Society of Protozoologists records

Overview

Administrative/Biographical Note

The Society of Protozoologists was established to promote a closer association among all those interested in any kind of protozoological research. The Society’s Constitution states that, “The aim of the Society was to form an association of workers for the presentation and discussion of new and important facts and problems in protozoology and for the adoption of such measures as will tend to advance protozoological science.” Therefore, there are no restrictions regarding age, academic degrees, nationality or professional occupation for membership. Six categories of membership are available: full, student, spouse, corresponding, emeritus and honorary. Membership in the Society peaked at 1300 or so members by the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and then leveled off to its present level of some 800 to 900 members in the 1990’s. The organization was founded December 19, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois during an informal gathering of interested biologists while they were there attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting. The first slate of officers was elected at that time. They were as follows: R.F. Nigrelli, President; B.B. Morgan, Vice-President; and T.L. Jahn, Secretary-Treasurer. Additional members of the Executive Committee elected were: D.L. Hopkins, R.R. Kudo, J.L.Mohr, K.L. Osterud and R.M. Stabler. A Constitutional Committee was composed of John L. Mohr, P. Hall and K.L. Osterud. The first formal meeting of the entire Society was held on December 28, 1949 in conjunction with the AAAS meeting in New York City. There were fifty attending members who considered the issue of the Society’s Constitution and Bylaws and the established the Resolutions Committee, Nominating Committee, Program Committee and Auditing Committee. Annual Membership/Business meetings continued thereafter and were generally held in conjunction with a variety of biological science associations. Those organizations included the American Association for Advancement of Science, American Institute of Biological Sciences (most often,) American Society of Zoologists, and the Phycology Society of America. The Executive Committee (consisting of officers, Section representatives, and five elected members) generally meets during the annual membership/business meetings, but occasionally meet in supplementary sessions. Additionally, there were ten international conferences in a variety of world destinations. These were held every four to five years beginning in 1961. Some times the international conferences were held in conjunction with the annual meetings while other years domestic annual meetings were held at a different time. In 1951 the Journal and Editorial Committees were established with the express task of formulating and overseeing the development of a scholarly journal for the Society. The first volume of the quarterly published Journal of Protozoology made its debut in February of 1954. William Trager was the Journal’s first editor. He served in this capacity from 1954-1965. The journal was regarded as a highly respected outlet for original research papers in areas of descriptive and experimental nature. In later years a supplement was added to the Journal, which contained the programs and abstracts of the annual meetings and officer and committee reports. Periodically membership lists and reprintings or revisions of the Constitution were also included in the Supplement. In 1989 the Journal began to be printed bimonthly instead of quarterly. In 1993 the name of the Journal of Protozoology was changed to the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, which remains its present name. In addition the Society began to publish a the Newsletter in 1976 which was usually edited by the office of the Secretary. It contained announcements and other news of general interest to the membership such as information on future meeting sites, winners of awards, workshop notices, obituary tributes and letters form members. In 1991 an official editor was separately designated to oversee the newsletter’s publication. At this time the formal minutes of the Executive Committee meeting and annual Business Meetings, some committee and Section reports, constitutional revisions, international news and bits of “protozoology humor” were added to the newsleter. This allowed those members (Corresponding and Emeritus Memberships) who didn’t receive the Journal to be more informed about the Society’s activities. The Society of Protozoology has always advocated an international outlook and attitude in membership and organizational affiliations. In 1961 the Society created a membership category called Corresponding Membership to encourage international growth. This allowed members residing outside the United States to have full participation in Society affairs (with the exception of receiving the Journal) at a reduced rate. Since its inception the Society has had more non-US members than any other “American” biological society, with members joining from over forty countries. The British Section was the first to be established in 1962. Other affiliated foreign sections have formed in Israel, Japan, Hungary, Scandinavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, India, Mexico and China. Sectional representatives became voting members of the Executive Committee; and since the 1960’s the office of Vice President has always been filled by a non-American who has full membership. Sections were also formed in France and the Soviet Union, but neither group has chosen to formally become a part of the Society. The Society has established five funded awards beginning with Richard P. Hall Memorial Fund in 1969, which was awarded to students in order to help with publishing costs. In 1976 the Seymour H. Hutner Young Investigator Prize was established by Hutner and his friends to acknowledge a young scientist not long out of his/her Ph.D. for outstanding research on the “cutting edge” of some field of protozoology. Students of Dr. Theodore Louis Jahn established an award in his name shortly before his death in 1979. This was a cash prize given yearly to a student member of the Society who presented the best poster or research paper at a Society meeting. The final two awards were established during the 1990’s. The George G. Holz, Jr. and Robert L. Conner Travel Award was created to provide travel awards to students and young investigators that would facilitate their participation in Society meetings. The John O. Corliss Ciliate Systematics Award was established to recognize a young ciliatologist authoring a published research paper in ciliate taxonomy judged to be the most worthy. The Awards Committee has the responsibility of recommending to the Executive Committee (for their ultimate approval) those people chosen for the awards. The Society currently is challenged by declining membership. This is thought to be in part due to the trend toward more specialized scientific organizations and perhaps by the needed increase in membership dues. Currently there is discussion concerning possible merger of the Society with another biological society. The Society is now called the International Society of Protistologists.

Scope & Content

This collection of records of the Society of Protozoologists 1947-2012 documents the origins of the Society and its significant growth in membership. The records are arranged in five series: History, Executive Committee, Membership, Meetings, Publications, Affiliated Societies and Miscellaneous. The History Series contains information about the early years of the organization. The original Constitution and Bylaws are included as well as a documents concerning Constitution revisions. Since there was no central organizational office, the records were kept by officers of the Society at various locations during their time in office. Therefore the bulk of Society records can be found under the Executive Committee Series: President, Secretary and Treasurer. The Secretary was responsible for membership, meeting arrangements, meeting agendas and minutes, and the comprehensive coordination of Society business. General correspondence may also contain committee reports, meeting arrangements, and membership and material pertaining to election issues. Treasurer records consist of correspondence and financial documents. The financial records include general deposits and disbursements, bank statements, audits, invoices, fund account records as well as some information concerning membership. Allen Press published the journal and also had the responsibility of membership payments and mailing out the Journal to Society members. Some financial, membership and journal matters can be found in Allen Press files of the Executive Committee, Membership and Publications Series. Membership lists, member status and payment records are in the Membership Series. Business/Membership Meeting files include correspondence about meeting arrangements, agendas and travel grant matters. Committee reports, minutes and occasionally presentation abstracts are included in the files. There is a complete run of all annual business/membership meetings from 1954 to 1990 containing varying amounts of materials from each meeting The Executive Committee meetings are complete from 1954 until 1990 with the exception of 1958. The Publications Series contains educational pamphlets, a few Society newsletters and meeting programs published by the Society. A complete run of the Society’s Journal of Protozoology, which was renamed The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology in 1993, is available from 1954-1994. Financial information concerning Journal publishing, design and subscriptions are included in the Series. Affiliated Societies files contain correspondence about joint meetings and common scientific objectives, minutes from affiliated society meetings attended by Society of Protzoologists representatives and publications. The Media, Photographs, and Artwork Series contains numerous photographs which, while not identified, were most likely taken at Society meetings. Recording tapes and two floppy disks concerning Society meetings are in this Series. Also included is a slide collection of Dr. Eugene Bovee. Finally, the Committee series was added in 2017 to accomodate committee files. Committees are also represented throughout the collection, particularly in Series II.

This collection is organized into seven series. Series II and IV are further divided into subseries. Series I. History Series II. Executive Committee President Secretary Treasurer Tellers Committee Series III. Membership Series IV. Meetings Annual Business/Membership Executive Committee Series V. Publications Series VI. Affiliated Societies Series VII. Media, Photographs, and Artwork Series VIII. Commitees

Provenance Information

The collection came to UMBC Special Collections in two acquisitions. The first was accession number MSS 97-11 consisting of 16 boxes plus 47 bound and loose journals. The material dates from 1947 to 1990. It was transferred in March 1997 from Dr. Bruce Hill at Mt. Vernon College, Washington, D. C. The second acquisition came from Dr. Susan Langreth at the Herbert School of Medicine in Bethesda, Md. This consisted of three boxes of general records dating from 1984 to 1990. The acquisition number is SARCV 2000-13. Additional acessions: SARCV 2003-02, SARCV 2004-01, SARCV 2004-07, SARCV 2004-08, SARCV 2006-01, SARCV 2007-03, SARCV 2010-006, SARCV 2013-02, SARCV 2014-04.

This collection was processed by Sharon Knecht under the supervision of Marcia Frank Peri and completed in May 2001. This collection of the records of the Society of Protozoologists arrived in two acquisitions of 16 boxes plus 47 bound and loose journals in March 1997 and 3 additional boxes of general records in November of 2000. The records were filed and received in a very disordered state due to the fact that there was no central office for the Society and were therefore kept by individual officers while they served the Society. It was determined that the bulk of the documents fall into recognizable groupings by officer. These were thus designated as the Executive Committee and were divided into attempt to keep the records filed under the office of the Society who created the record originally. There were very few files on specific Society committees, however various committee reports can be found in annual and executive committee meeting files. Remaining files were organized by the type of activity and in the order in which they were received. Multiple copies have been disposed of whenever there were more than two copies of a given document as have old checks and checkbooks. Two additional boxes of materials were processed in the fall of 2001 and are additions to Series II, Subseries 3 (Executive Committee, Treasurer). Records relating to the production of the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology were donated in 2012 by editor Denis Lynn. The materials were incorporated into Series V: Publications. In 2014, the Society requested a processing plan to incorporate subsequent accessions into the main collection. Archivist Lindsey Loeper prepared a plan, which was funded by the Society. The work was completed in 2016 and 2017 by Special Collections student assistants Graham Johnson and Riley Auer and Graduate Assistant Sarah Huston. The processing included adding two new series (Series VII. Media, Photographs, and Artwork and Series VIII. Committees). Previous Series VII. Miscellaneous was reviewed and incorporated into the arrangement. Lindsey Loeper supervised the processing and updated the finding aid.

Access & Use

No restrictions.

Reproduction for research purposes is allowed. Copyright maintained by creator.

Subject Headings

• International Society of Protistologists
• Society of Protozoologists Archives
• Protozoology Societies, etc.

Series Description & Container List

Expand all | Collapse all

Series I. History

Series II. Executive Committee

Subseries II.A. President

Subseries II.B. Secretary

Sub-series II.C. Treasurer

Subseries II.D. Tellers Committee

Series III. Membership.

Series IV. Meetings

Subseries IV.A. Annual Business/Membership

Subseries IV.B. Executive Committee

Series V. Publications

Series VI. Affiliated Societies

Series VII. Media, Photographs, and Artwork

Series VIII. Committees

Oversized Box