Nominating Committee Guidelines

Approved by AHA Council, June 4, 2016

1. The members of the committee will preserve the strictest confidentiality on the candidates and issues discussed at the meeting.
2. The committee should make an appeal for recommendations from members of the AHA Council and should encourage self-nominations.
3. All nominees advanced to the ballot must be members of the AHA. Nonmembers can be proposed by the committee, but they must join before the slate of candidates is made public.
4. Committee members should not nominate their mentors, other dissertation committee members, or former graduate students. During the discussion, full disclosure must be made regarding personal or professional relationships before nominations are finalized.
5. Committee members should avoid nominating colleagues from their own institutions for offices and committees for the year following their departure from the committee.
6. The Committee should avoid selecting nominees whose institutions will already be represented in elected positions at the time they take office. There are two exceptions: candidates for president or president-elect may be from duplicate institutions if that would ensure putting forth the very best candidates, and the at-large graduate student councilor may be affiliated with the same institution as a member of the Committee on Committees or Nominating Committee (but not the Council).
7. The sequence of selection for the presidency is a three year rotation: Europe, US, and Latin America/Africa/Asia/world.
8. Candidates for president-elect shall be selected on the basis of the following criteria:
   1. scholarly achievement and reputation
   2. sophistication about how organizations work
   3. past service, especially to the AHA
   4. public presence, which can be in different formats (in-person, online, etc.)
   5. ability to represent the discipline as a whole
   6. reputation as a team-player, with a commitment to the association rather than a personal agenda
   7. collaborative approach to institutional work
   8. ability to build a consensus within the Council if controversial issues arise
   9. commitment to devote time and energy to the job for 3 years as president-elect, president, and immediate past president member of Council
   10. an exhibited commitment to diversity
9. The committee will strive for balance and diversity in representing the many constituencies of the AHA. Among the factors that might be taken into consideration are:
   1. area of specialization, mostly geographically, but also thematically and temporally when possible
   2. type of institution or career: research universities, teaching colleges, community colleges, K-12, archives and libraries, public history, and other workplaces
   3. regions of US in which institutions are located (this does not exclude regions outside of US)
   4. gender
   5. ethnicity and race
   6. sexual orientation
   7. stage of professional development and/or employment status
10. At least one slot on the Council is usually filled by a representative from a K-12 institution.
11. At least one slot on the Council is usually filled by a representative from a two-year college.
12. A condition of election to the Council should be withdrawal from other positions, whether elective or appointive; the Nominating Committee should make this clear to prospective candidates for elective office. This policy would affect only future nominees, not present Council members or persons already nominated. (Approved by AHA Council, May 12, 1984)
13. At the end of the meeting, a chair for the next meeting will be elected by the committee from among the three members who will be serving the last year of their term.