By Membership Co-Chairs Maddie Liseblad, Middle Tennessee State University, madeleine.liseblad@mtsu.edu, Rachel Grant, University of Florida, rgrant@jou.ufl.edu, and Perry Parks, Michigan State University, parksp@msu.edu
As your 2019-2020 committee, we’d like to share our primary goals for this year. First and foremost, our overall goal is to grow our membership. We will continue our outreach work as opportunities arise. For example, when nonmembers present media history research at conferences, we reach out and invite them to join our division.
Our newsletter – eClio – is produced about every six weeks. It generally includes some type of a leadership column, member news, quick member spotlights, a Generation of Scholars article, and a write-up in question and answer format with a book author. We also try to include other news that may be of interest to our membership.
To make the newsletter workload lighter, we’ve divided up our tasks. Rachel Grant is handling member news and book Q&As, Perry Parks is coordinating the member mini-profiles, and Maddie Liseblad does the overall coordination and Clio send-out. The newsletter wouldn’t be possible without input from our members. If you have news and accomplishments to share, or want to be considered for a book Q&A, please send Grant an email at rgrant@jou.ufl.edu. Parks is always looking for members to highlight and can be reached at parksp@msu.edu. If you have article ideas that do not fit those categories, please don’t hesitate to send Liseblad an email at madeleine.liseblad@mtsu.edu.
In between the newsletters, articles are posted on our division’s website. If you aren’t familiar with the site, it’s https://aejmc.us/history/. The website has several sections you may want to explore, including research, teaching, Clio newsletters, and Journalism History. You will also find a listing for the division’s Executive Committee and other links on the site.
You are also encouraged to visit the division’s Facebook and Twitter pages on a regular basis. News items are posted more frequently on those sites.
We don’t want to forget to highlight the work that Bailey Dick and Brandon Storlie do as a part of our committee. They will share details about the division’s student outreach in a column later this year, but their regular activities include the important Generations of Scholars article for Clio.
Lastly, you – our members – are our division’s best asset. You are also in many ways the division’s best cheerleaders. If you run into others passionate about media history, please invite them to join our great division. We all know what a terrific and friendly group we are, but it doesn’t hurt to spread that message. There is always room for growth. Let’s shoot for a larger division membership number in 2020.