By Lisa Parcell and Aimee Edmondson

AJHA members overwhelmingly agree we should protect funding for graduate students and junior scholars. Members also believe the most valuable feature of AJHA is the conference itself and the opportunity for feedback on research, networking, and mentoring.

These were two strong positive take aways from the AJHA membership survey deployed in August, a month before our Columbus convention.

If this survey showed one thing, it’s that our membership cares deeply about AJHA and wants to do what is necessary to protect it for future generations. We had 137 completes out of 235 surveys sent out. That’s an impressive 58 percent return rate, when the more standard return rate for member surveys is 30-40 percent. This response alone is a strong indication that our membership takes seriously our budget challenges and wants to be part of the solution.

As one member advocated, “Make cuts for grad students last as they are our only hope of growing in the future.”

President Mike Conway tasked the Long-Range Planning Committee with surveying the membership as we work to reduce costs and while still providing members with the convention experience they have come to expect.

Clearly we have built up a supportive organization that nurtures young scholars and continues to support our senior scholars. But we recognized that we must cut funding for things we all agree are important.

AJHA membership features

When we asked members to rank in importance commonly mentioned features of AJHA membership, items associated with the conference were clearly the most important (in-person conference, feedback on research, and networking and mentoring opportunities). In the middle of the rankings, we had a mix of things including printed copies of AJ, research grants and book awards, leadership and service opportunities, and support for graduate students. At the bottom of the rankings was printed copies of the Southeastern Review of Journalism History.

AJHA features	Mean (lowest=most important)
In-person conference	3.02
Feedback on research	3.28
Networking and mentoring opportunities	3.66
Printed copies of AJ	5.25
Research grants	5.45
Research and book awards	5.50
Leadership and service opportunities	5.52
Support for graduate students	5.71
Printed copies of the Southeastern Review of Journalism History journal	7.61

AJHA funded items

When asked to rank order 11 items that AJHA currently funds in terms of personal value, items related to research were the top three (Blanchard Dissertation Prize, Joseph McKerns Research Grant, and the Book Award) closely followed by Sweeney graduate student travel stipend, the Rising Scholar Award, and the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference. Next followed the teaching award and ACEJMC membership. Coming in as least important was the Distinguished Service Award, the Southeastern Symposium, and the Southeastern Review of Journalism History journal.

AJHA funded items	Mean (lowest=most important)
Blanchard Dissertation Prize	3.97
Joseph McKerns Research Grant	4.38
Book Award	4.90
Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend	4.98
Rising Scholar Award	5.33
Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference	5.37
National Award for Excellence in Teaching	6.08
ACEJMC membership	6.37
Distinguished Service Award	7.18
Southeastern Symposium	8.09
Southeastern Review of Journalism History journal	9.33

With the Blanchard Dissertation Award, research grants, the Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend, and the Rising Scholar Award all in the top tier of choices for the qualitative rankings, concern for graduate students and young scholars is clear. Other suggestions with more than one comment included suggestions for cutting costs, particularly raising annual dues and considering hybrid or virtual conferences.

Endowment questions

Only 2 of our members responded to the question about starting an endowment to say that they had already made a bequest to AJHA in their estate. However, 24 other members said they have considered making such a bequest.

Of the respondents who said they had not left a bequest to AJHA, most cited other priorities—usually family—or a lack of adequate income as a reason they have not considered donating. However, 14 people said the idea had simply not occurred to them and an additional 7 indicated that they would consider it now that they were asked. Not surprisingly, 9 people said they were too early in their career to consider it.

Conference questions

When members were asked to indicate how important or unimportant different aspects of the conference were, the most important aspect was clearly funding for graduate students. This was followed by low hotel room rates and registration fees, the Blanchard Dissertation Prize winners session, the historic tour, the awards luncheon, and a free night for exploring the city. At the bottom was the Outstanding Local Journalist Award and reception, the Saturday night gala, the Donna Allen luncheon, breakfast every morning, and being in an historic hotel.

Conference items	Mean (highest=most important)
Funding for graduate students	4.17
Low hotel room rates	3.79
Low registration fee	3.57
Blanchard Dissertation Prize winners’ session	3.54
Historic tour	3.46
Awards luncheon (includes Kobre & teaching award)	3.21
Free night for exploring the city	3.17
Local journalist award/reception	2.91
Saturday night gala	2.80
Donna Allen luncheon	2.65
Breakfast every morning	2.43
Being in an historic hotel	2.39

The conference is the jewel of our organization, giving members the chance to network, get feedback and advice on research, and generally be a collegial and supportive group of scholars with a shared interest. Not surprisingly, the funded items our members found the most important (Blanchard Dissertation Prize, McKerns Research Grants, Book Award, Sweeney graduate student travel funding, Rising Scholar Award, and the Joint Journalism and Communication History conference) are also all tied to research, networking, and mentoring. We have a strong mission, and we are staunch defenders of that mission.

Members did offer some ideas for bringing in more revenue including raising membership dues, asking for donations, starting an endowment, and, in the interest of helping our members continue to come to the conference, reducing conference costs by not being in an historic hotel and lowering the price of some of the add-on meals.

Our membership also was extremely positive about the work of the board and leadership, thanking them for asking for membership feedback, doing good work, and making tough decisions. In the two open-ended questions asking members to share their thoughts with the leadership and board, the most frequent comments were simple thank you’s and words of support to the board.

One member wrote, “I have full confidence in your decision-making. This is my all-time favorite organization and my admiration for the membership and leadership knows no bounds.”

Another wrote, “Thanks for making these hard choices. This organization is very important and must endure.”

Survey demographics

Of the 137 members who completed the survey, 93 were regular members (67.9%), 16 were lifetime members (11.7%), 5 were students (3.6%), and 23 were retired members (16.8%). The majority of these had been members for over 20 years (41 people) with only 1 person saying it was their first year in the organization. The rest were roughly evenly divided among the other three categories with 24 being members for 2-5 years, 37 being members for 6-10 years, and 34 being members for 11-20 years. Not surprisingly, roughly half (53%) were full-time tenured educators, followed by retired members (19%), full-time non-tenured educators (15%), other (6%), independent scholars (5%), and part-time educators (2%).

Members reported that their institutional support for research expenses, membership dues, and conference registration and travel—a question only asked of those who identified as full or part-time educators—ranged from 0% funding to 100% funding for each category. Conference registration and travel was the most well-funded with a mean of 55.7, followed by research expenses with a mean of 43.4, and membership dues with a mean of 34.2. 

In the interest of bringing in more members, a handful of people suggested that AJHA should broaden its scope in terms of how it defines journalism/media history both at the conference and in the journal. One member explained, “We need to continue to broaden the scope of what we do; media history is more than journalism.”

We as an organization have a lot of work ahead of us, but members seem to agree that it is an organization well worth the effort. As one member said, “Thanks for taking this on. It is a terrible job, but thank you for doing the hard work to protect our organization.”

Lisa Parcell and Aimee Edmondson are both Ex-Officio Board Members. Parcell serves as a finance officer and Edmondson is a former president of AJHA.