By Erika Pribanic-Smith, History Division Chair, University of Texas-Arlington, epsmith@uta.edu

The History Division has had a busy year, and the incoming leadership aims to continue the momentum we’ve built. To that end, the membership has a lot to discuss during our annual member business meeting, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Aug. 9 at the AEJMC conference in Toronto.

To make sure meeting attendees have enough time for discussion, the meeting format will be different from what we have done in recent years. For one, we will not have a lengthy recap of the previous year’s activities. Although we view the work we’ve done as important and we are proud of what we have accomplished, we have done so much that we simply do not have time to go over everything in detail. Instead, after voting on whether to approve last year’s minutes, I will give a brief summary of the highlights to start the meeting. Those interested in the full review of our activities are encouraged to read the 18-page (single-spaced) annual report that we submitted to AEJMC Headquarters. Clicking this link will download the report as a PDF. We also will have a few copies available in Toronto.

Next on the agenda, the membership will discuss several items up for a vote.

1. Clio. Last year we agreed to give the e-newsletter format a full year trial run before taking a vote on whether to keep that format or revert to the PDF format for our division newsletter. Members can view examples of both the electronic version (from May 2018 to present) and the prior PDF version (up to Spring 2018) at the Clio archive.
2. Bylaws amendments. The Executive Committee is proposing a series of bylaws amendments to outline duties and makeup of our standing committees, remove outdated language regarding communication between conferences, and clean up some grammatical errors. See the full amendment proposal here.
3. Podcast funding. Our podcast team requests membership approval to allocate $500 per year toward podcast production. Our podcast budget (about $1,500) includes website hosting, promotion, and transcription, which makes the show accessible to those who are hearing impaired or prefer to read than listen. We receive $1,000 annual support for the podcast from Taylor & Francis, and we have been making up the difference through advertising, but for accounting reasons, continuing to sell advertisements has become too burdensome. We will provide additional data and explanation at the member meeting.
4. Award event. We have more awards this year than ever before. Whereas two years ago, our big awards consisted only of the Book Award and Covert Award, this year we also have the Sweeney Award (introduced last year for best Journalism History article), Dicken-Garcia Award (introduced this year for best master’s thesis), and Best Podcast Guest Award (introduced this year). We moved the presentation of these awards to a pre-conference evening Awards Gala this year as a way to give them more prestige and provide more time at the member meeting for discussion of important issues. We will ask members to decide whether they would like to keep the awards at an evening pre-conference event in the future, have them at an awards lunch or breakfast during the conference, or return them to the member business meeting. (If you haven’t yet purchased your $5 ticket for the Aug. 6 Awards Gala, you still may do so by adding it when you register for the conference or by using this form, if you’ve registered for the conference already.)
5. Future convention site. The officers will receive a list of potential 2024 AEJMC conference sites at a Council of Divisions meeting on the afternoon of Aug. 7 and present them to the membership for discussion and a vote at the Aug. 9 meeting. See this page for more on future conferences and how they’re selected.
6. Next year’s leaders. Per our Constitution & Bylaws, the First Vice-Chair provides a list of nominees for open positions on the Executive Committee. Our nominee for Second Vice-Chair/Research Chair is Cayce Myers (Virginia Tech), who has been our Southeast Colloquium Research Chair for the past two years and has offered insight on other matters as well, including legal knowledge regarding Journalism History‘s copyright. Additional nominations for Second Vice-Chair may be made from the floor. We also aim to appoint Amber Roessner (Tennessee) as Teaching Co-Chair, Nathaniel Frederick (Winthrop) as PF&R Chair, Perry Parks (Michigan State) to Membership, Brandon Storlie (Wisconsin) as our second Student Liaison, and Robby Byrd (Memphis) as Southeast Colloquium Research Chair.

Following discussion of these action items, members will receive a paper ballot to cast their votes. (If we receive no floor nominations for Second Vice-Chair, we will accept the presented slate by acclamation.) While members of the leadership team count the votes in the hallway, Research Chair Will Mari will present our top paper awards as well as our new Diversity Award.

Finally, I will pass the baton to incoming Chair Teri Finneman, who will outline her goals for the coming year.

We invite everyone to join us immediately following the member meeting at The Friar, a Firkin Pub for our annual social, co-sponsored with the Graduate Student Interest Group. If you have students attending the conference, please invite them to come to our social, even if they are not presenting in or members of the History Division. The Friar is located at 160 John Street, an 8-minute walk or 6-minute streetcar ride from the conference hotel.

I look forward to seeing you at the conference. If you have questions before then, please reach out at AEJMCHistory@gmail.com