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Five New SAA Fellows Honored
Sara S. Hodson, Gregory S. Hunter, Karen
Jefferson, Alden Monroe, and Daniel
Pitti were named Fellows of the Society of American Archivists on Aug.
6, 2004, during an awards ceremony at SAA’s 68th Annual Meeting in
Boston. Hundreds of meeting attendees packed the ballroom of the Boston Park
Plaza Hotel to salute the new Fellows. Established in 1957 and conferred
annually, the distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals
by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archival profession.
Hodson, Hunter, Jefferson, Monroe, and Pitti join 143 current members so
honored out of a membership of nearly 4,000.
The Committee for the Selection of SAA Fellows evaluates nominees on the following
criteria: appropriate academic education and professional and technical training;
a minimum of seven years of professional experience in any of the fields encompassed
in the archival profession; writing of superior quality and usefulness in advancing
SAA objectives; and contributions to the archival profession through work in
and for SAA.
As specified by the SAA constitution, election as Fellow is by 75 percent
vote of the Committee for the Selection of SAA Fellows. The committee consisted
of the five immediate past presidents of SAA—Steven Hensen (chair), Peter
Hirtle, Lee J. Stout, H. Thomas Hickerson, and Luciana Duranti—and three
Fellows selected by Council—Jackie Dooley, Ellen Garrison, and Waverly
Lowell.
SAA welcomes these new Fellows and extends its thanks to those involved in
the nomination and selection process. Following are citations for the Fellows
presented during the awards ceremony.
SARA "SUE" HODSON
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SARA S. “SUE” HODSON is Curator of Literary Manuscripts
at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. In summarizing her distinguished
30-year career, nominators wrote the following:
“She is a distinguished and consummate professional, a thoughtful scholar
with keen intelligence and deep-rooted integrity, and a thoroughly warm and
compassionate person.”
“Sue is passionate about what she does and how it makes a difference
to people’s lives.”
“Even more than her particular accomplishments and contributions, Sue
has been remarkable for the warmth, generosity, and enthusiasm with which she
has infused the projects and organizations she serves. She does not seek the
limelight, and is apt to redirect praise aimed at her toward those with whom
she worked.”
“Her experience, her thoughtfulness, and her unflinching ability to
argue and yet leave no doubt for an instant that she respects the views of
her opponent, have made her a trusted and widely admired colleague.”
Hodson has served on the Huntington Library staff in increasingly responsible
positions since 1973. She has published extensively on the Huntington’s
literary collections and is particularly known as a scholar of the 20th-century
novelist Jack London. Two forthcoming books reflect the breadth of her scholarly
and curatorial accomplishments: Poems in Manuscript, to be published
by the Huntington, and Human Documents: Photographs by Jack London,
written in collaboration with Jeanne Campbell Reesman. Reflecting her scholarly
interests, Hodson is currently president of the Jack London Society.
Hodson is best known to her SAA colleagues as an expert on issues of privacy
and confidentiality, and it is in this area that her most enduring contributions
to the profession may lie. She helped to found and has long been a leader of
the Privacy and Confidentiality Roundtable, serving as chair from 1996 to 1998,
and her paper on privacy in the papers of authors and celebrities is forthcoming
in the Privacy Reader scheduled for publication by SAA this year.
She has spoken and published on these issues many, many times. More praise
from her colleagues: “Sue’s fervor for both privacy rights and
access, coupled with an innate sense of justice and fairness towards all parties … make
her ideally suited to consider and resolve these often difficult issues.”
Hodson has generously served as chair or member of numerous other SAA groups
over the years, including a term as chair of the Manuscript Repositories Section.
She has been a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists since 1990. She
has also contributed in many ways to the Society of California Archivists,
for which she was honored with the SCA Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.
A nominator described her as one of the most “knowledgeable, energetic,
and eminently collegial forces in the California archival community.”
— Jackie Dooley, University of California, Irvine
GREGORY S.
HUNTER
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GREGORY S. HUNTER is Professor in the Palmer School of Library and
Information Science of Long Island University. In summarizing his distinguished
27-year career, nominators wrote that, “He embodies all the qualities
that SAA seeks to honor with selection as a Fellow. He is a committed archivist,
records manager, teacher, writer, presenter, and consultant.” Hunter
bridges a variety of communities and is known to be “broad and versatile” and “a
high-energy, tireless contributor to, supporter of, and champion of the archival
field.”
A long-time New Yorker, Hunter received his undergraduate degree from
St. John’s and his master’s and doctoral degrees from New York
University. He began his professional career as a business archivist with Chase
Manhattan Bank and was later Manager of Corporate Records for ITT. He also
spent six years as Director of Archival Programs for the United Negro College
Fund. From this background, he learned archival and records management practice
from the ground up.
With the completion of his doctoral studies, Hunter took his teaching from
workshops and adjunct assignments to being a full-time educator. In addition
to his current post at the Palmer School of Library and Information Science,
he has taught at Columbia, St. John’s, the University of Puerto Rico,
and the Georgia Archives Institute, and has made more than 200 presentations
at professional meetings, workshops, and seminars. One of his supporters noted
that, “His approach has been a rare combination of the theoretical and
practical. He investigates archival questions with rigorous methodology, but
passes on his knowledge in a practical, down-to-earth manner.”
This clearly comes through in his publications as well. His more than 25 articles
and seven books cover a variety of topics, but his two best-known works, the
award-winning Preserving Digital Information and Developing and Maintaining
Practical Archives, now in its second edition, are standouts. Many archival
educators use the latter title as a textbook in their own archives courses,
as well as referring to it in day-to-day work.
Hunter’s dedication to his profession has been evident at all levels
as he has provided leadership and service to the Archivists Round Table of
Metropolitan New York, the Long Island Archivists Conference, the Mid-Atlantic
Regional Archives Conference, and the Academy of Certified Archivists, for
which he was a charter member and the group’s first president. Within
SAA, he has chaired the Committee on Education and Professional Development
and the Publications Board, served on Annual Meeting program committees, and
been an officer of the Business Archives Section, editing the online version
of the Directory of Business Archives in the United States and Canada.
— Lee J. Stout, Pennsylvania State University
KAREN JEFFERSON
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KAREN JEFFERSON is Head of Archives and Special Collections at the
Atlanta University Center. In nominating Jefferson for her exemplary professional
achievements, supporters noted that, “In her work as a practicing
archivist, she has built and managed distinctive programs and collections.
As a dedicated member of SAA for 21 years, Karen has filled many important
roles. Perhaps most importantly, she has made SAA a better organization for
African American professionals, and has made SAA a better organization as a
result. As a kind and caring guide and teacher, she has served as a mentor
and a model for young African American information professionals. As a leader
in SAA, she has been a wise and forceful presence in the governance of our
Society.”
Jefferson received a BA in history from Howard University in 1974 and
an MS in library science in 1975 from Atlanta University. She soon joined the
staff of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University in Washington,
DC. From her start as a Library Technician in 1975, she remained there for
18 years, serving as Curator of Manuscripts from 1987 to 1993, supervising
a staff of twelve and managing a collection of 6,000 linear feet. During her
time there, Jefferson did much to create the archival professionalism that
now characterizes the Research Center. Though dating its origin to 1914, the
University had only in 1973 begun to provide support for a professionally staffed
manuscript program.
In 1993, Jefferson joined the staff of the National Endowment for the Humanities
as a Program Officer in the Division of Preservation and Access. During her
three years at NEH, she advised prospective applicants and monitored active
grants, devoting particular attention to encouraging and advising in the development
of strong proposals by Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Jefferson then moved to Duke University, where she worked with the John Hope
Franklin Research Center for African and African American Documentation, focusing
on identifying and acquiring materials and encouraging their use. After two
years at Duke, she moved to the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University
Center as Head of Archives and Special Collections, where she has responsibility
for the archives that supports Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational
Theological Center, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. Since moving there,
she has done much to revitalize a struggling program and to make its collections
a valued element in the life of the colleges.
In SAA, Jefferson was a founding member of the Archives and Archivists of
Color Roundtable, serving as co-editor of its newsletter and compiling the Archivists
of Color Directory. She has served on the Awards Subcommittees for the
Colonial Dames Scholarship and for the Harold Pinkett Award. She served on
the SAA Task Force on Diversity, is currently a member of the Publications
Board, and served on the Society’s Council from 1997 to 2000.
Jefferson also has been active in the work of other archival and library organizations
as a committee member, instructor, author, and editor, including the Association
of Certified Archivists, SOLINET, the Society of Georgia Archivists, and the
Historically Black Colleges and Universities Archives Institute. She has served
as a valued consultant to national and regional archival programs. In 2003
she was honored by the University of Maryland with the James Partridge Outstanding
African American Information Professional Award.
— H. Thomas Hickerson, Cornell University
ALDEN N. MONROE
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ALDEN N. MONROE is Head of Collections Management at the
Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery. Monroe has been a
leader in developing and promulgating descriptive standards regarding archival
control within bibliographic networks, moving the profession forward in a critical
area at a critical time. As a member of the RLG Archives, Manuscripts, and
Special Collections Program Committee, he introduced the concept of controlled
vocabulary and a thesaurus of function for government records described
in the RLIN database.
In reviewing his contributions to the profession and to SAA, one of several
nominators cited “his dedication to archival work and the profession,
his archival sense, calm presence, and sound judgment.” He has been a
prolific contributor to many Society of American Archivists committees and
task forces.
Known for his capabilities as “a great archivist, mentor, and colleague
who takes his profession rather than himself seriously,” Monroe was honored
by his nominators as follows: “Alden is one of those very special people
who do the essential yet often unsung work of our profession—the work
that others defer in doing because it is hard, time-consuming, and does not
always earn great recognition. He is the backup singer; the person who does
all the essential work of providing the constant rhythm, the depth and the
harmony necessary to support and sustain the music, doing the difficult and
unheralded work that makes everything come together.”
— Waverly Lowell, University of California, Berkeley
DANIEL PITTI
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DANIEL PITTI is Associate Director of the Institute for Advanced Technology
in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. While at
the University of California, Berkeley, Pitti started the Berkeley Finding
Aid Project in 1993 as a platform to explore the application of markup technologies
to archival description. Through Pitti’s brilliant conception and collaboration
with leading archival descriptive experts, the project evolved into a tool
known as Encoded Archival Description (EAD), now widely recognized as the international
standard for providing access to archives and manuscripts via the Internet.
As one nominator noted: “The road to becoming a Fellow of the Society
of American Archivists has many forks. Some attain it through long and outstanding
work in the archival trenches and in professional service. Others arrive through
scholarly achievement and intellectual accomplishment by adding to and stretching
the theoretical boundaries of what used to be called ‘archival economy.’ And
then there are those few who erupt upon the scene like some cosmic event, who
so dramatically change the very landscape of what we do, how we do it, and,
indeed, even who we are. Daniel Pitti is such a person.”
Pitti has been tireless in his efforts to promulgate EAD by conducting workshops
and seminars and giving talks and presentations in countless national and international
forums. As one of his supporters noted, “… acceptance of EAD did
[not] fall from the skies like manna. It required a lot of explaining, educating,
exhorting, and just plain politicking to convey its merits…. The international
acceptance of EAD is due in good measure to Daniels’s work as promoter,
teacher, writer, and all-around evangelist.” He has helped to elevate
the archives profession into a position as a leader in information technology.
As another supporter pointed out: “EAD is significant not only for enhancing
archival description and increasing access to primary sources, but for providing
a framework that is now being used in a wide variety of settings.”
— Steven Hensen, Duke University
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