Elections for AJHA second vice president and three seats on the board of directors will take place electronically in October, ahead of the conference Nov. 4-7 in Greenville, South Carolina.
Willie Tubbs has been nominated for second vice president. Four members have been nominated for the board; three will be elected.
The 2nd VP, under normal circumstances, rises to the presidency in two years, then serves on the board as ex-officio for an additional two years. Board members serve for three years and are expected to attend board meetings at the annual convention.
The election will be conducted via online survey, distributed in early October. A write-in option will be available for each position.
Below are brief bios for each nominee.
Second Vice President
Willie Tubbs, associate professor of communication at the University of West Florida, has been nominated for second vice president. A member since 2015, his first AJHA conference was in St. Paul.
“The open arms with which I was welcomed, often by people I had cited in my paper, reignited my passion for history and ignited an abiding love for this organization,” Tubbs wrote.
He said any scholar would be lucky to belong to a group filled with people who sincerely want to help their colleagues to succeed within the field and at their home universities. He praised AJHA for the exceptional support it provides to researchers. Tubbs has won numerous awards for teaching, presentations, and papers, including honorable mention for the Margaret Blanchard Dissertation Prize.
Tubbs is chair of Service Awards Committee and a member of the Education Committee and Southeast Symposium Committee. A former member of the Board of Directors, he has chaired the PR Committee and judged for the AJHA Book Award.
Tubbs said that leading AJHA requires one to lean into shared governance, and he is well suited to that task.
“My greatest strength in a leadership position is my ability to listen, establish a shared vision, and work with everyone to achieve those common goals,” he said. “Thus, I would view my job in the coming three years as primarily continuing the great work that is already done, while leaning into the many relationships I've been lucky enough to forge through a decade of serving in numerous capacities.”
Board of Directors
David Davies, professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, has attended AJHA conventions since 1994. At that time he was a first-year PhD student at the University of Alabama, and his adviser David Sloan encouraged him to attend.
“I was amazed at the welcome the graduate students received, and I was hooked,” he wrote. “AJHA has been my primary academic conference home ever since. I take absolutely any opportunity to tell folks how important this organization has been to my career.”
He regards organization as the most important professional affiliation of his entire career, having relied on members for research ideas, professional support, and friendship for more than 30 years.
Winner of the second Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize (in 1998) and mentor to several subsequent Blanchard honorees, Davies also has received a Joseph McKerns Research Grant. A former web editor for AJHA, Davies served a term on the Board of Directors more than a decade ago.
“I would be delighted to serve again,” he said.
Maddie Liseblad, an associate professor at Cal State Long Beach, has been a member of AJHA since 2016. She joined as a graduate student after Mike Conway invited her to participate on a panel with him, Michael D. Murray, and Mary Beadle to discuss television broadcasting.
Liseblad has served as chair of the Graduate Student Committee and as a member of the Nominations and Elections Committee and the Convention Sites Committee. In 2024, she served as a local host for the AJHA conference in Long Beach. Liseblad said her own research has greatly benefited from the Rising Scholar Award and the Joseph McKerns Research Grant.
“AJHA has been my ‘home’ since I was a student,” said Liseblad. “I go to the conference every year, even when I have don’t have funding. AJHA is important to me, not only professionally, but also personally. It’s a great support network, in more ways than one.”
After having served the AEJMC History Division in various capacities, including as the division chair and the publications committee chair for Journalism History, she said it’s time for her to get more involved with AJHA.
“I have a deep appreciation for the AJHA and its goals, and I think my time with AEJMC provides me with a unique perspective and experiences that can benefit AJHA,” she said.
Professor Emerita Gwyneth Mellinger retired in 2026 after 10 years in the School of Media Arts and Design at James Madison University. She said she joined AJHA 20 years ago because she had found an academic home that provided opportunities for collaboration with media history colleagues who engaged with and critiqued her scholarship.
A former winner of the AJHA Book Award, Mellinger also has received the Joseph McKerns Research Grant and several AJHA research paper awards.
Mellinger has served two previous terms on the AJHA Board of Directors (2009-2012 and 2019-2022). She previously chaired the Outreach Committee and has coordinated Research-in-Progress submissions on the Research Committee. Additionally, she has been a member of the Book Awards Committee and DEI Task Force, and she serves on the American Journalism editorial board.
Mellinger said she has learned a great deal from mentoring and supporting her peers.
“Continued service to AJHA would be a demonstration of gratitude for all the organization has done for me,” Mellinger said.
Rich Shumate, assistant professor in the School of Mass Communication at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been a member of AJHA since 2016.
When he decided to focus on mass media history as a research area during his PhD program, AJHA was a natural fit.
“I definitely found a home among like-minded scholars who share my interest in exploring media history, and the experience has been invaluable to my career,” Shumate said.
The chief benefit Shumate has derived from his years with AJHA has been the opportunity to network with and learn from other media history scholars. He said he comes away from the convention each year with new energy and new ideas. He also has been honored by AJHA's recognition of his work, including the Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize in 2019 and the David Sloan Award for top faculty paper last year in Long Beach.
Shumate served on the board of directors from 2020-2023. Because that tenure was affected by COVID, he is interested in serving again in more normal times. Shumate also has served as website editor and as a member of the Blanchard Dissertation Prize Committee and Public Relations Committee.
Shumate said the biggest strength he would bring is his past experience in a variety of roles within the organization, along with the relationships he has made throughout AJHA.
“I've enjoyed the time I have spent being part of AJHA, and I would appreciate the opportunity to continue to contribute,” Shumate said.
