutiérrez (Univ. of California at San Diego)
E-mail: dggutierrez@ucsd.edu

Page Herrlinger (Bowdoin Coll.)
E-mail: pherrlin@bowdoin.edu

David Newbury (Smith Coll.)
E-mail: dnewbury@smith.edu

Jan Ellen Lewis (Rutgers Univ.-Newark)
E-mail: janlewis@rutgers.edu

Julia Adeney Thomas (Univ. of Notre Dame)
E-mail: thomasjna@aol.com