Career Progression
Over the last six months, the joint Task Force on Career Progression has recruited an excellent group of volunteers—drawn from the membership of the Association of University Presses and the Society for Scholarly Publishing—and has dived into work. The group has been gathering position descriptions in preparation for creating template position descriptions. These will be collated into a database of common position descriptions for use by individuals and organizations.
Charles Watkinson, Michigan, Chair to June 2022
Lisa Bayer, Georgia, Chair from July 2022
Angela Anderson, Marine Corps
Becky Brasington Clark, Library of Congress
Hilary Claggett, Georgetown
Catherine Cocks, Michigan State
Kelly Finefrock, Alabama
Craig W. Gill, Mississippi
Kristin Harpster, Wayne State
Kim Robinson, California
Patrick Samuel, Vanderbilt
Amy Sherman, Pittsburgh
Adele Sommerville, North Carolina
Lisa C. Tremaine, Freelance Copyeditor
Rich Schrader, Senior HR Business Partner, University of Michigan, Consultant
Lisa Bayer, Georgia (to June 2022) and Charles Watkinson, Michigan (from July 2022), Board Liaisons
Brenna McLaughlin, Central Office Liaison
University Press Week
The University Press Week Task Force led a very successful University Press Week campaign in November 2021 organized around the theme of #KeepUP. National media attention of UP Week included two hits in Publishers Weekly as well as a feature in LitHub and Inside Higher Ed, among others. In collaboration with the Seminary Co-op bookstore, the group hosted a very well received and attended Zoom panel that brought together UP staff, an author, and a bookseller for a fantastic conversation on the role of UPs; the event was also re-aired on C-SPAN’s “Book TV.” The number of presses participating in the gallery and blog tour held steady with 85 gallery entries and 56 blog posts this year, and a new social media toolkit was used widely to not only gain attention for individual UPs but to boost followers and awareness of AUPresses as an organization. In addition, the group launched a new bookstore toolkit to encourage bookseller engagement. Bookshop.org featured the reading list again, and the group partnered with Shelf Awareness to offer a special AUPresses members-only advertising deal.
Carrie Adams, Chicago, Chair
Douglas Hildebrand, Alberta
Catherine Hobbs, Columbia
Mary Beth Jarrad, NYU
Jane Kelly, Toronto
Gigi Lamm, Pennsylvania
Kathryn Lloyd, Texas A&M
Fredric Nachbaur, Fordham
Colleen Lanick, Harvard, Board Liaison
Brenna McLaughlin and Annette Windhorn, Central Office Liaisons