CAA News Today
Donate to the Annual Fund
posted by Nia Page — November 27, 2013
For over a century, CAA has proudly represented the individuals and institutions that make up the world’s largest professional association in the visual arts. Since its founding, the organization is known for the engagement and steadfast dedication of its members. CAA is strengthened by every member who serves on a committee or jury, shares research and insight on Annual Conference panels and in journal articles, guides younger colleagues in our mentoring programs, and contributes in so many other ways. I hope we can count on your continued participation and support now and in the years to come.
In return, CAA is devoted to honoring its members’ accomplishments, promoting scholarship, and providing essential resources—serving as the central hub for a vibrant and expanding community of visual-arts professionals. Today, I ask that you join your fellow members with a gift to the Annual Fund to support all that CAA does for the field.
The generous, voluntary support of CAA members is critical to our collective advancement. Only in dialogue can we learn from diverse perspectives. Only with shared purpose can we shape the agenda for policy issues affecting the visual arts. Your contribution to the Annual Fund makes this important work possible.
On behalf of the artists, art historians, curators, critics, collectors, educators, and other professionals who make up CAA, I thank you for your dedicated support; together we are a strong and dynamic visual-arts community. Please give generously!
Sincerely,
Maria Ann Conelli
Vice President for External Affairs
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — November 27, 2013
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Can—and Should—Charitable Foundations Help Rescue Detroit Pensions and DIA Artwork?
National and local foundations have been asked to help bail out Detroit. But getting them to open their checkbooks will be a complicated dance of priorities, politics, and practicalities. The federal mediator in the Detroit bankruptcy is asking a group of at least nine local and national foundations to consider collectively contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to solve two of the most contentious issues in the case: municipal pensions on the chopping block and Detroit Institute of Arts paintings on the auction block. (Read more from the Detroit Free Press.)
Christie’s Price-Tagging of DIA Artwork for Bankruptcy Planning Is Delayed
A highly anticipated evaluation of thousands of city-owned treasures at the Detroit Institute of Arts is not expected to be finished until at least the second week of December. The report from Christie’s auction house in New York, which Detroit officials previously said would be completed in October or November, is expected to have a major impact on the fate of the museum’s world-class collection. The report also will likely influence negotiations between emergency manager Kevyn Orr and creditors and the settlement plan Orr eventually submits in court. (Read more from the Detroit Free Press.)
A Real Pollock? On This, Art and Science Collide
For nearly sixty years, a small painting with swirls and splotches of red, black, and silver has stood as a symbol of enmity between two women: Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock’s widow, and Ruth Kligman, his lover. Until her death, in 2010, Kligman, herself an artist, insisted the painting was a love letter to her created by Pollock in the summer of 1956, just weeks before he died in a car crash. But the painting was rejected by an expert panel set up to authenticate and catalogue all of Pollock’s works by a foundation established by Krasner. (Read more from the New York Times.)
German “Lost Art” Register Posts Further Pictures
German authorities released more pictures and details of the massive trove of art that was discovered in a Munich apartment last year. Prosecutors gave the official “Lost Art” website permission to put an additional fifty-four entries online, taking the total to seventy-nine. The new items include works by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, the French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and the German impressionist Max Liebermann. (Read more from USA Today.)
Dealer’s Hand
David Zwirner, the son of a famous German dealer, opened his first gallery in 1993, in SoHo. Since then, he has risen to be one of the most prominent dealers in the world. He is not really a pioneer, in terms of the art he has championed, or the style in which he has presented it, or the people he has sold it to. He is, in many respects, one more boat on a rising tide. (Read more from the New Yorker.)
The (Off-Campus) Future of MIT
Anant Agarwal has quit cold turkey—coffee, that is. But the president of edX, the massive open online course provider cofounded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is as energetic about MOOCs as ever, despite almost daily calls from traditionalists for the death of his product. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
The Resurgent Interest in Performance-Based Funding for Higher Education
Observers of higher-education policy might be forgiven a sense of surprise at recent developments in the funding of state higher-education systems. At the turn of the century, after indifferent results and occasional policy debacles, it was easy to find commentary from chastened proponents on the declining commitments to performance-based funding and budgeting systems for public higher education. Yet in recent years, performance funding has risen from the near dead, returning forcefully to the policy and political agendas of many states. What factors have driven this resurgence? (Read more from the American Association of University Professors.)
Art Makes You Smart
For many education advocates, the arts are a panacea: they supposedly increase test scores, generate social responsibility, and turn around failing schools. Most of the supporting evidence, though, does little more than establish correlations between exposure to the arts and certain outcomes. A few years ago, however, through a large-scale, random-assignment study of school tours to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, scientists were able to determine that strong causal relationships do in fact exist between arts education and a range of desirable outcomes. (Read more from the New York Times.)
Candidates for the Upcoming Board Election
posted by Vanessa Jalet — November 26, 2013
The 2013–14 Nominating Committee has announced a slate of six candidates for the annual election of four new CAA members to serve on the Board of Directors for a four-year term (2014–18). Voting will begin on Monday, January 6, 2014. The webpages for the election, which will include the candidates’ statements, biographies, endorsements, and video presentations, will be published in mid-December 2013.
The six candidates are:
- G. James Daichendt, Professor and Associate Dean, School of Visual and Performing Arts, Azusa Pacific University
- Helen C. Frederick, Professor, School of Art and Design, George Mason University
- Jim Hopfensperger, Professor of Art, Frostic School of Art, Western Michigan University
- Gunalan Nadarajan, Professor and Dean, Stamps School of Art and Design, University of Michigan
- Dannielle Tegeder, Associate Professor of Art, Art Department, Lehman College, City University of New York
- David C. Terry, Director of Programs and Curator, New York Foundation for the Arts
If you have questions about the Nominating Committee, the candidates, or the voting process, please contact Vanessa Jalet, CAA executive liaison.
Artists’ Resale Royalty Bill to Be Reintroduced
posted by Linda Downs — November 26, 2013
Representative Jerrold Nadler (D, NY) announced on Monday, November 22, 2013 his intent to introduce a revised Equity for Artists bill early in 2014. He and Senator Edward J. Markey (R-Mass) who will co-sponsor the bill finished a draft on Monday and support has already been committed by Senator Tammy Baldwin (D, Wis). The bill is similar to HR 3688 introduced last year and not acted upon by the Judiciary Committee. This bill maintains the 5% of the sales price for works auction for prices at $5,000 and above for living artists and those deceased plus 70 years, which follows the copyright law. The motivation for the bill is to ensure that artists do not lose out on any increase in value for future sales and provides reciprocity with the 70 countries that already have adopted similar legislation. The new bill eliminates the portion allocated in the first bill to art museums for new acquisitions. The AAMD requested that this clause be eliminated. Only those sales through auction houses are included in the bill. Nadler indicated that galleries were not included at this time in order to provide greater opportunity to get the bill passed.
Nadler spoke on Monday as part of a five-person panel sponsored by the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) at Scandinavia House. In addition to Nadler the panel included Philippa S. Loengard, Assistant Director and Lecturer in Law, Kernochan Center, Columbia Law School; Karyn Temple Claggett, Associate Register of Copyrights; Director of Policy and International Affairs, U.S. Copyright Office; Theodore H. Feder, Ph.D., Founder and President, Artists Rights Society (ARS); and Sandra L. Cobden, General Counsel, Dispute Resolution and Legal Public Affairs, Christie’s. Loengard provided the historical context of artists’ resale royalty rights from the 1920s in France and the 2006 updated legislation of the European Union to the most recent legal action in the U.S. regarding the California resale royalty law originally instituted in 1976 and ruled unconstitutional by California Judge Nguyen. This case is currently on appeal brought by Chuck Close and other artists in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court and is expected to be decided early in 2014 http://clancco.com/wp/2012/05/art-law-droit-de-suite/.
At the request of Congressman Nadler the U.S. Copyright Office undertook an extensive study and analysis of the status of artists in regard to copyright and in relation to other artists such as writers, actors, screen writers and musicians who receive residuals for their work and whether artists are fully exploiting their rights within the current copyright law. The Copyright Office will issue their findings on or before December 12th. The issues they addressed were 1) financial—are visual artists benefiting within the allowance of the copyright law; 2) morality issues—are visual artists benefiting as well as other artists; 3) fairness—would this benefit a large number of professional artists, is the proposed amount reasonable and are the administrative aspects a burden; 4) limitations—what regulations or limitations should be put in place considering that the art market is generally unregulated. The Copyright Office requested formal comments in March and 59 individuals and organizations sent formal comments. On April 23, 2013 the Copyright Office held a hearing in which among other organizations, CAA made its case for the artists resale royalty represented by Anne Collins Goodyear, President. The Copyright Office also reviewed all the government studies on the effectiveness of the European Union system of resale royalties.
While many of the specifics of the Copyright Office could not be presented until it is published in December the following general observations were shared by Claggett: 1) Of all the world art markets, only China and the U.S. (the two largest art markets) do not have resale rights programs; 2) government studies indicate that these programs have no negative impact on the art market; 3) it is difficult to grasp how artists are hindered by current law and practice and the Copyright Office questions whether the resale royalty law is the best solution; 4) opposing parties are using the same statistical information to “prove” opposing perspectives on the legislation. The Copyright office staff refers to this as the “Rorschach Test.” Claggett stated that given the different perspectives on this issue that the Copyright Office report will not make any of the interested parties happy.
Ted Feder from ARS pointed out that this is only visual artists who currently do not get royalties and cited the current rates that Christie’s “taxes” buyers, from 20% to 25% and sellers from 1% to 10% depending on the price of the art work. He believes that the small percentage increase in sales required by the resale royalty legislation would be negligible to Christie’s clientele.
Sandra Cobden from Christie’s stated that while the auction house supports the rights and interests of artists it believes that the proposed resale royalty legislation is a “broken model.” She cited the study commissioned by Christie’s of the impact of the EU art market after the latest 2006 legislation where the art market in the EU grew 32% while that in the US grew 120% and China’s grew 121% in the same period. This was countered by Nadler who indicated that the EU at that time was in a general economic slump. She also suggested that this legislation is unconstitutional since it would only require auction houses and no galleries or ecommerce sites to institute this system. Her solution is to abandon this legislation and amend the tax laws so that artists may deduct the sales price when donating works to art museums and non-profit institutions.
Watch
Art for Sale? Bankruptcy and the Detroit Institute of Arts from Sharon Flescher on Vimeo.
Support CAA’s Journals with a Gift to the Publications Fund
posted by Nia Page — November 26, 2013
This year CAA’s three journals—The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, and caa.reviews—brought readers more of what they have come to expect from the world’s leading publisher of art-history journals: exceptional scholarship exploring the full range of the visual arts in formats as diverse as long-form essays, groundbreaking digital-media projects, and critical reviews. In today’s media landscape of repackaged content and 140-character tweets, sustaining the publication of in-depth, thought-provoking content is a challenge—it is the support of readers like you that enables CAA to do so. Because you share our mission of advancing the highest standards of intellectual engagement in the arts, please make a tax-deductible gift to the Publications Fund today.
Here are some highlights from CAA publications over the past year:
In The Art Bulletin:
- In celebration of The Art Bulletin’s centenary, eight past editors wrote reviews essays reflecting on the critical impact and afterlife of significant books published since the journal’s founding in 1913
- In the innovative “Notes from the Field,” ten authors took on a new theme in each issue: materiality, mimesis, time, and tradition. The interdisciplinary features, with texts by artists, archaeologists, literary critics, and curators as well as art historians, have proven popular in the classroom, especially at the undergraduate level
- The Art Bulletin continues to champion the long-form essay, this year including texts by Peter Parshall on Dürer, Namiko Kunimoto on Tanaka Atsuko, and David M. Stone on Caravaggio
In Art Journal:
- A rare publication of the 1957 Elbe, a series of thirty-one prints by Gerhard Richter, illustrated an essay by Christine Mehring in the Winter 2012 issue
- Moyra Davey contributed photographs and text for a ten-page artist project titled “Burn the Diaries” to the Spring 2013 issue
- In the Summer 2013 forum “Conversations on Queer Affect and Queer Archives,” seventeen artists and writers reflected on the vital importance of LGBT archives around the world for both artists and art historians
In caa.reviews:
- This fall, caa.reviews celebrates fifteen years of publishing critical reviews of books, exhibitions, and projects in all areas and periods of art history and visual studies
- Using the Scalar digital platform, caa.reviews provided an immersive, multimedia experience of the recent exhibition Bernini: Sculpting in Clay, with an array of critical texts and images as well as a virtual walk-through of the show
- The essay “Reflections on Photography” by Tanya Sheehan kicked off a new thematic series titled “Re-Views: Field Editors’ Reflections,” in which the journal editors assess—or re-view—their respective fields as seen through the lens of the reviews they have commissioned
With your support, CAA publications will continue to delight, challenge, and engage readers for many years to come. On behalf of the scholars, critics, and artists who publish in the journals, we thank you for your continued commitment to maintaining a strong and spirited forum for the visual-arts community.
With best regards,
Suzanne Preston Blier
Vice President for Publications
November 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — November 21, 2013
Each month CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for November 2013 include solo exhibitions of work by Sarah Lucas, Ana Mendieta, and Dayanita Singh in London; Anita Steckel, Dorothea Rockburne, Mary Beth Edelson, and Wangechi Mutu in New York; and Amy Sillman and Sophie Calle in Boston. In addition, the committee selected Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz’s show Patriarchal Poetry in Germany and Dear Art, the first appearance in the United Kingdom for the curatorial collective What, How & for Whom.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image Caption
Wangechi Mutu, Riding Death in My Sleep, 2002, ink and collage on paper, 60 x 44 in. Collection of Peter Norton, New York (artwork © Wangechi Mutu).
Projectionists and Room Monitors in Chicago
posted by Lauren Stark — November 20, 2013
CAA is no longer taking applications for projectionists and room monitors.
Working as a projectionist or room monitor at the 102nd Annual Conference, taking place February 12–15, 2014, in Chicago, is a great way to save on conference expenses. All candidates must be US citizens or permanent US residents. CAA encourages students and emerging professionals—especially those in the Chicago area—to apply for service.
Projectionists
CAA seeks applications for projectionists for conference program sessions. Successful applicants are paid $12 per hour and receive complimentary conference registration. Projectionists are required to work a minimum of four 2½-hour program sessions, from Wednesday, February 12 to Saturday, February 15; they must also attend a training meeting on Wednesday morning at 7:30 AM. Projectionists must be familiar with digital projectors. Please send a brief letter of interest to Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs.
Room Monitors
CAA needs room monitors for two Career Services mentoring programs (the Artists’ Portfolio Review and Career Development Mentoring), several offsite sessions, and other conference events, to be held from Wednesday, February 12 to Saturday, February 15; they must also attend a training meeting on Thursday morning at 7:30 AM. Successful candidates are paid $12 per hour and receive complimentary conference registration. Room monitors are required to work a minimum of eight hours, checking in participants and facilitating the work of the mentors. Please send a brief letter of interest to Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted by Christopher Howard — November 20, 2013
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Eight Years Later, Google’s Book Scanning Crusade Ruled “Fair Use”
Eight years after a group of authors and publishers sued Google for scanning more than twenty million library books without the permission of rights holders, a federal judge has ruled that the web giant’s sweeping book project stayed within the bounds of US copyright law. Last week Judge Denny Chin dismissed a lawsuit from the Author Guild, ruling that Google’s book scans constituted fair use under the law. (Read more from Wired.)
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Controversial Copyright Case
The US Supreme Court, in an order issued last week, has decided not to hear the controversial copyright case between the photographer Patrick Cariou and the artist Richard Prince, who appropriated Cariou’s images of Rastafarians in thirty paintings in the series titled Canal Zone. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
SMU’s Major New National Arts Report: What Does Arts Leadership Do?
Southern Methodist University’s National Center for Arts Research (NCAR) has just previewed its inaugural report, a major effort drawing on the largest arts database in the country. Jerome Weeks reports some of the study’s conclusions are a little unexpected. NCAR’s purpose is to determine what constitutes success for an arts group and how can it be encouraged and duplicated? (Read more from Art and Seek.)
German Government Knew about Massive Art Trove Nearly Two Years Ago
The German government knew for nineteen months that a huge trove of art, possibly including works stolen by the Nazis, had been found in Bavaria, but kept quiet while prosecutors carried out their investigation. Jewish groups and lawyers for heirs who might have a claim to the works have criticized the secrecy surrounding the case, and the fact that the government only sprang into action after it was revealed by Germany media earlier this month. (Read more from the Huffington Post.)
Sunday Dialogue: Academia’s Two Tracks
A recent study of Northwestern University indicating that non-tenure-track faculty are better teachers than tenure-track faculty has been met with disbelief and derision—by tenure-track faculty and the American Association of University Professors. It calls into question the myth that the two-track system in academe is an equal opportunity merit system. It is not; it is in fact a caste system with the tenured faculty occupying the upper caste and the off-track faculty serving as the “untouchables.” (Read more from the New York Times.)
No More Digitally Challenged Liberal-Arts Majors
While I don’t think liberal-arts education should be at the service of employers, I do think it is important to enable our BAs to build careers that allow them to continue what they valued about their undergraduate experiences. Too many liberal-arts graduates, especially in the arts and humanities, struggle to find their first positions, and many end up in jobs that have few obvious connections to what they imagined themselves doing. Yearning to follow their academic interests and to be appreciated for what they have to contribute, they end up going to graduate school. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
How to Handle Your Inevitable Rejection: The Vitae Primer
It’s no secret that rejection is a constant and integral part of academic life, especially during job-hunting season. But that doesn’t make repeated knocks to your candidacy (or your psyche) any easier to take or less painful. There’s an abundance of advice on how to get an academic job and manage your career, but little is offered on how to manage your misery when search committees shut the door on your bids. (Read more from Vitae.)
Artist Asks: “What Do You Want to Accomplish Before You Die?”
In the midst of New Orleans still reeling from Hurricane Katrina, Candy Chang channeled her frustration and pain into building a wall. Unlike most walls, this one wasn’t meant to keep people apart, but to bring them closer than ever. Chang, an artist and designer known for thought-provoking, interactive installations, has been preoccupied with the idea of death since her mother passed away when she was fifteen. In 2011, Chang repurposed a wall of a dilapidated house to ask the simple question: What do you want to accomplish before you die? (Read more from Mashable.)
Report from the October 2013 Meeting of the Board of Directors
posted by Anne Collins Goodyear — November 19, 2013
From October 24-27, the College Art Association Board of Directors, Editorial Boards, and Annual Conference Committee held their fall meetings to discuss current and future programming.
During a retreat held on Saturday, October 26, the Board met to discuss the development of the 2015-2020 strategic plan and the transition from an income-based membership model to one oriented to benefits. At the upcoming February 2014 meeting, CAA’s membership will have a chance to learn more about the proposed strategic plan and to provide feedback as well as to vote to amend the bylaws of the Association to permit the new membership structure. This will also us to maintain lower rates for students and retired members, provide discounted fees for part-time and contingent faculty, and allow all members greater flexibility in determining what benefits they would like to receive. Likewise, the new strategic plan prioritizes cultivating and serving the membership, placing a strong emphasis on the use of new technologies for enhancing communications from social media to publications to expanding the reach of the Annual conference virtually.
During its meeting on Sunday, October 27, the Board of Directors elected a new director: Debra Riley Parr, who replaces Saul Ostrow, whose term she will complete. It approved a balanced budget for the second half of the FY 2014 and adopted several new resolutions. These include the creation of a new Web Editor position for the Art Journal to support the ongoing development of its website as well as the adoption of several new guidelines developed by its Professional Practices Committees. These comprise: Guidelines for CAA Interviews, Guidelines for Part-Time Professional Employment, Guidelines for Presenting Works in a Digital Format, Standards for Professional Placement, and a Statement Concerning the Deaccession of Works of Art. At the request of the Committee on Women in the Arts, it approved a revision to the committee’s charge, which now designates:
“The Committee on Women in the Arts (CWA) promotes the scholarly study and recognition of women’s contributions to the visual arts and to critical and art historical studies; advocates for feminist scholarship and activism in art; develops partnerships with organizations with compatible missions; monitors the status of women in the visual arts professions; provides historical and current resources on feminist issues; and supports emerging artists and scholars in their careers.”
The Board heard updates on two signature projects: the ongoing development of its Best Practices Code for Fair Use in the Creation and Curation of Artworks and Scholarly Publishing in the Visual Arts and the digitization of its publications. With respect to CAA’s Fair Use Code, the first phase of the project is close to completion, with an Issues Report distilling the results of interviews with 100 thought leaders in the field, a survey of CAA membership, and a literature review, due to be released in early 2014. CAA’s Committee on Intellectual Property will devote its annual session at the Annual Conference to this topic, at noon on Saturday, February 15th.
The Board also learned that CAA’s negotiations with Taylor and Francis to serve as a copublisher for its journals were close to conclusion. Thanks to this agreement, which is now complete, as recently reported, CAA will be able to digitize its print journals, Art Journal and The Art Bulletin and to offer caa.reviews open access. Both The Art Bulletin and Art Journal will also continue in printed form.
It also turned its attention toward the future. To this end, the Board heard from Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Scholarly Communications at the Modern Language Association about the MLA’s new Humanities Commons. CAA will consider whether it might make sense to partner with MLA as this new virtual space of scholarly discussion and exchange continues to grow.
The Board also entertained discussion about the status of the Ph.D. in art practice and its relationship to the terminal Master of Fine Arts. CAA’s Professional Practices Committee is currently engaged in researching and developing a statement regarding these degrees and the expertise they represent.
Finally, the Board selected its new President-Elect, DeWitt Godfrey, Associate Professor at Colgate University. A talented sculptor and CAA Board Member since 2009, Professor Godfrey will assume office in May 2014, and current President, Anne Collins Goodyear, will serve as past-President until May 2015.
The Board looks forward to meeting with CAA’s membership at the Annual Business meeting on Friday, February 14th at 5:30 pm.
New Developments among ACLS Associations
posted by Linda Downs — November 19, 2013
Each fall the ACLS convenes a meeting for the chief administrative officers (CAOs) of learned societies to exchange information on new developments in our organizations and to explore possible conference sites. This year’s conference was held in Louisville, KY. My takeaways from Louisville were the unforgettable gleaming white nine-ton Carrara marble statue of Louis XVI (the city’s namesake) by Achille-Joseph-Étienne Valois (1829) commissioned in 1829 by the king’s surviving daughter Marie-Thérèse which stands in front of the Louisville City Hall; and the contemporary art museum-cum-hotel called 21C with an installation of Pierre Gonnord’s striking photos of people in rural Spain and a great menu at the restaurant called Proof (as in bourbon).
Among the new developments within the 50 associations that attended were:
- A new census that will gather vital information on all the associations in ACLS to better gauge the trends in the humanities field;
- The success of the ACLS Public Fellows program where fellows are placed in government and non-profit sector positions http://www.acls.org/research/publicfellows.aspx?id=7006;
- The positive reaction to the copublishing agreement between CAA and Taylor & Francis and the transition to online publishing (in addition to print) for The Art Bulletin and Art Journal and open access for caa.reviews in the spring https://www.collegeart.org/news/2013/11/05/caa-journals-to-be-published-by-taylor-francis/ and http://www.collegeart.org/publications/copublicationFAQs;
- The new public resource from the Society for Architectural History’s image encyclopedia of 1,200 American architectural images called ARCHIPEDIA http://sah-archipedia.org/;
- The Modern Language Association’s new social media site for members, MLA Commons http://commons.mla.org/ and plans to expand it for use by other academic associations;
- The National Humanities Alliance’s new advocacy initiative Video Resources http://www.nhalliance.org/ which presents the value of the humanities to the public;
- New digital extensions to annual conferences such as CAA’s conference app (available prior to the February 2014 conference in Chicago) that allow registrants to organize their own schedule of sessions and events; streaming conference sessions, YouTube and podcasts of sessions; and a parallel digital conference offered by the Association of College and Research Libraries http://www.ala.org/acrl/conferences;
- The Renaissance Society’s free access to Early English Books Online (EEOB) for their members www.rsa.org/news/146393/The-RSA-Announces-Early-English-Books-Online-EEBO-Database-Access-as-a-New-Member-Benefit.htm;
- The advocacy work of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies related to fair use and film clips, teach-ins in conference city high schools, an oral history program of members and forming an undergraduate research conference http://www.cmstudies.org/;
- Online courses on professional development organized by the College Forum of the National Council of the Teachers of English http://www.ncte.org/online-learning/courses;
- The need to advocate for the restoration of Title VI and IX funds for foreign language education through the State Department
The CAOs also heard presentations from the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature on how these societies dealt with the threat of union strikes at their conference hotels.
Trevor Parry-Giles of the National Communication Association presented a history of the development of impact factors and the pros and cons, inflation and gaming of current systems such as Thomson Reuters http://thomsonreuters.com/journal-citation-reports/, SCImago http://www.scimagojr.com/, Google Scholar Metrics http://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues; and the latest metric under development, Microsoft Academic http://academic.research.microsoft.com/?SearchDomain=3&entitytype=2 . Digital factors have yet to be fully addressed such as counting downloads versus citations and tracing social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
In 1964 the ACLS supported a Commission on the Humanities whose report eventually led to the establishment of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Some of the recommendations from the Commission were to fund the humanities at the level of the sciences, give more national emphasis on higher education humanities, attract a more diverse faculty, and a demand for faculty to work together. Three learned societies compared then and now. It was noted that there was enormous expansion in humanities departments in the 1960s and so many teaching positions that PhD candidates left school before finishing their degrees to take teaching positions. While the humanities have not attracted a more diverse faculty and faculty positions and departments have been compressed, one very positive result is that faculty has embraced collaboration in both formal (humanities and digital humanities centers) and informal ways, and advocacy of higher education in the public sphere has assisted greater understanding of the value of a humanities education.