New Board Members and Officers Begin Terms
Jane Bunker, director of the Cornell University Press, has stepped into the presidency of the Association of University Presses. Bunker succeeded 2022-2023 President Charles Watkinson, director of the University of Michigan Press and associate university librarian for publishing at Michigan, at the conclusion of the Association’s 2023 Virtual Annual Meeting last week.
Other AUPresses leaders, elected at the Association’s virtual Annual Business Meeting on May 18, have also begun their terms:
- Anthony Cond, director of Liverpool University Press, has been named President-Elect.
- Alexandria Leonard, senior operations analyst at Princeton University Press, has become Treasurer. She succeeds Mike W. Bieker—director of the University of Arkansas Press and assistant vice chancellor, director of operations and finance, in the university’s Division of Research and Innovation—who will continue to serve on the Board for one more year as a member-at-large.
- Teresa Collins, deputy director at the University Press of Kentucky, joins the Board as Treasurer-elect.
- Angela Anderson, director of the Marine Corps University Press; Taralee Cyphers, assistant director at the Ohio State University Press; and John Sherer, Spangler Family Director of the University of North Carolina Press, began three-year terms as Board members-at-large.
“Our shared values of integrity, diversity and inclusion, intellectual freedom, and stewardship will guide us as we move forward to continue to build community with all the participants in our ecosystem: fellow publishers, authors, booksellers, librarians, students, readers,” Bunker remarked in her inaugural statement. “If we continue to craft our stories in order to demonstrate our value proposition, continue to be good stewards of financial resources, and continue to live our values we will continue to enjoy success.” Read her full statement here.
Bunker is the Association’s 73rd President (see a complete list of past Presidents) and directs Cornell University Press, a founding member of the Association. She began her career at SUNY Press—serving as acquisitions editor, editor-in-chief, and associate director—and held the post of director at Northwestern University Press for a decade prior to coming to Cornell in 2020. She holds a MA in philosophy from Fordham University and a BA in philosophy from St. Norbert College. She has served as a member of Cornell’s Committee on the Future of Scholarly Communications and the Governing Cabinet for Project Euclid, and as Principal Investigator on grants exploring new open access initiatives from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
A former member of the Association’s Board of Directors (2013-2016), Bunker has also chaired its Professional Development and Library Relations Committees, and served on its Nominating Committee, Annual Meeting Program Committee (twice), and Small Press Task Force.
The Association also marks the conclusion of several Board members’ terms and thanks the following individuals for their dedicated service:
- Past President Lisa Bayer, director of the University of Georgia Press;
- Members-at-large Alison Belan, director of digital strategy and systems, Duke University Press; Christie Henry, director of Princeton University Press; and Stephanie Williams, director of Wayne State University Press.
Learn more about the work of the Association of University Presses Board of Directors
About the Association of University Presses
AUPresses is an organization of 160 international nonprofit scholarly publishers. Since 1937, the Association of University Presses advances the essential role of a global community of publishers whose mission is to ensure academic excellence and cultivate knowledge. The Association holds intellectual freedom, integrity, stewardship, and equity and inclusion as core values. AUPresses members are active across many scholarly disciplines, including the humanities, arts, and sciences, publish significant regional and literary work, and are innovators in the world of digital publishing.