Description: Founded in 1907 by archivists and teachers as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, the OAH looks to the past to build a new future. In 2000, the organization, in conjunction with Iowa State University Department of History, will host its first annual regional conference. Its aim is to serve anew its members at community and four-year colleges and high schools, and those employed in government, museums, and the private sector as well as in major universities. The conference also seeks to encourage persons who will soon serve in these diverse capacities—graduate students—to get involved in professional activities early in their careers. The regional conference will be held in Ames, Iowa, on the campus of Iowa State University, August 4-6, 2000.

The meeting seeks to bring together American historians located in the Midwest as well as those American historians studying the Midwest. The meeting takes as its special charge a desire to reach members and other historians and graduate students who find it difficult to attend the national meeting held in the spring each year. Considerably more attention will be devoted to the practice of history both in classrooms and in public settings. Fully a third of the sessions are to be devoted to professional development. Sessions on the latest historiographic approaches to historical problems as well as the most modern teaching strategies will be interlaced with more conventional presentations of new research. To ensure that this goal is achieved, the program committee solicits paper and panel proposals. But it also reserves the right to round out the practical/professional development portion of the program by asking prominent historians—experts in the fields—to present specific historiographic and teaching papers in areas not adequately covered by submissions.

In keeping with recent OAH program practice, we encourage formats that promote discussion and participation, for example, roundtables and debates with up to five panelists. Also, we recognize that many of the constituencies that we seek to attract may have little experience putting together entire sessions. Therefore, we welcome individual paper submissions. All proposals for individual papers, sessions, debates, and conversations should identify their format and specify participants. Each must contain a title page copied from the model (at left); a single-page c.v. for each participant; and an overall abstract of 500 words for multi-person sessions with 250-word abstracts for each paper (i.e., individuals submitting only a single paper proposal should provide an abstract of only 250 words). Send five (5) copies of the entire proposal (including cover sheet) postmarked no later than 1 November 1999, to:

MRC 2000 Program Committee,
Department of History,
603 Ross Hall,
Iowa State University,
Ames, IA 50011-1202.