APTrust Decision on Spring Meeting Venue Change
March 28, 2016
A message from Program Director Chip German:
Our original plan for APTrust’s Spring 2016 meeting was to hold it in North Carolina.
After recent developments there, the Governing Board of APTrust has concurred with the recommendation that we not hold our meeting in a location where explicit government policy promotes regressive intolerance, bias and unequal protection of law. We are moving the meeting from North Carolina to Maryland.
We will hold our sessions in Baltimore (hosted by Johns Hopkins University) from midday on Monday, April 18, to 5 pm on Tuesday, April 19.
At this point in our history, we recognize the need to demonstrate through our collaborative work that we remain committed to our preservation mission regardless of moments of political challenge for our institutions. Our discussion of this point has been abstract in the past. Today it feels substantially more concrete. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine that the spirit behind the recent North Carolina law could also put at risk the scholarly record and cultural heritage generated by the targeted community.
We look forward to the time when we do not have to limit our consideration of venues for our activities in order to stay consistent with our commonly held values. To our colleagues at institutions that happen to be in locations where we will not meet (and it could be any of us at any time), we stand with you as we know you stand with us in appealing to the better nature of human beings while safeguarding their most important accomplishments.