Search for Executive Director

The American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) seeks an executive director who will provide vision, leadership, and management for a nonprofit professional and scholarly association. 

The executive director represents and advocates for the interests of environmental history and environmental historians to the public.. The executive director also coordinates the work of staff and committees to provide services, to prepare publications for the environmental history community, and to organize the annual conference and other events, including online programming. In addition, the executive director seeks to strengthen the organization through effective communication, financial management, relationship building, and collaborative initiatives. In all these duties, the executive director should make a priority of diversity and inclusion. Compensation will be commensurate with education and experience.

The executive director will be appointed to an initial four-year term (subject to annual review) and with opportunity for renewal. The executive director will work with a part-time assistant and volunteers. The executive director can work remotely from any place in the U.S. The position will start in summer 2024.

Requirements for this position are:

The successful candidate will demonstrate a combination of the following:

For more information:

Direct questions about the position to the co-chair of the search committee, Nancy Jacobs, at nancy_jacobs@brown.edu. 

To apply:

The application file should include:

1.  a detailed letter of interest that describes:

   2.  a CV with the names, affiliations, emails, and phone numbers of 3 persons willing to provide a reference.

Applications must be submitted electronically to the co-chair of the search committee, Jay Turner, at jturner@wellesley.edu. Please submit materials as a single PDF file with the file name “ApplicantLastName_ASEH_ED.”

Review of applications will begin on April 8, 2024.

APPLICANTS SOUGHT FOR EDITOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY REVIEW

Review of applications to begin on: February 1, 2024

The American Society for Environmental History seeks applicants to serve as Editor of the new digital journal Environmental History Review for a renewable three-year term beginning July 2024. 

The Environmental History Review (EHR) will be the open-access digital publication of the American Society for Environmental History, existing as a space to exchange knowledge, respond to contemporary issues, and explore topics that connect the environmental present with its past. EHR’s goals include the fast-paced publication of work by a wide range of environmental historians  in formats and media that go beyond standard academic articles and reviews. While the Environmental History Review will include both peer-reviewed and non-peer reviewed work, it will complement rather than compete with the work of Environmental History. The initial goal will be to publish content twice a week and provide a space to cultivate community. 

The editor-in-chief will work with two to three associate editors and will be paid an annual stipend of $6000. The associate editors as well as the social media outreach coordinator will also be compensated.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate must have:

• Recognized expertise in the field, 

• A compelling vision for the future of the journal and the field,

• Managerial, organizational, editorial, and digital media skills to oversee the editorial cycle, meet deadlines, and work with publishing professionals,

• The ability to attract established and new scholars to contribute to the journal,

• Tact in communicating with authors and staff, and

• Membership in the ASEH.

Application Materials

The application package must include:

• Vision Statement that cohesively answers the following questions:

• • Where do you envision the Environmental History Review six years from now? 

  • How will the EHR differ from similar digital journals?

  • How do you plan to collaborate and build relationships with Environmental History and other environmental history publications and efforts?

  • Why are you considering this role at this moment in your career?

• Curriculum vitae that highlights publications, editorial experience, and links to any digital portfolios

Search Procedure

Review of applications will begin on February 1, 2024. Finalists will be interviewed remotely over Zoom or at the ASEH meeting in Denver, Colorado, April 3-7, 2024.

Applications must be submitted as a single PDF file with the file name “yourlastname_EHReditor.pdf” to the chair of the search committee, Catherine McNeur (catherine.mcneur@pdx.edu).

SEEKING VOLUNTEERS FOR FINANCE COMMITTEE

In October, the ASEH Executive Council approved the formation of a Finance Committee, to be chaired by the Treasurer. In addition to other duties set by the Executive Council, the Finance Committee will review budgets and spending, recommend policy for distributing donations and reserve funds, and advise on investments. We seek two members with experience in budgeting and financial decision making in academic institutions, non-profits, or business. To volunteer, please check the “Finance” box on the ASEH Committee Membership Nomination Form. If you have questions, please contact Executive Director David Spatz at David.Spatz@aseh.org. 

APPLY FOR PRIZES AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS

ASEH is now accepting applications for research fellowships, and submissions and nominations for prizes and awards. Click on the links below for more information and instructions about how to apply and submit nominations.

All deadlines are November 20, 2023.

PRIZES

Each year, ASEH awards five prizes for outstanding scholarship in the field of environmental history. Please read the instructions for submitting your work for consideration for each prize listed below.

George Perkins Marsh Prize for best book in environmental history

Alice Hamilton Prize for best article outside journal Environmental History 

Leopold-Hidy Prize for best article in journal Environmental History (with Forest History Society)

Rachel Carson Prize for best dissertation in environmental history

ASEH-FHS Graduate Student Essay Prize 

FELLOWSHIPS

The ASEH currently offers four research fellowships: the Hal Rothman Dissertation Fellowship, the J. Donald Hughes Graduate Research Fellowship, the Equity Graduate Student Fellowship, and the Samuel P. Hays Fellowship.

The Rothman, Hughes, and Equity Fellowships are reserved for graduate students; the Hays Fellowship is open to all non-student practicing historians.

In addition, the ASEH co-sponsors the ASEH–Newberry Library Fellowship for scholars who will work with the Newberry's extensive holdings in Chicago.

AWARDS

ASEH will also award its annual Distinguished Scholar Award and Lisa Mighetto Distinguished Service Award, along with the Public Outreach Project Award. 

You can nominate candidates for these awards here.

ASEH 2024 Annual Conference

The Westin Denver Downtown

April 3-7, 2024

The CALL FOR PROPOSALS for ASEH 2024 is now open!

ASEH 2024 will feature research on all facets of environmental history, from any geographical or temporal context, especially related to the conference theme, Changing Climates: Environmental Histories of Extractivism and Speculation. The Program Committee welcomes traditional panels, individual papers, teaching and pedagogy sessions, innovative formats, and sessions that encourage active audience participation. Click here to view the entire Call for Proposals and to submit panels, roundtables, alternative sessions, posters, and individual papers. 

The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2023.

Looking for Co-panelists or Interested in Chairing a Session?

Check the ASEH 2024 Message Board.

ASEH announced the winners of all if its distinguished awards, prizes for scholarships, and research fellowships at last week’s annual conference in Boston. This year’s winners are:

AWARDS

Distinguished Scholar Award

Joel Tarr

 

Lisa Mighetto Distinguished Service Award

Paul S. Sutter

Distinguished Career in Public Environmental History

Jenny Price

 

PRIZES

George Perkins Marsh Prize for best book in environmental history

Winner:

Ruth Rogaski, Knowing Manchuria: Environments, the Senses, and Natural Knowledge on an Asian Borderland (University of Chicago Press)

Finalists:

Abigail Agresta, The Keys to Bread and Wine: Faith, Nature, and Infrastructure in Late Medieval Valencia (Cornell)

Andy Bruno, Tunguska: A Siberian Mystery and Its Environmental Legacy (Cambridge)

Laura Martin, Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration (Harvard)

Rachel Carson Prize for best dissertation

Scott Doebler (Penn State University), "Arboreal Apogees: Maya, English, And Spanish Ecologies In Lowland Yucatán And Guatemala, 1517-1717

Alice Hamilton Prize for best article outside of the journal Environmental History

Simone Schleper, "Caribou crossings: the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, conservation, and stakeholdership in the Anthropocene"

 

Leopold-Hidy Award to honor the best article in the journal Environmental History

Emily Brownell, “Reterritorializing the Future: Writing Environmental Histories of the Oil Crisis from Tanzania.”

 

ASEH-FHS Graduate Student Essay Prize:

Winner:

Ethan Barkalow (Georgetown University), “Empire Underwater: Seaweed and Technology on a Korean Littoral, 1907-1945" 

Environmental History Fellows: 

Camden Elliott (Harvard University), “Nursery of Empire: Trees, Time, and Native American Resistance in the Colonial Northeast, 1675-1765”

Chandra Laborde (University of California Berkeley), “Building a Country Women's Commune: Spatializing Ecological Feminism in Northern California during the 1970s”

Hayden Nelson (University of Kansas), “‘Saw-Mills and Liberty!’: Timber Resources, Property, and Removal in Territorial Kansas”

 

Most Effective Poster at ASEH 2023 Annual Conference:

Caleb Ireland, Bates College, “Let Freedom Ring from the Mighty Cypress Trees to the Amber Waterways: An Environmental History of Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp”

Dmitrijs Porsnovs, University of Stavanger, “How listening to science become a disaster: History of tire artificial reefs off the Atlantic coast”

FELLOWSHIPS

Hal Rothman Dissertation Fellowship

Anjuli Webster (Emory University), “Fluid empires: histories of environment and sovereignty in nineteenth century southern Africa”

J. Donald Hughes Graduate Research Fellowships

Andrew Craig (University of Georgia), “Obnoxious Odors, Dead Vegetation, and Irritated Lungs: Nuisance Lawsuits and Community Mobilization against Fertilizer Production in the US South 1910-1920”

Weijia (Vicky) Shen (University of Pittsburgh), “Plants, Insects, and the Making of the 20th century Asia-Pacific”

Equity Graduate Fellowship

Donal Thomas (Stony Brook University), “Knowledge Transfer from the Natural World of the Western Ghats: Indigenous Voices and the making of Imperial Metropolitan Institutions, 1770-1905”

Samuel P. Hays Research Fellowship

Diana Alejandra Méndez Rojas (Centro de Estudios del Movimiento Obrero y Socialista, Mexico City), “Mario Payeras And The Ecological Critique Of Civilization”

In the election held in February 2023, the membership elected the following candidates:

Vice President/President Elect:
Jay Turner

ASEH Council:

Faisal Husain

Melanie Kiechle

Ramya Swayamprakash

Christopher Wells

ASEH Nominating Committee:

Jennifer Bonnell

Michelle Mart

 

ASEH thanks for their service outgoing Members of the Council:

Ellen Arnold

Mike Dockry

Catherine McNeur

Marsha Weisiger

Graeme Wynn (Past President)

And outgoing members of the Nominating Committee:

Michael Egan

Ling Zhang

New members will take their positions at the conclusion of the ASEH Council Meeting on April 8.

ASEH joined many other ACLS member societies to sign the ACLS-authored Statement In Support of Academic Freedom and New College of Florida. The full text is below.

View the full text of the statement is below and all signatories.

In recent years, we have seen politicians intensify their effort to re-brand institutions of higher education – specifically, the humanities and social sciences – as hothouses of liberal indoctrination. Their attacks threaten public understanding of our nation’s history and culture, and they undermine key principles of academic freedom and faculty governance. 

The governor of Florida has now moved past rhetoric to direct action with its current “overhaul” of New College of Florida. The state administration uses the word “indoctrination” often and freely. By ousting Dr. Patricia Okker, the president of New College of Florida, and by taking over the college’s Board of Trustees, they reveal themselves as would-be indoctrinators of views that undermine the purpose of higher education in a democracy. Other states are already pursuing similar efforts of intimidation and censorship.

ACLS stands up in support of ex-President Okker, the New College community, and faculty and students at institutions of higher education around the country who are experiencing similar political interventions. We believe that higher education is based on critical thinking and informed debate. We recognize that differences of opinion are vital to academic inquiry, and we support the rights of all students and faculty to freely engage in scholarly conversation and civil debate. This is precisely what is threatened in this moment.

We ask every member of the ACLS community to inform themselves about these dangerous developments and to draw on the resources of ACLS, its member societies, and other groups that are mobilizing to protect faculty governance and advocate for the free circulation of humanistic knowledge.  

We thank those of you already joining the fight in your societies and on your campuses. ACLS invites our community of member societies, member institutions, fellows and grantees, and supporters to sign this statement to affirm their support for sustaining academic freedom in higher education.