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American Studies Programs and Centers Committee
Report from the American Studies Programs Committee 1997
The Committee on American Studies Programs met at the Kansas City conference, under the leadership of Chair Erika Doss (University of Colorado). Attending the meeting were Committee members June Howard (University of Michigan), Deborah Dash Moore (Vassar), Vera Norwood (University of New Mexico), and H. Daniel Peck (Vassar). Discussion centered on planning sponsored sessions for the 1997 Annual Meeting and on program-level needs for various sorts of data (retention, graduation, placement rates of students, faculty work loads, salaries, etc.) to use during program reviews.
The Committee issued a call to programs to propose pre-convention workshops or panels/sessions during the meeting. At the Washington, DC Annual Meeting the Committee will sponsor two pre-convention workshops and a roundtable. The roundtable, “Issues and Problems in American Nature Writing: Reflections on the 1997 NEH Summer Institute for College and University Faculty at Vassar College,“ will be a discussion of issues and problems in the emergent and rapidly developing scholarship and teaching of American nature writing.
The pre-convention workshops are scheduled for Thursday, October 30. The first workshop, “Outreach and American Studies,“ will feature panelists offering a survey of outreach activities at their home institutions and the audience of program directors will be encouraged to compare notes, exchange information on how to develop such programs, and provide perspectives on how such activities fit within American Studies. As part of the planning for this workshop, June Howard solicited information from American Studies programs about outreach efforts and internships and other such activities at their institutions. The second workshop, “American Studies and Ethnic Studies: Conflict, Collaboration, Synergy,“ grew out of questions raised by a number of program directors at the Kansas City meeting about the state of relations between American Studies and Ethnic Studies programs, particularly in an era of institutional cost-cutting, which sometimes encourages university administrations to pit such programs against each other. Panelists will present brief statements on the issue at their institutions and in their own careers and encourage an open conversation among participants on both sources of conflict and means for collaboration between American Studies and Ethnic Studies at participants’ home institutions.
The Committee will be addressing at least two new issues during the coming year. In conjunction with the International Committee and the Student Committee it will study the importance of international exchanges to students and faculty in American Studies. At the request of the Executive Director, John Stephens, the Committee will also provide advice on, and help screen, initial drafts of the planned institutional research project mapping trends in the American Studies doctorate over the past ten years, based on data from the National Research Council (NRC). At the Committee meeting in Washington, the discussion will address how best to make the results of the research project useful to program directors and students as they make employment projections for the future.
The NRC-based project should provide helpful data to program directors who face unit reviews in coming years. The Committee is pleased to report that the final draft of the Guide for Reviewing American Studies Programs and Departments, initiated several years ago by the Committee and then Chair, James Miller (University of South Carolina), is now complete and ready for distribution. Copies will be available at the meeting in Washington, DC.
Commendation:
The Council commended Michael Cowan for his excellent guide. They agreed that the guide would be a valuable resource for program chairs and faculty in American Studies and affiliated fields.
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