Update: March 10, 2020

Dear NEHA Colleagues,

As I’m sure you are all aware, preparations and restrictions related to COVID-19 and travel and conferences, have evolved rapidly in 48 hours since we last communicated about plans for the New England Historical Association spring conference scheduled to be held at Emmanuel College in Boston on April 18th.

We learned this afternoon from our host colleagues at Emmanuel College that the college has decided to cancel all outside events for the foreseeable future, including our scheduled conference. Therefore, we regret to inform you that NEHA’s annual spring meeting will be cancelled for 2020.

For those of you who had already registered and paid for the conference, refund checks will be mailed to the address listed on your account when you registered in the next few weeks.

As we enter into what is uncharted territory for many historians and educators, we remain hopeful that we can resume our semi-annual conference gatherings, where we share our research and pedagogy, in the fall. Indeed, gathering to share research and collegiality in an increasingly digital age is one of the things we cherish most as an association. Our fall conference is scheduled to be held at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, on October 17, 2020.

We will make every effort to reschedule those individuals scheduled to present in April for our October meeting (should that be feasible for the presenters).

There will be a call for papers for the fall conference in May.

Thank you to all who submitted proposals, agreed to chair and comment on papers, etc. A special thank you to our Vice President, Sean Perrone from St. Anselm’s College, for the tremendous amount of time and effort he put in to organizing the program.

Finally, our annual Spring meeting is traditionally when NEHA members vote in new officers and board members. In lieu of voting at the meeting, we will mail members a paper ballot in May to be returned with your votes (including brief bios of the slate of candidates).

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Warm regards,

Libby Bischof, University of Southern Maine
NEHA President, 2019-2020