New Board Members and Officers Begin Terms
(New York, NY, and Washington, DC)—Niko Pfund, president of Oxford University Press USA, has assumed the presidency of the Association of University Presses. He was elected during the Association’s virtual Business Meeting in May 2020 and spoke at the conclusion of the Association’s virtual Annual Meeting last week.
“At a time when the necessity of the work that university presses do can scarcely be overstated, and when AUPresses membership is at an all-time high, our community also faces several extraordinary challenges, as publishers and merchants of ideas, and as citizens and people of conscience,” Pfund said. “The pandemic-related crisis in higher education will define our professional future. The persistent violence committed against people of color in our communities—particularly, but not exclusively, in the US—and the resultant personal and civic self-examination will define our collective future. We exist at the crackling intersection of scholarship and society, and we have a great deal to contribute to this moment.” (Read his full remarks here.)
Pfund was preceded as AUPresses President by Kathryn Conrad, director of the University of Arizona Press. Other AUPresses leadership changes for 2020-2021 include:
- Treasurer Alice Ennis, University of Illinois Press, took office as Jean Kim, Stanford University, wrapped up her 2019-2020 term.
- Lisa Bayer, director of the University of Georgia Press, was named President-Elect.
- Mike W. Bieker, director of the University of Arkansas Press, was named Treasurer-Elect—a reprise of his service as treasurer to the Association in 2013-2016.
- New board members began three-year terms: Allison Belan, director of strategic innovation and services at Duke University Press; Christie Henry, director of Princeton University Press; and Stephanie Williams, director of Ohio University Press.
- Past president Jennifer Crewe, director of Columbia University of Press; past treasurer Robbie Dircks, associate director and chief financial officer of the University of North Carolina Press; Greg Britton, editorial director of Johns Hopkins University Press; Dennis Lloyd, director of the University of Wisconsin Press; and Gita Manaktala, editorial director of the MIT Press concluded service on the board as the Association thanked them for their dedicated service.
Pfund began his career at Oxford University Press (OUP) in New York in 1987 as an editorial assistant in law and social science before moving to NYU Press as an editor in 1990. He served as editor in chief at NYU before becoming director in 1996 and returned to Oxford in 2000 as its academic publisher. Currently he is responsible for the development of OUP’s acquisitions and editorial program for research books and reference, as well as for the management of the its North American offices.
A former member of the AUPresses Board of Directors (2002-2005) and the Executive Committee of the Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarship Publishing group (2007-2017), Pfund serves on several boards, including those of the Digital Public Library of America, the Eurasia Group Foundation, and the literary journal, The Common, and on the advisory boards of Pace University’s M.S. in Publishing program and George Washington University’s Masters of Professional Studies in Publishing program.
Pfund is the Association’s 70th President and the first from Oxford University Press, which has been an Association member since 1950. See complete list of past Presidents.
About the Association of University Presses
AUPresses is an organization of 161 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.