Acquisitions Editorial
The Acquisitions Editorial Committee continued to foster community among acquisitions staff by providing programming and other opportunities for learning and professional development. The committee completed and distributed the AUPresses faculty editorial board survey; organized AUPresses panels and Hangouts about important topics and emerging concerns within scholarly publishing; liaised with members of the EJIB committee; promoted equitable, inclusive, and ethical editorial and workplace practices; and shared resources that support editors and acquisitions staff in their work.
Stephanye Hunter, Florida, Co-Chair
Alison Syring, Illinois, Co-Chair
Madison Allums, Michigan
Gabriela Bueno Gibbs, MIT
Andreína Fernández, North Carolina
Yasmine Hung, Hong Kong
Margo Irvin, California
Elisabeth Maselli, Pennsylvania
Megan Michael Mendonca, Princeton
Bethany Wasik, Cornell
Douglas Hildebrand, British Columbia, Board Liaison
Brenna McLaughlin, Central Office Liaison
Annual Meeting 2026
The 2026 Annual Meeting Program Committee’s (AMPC) primary objective was to organize the main program for the 2026 Annual Meeting to be held June 13–15 in Seattle. Through a call-for-papers process, the AMPC solicited panelists and moderators for breakout sessions from the AU Presses community and its partners. Where possible, the AMPC encouraged sessions that could draw on regional connections from the Pacific Northwest. This year’s annual meeting will feature sessions on equity, justice, inclusion, and belonging; business operations; networking and professional development; the international landscape; open access; AI and publishing, and more. This year’s keynote plenaries are university press author Lynda Mapes speaking on “Why University Presses Matter: Now More Than Ever,” and Dr. Kate Starbird from the University of Washington speaking on “From Rumors to Influence, Participatory Propaganda to Policy.” Throughout the conference, participants will find space to connect, collaborate, commiserate, and celebrate together as we seek to build more diverse, equitable, impactful, efficient, and effective publishing programs.
Dr. Jason Fikes, Abilene Christian, Co-Chair
Antonia Pop, Toronto, Co-Chair
Taylor Blumer, South Dakota Historical
Marlee Brooks, Johns Hopkins
David Famiano, California
Lia Hagen, NYU
Katie Hannah, Tennessee
Anjanie Kashidas, Duke
Molly Woolbright, Washington
Anastasia Wraight, Michigan State
Dennis Lloyd, Wisconsin, Board Liaison
Alexis Fagan, Central Office Liaison
Peter Berkery, Central Office Liaison
Annual Meeting 2027
The Annual Meeting Committee will soon form and begin planning for AUPresses 2027, organizing the program, and procuring speakers, panelists, and moderators. The Annual Meeting will return in virtual format in June 2027, and the committee will plan a vibrant program robust with plenaries, concurrent sessions, collaboration labs, and networking events—and that fully embraces the accessibility and inclusivity of that format.
Pending, Chair
Stephanie Williams, Wayne State, Board Liaison
Alexis Fagan, Central Office Liaison
Dylan Fritz, Central Office Staff Support
Book, Jacket, and Journal Show
The Book, Jacket, and Journal Show Committee continues its mission to showcase design excellence produced by member presses across the globe. This annual endeavor is only possible through the hard work and dedication of our committee members. This year, the committee included an opportunity for presses to detail the accessibility features and considerations included in their design entries. Accessibility is an element of design the committee will continue to explore in upcoming years. The 2026 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show will present the selected entries alongside insight from the judges during the AUPresses Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA, after which the show will hit the road with its traveling exhibit across thousands of miles as it makes stops at different university hosts across North America and around the world from September 2026-June 2027. This spring, the 2025 show made its return to the UP Redux Conference, hosted by Liverpool University Press, in Liverpool, UK, and made its debut in Hong Kong with a joint exhibition hosted by Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, City University of Hong Kong Press, and Hong Kong University Press.
Alison Cobra, Calgary, Co-Chair
Corey Parson, North Georgia
Shiraz Abdullahi Gallab, Michigan
Elliott Beard, Stanford
Ashley Bernicky, Toronto
Felicia Cedillos, New Mexico
Jennifer Conn, Wisconsin
Alissa Faden, Vanderbilt
Emily Hills, Virginia Tech
Ceclia Sorochin, Virginia
Michelle van der Merwe, British Columbia
Stephanie Williams, Wayne State, Board Liaison
Kate Kolendo, Central Office Liaison
Business Operations
The general objective of the Business 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. This committee for the first time ever held a podcast in October on the Annual Statistics Report, “Where do I Begin”. This was well received, it was an open discussion format where members could bring their questions and gain advise on how to start, work, and complete the AUPressess Annual Statistic Report. The committee has planned a pre-conference meeting as part of the AUPresses annual meeting in Seattle. We are hoping for a great turnout. We are also looking to invite the Directors in during the presentation of the annual statistics report, and if they would like to participate in the following session, If you could design the perfect Annual Statistics report what would you like to see.
Alice Ennis, Illinois, Chair
Teresa Collins, Kentucky
Susan Doerr, Minnesota
Scot Kuehm, Princeton
Wynona McCormick, Texas A&M
Michael Regoli, Indiana
Jason Riley, Toronto
Alexander Saucedo, Chicago Press
Erich van Rijn, California
Daniel Velasquez, Harvard Education
Steve Young, British Columbia
Brent Oberlin, MIT, Board Liaison
Kim Miller, Central Office Liaison
Alexis Fagan, 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 also organized a two-part webinar on AI for university presses. Future initiatives could include generating a list of resources based on the AI workshop as well as continuing to develop tools and training to assist university presses with the new opportunities and challenges inherent in increasingly advanced AI. The EDP Committee also participated in a joint taskforce with the Marketing and Journals Committee on current practices related to metadata and PIDs. This last initiative is in progress and will require additional work to complete.
Jennifer Bennett-Genther, SUNY, Chair
James Ayers, New Mexico
Katharine Easterby, Liverpool
Sergiy Kozakov, Athabasca
Stephani Miller, Marine Corps
Ali Parrington, Princeton
Maia Rigas, Northwestern
Sara Thaxton, Arizona
Mary Young, Kent State
Tara Cyphers, Ohio State, Board Liaison
Annette Windhorn, Central Office Co-Liaison
Dylan Fritz, Central Office Co-Liaison
Equity, Justice, Inclusion, and Belonging
The Equity, Justice, Inclusion, and Belonging (EJIB) Committee dedicated the 2025-2026 committee year to actioning the feedback on collective needs and priorities gathered from the wider AUPresses membership in the previous year. This included hosting a second “The State of DEIA Efforts at University Presses” town hall to provide space for members to discuss timely challenges in a precarious political climate, hosting a Hangout on microaggressions in the workplace, continuing last year’s revival of the EJIB section in the AUPresses bulletin, and developing a new subsection to the AUPresses EJIB Resource Library to provide reliable information on AI & Ethics. December saw another well-attended meeting with liaisons from fellow committees, where further insight was gained to inform the committee’s goals and actions moving forward. The committee continued its collaboration efforts with fellow committees, and looks forward to seeing those efforts come to fruition in the next committee year.
Shalini Nanayakkara, British Columbia, Chair
Tristan Bates, Penn State
Milo Brooks, Florida
Susie Chavez, Stanford
Skylar Cooper, Colorado
Emily Feng, Washington
Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero, Guam
Mary Lui, Toronto
Carah Naseem, Rutgers
Yelba Quinn, Brookings
Walter Biggins, Pennsylvania, Board Liaison
Dylan Fritz, Central Office Liaison
Brenna McLaughlin, Central Office Liaison
Faculty Outreach
This year, the Faculty Outreach Committee has continued to manage the AskUP site, soliciting and posting FAQs about finding a book publisher and connecting with your local university press. The group is also currently collaborating with the AUPresses EJIB Committee to add resources relating to the concerns and opportunities related to Artificial Intelligence in university publishing. For UP Week 2025, committee co-chairs Alec Loganbill and Rebecca Colesworthy published an article entitled “Don’t Go It Alone! And Other Tips on How To Get Your First Book Published with a University Press” in Higher Ed Jobs. A glossary of publishing terms, developed by committee members over the past several years, is in the final stages of review and approval. The committee hosted a panel on university press publishing at the 2026 Modern Language Association conference and organized and proposed a new guaranteed panel for the 2027 MLA conference. The committee collaborated with the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions to produce four webinars, designed to demystify the university press publishing process for interested faculty and graduate students. Topics included revising a dissertation into a book, publishing with a university press, how to publicize your book, and how to publish in academic journals. All four webinars are now publicly available on the Center’s YouTube page and the AskUP website. The committee has also started discussing a potential new collaboration with the National Humanities Center.
Rebecca Colesworthy, SUNY, Co-Chair
Alec Loganbill, Kansas, Co-Chair
Gregory Britton, Johns Hopkins
Emma Burridge, Liverpool
Amber Cederstrom, Wisconsin
Jane Ferreyra, Nebraska
Shannon Fortner, Johns Hopkins
Kayowa Gibson-Tshilenge, Pennsylvania
Brian Halley, Massachusets
Caroline McKusick, Stanford
Heather Stauffer, Syracuse
Tara Cyphers, Ohio State, Board Liaison
Annette Windhorn, Central Office Liaison
Intellectual Property and Copyright
During this year, the Intellectual Property and Copyright (IP&C) Committee organized a collaboration lab session for the 2026 AUPresses Annual Meeting to meet the charge of programming on artificial intelligence (“AI and PUblishing: What’s Still Keeping Us (and Our Authors) Up at Night?”). The committee also completed the final revisions and proofread of the previous term’s Permissions FAQ and handed the work to AUPresses for internal processing and to prepare for launch. The group then reviewed the sample documents as an ancillary resource to the FAQ (including samples of text permissions request letter, art/illustration permissions request letter, and interview release) and completed revisions to reflect current best practices. The committee looks forward to promoting and assisting with the publicity of the FAQ in the next term. The group also discussed the rapidly evolving issues of intellectual property and copyright, including generative AI (such as restrictions and allowances in publication agreements) and the class action settlement for Bartz et al v Anthropic.
Elizabeth Adams, Georgia, Co-Chair
Taylor Sumereau, Princeton, Co-Chair
Susan Doerr, Minnesota
Alex Gupta, Pennsylvania
Jolie Hale, South Carolina
Joyce Harrison, Kansas
Lisa Jemison, Toronto
Anne McKenna, Wisconsin
Kerin Ogg, Duke
Hannah Vose, Chicago
Angelica Lopez-Torres, Texas, Board Liaison
Kate Kolendo, Central Office Liaison
Investment
The Investment Committee oversees the Association’s quasi-endowment fund, which is invested in a portfolio of self-managed index funds. Its strategy aims to maximize returns while adhering to the asset allocation guidelines set out in the Association’s Investment Policy Statement. The committee carries out this responsibility by reviewing monthly performance reports from Fidelity Investments, recommending portfolio rebalancing when needed, and advising the Board, upon request, on fund allocation and the strategic use of income, while maintaining a prudent reserve.
Paul Ashenfelter, Notre Dame, Chair
Teresa Collins, Kentucky
Angela Gibson, MLA
Dennis Lloyd, Wisconsin
Steve Mecham, Utah
Alisa Plant, Louisiana State, Board Liaison
Kim Miller, Central Office Liaison
Journals
The Journals Committee’s general objective is 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. To this end, the committee organized three sessions for the 2026 Annual Meeting (with one proposal accepted but deferred to a later year), as well as a Journals Assembly pre-meeting event. The group also convened an AUPresses Hangout on the impact of AI on journals programs at University Presses. The 2025-26 Journals Committee also had the pleasure of advancing the important work begun by the committee in previous terms. The committee oversaw the finalization and distribution of the Journals Editor Onboarding Toolkit, a project which had been developed over several preceding years. Additionally, the committee was specifically charged to undertake a journals survey to chart the current landscape. Building on the work of the previous year’s committee, the group finalized and distributed the survey to the AUPresses membership, with results to be analyzed in the coming months. Finally, the Journals Committee also supplied volunteers to support other committees, providing insights to the EJIB Committee and assisting the EDP Committee in the development of a survey on metadata practices.
Sally Hoffmann, Cambridge, Co-Chair
Tara Saunders, Purdue, Co-Chair
Faye DeBroux, Duke
Fern Ennis, Liverpool
Clare Hooper, Liverpool
Sarah McDonald, Edinburgh
Sarah Muncy, AHA
Ann Snoeyenbos, Johns Hopkins
Emily Taylor, Ohio State
Michelle Woods, Illinois
Anthony Cond, Liverpool, Board Liaison
Kate Kolendo, Central Office Liaison
Library Relations
In the past year, the Library Relations Committee has advanced its core mission of strengthening communication and collaboration between university presses and academic libraries. The group organized a session at the 2025 Charleston Conference, “More Than a Transaction: University Presses and Libraries in Conversation,” featuring both press and library staff. The committee published an article in Katina Magazine, “Removing Barriers: How Libraries and University Presses Collaborate to Effect Change,” based on a session we ran at the 2025 Library Publishing Forum. The group co-developed, with the AUPresses Marketing Committee, a session for the June 2026 AUPresses Annual Conference, “The Shifting Library/University Press Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities,” and are presenting a Library Publishing Forum session on “Libraries and Publishers in Support of Black and Indigenous Voices.” In addition, the committee has begun inviting key library personnel to join our committee meetings to share information and explore mutually supportive initiatives.
Jessica Thomson, Harvard Education, Chair
Jennie Collinson, Liverpool
Maia Desjardins, Wilfred Laurier
Allison Levy, Brown
Alison Mero, Clemson
Madison Mosely, Georgia
Kelsey Mrjoian, Michigan
Julia Oestreich, Delaware
Catherine Cocks, Syracuse, Board Liaison
Annette Windhorn, Central Office Liaison
Marketing
The Marketing Committee continued its Marketing Handbook revisions in 2025 and 2026, with updates made to the following chapters of the handbook: Podcasting, Online Outreach and Blogs, Working with Freelancers, Book Trailers, PR Crisis Management, Radio/TV, Ebooks, Audiobooks, Desk/Exam. Additionally, in 2026 a new section dedicated to Anniversary Planning Resources was created. The committee organized and hosted an April 2025 Hangout on “Leveraging Your Backlist.” The committee also organized a Collaboration Lab at the 2025 virtual AUPresses Annual Meeting on “Marketing Sensitive Topics” that was followed by a more informal Zoom networking opportunity for AUPresses marketers. In 2026, the committee contributed to organizing two panels for the AUPresses Annual Meeting: “Making the Most of your Marketing Budget” and “The Shifting Library/University Press Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities,” the latter of which was a collaboration with the Library Relations Committee.
Jamie Jones, Michigan, Chair
Vanessa de Bueger, Amsterdam
Susie Chavez, Stanford
Rachel Doll, Florida
Chelsey Harris, Massachusetts
Michael Higgins, Harvard Education
Brian Hughes, NYU
Kristen Gregg, Cornell
Alison Mailloux, Harvard
Stephanie Marchman, Notre Dame
Katherine White, Oregon State
Hilary Claggett, Georgetown, Board Liaison
McKenzi Thi Murphy, 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 related to OA publishing. The main area of focus this year has been reimagining the Open Access Resource Guide to better serve AUPresses members, which as of April 2026 is nearing completion. The committee also proposed two sessions for the AUPresses meeting; organized the accepted session, “Flipping 101”; and endorsed other OA sessions. The composition of the committee is international and it began planning actions to raise awareness about the global context for OA, to build a foundation for continued work in future years. In response to the committee’s new charge to explore options to integrate open access information in publisher operating statistics, the committee investigated how/whether OA budget items are currently being tracked separately at their respective presses, finding that most are not formally embedding OA terms into their reporting. The committee invited guest speaker Kimberly Schmelzinger to help inform its approach to making recommendations and providing resources to member presses.
Phillip Hearn, Johns Hopkins, Co-Chair
Stacy Lavin, North Carolina, Co-Chair
Eric Brandt, Virginia
Cosette Bruhns Alonso, Brown
Catherine Cocks, Syracuse
Elizabeth Demers, Michigan State
Jasmine Mulliken, Stanford
Sandra Shaw, Toronto
Wikus Van Zyl, UJ
Minlei Ye, CUHK
Erich van Rijn, California, 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 connect with colleagues. The PDC organizes two hangouts each year. In 2025-2026, we will focus on Accessibility training and Q&A to better support AUPresses on all of the new accessibility-related requirements of our field.
The committee will also host two panels at the AUPresses Annual Meeting in June, “Tension Tamer: How University Presses are Navigating Disruptions in Higher Ed” and “Resilient Publishing: Building Financial Stability in Uncertain Times.” The committee will again help to facilitate the AUPresses Mentorship Program, matching next year’s mentors and mentees in advance of the Annual Meeting. Finally, the committee helped bring off another successful round of the Residency Program with six applicants completing residencies at member presses.
Erik Beranek, Princeton, Co-Chair
Kelly Fattman, Harvard Education, Co-Chair
Rebecca Bostock, Ohio State
Carlynn Crosby, Florida
Andrea Gapsch, Purdue
Kelsey Giffin, Wayne State
Julia Knecht, Wisconsin
Cindy Lim, Penn State
Brittany Nicolaysen, Harvard Education
Sarah Noell, Columbia
Elisia Snyder, Alberta
John Sherer, North Carolina, Board Liaison
Alexis Fagan, Central Office Liaison
