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The Association for the Study of Connecticut History |
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The Association for the Study of Connecticut History |
Association for the Study
Of Connecticut History
March 25, 2002
Dear
ASCH Members:
The ASCH Board has had a very busy 2001 and 2002 is
proving to be equally challenging. But,
before I get into organizational activities, please note the enclosed Spring
Meeting Program for Saturday, April 27 at the Lebanon Historical Society Museum.
Program Chair, Sally Whipple has put together a program of morning
speakers and afternoon tours. Please
register by Wednesday, April 24. If
you have any questions about the meeting, please call or e-mail Sally or the
Lebanon Historical Society (860-642-6579).
The Murder In New England conference held on
Saturday, November 10, 2001, at the Wethersfield Museum, was attended by over
one hundred people. The meeting was co-sponsored by ASCH, the Connecticut League
of History Organizations, and the Wethersfield Historical Society, and received
funding from the Connecticut Humanities Council.
The Homer D. Babbidge, Jr., Award was presented to Thomas J. Farnham for
his lifetime contributions to Connecticut history as a teacher at Southern
Connecticut State University, editor of Connecticut History and long time
ASCH member, and author of many books and articles on Connecticut topics.
The Hampton Antiquarian & Historical Society was the recipient of the
Betty M. Linsley Award for Discovering Hampton:
A Connecticut Town by Janice Trecker.
The theme of the November 2002 is People and the
Landscape. The meeting will be held
at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury on Saturday, November 9.
Program chair for this meeting is Elizabeth Pratt Fox.
Speakers include Bill Hosley,
Victor Geraci, and Hildegard Cummings.
The ASCH business meeting and the presentation of the Babbidge and
Linsley Awards will also be held.
The closing date for nominations for the 2002 Babbidge and Linsley Awards
is August 31, 2002. Pat Thevenet, Corresponding Secretary, is chairing the awards
committee. Send your
nominations to Pat Thevenet at: 88B North Shore Road, Voluntown, CT 06384-1719. If
you need additional information about the awards, please get in touch with her.
As mentioned earlier, the ASCH Board is extremely
busy. In September, the Board met
for a special meeting to discuss finances.
As a result of this meeting, annual dues were raised from $25 to $30; the
student membership remains at $10.00. Even
with the dues increase, ASCH is dependent upon the generosity of the Connecticut
Humanities Council for funding in order to publish a high quality journal.
Collaboration between ASCH and the Humanities Council has provided ASCH
with greater visibility. The
Humanities Council has mounted ASCH membership information on their website, as
well as exhibit reviews from Connecticut History.
Their web address is: http://www.ctheritage.org
Some of you may know, Jack Becker, a member of the
ASCH Board of Directors, left his position at the Florence Griswold Museum in
December, to become Director of the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville,
Tennessee. We wish Jack all the
best in his new position. The
remainder of Jack’s term on the Board is being filled by Amy Trout from the
New Haven Colony Historical Society.
In January, a major re-writing of ASCH bylaws was
approved by the Board and will be presented at the annual meeting in November
for membership approval. The most
obvious changes are in style and order. While
some may miss the “legal” language of our current bylaws, this simpler style
is not only acceptable, but also much easier to read and understand.
Probably the most notable change in the new bylaws is the movement of the
annual meeting with the election of officers from the November conference to the
spring meeting. Since the fall
meetings are jointly sponsored with other organizations and the program is very
tightly scheduled, it becomes very difficult to have an annual membership
meeting. The awards will continue
to be presented at the November meeting. My
thanks go to Sally Whipple and Barbara Austen for taking on this difficult but
most necessary project. Bylaws will
be distributed to all ASCH members prior to the annual meeting in November.
You will note that most of the items that have been
on the Board agenda for the past several years have been items designed to bring
ASCH back to its roots and focus on its core mission as stated in the bylaws:
a.
To foster the study of Connecticut history by all persons at all levels,
especially in the state’s educational institutions.
b. To provide a forum for the presentation of current research
in Connecticut history to the membership and general public.
Connecticut History is
now published twice a year and includes articles as well as book reviews,
exhibit reviews, and notes and documents. In
addition to the annual meeting a spring program has been added, and our bylaws have been revised. With the revision of the bylaws, the 2003 annual meeting will
be held in the spring and will include a true meeting of the membership with
president’s report, secretary’s report and minutes, treasurer’s report,
auditing committee report, and nominating committee report.
To continue strengthening our infrastructure, future
agenda items will include job descriptions, conflict of interest policies, and a
procedures manual.
I want to remind ASCH members that the Connecticut
League of History Organizations will be holding its annual meeting on June 3 at
the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford. The keynote address will be given by James W. Loewen author
of Lies Across America.
As always, please feel free to contact me or any
member of the ASCH Board with questions, comments, concerns, or if you are
interested in participating in the organization through a program or committee.
A list of Board members and how they can be contacted appears below.
I look forward to seeing you at the Lebanon
Historical Society Museum on April 27.
Sincerely,
Patricia Bodak Stark
President
ASCH
