S-USIH Minutes 3.1.2013

Agenda – S-USIH Executive Committee Meeting – March 1, 2013

Teleconference, 11:00 am – 1: 00 pm EST

1.  Officer’s reports (updates)

2.  2013 Conference Update (Allison)

3.  Planning virtual Annual Meeting of the membership

— time

— format

— agenda

Proposed new bylaw:  (Constitution, Article V, sec. 2:  “The Executive Committee may amend the bylaws by a majority vote….”)

11.  For the purposes of effective planning, the Executive Committee may arrange to have Conference Committee Chairs elected two or more years before the conference for which that chair is responsible.

Lora: yes

Paul: yes

Lisa: yes

Allison: yes

Ray: yes

[Per Article III, sec. 1, only the most recently elected Conference Committee Chair is an officer of the Society and shall serve on the Executive Committee.  Per Article III, sec. 10, the term of office of a Conference Chair expires at the end of the conference for which that chair is responsible.]

S-USIH CONFERENCE CALL MARCH 1, 2013

Present: Paul, Lora, Allison, Lisa, Ray

President’s report:

Spoke to contacts at journals—MIT Press, Cambridge UP

Will be able to put together a report regarding this information

Ad hoc comm. on public intellectuals group with Larry Friedman—Lisa, Andrew, Tim, Ray, Paul, ELQ

Do another conference call with Larry

April 25-27, 2013 is the next conference

Lisa provided an overview of how the conference unfolds—sounds excellent!

Intellectual History Newsletter is a model for our journal—Capper believes we don’t need to do a journal

Could we digitize issues of the newsletter?  The editors would like to see that happen but Capper does think it is digitized

Thomas Bender said the editors hold the copyright; Capper might be the last of those editors who has access to all the issues.

Should we consider partnering with MIH?

Paul made clear that we would like to collaborate with MIH

Capper replied, there is no need to create a second intellectual history journal

Editor at Cambridge UP said that MIH does not have an official affiliation and suggested it might migrate closer to S-USIH.

We could create a new type of journal and consider how the Baffler re-created

Are we hoping to compete with MIH or create a niche or fill a need or will all three potentially happen?

Lora: perhaps we do start small with a newsletter-like publication and begin to build from there.  Do we want to cause a rift among our senior colleagues?

Paul can create a discussion about the journal with a larger audience in the annual meeting.

Annual meeting: Paul has a possible addition to the by-laws for electing conference chairs two years out

Lora: can we create a rotation of places for the conference

Ray: I think we should consider approaching Harvard as the site for 2014 conference

LISA:

Working on transferring account information from Mike to Lisa so that Lisa can begin to use the bank account

Will begin to take care of invoices from Curtis and Ray

RAY:

Election calendar: March 30—candidates; April 15—ballots out; First week of May, elections

Annual meeting: specific topics to focus discussion in the on-line meeting

Future journal; revenue possibilities; white paper on digital scholarship; collaboration with Public Intellectuals; other S-USIH events

Proposal for longer terms for officers

Annual meeting on-line for March 18-20

We need reports from officers by March 16

Minutes to meetings on the site by March 16

Proposals to be discussed will generate the discussion

Perhaps use the three days to organize the discussion

LORA

Blogging controversy with Nils Gilman

Prompted Ben to outline posting and comment policy and that these post/comments do not represent the society

More daily bloggers are coming—they will start as guest posters and move on from there if things seem to be working

Mary Ellen Lennon might run for the chair pub comm.

Should there be a clear policy for the relationship between the blog and the society?

Each blogger is responsible for guest posts but we really need to be careful how posts go up considering how the blog affects perceptions of the society and the field

ALLISON

Nixon library fell through for a reception

CFP is out and widely circulated.

Deadline is June 15

People are beginning to collaborate on items for the conference