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Adjunct and Part-time Employment Survey
In an effort to acquire data to better understand the status of part-time and adjunct history faculty, the joint AHA-OAH Committee on Part-time and Adjunct Employment is surveying as many historians as possible who teach on a part-time basis in colleges and universities. OAH and AHA will mail its members who are part-time or adjunct faculty a copy of the survey to be completed and returned. Most part-time history faculty, however, are members of neither organization. A copy of the survey is posted on the OAH and AHA web sites. We strongly encourage OAH members to request their colleagues who teach part-time to complete the survey and return it to: Part-time and Adjunct Survey, Organization of American Historians, 112 North Bryan Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47408.
National Archives Announces Traveling Exhibition
"American Originals," a new National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) traveling exhibition began its eight-city tour with a stop at the New York Public Library in October. This marks the beginning of a three-year effort by NARA to share some of the rarely seen jewels of its collection and to showcase documents that have chartered the course of American history. Some of the highlights include:
- Original, signed Emancipation Proclamation
- Official voting record of the 1787 Constitutional Convention
- Louisiana Purchase Treaty
- Deed of Gift of the Statue of Liberty
- John F. Kennedy's handwritten draft of his inaugural address
Subsequent stops of the "American Originals" traveling display will include Chicago, Columbus, Atlanta, Kansas City, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Hartford, Connecticut. For additional information on the exhibition, contact the National Archives public affairs staff at (301) 713-6000.
Jefferson Day Event Scheduled
Jefferson Day, an annual advocacy event organized by the National Humanities Alliance and cosponsored by more than twenty organizations to promote support for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) will take place 22 March 2002 in Washington, D.C. The event provides an opportunity for scholars and others working in the humanities to communicate the importance of federal support for the humanities to congressional leaders in Washington. Grassroots advocacy will be especially critical in the upcoming year because of the increased pressure on state and federal budgets. Hotel rooms have been reserved at the George Washington University Inn located near the George Washington University campus. This year the Jefferson Lecture will be delivered on the evening of 22 March 2002 at the Ronald Reagan building in downtown Washington D.C. There is no registration fee. Registration information may be found online at: <http://www.nhalliance.org/jd/> .
"AP Central" Web Site Launched by the College Board
As part of its broad effort to improve professional development opportunities and resources for education professionals interested or involved in the Advanced Placement (AP) Program, the College Board recently launched a new web site, AP Central, at <http://www.apcentral.collegeboard.com/> . With more than one hundred teachers and college faculty involved in its development, AP Central was built by and for the AP teaching community. The site offers up-to-date and comprehensive information on AP courses and exams as well as resources and tools to help administrators and teachers get started with an AP program. In addition, the web site enables seasoned AP professionals to further strengthen their respective AP curricula by offering a wide variety of information such as feature articles written by secondary- and college-level professionals and updates about important AP news, information, and events.
2002 National History Day Summer Teaching Institute
The need to teach students about tolerance and the history of civil rights has increased since the September terrorist acts. National History Day (NHD) is proud to be a leader in teaching tolerance and is excited to announce that the 2002 NHD Summer Teaching Institute will be entitled, "'We Shall Overcome:' 100 Years of the Civil Rights Movement." Sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the institute will be held 20-27 July 2002 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The central goal of this year's conference is to improve the teaching of history by exposing participants to recent scholarship about the civil rights movement, familiarizing them with the primary sources available for studying and teaching, and modeling different ways of encouraging active learning. In order to achieve this goal, attendees will work with prominent historians and engage with a wide assortment of resources including historic sites, oral histories and visual images--all of which can be used in their teaching. Although the focus of the institute will be on the African American freedom struggle, other movements (women, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and gays and lesbians) will also be addressed. Twenty-five educators will be selected to participate in the free seven-day institute. The institute director is Lee Formwalt, executive director of the Organization of American Historians, and a civil rights historian. To be eligible, educators must be teachers of history/social studies, librarians, and media specialists in secondary schools. Applicants must also have employment guaranteed for the 2002-2003 academic year. To request an application or for more information, contact: Bea Hardy, Outreach and Program Manager, National History Day; (301) 314-9739; or visit <http://www.nationalhistoryday.org> .
National Park Service Remains Offline
Ever think history doesn't matter? Think again. Since early December, web sites of the Department of the Interior, including the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Reclamation, and Bureau of Indian Affairs, have been taken off-line and NPS employees remain under court order not to access the Internet because of ongoing litigation involving Indian trust lands--an issue literally going back a century. History, it seems, has caught up with the Interior: no employee can get their external e-mail, many cannot even get their agency e-mail or their old e-mail messages. So if your colleagues in any Department of Interior agency suddenly seem nonresponsive, please bear with them: they aren't getting your messages and have a frustration level even higher than yours. By the time this is published, we hope they are back in the twenty-first century.
--Heather Huyck, National Park Service
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