S-USIH Business Meeting Minutes 2017
Executive Committee Meeting
28 October 2017, 11:50AM
Dallas, Texas
Attending
Kevin Schultz, Leah Gordan, Rebecca Brenner, Richard Candida Smith, Lora Burnett, Tim Lacy, Lillian Calles Barger, Ben Alpers, Andrew Hartman, Sarah Georginia, Andrew Seal, Ray Haberski, Andrew Klumpp, Paul Croce
Agenda
2017 Conference chair’s report
President’s Report
Treasurer’s report
Secretary’s report
Publications report
2018 Conference chair’s report
Conference Chair’s Report
Lora Burnett:
Covering Annette Gordon-Reed’s travel
Two requests
- Ask that we ensure conference against cancellation
- Reasons
- State laws
- For instance, California cancelled reimbursement to Texas because bathroom bill
- $50,000 at risk
- State laws
- Reasons
- Because learning curve
- 2018 conference: two options
- Outsource catering
- Use the same person every day
“I haven’t seen one unhappy discontented person here”
Ben & Tim & Kevin: Is insurance easy?
Lillian: Insurance is cheap
Collective agreement that Ray shouldn’t take charge of this unless we pay him
President’s Report
Kevin Schultz:
The new website is active, and it is the most expensive non-conference expenditure
Asks for ideas: repository for older intellectual history journals, Radical History Review, and podcasts
Andrew Seal: Maybe include comprehensive exam lists on the website, as well as the top five new books
Ben: Maybe include bibliographies on the website
Sara: Should we have a Twitter account?
Tim: Lost previous S-USIH Twitter account
Sara: Small or big access to the USIH Twitter; what should we tweet
Tim: African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) Twitter account does well
Sara: Sara volunteers to facilitate the S-USIH Twitter account
Kevin: Second year of Dorothy Ross prize
Book award: Need a senior chair and ask broader range of people to serve on award committees
Ben: Couldn’t donate to Henry F. May Fund with a credit card
Kevin: Wild Apricot was easiest and least expensive
Rebecca: Loves Wild Apricot
Kevin: Maybe have 2-year terms instead of 1 year
Ben: Stagger terms
Treasurer’s Report
Leah Gordon:
S-USIH is doing well financially
Possible rebate from hotel
$40,000 in bank
$20,000 of that goes to hotel
Secretary’s Report
Rebecca Brenner
Switched to new website
171+ registrants
509 active members
Publications Report
Richard Candida Smith:
Main thing so far was that newsletters were half of anticipated cost
There is organization news
Committee on diversity
Reintroduced member books in the newsletter, which was labor-intensive. Might add major research articles
Kevin: Need new About Us and history and minutes on the website
Ben: Just light editing on the blog
Tim: Lillian and Robert were the best co-editors of book reviews
Richard: Wants to re-launch the book reviews
Tim: Reinforces the importance of book reviews
Kevin: No formal journal for various reasons
2018 Conference Update
Tim Lacy:
Signed hotel for November 8-11, 2018
Talking to publishing presses
Richard: What is the number of rooms
Leaning toward only panel submissions
Andrew Seal: Solve the USIH and American Society for Legal History (ASLH) overlap
Sara: Might combine USIH with ASLH in 2020
Meeting adjourned 1:19PM