S-USIH Minutes 3.18.2014

S-USIH ExCom Meeting 3/18/14

Present: Dan Wickber, Lisa Szefel, Ray Haberski, Michele Rosen, Mark Edwards

Absent: Cara Burnidge

Updates:

Conference

Mark: most of the work on plenaries—three plenaries

  1. Thursday 6-8: The Ideology of Teaching and Scholarship
  2. Friday night: Keynote with Lofton (rock music as intellectual history)
  3. Saturday (after lunch): What is Intellectual History? Jewett, Blum, Lofton, Jennifer, Wickberg
  4. Saturday evening (evening): Candy Brown, Mike McVicar, possible Molly Worthen,

Book exhibit: will be using the usual book exhibitor

Q: lunch or book award talk without lunch? Try to do a buffet.

Book discussion seemed a little unfocused

Perhaps a more formal author meets audience

Scheduling issue should be left a little flexible, let’s not lock in that time because it is dependent on the person who wins and when they can be there.

We could set a tentative date for Friday, but need to remember that people might not be able to make it on a certain day

Lunch was good because it drew people in to hear the book award talk

Registering for the conference involves a great deal of information and data

IAT at IUPUI might be very helpful with this

Ray, Mark, and Cara will meet again soon.

Mark would like to start sessions at 8am on Friday and 9am Sunday

Dining groups at the conference—Ray will make reservations at area establishments for the evenings of the conference—Friday and Saturday

 

Book Prize

Not a long established prize but through contacting of presses, we have 30-35 books in contention that includes most of the important books published in intellectual history in 2013

Dan will be on top of emphasizing the deadline for deciding on a winner, runner-ups, and notable

Henry May Graduate Student Travel

 

Hollinger thinks a great idea, May’s daughter thinks it a great idea

Public announcement and fundraising drive

Dan will write the letter for this purpose

Concern with the fund: do we have a permanent mailing address?

Lisa: people pay through check or paypal, but paypal is Lisa’s preference because it creates an infrastructure—could we do this through paypal

Dan: set up a portal through paypal to receive contributions for the May fund

Most of the people are pretty senior people who might not be comfortable with on-line donations

Michele: does not need to be same address as the tax address, so perhaps a post-office box in Indiana would be best for this particular situation

Once we get a PO box, we can put that on letterhead and the website

Officers for Next Year

Need a slate of candidates for next ExCom

About a month from now is when we absolutely need a slate of candidates

Who on the ExCom now would be willing to serve again

Lisa: will step down to work on a book and would like to return to the ExCom in the future

Need candidates for the 2016 and 2017 conference chairs

The potential for an executive administrator

Michele: open to running again, though has been in conversations with at least one other person

Ray will send out a call to membership to receive nominations for officers

Michele: suggested Ballotteer as a webservice for voting—dedicated to elections ~ $79

Draft revision to the governance and excom terms, for voting on at the next conference

Each of us will take up separate issues involving the governance structure—Lisa will write the staggered terms and Ray will write up the exec director position.

 

Outreach

A way to create a public performance for S-USIH to present at a public seminar in Washington DC

National History Center at the Woodrow Wilson Center, contact Eric Arnesen (GWU and NHS)

Michael Kimmage would be interested in helping us find a locale in DC to put on a public lecture

Digitizing IHN

Ray will speak to the digital humanities at IUPUI who seem interested in this project and have funding for this sort of thing. The IAT is also interested in the project.