Annual Report 1997
Statement of Priorities
The Association’s top priority is to continue its present
activities in support of research, teaching, and the dissemination
of knowledge, all the while assuring that these activities are on
a sound fiscal basis. These activities are to be led by the Association’s
elected representatives on the Council and in the three divisions
(Professional, Research, and Teaching); the agenda for the Association
is to be set by the president and vice presidents working closely
together. In support of this priority, the Association must
• ensure financial stability by expanding membership and developing
new revenues through corporate and individual donors, grants, and
projects;
• maintain staffing levels at headquarters so that work can
be efficiently completed and projects that have already been undertaken
can be realized;
• maintain the excellence and visibility of the American Historical
Review;
• continue current programs in broadening inclusivity both
in membership and in the subjects of historical research;
• increase contacts with other scholarly and professional
associations, with historian-colleagues beyond the borders of the
United States, with history teachers in settings beyond the traditional
core constituency of college and university teaching, and with the
general public; and defend the profession through forceful and effective
advocacy--such defense to include protecting access to historical
sources and research opportunities, defending jobs for historians,
resisting current pressures toward overreliance on temporary faculty
and ever more crowded classrooms, asserting the importance of both
new areas and traditional fields of new scholarship when either
threatens to squeeze the other out, and working to increase the
funds available to support historical research.
Unanimously approved by the AHA Council, January 2, 1997.
