The History Division saw a 15-percent decrease in membership from February 2013 to February 2018, according to data from AEJMC headquarters. The division’s membership roll dropped 47 members from 315 to 268 during this time.

“While the downward trend is disturbing, we still have a solid core of dedicated, energetic members,” said Erika Pribanic-Smith, incoming head of the History Division. “Another source of encouragement is our place as fourth-largest division in AEJMC.”

Data provided in August 2018 indicated an uptick to 280 members for the division. History’s five-year membership decline was moderate compared to other groups. Communication Technology (-36%), Participatory Journalism (-31%), Electronic News (-28.5%), and Magazine (-27%) saw the biggest five-year membership percentage drops. The interest groups for Sports Communication (49%) and Graduate Students (41%) had the biggest gains.

The membership data was provided to members of an AEJMC president’s task force aimed at discussing membership trends. About 52 percent of AEJMC members do not belong to any division or interest group, according to AEJMC past president Jennifer Greer.

History Division Vice Chair Teri Finneman is on the president’s task force, which provided the recommendations listed below to the AEJMC board of directors.

“Regarding the History Division, specifically, I think it is very important for the division to be more active as a community throughout the entire year, not just at the conference, in order to be more enticing for members to join,” Finneman said.

Pribanic-Smith and Finneman hope their initiatives in the coming year will help, including an emphasis on young scholar recruitment, the launch of a Journalism History podcast, an increased social media and web presence, and monthly division newsletters.

“My goals include nurturing and maintaining our existing member base while enlarging it with more early-career faculty and student members,” Pribanic-Smith said. “Young history scholars will enable our division to continue thriving for many years to come.”

Preliminary recommendations for AEJMC from the Strengthening Our Community Task Force are:

• Dedicate a section of the website to resources just for members that is password protected. This provides opportunities to provide exclusive resources to members and to help them find resources that are currently available but not well known. For instance, being able to download papers from All-Academic.  You can do it -but few people know that, it is not intuitive how to do that, and requires that you have an account set up through All Academic.  Using your member login would assist in streamlining access to this information.
• New member packet – this would be electronic and would be sent to all new members from the president of the organization with the members’ login information. Specifics would be details about divisions/interest groups/commissions, competitions, conferences, teaching resources, organizational map, etc.
• Have AEJMC membership include membership to one division/interest group/commission. This is done with other organizations. There are multiple ways to pay for this and encourages people to choose a group and this allows them to learn about what the divisions/interest groups/commissions do with little risk.
• Rethink the DIG (divisions and interest groups) fair. Work closely with COD to organize. Assist COD members to participate, make it interactive, publicize it more, perhaps have It located in the exhibit hall to get more exposure.  Suggest each division/interest group/commission record and post a short video about the specific group and its mission, etc.
• Review materials that are available from central office that outline expectations/best practices for division/interest group/commission management. Suggested topics might include membership tools (communications, social media), leadership succession plans, the importance of bylaws, organizational memory (history, etc). Work with COD leadership.
• Work with President-elect Marie Hardin’s graduate student initiatives to further develop information/resources specifically for graduate student members/recruitment.
• Maintain a list of emeriti faculty, senior scholars, past presidents, past COD chairs, past division/interest group/commissions chairs to promote leadership opportunities, editorial board appointments, committee work, task forces, etc – as a means to keep them engaged.
• Improve website membership forms to include pop-ups that explain more about each division/interest group.
• Develop webinars for members – to use throughout the year. AEJ 101 webinar for new members, graduate students, etc BEFORE the conference, preparing for tenure, tips for non-tenure faculty, how to navigate the job search/job hub at the conference, getting your research published, editorial philosophy of journals, etc.
• Have more personalized communication coming from the organization. Have dedicated email addresses for the president, vice president, heads of standing committees, COD, etc and have the information about the organization coming from these email addresses rather than coming from HQ. Make these more personalized with usable information, not just registration is open, the app is available, etc.
• Use Facebook group to post JMC news from the industry, topics that can be used immediately in the classroom, new websites, videos, books, etc.
• Work with PFR standing committee of the organization and from the divisions/interest groups to post relevant news topics and resources on the AEJ website throughout the year.