Thank you to all who voted in our 2020 S-USIH election. We are pleased to announce that the full slate has been approved as proposed. We welcome Tim Lacy as our new president and Andrew Klumpp as returning treasurer. We thank Richard Cándida Smith, Publications Chair, and Pete Kuryla, USIH 2021 Conference Chair, for their ongoing support of the Society’s mission. And thank you to Ray Haberski, our tireless administrative officer, for continuing his diligent service. I am deeply grateful to my predecessor as secretary, Rebecca Brenner Graham, and to USIH 2019 Conference Chair Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, for all the ways that they furthered the Society’s goals over the years.
On the conference front: Hey, it’s 1 June 2020! Your abstracts on the theme of “REVOLUTION & REFORM” are due today. Please email the program committee ([email protected]) or reach out on Twitter (@ideashistory) and Facebook with questions. We will gather in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2022, with Benjamin Alpers serving as conference chair. In 2023, co-chairs Andrew Hartman and Ray Haberski will organize our annual meeting in Denver, Colorado.
We are immensely thankful for the vision and guidance that President Sarah E. Gardner contributed during her tenure. To mark the transition and look ahead, we’ve asked her to share a few reflections on her time at the helm of S-USIH.
She writes:
Let me begin by thanking members of the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 Executive Committees who responded with alacrity and good humor to my many questions and concerns over the past two years. Much of their work is behind the scenes. But they are the ones who make this organization run, giving their time without stint or complaint. Their dedication to the cause is exemplary.
I’d also like to thank the volunteers who worked at our conferences in Chicago and New York and those who agreed to serve on standing and ad hoc committees. (So many ad-hoc committees.) Rarely do these asks come at convenient times. It is the beginning of the term; finals are wrapping up; sabbaticals are around the corner; a pandemic is upon us. And yet. Our committees are staffed because rank and file members of the Society volunteer their energy and expertise.
Finally, I’d like to thank the members of the organization. Without your participation, we’d be a Society on paper only. But you don’t need me to tell you that. It has been my pleasure to serve you. I did not accomplish all I had set out to do during my term. What are dreams for. . .? But I did succeed in encouraging a culture of professionalism that will serve the Society well as it continues to flourish.
Best of luck to the incoming ExComm. I look forward to seeing everyone soon.
Sarah E. Gardner
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Thanks to all who voted! It’s an honor to be entrusted with a key leadership position in the Society.
The news, however, feels somewhat unimportant in our context. There are the stresses, risks, and tedium of our COVID-19 pandemic. By my count it’s Day 80 under stay-at-home orders. In the past week, furthermore, our cities—Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle—have been challenged by protests and rebellion, courtesy of racist events and police violence. The deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others have sent an already tense society on edge. Things are grim. I don’t know anyone who’s not a bit sad about our social, cultural, and political context.
Even so, focusing back here on this precious community of historians and lovers of ideas, we’ll keep moving. I’ll do my best for you. I’m very much looking forward to working with the new Executive Committee. We will work hard to handle our regular duties and whatever new challenges arise. – TL