The History of Science Society

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From the President

When I agreed to run for the position as HSS Vice President/President in 2005, I knew of the NEH fundraising hopes for the HSS Bibliographer and that the Society was in good shape financially and on an even course. I saw three areas for improvement that made it seem worth investing the time and energy to bring some change.

First, I worried that the profession had become so diverse and diffuse that it lacked the energy to carry the field forward. In particular, I saw too much of a swing toward a version of the social history of science that seemed to forget the science. I imagined I might help bring back a balance of interests – science at the core, along with plenty of room for social history, economic history, political history, environmental history, and so many other histories. This is especially true since history of science benefits from connections with philosophy, with the sciences, and with other fields; for history of science to remain a focused field that warrants positions and a professional society it must remember its subject matter – science.

Second, lost opportunities because of our failure to educate our students to communicate effectively to a wide audience. Jed Buchwald and George Smith at the Dibner Institute both pointed out that it has often been the science writers, journalists, and sometimes scientists who sell books and get press coverage with their histories of science. And, it seemed, that history made popular wasn’t always the best possible history, or the best possible understanding of science. We can all learn how to communicate our ideas more effectively beyond the academy and into the world. Naomi Oreskes’ work with the U.S. Congress and with policy leaders on global climate change – by using historical climate science data and narratives – is an example of what we can do. Science writing programs like the one led by Kenneth Manning at MIT show what we can do in education. We can do much more, and I had visions of helping support such inspiring work.

Third was the goal of moving history of science beyond history departments. In fact, the field and our young scholars have already moved into various niches beyond history departments: communities in honors programs, science departments, connections with social scientists, science studies programs, working with environmental researchers, national labs and museums, and others. At Arizona State, we are hiring historians and philosophers into the School of Life Sciences, for example, as well as into the History Department, Law School, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Sustainability, and so many other places. Yet many graduate programs continue to focus on training historians for history departments. Qualifying exams and dissertations are set up to prepare graduates for such positions, with the expectation that their dissertation will turn into their first monograph. This works for a few, but we must be more creative about the skills we give our students, including technical and communication skills. We have to embrace a range of scholarly products, including well-crafted blogs that have more impact and reach a larger audience than the typical academic book, public presentations, and collaborations with scientists.

I agreed to run for HSS office because I have a passion for changing things in productive ways, and was especially interested in implementing more electronic and Web-based support and communication for our community. I hoped to change and inspire the community in small ways. And I hoped to bring back scholars who had become disaffected with our swing toward the social and away from the science.

In my time on the Executive Committee, we have made some progress on all these fronts. Some will be evident at the Phoenix meeting. However, the major energy of my time in office has been spent on financial issues. At first, the emphasis was on bringing the NEH Challenge to a close and on strategic thinking and planning, including financial, for the Society. We were concerned about securing our investments and making sure that the Society was on a solid financial footing. We have expended much energy working on budgets and endowment planning – even before the “financial downturn,” as it’s called by optimists. Since then, we have worked even harder to understand every aspect of our budget. Areas that we took for granted have been reviewed, revisited, and reformed as needed.

We report with some pride that the Society is in good shape, though we face challenges ahead. Thanks to the endowment drive, our resources are stronger than they would have been. John Servos, Mike Sokal, and Joan Cadden, as the former presidents, did a great job in leaving a solid financial legacy with the NEH Challenge Grant, as Gerald Holton and others did years ago with other major fundraising efforts. Thanks to Jay Malone, and with the assistance of Virginia Hessels, the Executive Office is in great shape. Jay has had a virtually 100% success rate with grant proposals. Indeed, he has attracted some small unrestricted grants practically without trying. We are convinced that this is because he is charming and because we are all so deserving, of course. Jay has worked effectively to network with others and to pursue every possible avenue of support. He continues to develop great ideas, and we need to ensure that we provide support for his office so that he can continue these efforts. We also need more members to step forward with great suggestions and prospects so that Jay can work his magic.

Bernie Lightman as Society editor has also made important contributions. We think of his innovations with the journal and his scholarship as his major contribution, but Bernie is also a brilliant administrator. Despite labor actions, rising salary costs, aging equipment, and other challenges, he has managed to control costs for Isis by persuading York University to invest in the effort. The result is a journal in solid financial and scholarly shape, both of which are important for the Society. Kathy Olesko is completing her long-time editorship of Osiris and has also managed excellent financial and scholarly productivity while handing the editorship on to Andrea Rusnock. Stephen Weldon guides the Current Bibliography so that the number and quality of entries has risen substantially, and he has taken us in innovative directions with digital publishing. All of these are important contributions, and they place the Society’s publications on solid ground.

The Society is in good shape. We are solid. Our investments are secure. Our budgets are balanced, though we will have to work to keep them so. Challenges remain. As a Society, and as a profession, the history of science carries far more potential than we have yet realized: we can achieve a stronger role with more places in academia than we have, and greater roles in policy-making and in other government and social roles. We must better educate our students in communication and technical skills so they can go places we have not yet imagined. I wish I had done more as president, but we have excellent leadership for the future.

President Obama gave the commencement address this past May at my institution, Arizona State University, which is providing local arrangements support and will help sponsor the dinner at the November meeting in Phoenix. Obama acknowledged that ASU had chosen not to give him the customary honorary degree since we have a policy of not giving such honors to sitting politicians. He acknowledged that he had not “yet completed his body of work” and that therefore it was premature to award him a degree. He noted that few of us have completed our body of work, and called on all to step forward and engage. And Obama noted that success will require change. “Many of our current challenges are unprecedented,” he said. “There are no standard remedies, or go-to fixes this time around. That is why we are going to need your help.”

Whatever your political preferences, I hope you agree. We need your help. We need donations from those who can afford to contribute. We need volunteers for committees and to carry out Society business. And we need far more of us to engage in the larger communities in which the history of science exists – to carry the message about who we are, what we can do, and why the history of science matters. I thank you in advance for getting involved and helping out. We look forward to seeing you in November in Phoenix.

– Jane Maienschein, HSS President

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