By Nick Hirshon, William Paterson
AJHA Nominations & Elections Chair
It’s almost that time of year again: fall leaves, pumpkin spice lattes, and the AJHA conference! With our hearty crew of media historians about to take on Dallas in a few weeks, our members have nominated three scholars for the office of second vice-president and four to occupy three open seats on the board of directors. Additional nominations can be made from the floor during the election that will take place at the annual member business meeting on Saturday, Oct. 5. After elections are held, current Second Vice-President Aimee Edmondson (Ohio University) will become first vice-president for 2019-2020, and First Vice-President Donna Lampkin Stephens (University of Central Arkansas) will become president.
Proxy Voting
Dues-paying AJHA members unable to attend the conference are eligible to vote by proxy. They should send their name, email address and the name of the person who will cast their proxy vote at the conference to AJHA Nominations and Elections Committee Chair Nick Hirshon (nickhirshon@gmail.com) no later than midnight Friday, September 20, 2019. PLEASE CONFIRM IN ADVANCE that the proxy voter will be at the business meeting on Oct. 5 and is willing to cast the proxy vote.
Nominees
Second Vice-President
Mike Conway (Indiana University) is an associate professor of journalism. Before becoming a professor, he spent more than 15 years in local television news, working as a reporter, photographer, anchor, producer, and news director. Conway studies twentieth-century journalism history, especially the rise of radio and television news. His latest book is Contested Ground: “The Tunnel” and the Struggle Over Television News in Cold War America. Conway is a lifetime member of AJHA, first joining in 2003. He has been on the American Journalism Editorial Advisory board for ten years and served as chair of the Awards Committee for nine years. He was also elected to the Board of Directors and has served on the Convention Sites Committee and the Blanchard Dissertation Award Committee. He reviews papers every year and books most years. He has won the American Journalism “Best Article Award” twice.
Paulette Kilmer (University of Toledo) is a professor of communication. She began her association with AJHA as a graduate student in the late 1980s. Since that time, she has worked in some of AJHA's most important committees, including the education committee and publications committee. As longtime publications chair, she provided feedback from the Publications Committee to assist in the transition from print newsletter to digital format and worked with AJHA leadership to forge a relationship with publisher Taylor & Francis to move American Journalism into its scholarly journal listings. She won a president's award for her work as coordinator of the Donna Allen Luncheon series and a second award for coordinating the successful search for editors of both the newsletter and journal one summer. Kilmer also served a term on the board of directors and has published books and articles in journalism history.
Pam Parry (Southeast Missouri State University) is chairperson of the Department of Mass Media at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. She is a lifetime member of American Journalism Historians Association, having served on the AJHA board of directors and the public relations committee. She also has served as chair of the education committee. In addition to her administrative duties at Southeast Missouri State, she teaches media history and communication law. She is the author of Eisenhower: The Public Relations President as well as two trade books. Parry is a co-editor of the Women in American Political History Book series by Lexington Books, which has produced five books to date--most of them authored by members of the American Journalism Historians Association. She is writing another book that should be released in 2020.
Board of Directors
Teri Finneman (University of Kansas) is an assistant professor of journalism. She has been a member of AJHA since 2015 and is a past Oral History Committee Chair. Chair of the AEJMC History Division for 2019-2020, she executive produces the podcast Journalism History. Her research focuses on a mix of history, gender, media and politics, with an emphasis on press portrayals of women politicians and first ladies, oral history and women in journalism. Finneman is the author of Press Portrayals of Women Politicians, 1870s-2000s, which was named a 2016 finalist for the Frank Luther Mott -Kappa Tau Alpha book award for best research-based book about journalism or mass communication. Her documentary, “Newspaper Pioneers: The Story of the North Dakota Press,” premiered in 2017. She is a recipient of the American Journalism Historians Association's Wm. David Sloan and Maurine Beasley awards, as well as the AEJMC History Division's Michael S. Sweeney Award, for her research on the press and the suffrage movement.
Michael Fuhlhage (Wayne State University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication. His research interests include the development of stereotypes about Mexicans in U.S. mass media, the mid-nineteenth-century press, and the history of the book in American culture. He has served as chair of the AJHA Research Committee, member of the AJHA Board of Directors, juror in the AJHA Margaret Blanchard Dissertation Awards competition, juror in the AJHA McKerns Research Grant competition, coordinator of the AJHA panels competition, member of the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame board of directors, and as faculty adviser for the Auburn University chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has reviewed manuscripts for AJHA, American Journalism, and the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference. Fuhlhage is the author of Yankee Reporters and Southern Secrets: Journalism, Open Source Intelligence, and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2019).
Gwyneth Mellinger (James Madison University) is director of the School of Media Arts & Design. Her research, which has been supported by the collegial fellowship of AJHA, focuses on the southern press of the 1950s, the newsroom diversity movement, and journalism ethics. Mellinger has been a member of AJHA for 15 years. She has reviewed for the AJHA conference, book award, research in progress, and McKerns Research Grant, which she has received twice. She previously served on the AJHA board from 2009 to 2012 and chaired the AJHA Outreach Committee from 2008 to 2010. She is a member of the American Journalism advisory board and a contributing editor for Journalism History. Recent winner of the Farrar Award for research on the historical relationship between the media and civil rights, Mellinger is the author of Chasing Newsroom Diversity: From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action (Illinois, 2013) and co-editor, with John Ferré, of the forthcoming Journalism’s Ethical Progression: A Twentieth-Century Journey.
Melony Shemberger (Murray State University) is an associate professor of journalism and mass communication and recent winner of the AEJMC History Division's teaching award. Editor of the Intelligencer newsletter, Shemberger has published in several peer-reviewed publications, including Journalism History, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, and the Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication Journal. She also has authored several book chapters and professional articles in guidebooks published by the PR News Press. Her primary research interests include various journalism history topics, with education news dominating her current agenda; the scholarship of teaching and learning, with a focus on andragogy and instructional design; sunshine laws; and crisis communication. Before entering academia, Shemberger had successful, award-winning reporting careers — specializing in the education, court and business beats — and received numerous awards from the Kentucky Press Association.
