I Objectives

1. The major purpose of the Social Science History Association is to improve the quality of historical explanation in every manner possible, but particularly by encouraging the selective use and adaptation in historical teaching and research of relevant theories and methods from related disciplines, particularly the social sciences. The Association will seek to achieve this purpose by:
2. Developing a publication program that will encourage and disseminate social science history of high quality devoted to substantive research, to methodological concerns and to curricular development.
3. Organizing conferences, both regional and national, to bring together like-minded historians and other social scientists with interdisciplinary interests. In this respect members of the Association will endeavor to foster those research areas in which work is particularly experimental or path-breaking in nature as well as those which have already attracted considerable numbers of adherents.
4. Encouraging the introduction of the materials of the new social, political and economic history into the undergraduate curriculum, with appropriate concern for the development of teaching methods appropriate to the new course content, at all curricular levels but particularly in college and university introductory courses and in the offerings of junior and community colleges. We are particularly concerned that ways be devised to carry the challenge and exhilaration of the research process into the classroom.
5. Sponsoring or assisting in the development of summer institutes or other training programs to enable historians and other social scientists to learn skills necessary for the various types of interdisciplinary historical research and their presentation in the classroom.
6. Fostering the retrieval and archiving of quantitative historical data for general scholarly use and its processing in data series of wide applicability as well as assisting in the dissemination of such materials for booth research and classroom use.
   Enabling history and the other social sciences to respond better to the growing interest in the historical dimension in various social science disciplines by promoting the evaluation of historical research proposals by fund granting agencies on the basis of the substance of the research problem rather than in terms of the departmental or disciplinary affiliation of the applicants.
7. Working to achieve maximum freedom of access for scholars to data of particular interest to social science historians.
8. Preparing and submitting grant proposals where appropriate to enable the executive officers and council members of the Association to realize the major and subordinate objectives of the Association.
9. Taking any other appropriate action which the members of the Association may believe necessary to achieve the above objectives.

II Membership

1. Any person supporting the objectives of the Association will be enrolled upon the payment of dues to the Treasurer or other authorized person.
2. The Executive Committee of the Association will designate various classes of membership, setting appropriate membership fees and rights of participation.
3. Scholars of distinction and appropriate interests may be designated elected members. The initial selection of such members shall be made by the organizing committee and thereafter by a committee on elected members, the committee to be chosen by the President of the Association and its recommendations to be subject to approval by the Executive Committee. Standards for choosing elected members shall be set by the committee on elected members in consultation with the Executive Committee. Elected members shall receive the Association's publications during their lifetimes.

III Officers

1. The Association shall have the following elective officers: A President, a Vice-President, an Executive Director, and a Treasurer. The terms of office of the President and Vice-President shall be one year. The Vice-President shall, upon completion of her/his term, serve as President in the following year. The terms of office of the Executive Director and the Treasurer shall be four years, the terms so set as to have one of them elected every second year.
2. The Executive Committee shall consist of the four officers; nine committee members, three to be elected for three-year terms each year1 and to serve until their successors qualify; and the three most recent past presidents willing and able to serve. A majority of the Executive Committee shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. Action recommended at any meeting not attended by the majority of the Executive Committee shall be confirmed through correspondence by at least a numerical majority of the Committee. Association editors will be ex officio members of the Executive Committee.
   
3. As early as practicable in each election year, the President, with the advice of the Executive Committee, shall appoint a nominating committee consisting of at least five members of the Association. The nominating committee shall be instructed to present to the Executive Director of the Association five months before the annual meeting, one nomination for the offices of Vice-President, Executive Director or Treasurer when appropriate, and two or more nominations for each other elective office to be filled, all of the nominees to be members of the Association.
4. The President shall be ineligible for re-election.
5. Elective officers shall be chosen through elections to be held during the last six months of the term of office of their predecessors. Each voting member shall be given the opportunity to vote by mail with provisions for write-in voting on the ballot. The results of the election shall be certified and announced by the Executive Director at the next annual meeting of the Association or by individual letter to the several members of the Association.
6. In the event that the office of the Executive Director or the Treasurer becomes vacant for any reason whatsoever, the President with the advice of the Executive Committee, shall appoint a temporary Executive Director or Treasurer. Such appointee shall serve until the next annual election.

IV Duties of Officers

1. The President of the Association shall preside at all meetings of the Association and the Executive Committee. In case of her/his disability or absence, the duties shall devolve upon the Vice-President, or the Executive Director, or the Treasurer, in that order.
2. The Executive Director shall keep the records of the Association, shall receive and have custody of the funds of the Association, and shall prepare an annual financial report. The Treasurer shall review annually the financial status of the Association, and shall also present and discuss the annual financial report at the meeting of the Executive Committee. The accounts shall be subject to periodic audit, at the discretion of the President. Upon succession of the Executive Directors, the accounts must be audited by a certified public accountant2 . Both officers shall perform such other duties as the Executive Committee shall assign them.
3. The Executive Committee shall pursue the objectives of the Association and have control and management of the funds of the Association. The Executive Committee may adopt any rules and regulations for the conduct of its business not inconsistent with these by-laws or with the rules adopted at any annual meeting of the Association. It shall act as a committee on time and place of meetings, and perform such other duties as the Association may delegate to it.

V Other Committees

1. There shall be four standing committees: publications, curricular development, research resource development, and program. The first three of these will have six members in each case and two members of each of the standing committees shall be members of the Executive Committee, as designated by the President. However, the membership of these three standing committees may be increased to nine at the discretion of the chairpersons and with the approval of the President.
   
2. The President shall name the chairperson of the first three committees; however, the Vice President shall appoint the program committee for each subsequent year.
3. The remaining members of the Publications Committee shall be elected by the members for staggered three-year terms. The remaining members of the other standing committees shall be appointed by the President
4. When appropriate the Executive Committee shall recommend additions or other modifications of the standing committee structure to the association membership in annual meeting for their approval or rejection. Proposals for changes in the standing committee structure may also be moved by members of the association at the annual meeting. it shall be the prerogative of the President to appoint ad hoc committees as circumstances dictate or the Executive Committee recommends. Nothing in these by-laws shall prevent committees from establishing subcommittees that extend beyond the membership with the approval of the President. Officers of the Association may sit as ex officio members of any committee.

VI Meetings

1. The annual and other meetings of the Association shall be held at such time and place as determined by the Executive Committee. Adequate notice of such time and place shall be given to members in the publications of the Association and also by mail by the Executive Director or the Treasurer at least one month before such meetings.
2. Special meetings of the Association may be called at such time and place as may be determined by a resolution of the Executive Committee.
3. At the prerogative of the President with advice of those members of the Executive Committee in attendance, nonprocedural motions introduced and passed at meetings of the Association will be referred to the membership of the Association by mail ballot for approval or rejection.
4. Meetings of the Executive Committee or the Officers of the Association shall be called by the President of the Association or at the request of four members of the Executive Committee; all announcements shall be made through the office of the Executive Director.

VII Amendments

Amendments to these by-laws may be submitted at any time by any voting member to the President of the Association and by her/him submitted to the Executive Committee at its next regular meeting for approval or disapproval. Action taken by the Committee shall be reported to the membership by mail and at the next annual business meeting of the Association such action shall be confirmed, amended, or rejected by vote of the Association. Amendments shall be adopted if so voted by a majority of the members at any regular meeting.

Notes

1. As amended at Annual Meeting, November 5, 1988.
2. As amended by vote of membership, April/May mail ballot, 1998.
3. As amended at Annual Meeting, November 5, 1988.
4. As amended at Annual Meeting of November 6, 1982 and November 5, 1988.