Editorial Note: At its December 27, 1992, meeting, the AHA Council adopted the following policy statement, which supersedes a 1974 statement.

1. The Research Division shall serve as the policy oversight body of the Association for book prizes. Similarly the Teaching Division shall oversee teaching awards, and the Professional Division awards for professional service.

2. AHA book prizes should be for broad fields of history and not limited to any field covered by a specialist society except by agreement with such a society.

The Council has established the following priorities for the development of new prizes:

a. More topical and thematic prizes, comparative in focus.

b. More prizes for service to the profession and in teaching. c. Prizes in specific geographic and functional areas not currently covered, such as African history and psychohistory.

3. No prize should be established by a living person to bear his or her own name during his or her lifetime.

4. Funding of prizes should include provision for costs of administering the prize. In general, new awards should not be created that entail expenditure of the Association's general funds.

5. Prize awards should not be split except under unusual circumstances, and there will be no honorable mentions, except in the case of the Asher Teaching Award.

6. Prize award committees should be composed of at least three members of the Association. With the establishment of a new prize, after an initial term, the terms will be staggered.

7. Prizes and awards should be announced and conferred in as public and formal a setting as possible—preferably either the annual business meeting or the annual evening session for the presidential address. A strong effort should be made to encourage recipients to receive awards in person.

8. The Council endorses all existing prizes in their present form.

Approved by Council
December 27, 1992