S-USIH Minutes 2.23.2012

S-USIH excom meeting: conference call

February 23, 2012, 4pm

Present: Andrew Hartman, Ben Alpers, David Sehat, Mike O’Connor, Ray Haberski (secretary)

Discussion of creating or not a five-year plan or a committee report for next excom

Andrew: discuss a final product of the discussion.  Would write a report and then the excom would vote on that report to give to the next excom.  Did Mike have a hesitation to that idea?  This is not binding, of course, on any other committee.  Just a review of what we have done and perhaps what would need to be done in the next few years.

Mike: Not call it a five year plan.

Goal 1: scholarly or public: we are scholarly and that takes precedence over all other ways to understand our mission.

Ben: public policy issues that come up that orgs can speak to

Goal 2: projects: move toward creating a journal

Ben: journal should not be controlled by pub committee but from a separate, longer-term editor of the journal; run the journal differently from the governance from the society offices.  Relationship similar to the AHR to the AHA or JAH to OAH.

Ray: the journal and the conference provide revenue and presence in the field

Ben: also provides an institutional home

Ray: we can do some research on how journals operate

Mike: not as important to understand whether it is e-journal or not

Ben: there are combos and stand alones

Andrew: the sense is that the group thinks we need a journal and to go with a university press

Andrews: John Summers is urging us to do a journal and likes our blog; and doing an intellectual history journal worth reading

Mike: we need to emphasize what we will do differently

Ray: the journal is the most important thing we need to do it seems to create the financial stability we need

Ben: need to take care of the blog so we don’t lose the people who know us through it

Ben: Radical History Review funded itself through t-shirt sales; affiliating with big orgs is a way to increase presence and revenue

Andrew: need at least three years to affiliate with the AHA; ACLS needs five years in existence and money to join.

Ray: the journal is the idea that best animates our mission and is what we most want to do.

Andrew: will talk to John Summers and talk to the contact at MIT press

Ben: contacts at the SCMS at OU, though the journal is at UT press

Andrew: his colleague is editor of Gilded Age/Progressive Era

Mike: speak to Jeremy Varen who helped start the Sixties: A Journal

Ben: conference chair election?

Mike: excom can always have the current conference chair be present at the meetings

Ben: how does the membership fee affect the journal?

David: change the bylaws to allow a new fee with the journal

David: move elections up four months so that the conference chair has more time for the conference in following year

Mike: the president of the AHA is set up to have the president, past president and president-elect

David: have elections in January, results Feb 1, all people take office in June.

Mike: we don’t have money to plan conferences running concurrently

Andrew: but that would happen only once

David: the early election of conference chair would give some time to go to CUNY rather than waiting.

Andrew: alert new excom to this issue and they could change the election cycle

David: Andrew just needs make the next excom aware of the conference planning issues

Mike: write a collective ex report with strategic plans

David: have each member write a final report from their offices

Andrew: summarize what has been done and what we see needs to be done

Mike: we have set a precedent by running these excom meetings

Ben: move elections back and invite newly elected officers to be on the conference calls

Mike: overlapping terms sounds like a good idea but might be too much to shoot for just now

David: AHA conference cannot be west of the Miss. More than once every five years because they lose so much money

Andrew: we will get the same size program, unlike the AHA which gets people who just attend when they are in NYC

Andrew: another meeting prior to ballots, need amendment for a standing committee on the book prize.  Also look into information gleaned for the journal, need something in place before the excom ends.

Andrew: confirmed the next meeting March 28, 11am est

Mike: will write the amendment to the constitution about the book prize

Andrew: send him all changes and suggestions for discussion and he will distribute them to the excom all at once.

Meeting adjourned: 5:12est