chus news

A Message From New CHUS President January 8, 2007

Dear CHUS colleagues:

This is CHUS twentieth anniversary, and I am thrilled to be the new president as we embark on our next decade together. I hope to be able to live up to the high standards set by the outstanding succession of former presidents, and I look forward to working with the new board and every one of you in the coming year. First things first, I would very much like to hear from you any suggestions or comments on the direction CHUS should take. If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to email me.

I would also like to share with you my plans for the next year. My immediate goal is to work closely with Professor George Wei to ensure that this summer’s First International Conference of Chinese Historians is a great success. My number two goal is to expand the organization, reaching out to both established and new Chinese historians as well as to graduate students. I will put together some publicity material and will be asking you for the favor of distributing it among your colleagues.

Third, we are extremely fortunate to have Professors Wang Xi, Hanchao Lu and Alan Baulmer as the editors of our journal, The Chinese Historical Review, but they need more funding. As president I plan to make a number of fundraising efforts to benefit both the journal and the society. Along these lines, the fourth project I would like to undertake is to apply for grants from agencies such as NEH or ACLS to fund CHUS projects. Possibilities I have in mind are either collaborative research by CHUS individuals, or CHUS sponsored conferences, but would appreciate hearing any other suggestions as well. I expect to get this underway in the spring, so I need your timely input. Any proposals for topics, or even better, brief white papers outlining work you would like to have funded, are urgently needed for this effort.

On a more personal note, I have been working with Shanghai Classical Publishing House (Shanghai guji chubanshe) in China. They are interested in putting together a ten-volume series of translations of important articles on Chinese history. The publisher would like to invite CHUS members as either volume editors or translators. My hope is that these ten volumes are only the beginning and that the series will contribute to the scholarly reputation of CHUS.

Finally, I would like to say that over the course of my fifteen years with CHUS, I have benefited greatly in personal growth and scholarly maturity. I am extremely humbled by your support, and I am very glad that I will have an opportunity to serve CHUS in return.

Sincerely,

Ping Yao

Department of History

California State University, Los Angeles