Minutes of the American Society of Church History annual business meeting

Church History, June, 2007

January 6, 2007, 5:00-6:00 p.m.

Hyatt Regency Atlanta

1. Jan Shipps called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. Eighty-five persons were in attendance. The Society gained a significant number of new members this past year, especially graduate students, in contrast to other societies that have seen a "graying" of their memberships. This is attributable in part to the free membership offer and to online signup.

The Council will be recommending holding of the spring meeting outside of the boundaries of the United States. Also, in the interest of not being provincial in study of Christianity, World Christianity is a future focus of conferences and the journal. Finally, next year's Distinguished Career Award for 2008 is John F. Wilson of Princeton University.

2. Executive Secretary's report.

Minutes of last year's meeting were approved.

New members totaled 472 members and 23 subscribers. Current total is 3657.

Website update. Membership cycles will no longer begin on the day on which an individual signs up, but rather will be calendrical, beginning January 1. Member signup page now includes donation and bequest function. Members were reminded to check their junk mail for ASCH memos because aggressive spare filters will sometimes prevent email from going into regular inboxes.

Dues for 2007 have been increased, according to last year's Council vote, by $10. A query from the floor asked why they were raised, given good performance of funds and healthy budget. The dues had not been raised for several years, and when the vote was taken membership collection was down, necessitating withdrawal of funds from investments.

Council approved a revised Mission Statement, which will be posted soon on the website and printed in ASCH literature.

3. Church History report.

John Corrigan and Amanda Porterfield expressed thanks to the membership for the quality of submissions. The number of submissions has increased significantly, as has the spread of topics, areas, and periods. They are still looking for more articles addressing non-European and non-American topics, for example African and American Christianity. A second extended article is coming out this year, following the inaugural article in 2006.

When the journal transitioned from Duke to FSU, there was a recommendation by Steve Stein's committee to switch publishers to an academic humanities press. The Council has approved a proposal from Cambridge University Press. Problems with Cadmus drive this, as well as the attractiveness of Cambridge in terms of visibility, marketing, increased subscriptions, and higher quality printing. The revenue stream from Cambridge will be significantly higher: $160,000 or more over five years.

4. Committee reports

A. Membership. Keith Francis reported an increase in membership and subscriptions, including 300 graduate students added during the past year--over 25 percent of the entire membership. The Membership committee will be instituting new policies to serve this constituency. About one third of free graduate student members go on to become regular members, so it is important to cultivate them.

Many online profiles lack much vital information. Members should update and complete their personal information. Members will be contacted with reminders.

The ASCH quarterly newsletter has been resurrected and is now available through the website. This will be an important means of keeping in contact and learning about the Society's latest activities.

The website is operating as a clearinghouse for conference information, for example room sharing and child care. The Membership Committee will be working on more ways to provide useful services.

Another issue is regular contact with independent scholars. Ray Kibler reported that a call has been issued to scholars outside of academia to be involved in regional conferences, the chat room, and so forth. There have been nearly 35 responses to his plea. These scholars cannot make it to conferences because of time and money constraints. Rev. Kibler will be exploring the possibility of regional one-day meetings, beginning perhaps with a meeting for southern California members. A further means of helping members in this category is providing travel grants.

An increasing number of members live outside of the U.S. We need to think of ourselves as a global society.

B. Nominating. Mark Noll presented the slate for 2008, which was accepted unanimously.

C. Research. The increasing number of submissions necessitates larger and more structured committees that can more efficiently read them. Council has commissioned a proposal on how committee structure and size can be standardized and monitored.

The winners of the prizes awarded this year were given their checks and a certificate preceding the President's Address.

D. Finance and Budget. The ASCH investments performed very well this year, enabling the repayment of a margin loan from last year and the full funding of all prizes. Discussion ensued about endowing travel grants for students and independent scholars. These two reports were accepted unanimously.