Amending the Constitution

Lee W. Formwalt

Oftentimes, constitution and bylaw changes can be as dry as dust and consist of small technical changes that make little difference in the operation of the association. This time, however, both the quantity and nature of changes to the constitution that you approved this summer and the additional bylaw changes that the executive board approved in September will affect the governance of our learned society and professional association for a long time to come. Hence, the importance of examining these changes and what they mean for OAH. 

The driving force behind all we do as an organization is our mission. Nine years ago, the executive board, led by President Bill Chafe, went on retreat to develop a clear mission statement to guide OAH as it moved into the next century. In 2003, the executive board, under President Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, approved the shortening of that statement to the customary one sentence mission and this summer OAH members approved the incorporation of that mission into the Constitution replacing the former "Object of the Organization." Members are familiar with our mission as we include it in all of our publications as a reminder of what we are about as an organization: "The Organization of American Historians promotes excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history, and encourages wide discussion of historical questions and equitable treatment of all practitioners of history." Everything we do at OAH should tie in one way or another to our mission. If it does not, we should not be doing it or we should change the mission. Since the mission is central to who we are, it appears at the very beginning of our revised constitution. You can view the current, i.e., revised, constitution at <http://www.oah.org/about/constitution.html>, and, for comparison purposes, visit the link there to the old constitution.

Perhaps the most important office in the organization is that of the president, who serves as the presiding officer or chair of the executive board, the OAH governing body. Until the recent changes this year, the president was chosen by the nominating board to run unopposed for the office of president-elect. The nominee would serve one year in that capacity, one year as president, and three years on the executive board as past president for a total of five years. In actuality, our presidents worked for nearly six years, since the incoming president-elect (in the year before officially becoming president-elect) often sat in on executive board meetings to get up to speed and appointed the program committee and local resource committee for the annual meeting to be held the year of his/her presidency. In the revised constitution, we have created the office of vice president which would be the equivalent of the "incoming president-elect" position. So now, the nominating board will choose a vice president who will then become president-elect and finally president and serve for only two years as past president. OAH presidents in the future will serve only five years--two years before their presidency (as vice president and president elect), one year as president, and two years after their presidency. OAH presidents work long and hard for us and these changes will make that service a bit less onerous.

The constitution as amended on September 1, calls for the election of a vice president in the upcoming fall elections, but the nominating board does not meet until next spring at the annual meeting in New York. In order to implement the election of a vice president, the nominating board will have to offer two names for vice president, one whose term would begin in 2008 and the other whose term would begin in 2009. Both of these individuals will appear on the fall 2008 ballot. Future ballots after 2008 will have the usual single election for vice president.

The major task of OAH presidents-elect has been the appointment of members to the association's service and awards committee. In addition to the Program and Local Resource committees, OAH has fourteen service committees and eighteen prize committees. Each year the president-elect had to appoint members to these thirty-two committees. Most OAH presidents agree that making appointments to thirty-two committees was one of the most difficult tasks they had to undertake. Such appointments allow presidents to leave their imprint on the OAH governance structure, but it often stretched the presidents' network of colleagues and required the appointment in some fields with which they were not familiar. The new constitution recognizes the challenge of the tradition of presidential appointments and has replaced it with a committee on committees that will make most committee appointments. Now, instead of making several dozen appointments, the president-elect will appoint four members to the eight-member committee on committees. President-elect Pete Daniel has just appointed four members for one year and four for two years, thus creating a rotation so that in the future the committee will have four new members and four veterans each year.

This important change is not just about lessening the president-elect's burden, but it also democratizes the appointment process by putting it into the hands of the committee on committees members whose choices must also be approved by the executive board.  We have moved from one person making appointments to twenty-three--eight on the committee on committees and fifteen voting members of the executive board. Instead of drawing on just one person's experience and networks of colleagues, we'll be drawing on eight. In the end this should provide for even better committee membership.

Another committee related change will strengthen the connection between committees and the executive board. In the past, presidents-elect appointed a member of the executive board to serve as a liaison to each of the service committees. Each year at the annual meeting the chair of each service committee would have five minutes to report to the executive board on committee concerns. Everyone involved understood the shortcomings of this limited connection between committees and the board. This year the executive board will create a series of subcommittees among its own members; service committees will report to the appropriate subcommittee of the executive board. These reports will happen during the year, usually by teleconference. The new system will allow for a significantly greater amount of time for executive board members to interact with service committee members.

The old constitution made several references to the annual business meeting, but neither described the meeting, when it was to occur, nor the rules governing procedures. That has been remedied in the new constitution which states that the annual business meeting occurs during the annual meeting, and provides for the appointment of a parliamentarian (a position we have had, but was not in the constitution) and the use of Robert's Rules of Order. Also included in the new constitution is a deadline for proposing resolutions to the annual business meeting. In the past new bylaws or bylaw changes were approved by the executive board and then went to the annual business meeting for final approval. The new constitution allows the governing body to make bylaw changes by itself. This is standard procedure for many organizations like ours and allows changes to be made without waiting until the following spring to get approval to implement them.

The revised bylaws have redefined the jobs of executive director, editor, and treasurer. The current job descriptions in the old bylaws reflected the positions as they were twenty years ago and much has changed in the last two decades. The executive director and the Journal of American History editor have been made nonvoting members of the executive board. This ends the peculiar situation of these two officers being accountable to a board on which s/he serves as a voting member. That unusual arrangement is not found in most learned societies and no longer exists at OAH. The bylaws also provide for annual reviews of the executive director and biennial reviews of the JAH editor. The treasurer is now a voting member of the Finance Committee and continues as a voting member of the executive board. Unlike the executive director and the JAH editor, the treasurer is not a paid staff person, but a volunteer who contributes his/her expertise to the consideration of OAH financial matters.

Changes have been made to the composition of several OAH service committees. Although most service committees consist of five members, the size of the Community College Committee is now between five and nine, while the OAH Magazine of History Board was increased to between five and ten members and the Committee on Teaching to between five and seven members. The Membership Committee now consists of five regional chairs representing the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic region, the South, the Midwest and the West. State chairs appointed by the executive office on behalf of the president act as subcommittee members of the Membership Committee and report to their regional chair. All regional chairs and state chairs are encouraged to attend Membership Committee meetings.

We very sadly note the passing of Roy Rosenzweig whose untimely death is a great loss for the American history profession. A distinguished scholar and active citizen of the profession--he served on the governing bodies of both the OAH and the AHA--Roy is perhaps best known as the founder of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Many of us have benefited from his role as a connector in the profession bringing together various groups and individuals usually to work together creatively to use new technology to better practice our craft. The OAH executive board has traditionally given its Distinguished Service Award each year to an individual who has provided exemplary service to the organization and to the profession. In March, Roy Rosenzweig received that award at the OAH Centennial Convention in Minneapolis. Last week at its fall board meeting, the executive board voted to rename the award the Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award and it will be given for the first time at the next annual meeting in New York.