By Wayne Lee, President of the Society
Happy October! We’re rounding the curve toward the SMH conference in New Orleans in March, and the deadline for panels, papers, posters, and lightning presentations is upon us (or passing us by the time you see this). I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the Crescent City. We’re very grateful for the cooperation and generous hosting provided by the National WWII Museum, a place that always rewards another visit. But that is still months away, and between now and then members will soon be receiving the ballot for our next round of trustee and officer elections. I encourage everyone to take the time to vote.
I also want to highlight some key initiatives that we’ve been working on. The SMH is on the verge (as I write this) of signing a contract to completely re-do our web presence, as well as our underlying records structure, conference submission system, as well as re-imagining our public face, our marketing, and our ability to campaign for funding. We hope to have most of this online before the conference (NOT the conference submission system! That will be for 2028). As a part managing that process we created a new Marketing and Communications committee, chaired by David Kieran, who will work with the technical folks we are hiring (I’m withholding the name until we have a signed contract). Many people have complained that our current website, ably and continuously maintained by Kurt Hackemer, has grown unwieldy over the years, and so we’re going to take the plunge and re-do the whole thing, and hopefully in the process repackage the society to better reflect our mission and value to the historical profession, including teachers and instructors at a variety of levels. Some of these changes and ideas are still in draft, and so I’ll not say too much just yet. As always, I’m grateful for the hard work of our staff in soliciting and vetting the offers for the necessary work. This represents an investment for the Society, but I believe it will be one that is well within our means.