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Dear colleagues,
My association with H-Net began in late 1994 when I joined H-ASIA as a Ph.D. student in modern Chinese history at Yale. After graduating in 1996 I taught for two years at Calvin College in Michigan before coming to the University of Alberta in 1998, where I am now an associate professor. Sometime in there I joined H-World also, to which I still subscribe in digest mode. Both lists became very important to my intellectual formation, and I came to value the role H-Net plays very highly. Therefore in 2004 I responded to a call for new editors from Frank Conlon, who co-founded H-ASIA with Steven Leibo in 1993. I was certified as a list editor in August 2004, and since then I have processed 1344 posts, according to the logs, with all the behind-the-scenes activity that is familiar to each of you.
My perception of H-Net's successes and challenges is shaped by my experience with H-ASIA, which is a high-volume list (2-300 posts a month) with a large, diverse and international list of subscribers (4275 currently). That number has grown steadily over the past three years, indicating that the list still plays a useful role in the professional lives of its members. I credit the high editorial standard and the consistently civil and constructive tone set and maintained by Leibo and Conlon and their successors with much of the list's success.
As a US-trained Australian scholar based in Canada, I am very aware of the dual nature of H-Net as both a non-profit organization incorporated in Michigan and an international resource on the web with a global membership. As Peter pointed out in his outline of the responsibilities of H-Net council members, the Strategic Plan of 2005 outlined many of the challenges and opportunities facing H-Net. Some of these are the perennial ones of providing high-quality content, developing new readers and editors, and ensuring that our activities are financially sustainable. Others are more specific to the Web 2.0 era, including those identified by Kelly Woestman in her candidate statement. Of particular relevance to H-ASIA is the Strategic Plan's reference to serving "global audiences through multiple language networks, unicode standards compliance, and translations."
I do not have a particular agenda on most of these issues. As a Council member, I will undertake to think carefully about the issues presented to Council, to ask questions and engage in debate, to respect and consider the views of others, and generally to exercise the fiduciary duties of a councillor to the best of my ability.
Ryan Dunch
Ryan Dunch
Associate Professor
Department of History and Classics
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB T6G 2H4
Canada
ph. 780 492-6484
Fax 780 492-9125
