Notes and Comments

Abstract

NOTES AND COMMENTS TheJohn Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award The American CathoUc Historical Association announces inauguration of its John Tracy ElUs DissertationAward. The award,which carries a purse of $ 1,200, memorializes the scholarship and teaching ofMonsignorJohn Tracy EUis (19051992 ). Its purpose is to assist a graduate student working on some aspect ofthe history of the CathoUc Church. It wUl be presented for the first time in 1998. Eligibility.Those wishing to enter the competition for the award must be citizens or authorized residents (i.e., permanent residents or on student visas) of the United States or Canada and must be enroUed in a doctoral program at a recognized institution of higher education. Procedures: AppUcants must submit the foUowing materials: (1) a statement from the chaUperson (or director of graduate studies) of the applicant's department certifying that he or she has completed aU degree requirements for the doctorate except the dissertation and has received departmental approval to undertake work on a dissertation topic dealing with some aspect of the history of the CathoUc Church; (Z) three copies of a statement written by the appUcant , not exceeding 1,000 words in length, describing the dissertation project and how the award would be employed to further its completion; and (3) two sealed letters of recommendation from scholars famiUar with the applicant 's work, one of whom must be his or her dissertation director. These materials must be sent by September 30, 1997, to the Secretary, American CathoUc Historical Association, The CathoUc University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064. The first winner of the John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award wiU be announced at the Association's annual meeting in Seattle,Washington, in January, 1998. Association News At its meeting held in NewYork onJanuary 2, 1997, the Executive CouncU of the American CathoUc Historical Association resolved to accept with gratitude the invitation of Marian CoUege in Indianapolis, extended by its president, Daniel A. Felicetti, to hold the spring meeting there in 1998. The meeting wUl mark the centenary of the transfer of the episcopal see from Vincennes, where it was erected in 1834, to IndianapoUs. The Archbishop of IndianapoUs, the 350 NOTES AND COMMENTS351 Most Reverend Daniel M. Buechlein, O.S.B., wiU be the principal celebrant of the Mass at the close of the meeting. The dates will be March 27 and 28. The chairman of the planning committee wiU be James J. Divita of Marian CoUege; the other members wUl be two of his coUeagues in the Department of History, viz., WUUam J. Doherty and Sister Sue Bradshaw, O.S.E, C. Edward Balog, Academic Dean of Marian CoUege, the Reverend Jack W Porter, archivist/historian of the archdiocese, andJoseph M. White, associate editor of U.S. Catholic Historian . Proposals of papers or (preferably) sessions should be submitted to Professor Divita in care of the Department of History, Marian CoUege, 3200 Cold Spring Road, IndianapoUs, Indiana 46222-1997; telephone: 317-955-6228. Meetings, Conferences, Congresses, and Lectures A lecture series entitled "The American CathoUc Experience: New Historical Perspectives" was sponsored by the Department of History in the CathoUc University ofAmerica betweenJanuary 29 and February 26. The speakers and thentopics are as foUows:John McGreevy of Harvard University,"Parish Boundaries: American CathoUcism and Twentieth-Century Race Relations";James Fisher of St. Louis University, "The Second CathoUc President: Ngo Dinh Diem, John F. Kennedy, and the Vietnam Lobby, 1954-1963"; CoUeen McDanneU of the University of Utah, "Material Culture and American CathoUc History"; Maureen Fitzgerald of the University of Arizona, "The PoUtics of God and Charity: Irish CathoUc Nuns in Nineteenth-Century New York City"; and Patrick AUitt of Emory University,"CathoUc Converts: British andAmerican InteUectuals Turn to Rome." The annual meeting ofthe Texas CathoUc Historical Society was to be held in Austin on March 7. Patrick Foley,editor of Catholic Southwest:AJournal ofHistory and Culture, was to read a paper entitled "Texas's First: The Diocese of Galveston" in commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the erection of the episcopal see (now caUed Galveston-Houston), and James Vanderholt, editor of East Texas Catholic,was to read one on "The Diocese ofAustin: FiftyYears." Lisa May, archivist of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston, was to present...