In advance of the 2025 AGM (which will be held at the University of Hertfordshire on Thursday April 24th 2025), elections will be held for the following posts on the British Association for American Studies Executive Committee:
Current incumbents of these positions may stand for re-election if not disbarred by the Constitution’s limits on length of continuous service in Committee posts, nor by clauses relating to particular roles.
Deadline for nominations: March 24th 2025 (see below for further instructions).
Role Descriptors
Chair (x1) – three-year term
The Chair of the Association leads the Executive Committee; working with their fellow Officers and Trustees, the Chair steers the Association’s strategy and activities, and acts more broadly as an ambassador for American Studies in the UK. The Chair reports regularly to the membership on the activities of the Association, and works to advance the discipline and to promote the study and understanding of America, both within the academic community and beyond it.
Interested parties are welcome to discuss the role with our outgoing chair, Dr Lydia Plath (chair@baas.ac.uk).
Treasurer (x1) – three-year term
The Treasurer works closely with the BAAS Chair to advise, direct and implement financial strategy to maintain the health and integrity of the Association’s accounts. For several years the Treasurer role has been shared; however, the bulk of day-to-day operations, including processing grant and expense payments and paying invoices, is now the responsibility of the Administration Manager, who works closely with the Treasurer. Accordingly, BAAS will move back to a single Treasurer, who will liaise with the accountants, oversee payroll for BAAS employees, and provide regular financial reports to the membership and to the Charity Commission.
Interested parties are welcome to discuss the role with the outgoing co-Treasurers Dr Catherine Armstrong (catherine.armstrong@baas.ac.uk) and Dr Mark McLay (mark.mclay@baas.ac.uk), and/or with the Administration Manager Katie Edwards (adminmanager@baas.ac.uk).
Early Career Representative (x1) – two-year term
The Early Career Representative promotes the interests of early career scholars (broadly defined). This includes working closely with the Development and Education Sub-Committee to tackle precarity and exploitation in higher education, and ensuring that BAAS opportunities (including awards, conferences, and grants) recognise and promote the diverse talents of early career scholars.
To be eligible to stand, candidates for Early Career representative must be within seven years of successfully completing their PhD and are usually expected to either have the PhD in hand, to have submitted the pre-viva version of their PhD, or to have a viva date scheduled, before the ballot opens. An Early Career representative who has completed one full term in office may not stand for re-election as Early Career representative. Interested parties are invited to contact our current representative, Dr Siân Round (sian.round@baas.ac.uk) to discuss the role.
Postgraduate Representative (x1) – two-year term
The Postgraduate Representative works as part of a team of two (elected at staggered intervals to maintain continuity) to advocate for postgraduate members. Duties include assisting the yearly postgraduate conference (which includes selecting and guiding the conference organisers) and representing the thoughts and concerns of the wider postgraduate community.
To be eligible, candidates must be a registered postgraduate student. The position is for two years and therefore it is preferable that the candidate is not in their final year of postgraduate study. A Postgraduate Representative who has completed one full term in office may not stand for re-election as Postgraduate Representative. The successful candidate will work alongside David Malcolm, who has one year remaining of his term.
Interested parties are invited to contact our current representatives, Riziki Millanzi (riziki.millanzi@baas.ac.uk) and David Malcolm (david.malcolm@baas.ac.uk) to discuss the role.
Ordinary Members (x4) – three-year term
Ordinary Members will be invited to sit on one of the four BAAS sub-committees: Publications, Awards, Conferences, or Development and Education. As part of their portfolio, they will be encouraged to contribute to and report back on new and ongoing BAAS projects.
Instructions for Candidates
Nominations should reach us by the strict deadline of 17.00 GMT on Monday March 24th 2025. Candidates should email the following information to our Secretary, Dr Rachel Williams (secretary@baas.ac.uk), copying in their proposer and seconder as confirmation of their support:
Where possible, the proposer and seconder should not be from the candidate’s own institution.
Your supporting statement should outline your educational background, areas of teaching and/or research interests and your vision for BAAS, and for the role for which you are standing, in the upcoming years. We also ask that those standing for election give consideration to matters of equality, diversity, and inclusion in their statements, and include any suggestions for approaches or initiatives in this area.
Further information for Trustees
Those standing for election are expected to be BAAS members and to attend the AGM. We particularly welcome nominations from groups traditionally underrepresented in the Association.
All elected candidates will be made Trustees of BAAS, which is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. For this reason, nominations from candidates living and working in the UK are preferred. Trustees are expected to promote and advance the discipline of American Studies in the UK and beyond, and to work to make BAAS an inclusive, accessible, transparent, and responsive organisation which proactively champions the needs of its diverse community of members. All Trustees are required to abide by the BAAS Code of Conduct. All Executive Committee members are expected to contribute to the judging of our annual Awards schemes.
BAAS will reimburse travel (and, where appropriate, accommodation) expenses for attendance at Executive Committee meetings, along with registration costs for the BAAS annual conference and/or the BAAS PG conference for members of the Executive Committee. Most Executive Committee meetings are held remotely; as part of BAAS’ ongoing commitment to access, inclusion and environmental sustainability, we are likely to conduct a mixture of in-person meetings (coinciding with the annual conference, for instance) and remote meetings.
Election Information
The AGM will take place at on Thursday, April 24th 2025. Election results can only be confirmed if the meeting is quorate; if you are attending the conference at Hertfordshire, please make every effort to attend the AGM.
As per the BAAS Constitution, if there is more than one candidate for any position, an election will be held. BAAS elections will take place via advance electronic voting. There will be no in-person ballot.
