The 129th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association will be held in New York City at the New York Hilton Midtown and the Sheraton New York Times Square. Specialized affiliated societies and other groups will cosponsor sessions or hold separate luncheons, sessions, and meetings. AHA and affiliate events are summarized in the front portion of the Program, with details of sessions listed in the main body of the program. Noted below are sessions and events sponsored by Association divisions and committees. Session numbers are indicated in parenthesis.

Gigi Altarejos, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

For the 24th year, the AHA Professional Division continues its sponsorship of a workshop on job interviews. This year’s workshop is titled “Interviewing in the Job Market in the Twenty-First Century” (61; in conjunction with the AHA Graduate and Early Career Committee and the Coordinating Council for Women in History). The session is scheduled for Saturday, January 3, 8:30-10:00 a.m.; attendees will be divided into small interviewee groups, each led by a college or university faculty member or a public historian who will conduct mock interviews and lead discussion about successful interview strategies. Philippa Levine of the University of Texas at Austin, and the AHA’s vice president, Professional Division, will preside.

The Professional Division will sponsor the following additional sessions:

• The American Association of University Professors at 100: A Century of Activity in Defense of Academic Freedom (31; reception will follow)
• Historians Writing Fiction: Inside the Academy (63)
• Historians Writing Fiction: Outside the Academy (93)
• Measuring Faculty Productivity for Department Chairs (94)
• Choosing to Embargo? What to Do with Your History Dissertation (123)
• A Q&A with Publishers (124)
• From Problems to Solutions: Recruiting, Training, and Placing History PhDs in Non-Faculty Careers: Part 1: Building on Institutional Strengths: Career Services, Career Advising, and Career Placement (154) and Part 2: Faculty and Student Culture and Meeting Immediate Needs of Students (184)
• History in the Federal Government: Careers Serving Policy Makers and the Public (155; with the Society for History in the Federal Government)
• From Surviving to Thriving: The Challenges and Rewards of Practicing History as an Independent Scholar (215; with the National Coalition of Independent Scholars)
• How Can I Be a Historian in This Job? (216)
• Exploring Alternative Academic Careers: How Your History PhD Can Serve You in Diverse Careers beyond Teaching in the Discipline (243; with the Coordinating Council for Women in History)

With the AHA’s Departmental and Organizational Services Program (DOSP), the Professional Division is sponsoring the Department Chairs’ Luncheon on Saturday, January 3, to continue the conversation from Session 94 on measuring faculty productivity. Department chairs are invited to share experiences, discuss common issues, and receive encouragement from their colleagues. Incoming, current, and former chairs are welcome to attend. Tickets are $30 for chairs who are individual members of the AHA, $40 for chairs of departments that are institutional members of the AHA, and $60 for nonmembers. Tickets can be purchased in advance through the registration form or at the meeting at the onsite registration counters.

On Saturday evening, the Professional Division will sponsor a reception for public historians and anyone with an interest in public history.

The AHA Research Division will sponsor three sessions:

• Are We Losing History? Capturing Archival Records for a New Era of Research (1)
• The State of History Museums (125)
• Why Caribbean History Matters (217)

The Teaching Division is sponsoring 15 sessions, a two-part workshop, and an experimental session. The 15 sessions will be:

• Teaching and Learning the Great War in the Digital Age (2)
• Teaching Students Chronology: Strategies to Help Students Develop a Chronological Framework (3; with the College Board)
• Constitutional History in the High School Classroom (32)
• New Initiatives to Improve Teaching, Learning, and Assessment: Projects and Perspectives (33)
• A Thematic Approach to Teaching World War I (35)
• The Global Tuning Project: Reframing Historical Study in the European Union, Latin America, and the Scholarship on Teaching and Learning (95)
• Assessing Student Learning in History (126)
• Student Writing: Assigning, Reading, Commenting (127)
• Enhancing Undergraduate Student Success: An Initiative to Improve Student Learning in Introductory US History and Other Disciplines (156)
• Connection and Community: Teaching Family History in the Classroom (157)
• Many Lessons for Many Students (185)
• Whither the History Major? (186)
• How Teaching Became a Mission of the American Historical Association from the 1960s (218; with the Society for History Education)
• Teaching with Primary Sources: What Students Wish Professors Knew (245)
• What’s the Problem? Turning Teaching Questions into Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Research (272)

The Teaching Division will sponsor a two-part workshop/practicum, “Teaching the Common Core: Writing Arguments” (Session 4 will be on Friday, January 2, 1-3 p.m. and Session 34 will be on Friday, January 2, 3:30-5:30 p.m.). In the first session, presenters will demonstrate how to teach students argumentative writing at the 5th-, 8th-, and 11th-grade levels. The audience will engage in selected activities from three lessons with argumentative writing assignments. The audience will receive copies of all three lessons. In the second session, presenters will demonstrate how to teach students selection, use, and citation of evidence at the 5th- and 10th-grade levels. The audience will engage in selected activities from lessons focused on citing evidence. The audience will receive copies of both lessons.

The division will also sponsor “Digital Pedagogy for History: Lightning Round” (95) on Saturday, January 3, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 pm. Using the “lightning round” method of spreading ideas in the digital humanities, this experimental panel features one-minute expositions on innovative projects and cutting-edge ideas in digital history for teaching and learning. Five or more panelists will be invited to register via Twitter at the meeting. Audience members will also be invited to join the lightning round.

The Teaching Division will sponsor a K-12 reception on January 3, 7:00-8:30 p.m. The AHA invites K-12 educators to network with colleagues and share ideas with members of the Teaching Division and AHA staff.

The AHA Committee on Minority Historians invites minority scholars, graduate students, and others attending the annual meeting to a reception on Sunday, January 4, beginning at 6:00 p.m.

The AHA Committee on Women Historians will sponsor the session “Interpreting and Representing Women’s History to the Public” (187) with Louise Mirrer, New-York Historical Society; Karen Offen, Stanford University; Vicki L. Ruiz, University of California, Irvine; and Joan Wages, National Women’s History Museum. Maria Bucur-Deckard, Indiana University, will chair the session. The session will be held on Sunday, January 4, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The committee invites attendees to its annual breakfast, cosponsored with the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, on Sunday, January 4, 8:00-9:30 a.m. Maria Bucur-Deckard, Indiana University, will preside, and Jacqueline Jones, University of Texas at Austin, will speak on “Women and Social Justice: What’s History Got to Do with It?” The continental breakfast is open to all and will be preregistered through the registration form. Preregistration is urged; very few tickets will be available at the meeting. Cost: $35 members, $50 nonmembers, $15 student members, and $25 student nonmembers. Prepaid tickets will be distributed with the badge at meeting registration.

Following the breakfast, on Sunday, 9:30-11:00 a.m., the committee invites all interested AHA members to a brainstorming and mentoring session. Small groups will each discuss a different topic or challenge facing women in the discipline, including life-work balance, junior faculty concerns such as hiring and tenure, career diversity, adjunctification, and mentoring. Conversation will also focus on the mission of the committee going forward. In the face of both improvements and continued and new difficulties, what are the urgent tasks for the CWH?

The AHA Graduate and Early Career Committee will sponsor the above-mentioned workshop “Interviewing in the Job Market in the Twenty-First Century” (61; with the AHA Professional Division and the Coordinating Council for Women in History). On Friday, January 2, beginning at 5:00 p.m., the committee will sponsor its annual reception for graduate students and early-career professionals, who are invited to meet colleagues from other institutions as well as the Association’s leadership. On Saturday, January 3, 2:30 p.m., the committee will sponsor an open forum titled “Learning to Teach.”

Sharon K. Tune is director, meetings and administration, for the American Historical Association.

The Committee on Women Historians
Breakfast in New York

The AHA’s Committee on Women Historians’ annual networking breakfast provides an exciting and unique opportunity to meet scholars across generations working in all fields. We warmly invite women historians and anyone with an interest in gender history to this year’s breakfast.

The breakfast will be held during the Association’s 129th annual meeting, 8:00-9:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 4, 2015, in Central Park West room of the Sheraton New York. CWH chair Maria Bucur-Deckard (Indiana University) will preside over the meeting. The breakfast is cosponsored by the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.

The invited speaker, Jacqueline Jones (University of Texas at Austin) will deliver an address entitled: “Women and Social Justice: What’s History Got to Do with It?”

Explaining the focus of her talk, Jones writes: “Over the last few decades, scholars of women’s history have immeasurably enriched our understanding of the past. Yet we might ask whether or not the flourishing field of women’s history has advanced in any meaningful way the cause of social justice for women, in the United States or abroad. What is the relation between women’s historians and their ‘publics’? Is a broad-based knowledge of women’s history among people outside the academy integral to a more just future for all women? If so, what (if any) are the obligations of historians qua public intellectuals?”

Continental breakfast is open to all, but tickets must be purchased when registering for the meeting, or by calling (508) 743-0510 to add tickets to an existing registration. Prepaid tickets will be distributed with the meeting badge at the registration counters. A limited number of tickets may be available at the meeting.

Cost: $35 members, $50 nonmembers, $15 student members, and $25 student nonmembers. AHA members may bring a student nonmember to the breakfast at the student member rate. Contact aha@historians.org for details.

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