Thank you to all of the History Division members who helped create a great 2021 virtual conference.  Despite the ongoing pandemic, our division maintained its high quality scholarship, while also continuing our division’s continued support for scholars, especially graduate students and newer faculty.  As we begin to work toward our 2022 conference in Detroit (hopefully in-person!), there are a few things that I want to mention as the Chair of the History Division.

First, thank you to last year’s leadership team, especially Dr. Will Mari (Louisiana State) who did a fantastic job as Chair for our 2021 conference.  Additionally, I want to thank Dr. Maddie Liseblad (California State University, Long Beach) our Second Vice Chair and Research Chair, who managed our paper submission process resulting in a series of high quality papers by both faculty and graduate students.  We also welcome Dr. Rachel Grant (Florida), our new addition to the leadership team, who is the Second Vice Chair and Research Chair for the Division.

Our 2020-2021 year in the History Division had many accomplishments including the expansion of outreach and mentorship under the direction of former Chairs Dr. Erika Pribanic-Smith (Texas-Arlington) and Dr. Teri Finneman (Kansas).  Dr. Pam Parry (Southeast Missouri State) assumed her role as the editor of our division’s journal, Journalism History, ahead of schedule in June 2021.  With the help of Dr. Keith Greenwood (Missouri) the division also launched its new website https://mediahistorydivision.com, which contains a wealth of content about scholarship, teaching, and division news that can be utilized by our members in their research and classes.  The website also contains the links to the division’s highly successful Journalism History Podcast, which contains a cross section of interviews about a variety of historical subjects produced by Dr.Teri Finneman.  

As we approach the 2021-2022 academic year, we face an evolving situation with the global pandemic that affects our lives, work, and society.  What that means for the History Division is that our goals for the next year are aspirational and tempered with the knowledge that things may evolve with the pandemic over the next year.  With that said, the 2021-2022 goals for the History Division are:

1.  Support our members in their teaching, scholarship, and service as we transition back toward in-person meetings in 2022.
2. Continue our division’s mission of recruiting new scholars into the division, and support young and seasoned scholars through our division’s mentorship program.
3. Continue our support for and presence at our regional AEJMC conferences, which supports younger scholars, especially graduate students.
4. Continue our outreach and engagement with the broader historical research community, and look for ways to create partnerships between those organizations and our division.
5. Explore the possibility of holding a pre-conference ahead of next year’s AEJMC conference in Detroit.

All of these goals are only possible with the help of our dedicated History Division members, and I appreciate the willingness over this past year of members’ work on mentorship, research outreach, teaching initiatives, and awards.  It is this work that makes our division a great place for scholars at any stage to share their work.

As we begin this new academic year there are a few things to note.  Our research panels for the 2022 annual conference are due by September 15^th.  Please review the call for papers, and submit proposals to our Vice Chair Dr. Maddie Liseblad at madeleine.liseblad@csulb.edu.

I also welcome any suggestions, questions or comments.  Feel free to contact me at mcmyers@vt.edu.  Once again, thank you all for your work for the division, and best wishes for the upcoming year.

– Cayce Myers