ACQUISITIONS EDITORIAL
The Acquisitions Editorial Committee continued to foster community among acquisitions staff by providing opportunities for mentorship, learning, and professional development. The committee reviewed and revised the AUPresses faculty editorial board survey; organized AUPresses panels and Hangouts about critical topics and emerging concerns within scholarly publishing; liaised with members of other AUPresses committees; promoted equitable, inclusive, and ethical editorial and workplace practices; and shared resources that support editors and acquisitions staff in their work.
Suzanne Guiod, Bucknell, Chair
Jaya Chatterjee, Yale
Elizabeth Demers, Michigan
Christine Dunbar, Columbia
Gabriela Bueno Gibbs, MIT
Carli Hansen, Toronto
Nathaniel Holly, Georgia
Elisabeth Maselli, Pennsylvania
Hannah Brooks-Motl, Amherst
Christabel Scaife, Liverpool
Alison Syring, Illinois
Rachael Levay, Princeton, Board Liaison
Brenna McLaughlin, Central Office Liaison
ANNUAL MEETING 2024
The 2024 Annual Meeting Program Committee’s (AMPC) primary objective was to organize the main program and procure speakers, panelists, and moderators for the 2024 Annual Meeting to be held June 11–13 in Montréal, Quebec. AMPC worked with AUPresses leadership to propose, recruit, and finalize speakers for three plenary sessions at the meeting. This year’s keynote speakers include Kimberley Stephenson from Trade Buyer Bookstore Services, McGill University Bookstore; Charles Forsdick from the University of Cambridge, a Drapers Professor of French; and Guillaume Lajoie, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and Peter Schoppert, Director, National University of Singapore Press. The 2024 Annual Meeting features a special concentration in sessions on AI, along with tracks on equity, justice, inclusion, and belonging; accessibility; networking and professional development; the international landscape; open access; and more. Throughout, the conference will be punctuated by opportunities to connect, collaborate, commiserate, and celebrate together as we seek to build more diverse, equitable, impactful, efficient, and effective publishing programs. The 2025 AMPC’s organization and planning is already underway with significant engagement and buy-in from incoming AUPresses President Anthony Cond.
David Aycock, Baylor, Co-Chair
Michelle Sybert, Notre Dame, Co-Chair
Rebecca Brutus, Cornell
David Famiano, California
Paloma Friedman, McGill-Queen’s
Meagan Levinson, Cornell
Kemi Ogunji, South Carolina
Alison Welsby, Liverpool
Jane Bunker, Cornell, Board Liaison
Alexis Fagan, Central Office Liaison
Trevor Nau, Central Office Staff Support
ANNUAL MEETING 2025
With planning season approaching, the Annual Meeting Committee is soon to begin organizing the program, and procuring speakers, panelists, and moderators for AUPresses 2025. Returning as a virtual meeting in June 2025, the committee is looking forward to planning a dynamic program filled with thought-provoking plenaries, informative concurrent sessions, interactive collaboration labs, and networking events—and that embraces accessibility and inclusivity.
Pending, Chair
Anthony Cond, Liverpool, Board Liaison
Alexis Fagan, Central Office Liaison
Trevor Nau, Central Office Staff Support
BOOK, JACKET, AND JOURNAL SHOW
The Book, Jacket, and Journal Show Committee has ensured the continued success and visibility of the show through the work of a strong committee with each person participating in a productive fashion. The committee has maintained year-round visibility in the AUPresses and graphic design communities through the AUPresses Design website and @AUPressesDesign social media account on Instagram. The traveling exhibit will continue with the show touring university presses across the US and Canada from September 2024 through June 2025. The show, once again, showcases the breadth and depth of design and typography accomplished by member presses of the Association.
David Zielonka, Stanford, Chair
Ashley Bernicky, Toronto
Alison Cobra, Calgary
Mark Lerner, Fordham
Lori Lynch, Alabama
Wendy McMillen, Notre Dame
Michelle van der Merwe, British Columbia
Isaac Morris, New Mexico
Lydia Osborne, Liverpool
Peter Perez, North Carolina
Saleem Dhamee, Chicago, Board Liaison
Kate Kolendo, Central Office Liaison
Trevor Nau, Central Office Support Staff
DIGITAL PUBLISHING
The Digital Publishing Committee continues to support member needs for learning about digital publishing and developing presses’ digital publishing programs. The committee is organizing two panel sessions for the Annual Meeting in June 2024, one on new approaches to alt-text and one on AI and EDP. The committee also sponsored a hangout in April on creating enhanced digital editions for small presses. This year’s focus has been on collaboration, and committee members have been engaging in extensive outreach to identify areas of intersection and potential collaboration with other committees. The committee had guests from the Equity, Justice, Inclusion, and Belonging (EJIB), Intellectual Property and Copyright, Faculty Outreach, and Professional Development Committees attend its meetings, and the committee is working with the EJIB and Editorial, Design, and Production Committees to plan Annual Meeting sessions. The committee also continues to participate in the Adventures in Digital Publishing series and joined in presenting the fourth and fifth webinars in the series this year.
Julia Cook, Rochester, Co-Chair
Emily Zoss, NGA, Co-Chair
Meagan Dyer, British Columbia
Jenny Hunt, Baylor
Sergiy Kozakov, Athabasca
Daniel McShane, SUNY
Deirdre Mullervy, Gallaudet
Elizabeth Scarpelli, Cincinnati
Tara Cyphers, Ohio State, Board Liaison
McKenzi Thi Murphy, Central Office Liaison
EDITORIAL, DESIGN, AND PRODUCTION
The Editorial, Design, and Production (EDP) Committee has traditionally assisted the Annual Meeting Program Committee in fostering EDP content as part of its charge to develop and manage tools, programs, and resources to support the editorial, design, and production departments of member presses. Over the past year, the committee has focused in particular on organizing a hangout on embedding equity, justice, inclusion, and belonging within EDP departments, assisting a Ukrainian journal edit an English version of their journal for global distribution, and planning a pre-meeting workshop on AI for the AUPresses Annual Meeting. Future initiatives could include generating a report/guidebook based on the AI workshop to submit as well as continuing to develop tools to assist university presses with the new opportunities and challenges inherent in increasingly advanced AI.
Jason Gosnell, Marine Corps, Chair
James Ayers, New Mexico
Lynne Ferguson, Texas
Virginia Fontana, Nevada
Amanda Frost, Michigan State
Stephani Miller, Marine Corps
Ryan Morris, SUNY
Sarah Muncy, AHA
Maia Rigas, Northwestern
Christine Thorsteinsson, Harvard
Nicole Tilford, SBL
Marthe Walters, Florida
Angela Anderson, Marine Corps, Board Liaison
Trevor Nau, Central Office Liaison
EQUITY, JUSTICE, INCLUSION, AND BELONGING
Throughout the 2023-24 year, the Equity, Justice, Inclusion, and Belonging (EJIB) Committee worked with other committees and task forces to embed an EJIB perspective into work carried out by AUPresses. The committee hosted representatives from almost every other committee in its meetings, during which the EJIB-related issues facing each committee and their plans to address those issues were discussed. Having completed the demographic survey toolkit, the committee worked to publicize its official launch and also worked to update and maintain the EJIB resource list for the AUPresses website. Members of the committee worked on developing a webinar on class in publishing for the summer, and other members collaborated with the Digital Publishing Committee and other committees on their events.
Wren Morgan Myers, Virginia, Chair
Milo Brooks, Florida
Kate Danser, Princeton
Craig Gill, Mississippi
Valarie Guagnini, Cambridge
Christie Henry, Princeton
Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero, Guam
Clare Litt, Liverpool
Dominique Moore, Illinois
Porsha Perry, Library of Congress
Carmen Tiampo, British Columbia
Caitlin Tyler-Richards, Washington
Saleem Dhamee, Chicago, Board Liaison
Brenna McLaughlin, Central Office Liaison
Trevor Nau, Central Office Liaison
FACULTY OUTREACH
This year, the Faculty Outreach Committee has worked to address gaps in coverage on the AskUP site, recruiting a new group of hosts to focus on creating content that highlights journals publishing, open access, and accessibility. The committee also renewed its outreach efforts to scholarly societies, organizing panels at the Modern Language Association, the Rhetoric Society of America, and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. A pitch letter to directors of graduate studies, offering the committee’s support in creating webinars or panels on UP publishing, was distributed nationally to directors of graduate studies. Committee members have attended other AUPresses committee meetings to strengthen cross-committee collaboration, and the Faculty Outreach Committee partnered with the Professional Development Committee to produce an AUPresses webinar on social media networking.
Jennifer Keegan, Louisiana State, Chair
Rebecca Colesworthy, SUNY
Katie Cortese, Texas Tech
Shannon Fortner, Johns Hopkins
Kayowa Gibson-Tshilenge, Pennsylvania
Kimberly Guinta, Rutgers
Angie Hogan, Virginia
Kathryn King, Bristol
Anne Savarese, Princeton
Anthony Cond, Liverpool, Board Liaison
Annette Windhorn, Central Office Liaison
FINANCIAL OPERATIONS
The general objective of the Financial Operations Committee is to develop and manage tools, programs, and resources to assist Association members in improving the financial management and analysis of their presses. The major work of the committee in the 2023-2024 year was a survey of the membership regarding the AUPresses Business Handbook. The AUPresses has for many years maintained a Business Handbook as a resource for the membership, originally developed in the 1990s. The handbook features articles on numerous topics that are germane to running a press from a business perspective—though the article topics touch on many departments’ responsibilities. The committee’s hope is that the survey will help in evaluating areas where revisions are necessary or new content is necessary in order for the handbook to continue to be a valuable resource for business and finance managers at presses worldwide.
Erich van Rijn, California, Chair
Eric Brandt, Virginia
Alice Ennis, Illinois
Scot Kuehm, Princeton
Amy Liu, Oklahoma
Wynona McCormick, Texas A&M
Alexander Saucedo, Chicago Press
Daniel Velasquez, Harvard Education
Teresa Collins, Kentucky, Board Liaison
Kim Miller, Central Office Liaison
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND COPYRIGHT
The Intellectual Property and Copyright (IP&C) Committee focused this year on creating programming around IP&C issues, a backlist digitization pilot led by New York Public Library (NYPL), updating the Association’s IP&C resources on aupresses.org, and supporting Anjali Vats’s Race and IP Curriculum Project. Programming has included a hangout on permissions basics for author-facing press staff (co-hosted with the Professional Development Committee), a webinar on legal issues around nonfiction works about real people, and an Annual Meeting collaboration lab on AI and publishing. In addition, two committee members have developed a blog post series on contract language that has been published in HNet’s Feeding the Elephant. The NYPL project is ongoing, with pilot presses still in contract negotiations. The group’s update of existing IP&C resources is nearly complete and expected to be finalized in fall 2024. The committee continues to support the Race and IP Curriculum Project as needed and anticipate offering feedback on project components next year.
Neal Swain, California, Co-Chair
Clara Totten, Kent State, Co-Chair
Aurora Bell, South Carolina
Andrea Gapsch, Purdue
Eleanor Goodman, Penn State
Alex Gupta, Pennsylvania
Joyce Harrison, Kansas
Kerin Ogg, Duke
Leslie Rollins, Getty
Stephanie Vyce, Harvard
Charles Watkinson, Michigan, Board Liaison
Kate Kolendo, Central Office Liaison
INVESTMENT
The Investment Committee provides oversight of the Association’s quasi-endowment fund, distributed across a series of self-managed index funds. Current strategy is to aim for the highest financial return possible while monitoring adherence to the allocation guidelines within the Association’s Investment Policy Statement. It accomplishes this by reviewing monthly statements from Fidelity Investments of fund performance, making recommendations on rebalancing the portfolio as needed, and offers advice to the Board upon request regarding the allocation of fund principal and the use(s) of fund income for strategic initiatives while maintaining a prudent reserve.
Dennis Lloyd, Wisconsin, Chair
Paul Ashenfelter, Notre Dame
Tera Beermann, Nebraska
Mike Bieker, Arkansas
Teresa Collins, Kentucky
Kate Danser, Princeton
Lizbeth Lynch, Texas
Steve Mecham, Utah
Erik Smist, Johns Hopkins
Alexandria Leonard, Princeton, Board Liaison
Kim Miller, Central Office Liaison
JOURNALS
In keeping with the Journals Committee’s charge to develop and manage tools, programs, and resources to assist Association members in improving the activities of and promoting the public face of their journals programs, the committee organized three panel sessions for the upcoming Annual Meeting in Montréal, plus a Journals Assembly, and prepared two virtual programming events. Additionally, the committee will launch this spring an online onboarding toolkit for new journal editors.
Katharine Easterby, Liverpool, Co-Chair
Jennifer Sacher, ASCSA, Co-Chair
Ian Caswell, UCL
Fern Ennis, Liverpool
Sarah McDonald, Edinburgh
Sara Pastel, MLA
Tara Saunders, Purdue
Sandra Shaw, Toronto
Sarah Weicksel, AHA
Wendy Queen, Johns Hopkins, Board Liaison
Alexis Fagan, Central Office Liaison
LIBRARY RELATIONS
During the past year, the Library Relations Committee has continued in its core mission of promoting mutual understanding between university presses and academic libraries. The committee has explored presses and libraries’ points of connection as hubs of digital scholarship, institutional publishing, centers of research on campus, and as institutional reports. Of particular interest this year are the ways in which presses and libraries each seek to diversify lists and collections. How are our interests and methods aligned, and how do they diverge? University presses and academic libraries both have a compelling interest in fully embracing EJIB approaches to the publishing list and the library catalog, but have very different ways of thinking about it, talking about it, and going about it. The committee is hosting an off-site event at the AUPresses Annual Meeting June to engage in exploratory conversation, in advance of a planned webinar next fall about aligning Press/library expectations, actions, and language around catalogs and collections, with an eye toward our shared goals of increasing accessibility and decolonizing collections.
Stephen Hull, New Mexico, Chair
Latrice Allen, Chicago
Jennie Collinson, Liverpool
Maia Desjardins, Wilfred Laurier
Jessica Fiorillo, Harvard Education
Tracy Kellmer, Pennsylvania
Jon Miller, Akron
Kelsey Mrjoian, Michigan
Julia Oestreich, Delaware
John Sherer, North Carolina, Board Liaison
Annette Windhorn, Central Office Liaison
MARKETING
The Marketing Committee focused its Marketing Handbook revisions this year in the Publicity and Exhibits sections, updating four chapters—and consolidating two of the Publicity chapters into one—for greater clarity and to reflect changes in conducting business post-pandemic. The committee organized and hosted a February 2024 Hangout on “How is AI impacting what we do in publishing, and more specifically marketing?,” which was attended by more than 100 individuals. The committee has also organized a panel discussion at this year’s in-person AUPresses Annual Meeting in June on “Social Media Marketing in a Post-Twitter World,” that will be followed by an informal gathering near the conference hotel.
Peter Perez, North Carolina, Chair
Emily Hamilton, Minnesota
Lisa Kuerbis, Syracuse
Sarah Noell, Columbia
Colleen Suljic, Princeton
Michael Higgins, Harvard Education
Jamie Jones, Michigan
Alison Mailloux, Harvard
Vanessa de Bueger, Amsterdam
Stephanie Marchman, Notre Dame
Colleen Lanick, Harvard, Board Liaison
Annette Windhorn, Central Office Liaison
OPEN ACCESS
The Open Access (OA) Committee has continued to support the Association’s members as they respond to changes in the publishing environment as a result of OA publishing. The main area of focus this year was putting together two panels for the AUPresses Annual Meeting in June: “OA Book Models: How to Choose?” and “Tracking Open Access Metrics: What, How, and to What End.” The committee also reviewed the OA resource guide, put together by last year’s committee. Members indicated where they felt the guide could be enhanced or amplified, leaving a roadmap for next year’s committee to implement those edits. Other highlights include offering feedback on the notes from day 2 of the Director’s Summit (Economic Headwinds: Open and Public Access), and consulting with the EJIB Committee and Digital Publishing Committee. The committee meeting time was also spent in professional development and education by inviting external partners from the CEU Press (Emily Poznanski, Opening the Future), MIT Press (Amy Harris, D2O), and Sven Fund (Knowledge Unlatched).
Justin Race, Purdue, Chair
Marguerite Avery, Texas A&M
Beth Fuget, Washington
Phillip Hearn, Johns Hopkins
James Moore, Duke
Bonnie (BJ) Robinson, North Georgia
Dhara Snowden, UCL
Angela Anderson, Marine Corps, Board Liaison
Brenna McLaughlin, Central Office Liaison
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The Professional Development Committee (PDC) develops and manages tools, programs, and resources to assist Association members in improving their publishing expertise, developing their leadership skills, and enhancing their professional development and networks. The committee focused much of its work this year to continue helping members find ways to expand their professional networks and reconnect with colleagues post-pandemic. The PDC organized one hangout and one webinar: “AUPresses Hangout: Permission Basics for Press Staff Working With Authors,” co-sponsored with the Intellectual Property and Copyright Committee and “AUPresses Webinar: Social Media Beyond Marketing,” co-sponsored with the Faculty Outreach Committee, and also co-hosted a hangout sponsored by the Acqusitions Committee, “AUPresses Hangout: Let’s Talk About….How to Grow an Editor: Rethinking Professional Development for Mentors and Mentees.”
The committee will also host one panel at the AUPresses Annual Meeting in June, “Building UP Leadership Skills: Advancing Careers at a University Press,” along with two networking events: Speed Networking, Early and Mid-Career Meetup, and providing a Mentorship Lounge on-site, as well as provide support to Alex Gupta for their collaboration lab, “Conferences 101: How to Survive (and Thrive) at Your Next Academic Conference.” The committee continued the AUPresses Mentorship Program, matching this year’s mentors and mentees in time for the in-person Annual Meeting, after completing revisions of the mentorship guidelines and application form in collaboration with the Equity, Justice, Inclusion and Belonging (EJIB) Committee. Finally, the committee helped again successfully launch and execute the Residency Program with five applicants completing residencies at member presses.
Megan Mendonca, Princeton, Co-Chair
Bethany Wasik, Cornell, Co-Chair
Rebecca Carhart, IVP
Kim Hogeland, Oregon State
Alodie Larson, Oxford
Mary Lui, Toronto
Nicole Solano, Rutgers
Kelly Fattman, Harvard Education
Laurie Matheson, Illinois
Elisia Snyder, Alberta
Rachael Levay, Colorado, Board Liaison
Alexis Fagan, Central Office Liaison