ASM History: Honorary Members

The founders of the American Society of Mammalogists (ASM), in the first Bylaws approved in 1919, established an honorary membership, writing: “Article II. Membership. Sec. 3. Honorary members shall be elected by a majority vote of the Society upon unanimous recommendation of the Council [= Board of Directors] in recognition of distinguished services to mammalogy” (By-laws and Rules adopted April 3, 1919). In the most recently approved ASM Bylaws, it is stated: “Honorary membership is conferred by the Society in recognition of distinguished service to mammalogy” (Article II, Sec. 6, ASM Bylaws, approved 15 June 2021). This simple sentence has been the only guidance that the Board of Directors of the ASM received in selecting honorary members over its first 102 years (see changes at https://www.mammalsociety.org/committees/honorary-membership). Considered to be the highest distinction bestowed by the Society, honorary members do not need to be a member of the ASM when selected, but clearly there is the expectation that the person will have made significant contributions in one or more of the principal activities of the profession—research, education, service to the ASM and similar organizations, and conservation. The ASM has chronicled its individual honorary members and amassed information about their accomplishments (Hoffmeister 1969; Layne and Hoffmann 1994; Taylor and Schlitter 1994; Heske and Bell 2019). We wish, however, to take a different approach, examining this select group of mammalogists as an assemblage and as subgroups to learn if there are shared characteristics or career paths. As of 1 July 2022, 109 honorary members of the ASM have been elected over the 103-year history of the organization, giving an average of 1.05 honorary members per year. As many ASM members know, Joel Asaph Allen, then at the American Museum of Natural History, was selected as the first Honorary Member at the first annual meeting in 1919. Edouard-Louis Trouessart of France was elected in 1921, being recognized for his prolific writing on the mammals of France and Europe, becoming the first Honorary Member from outside of North America. It was not until 1966 with the election of Erna Mohr of Germany that the first woman became an Honorary Member of the ASM. Of the 109 honorary members, 99 are men and 10 are women (9.2%), with 40 men and 5 women (11.1%) from outside of the United States ( Appendix I) and 59 men and 5 women (7.8%) being elected from the United States ( Appendix II). The disparity in the recognition of men and women has been noted previously, and it is an acknowledged fact that the ASM and other taxon-based scientific organizations were heavily male dominated and field research oriented for nearly two-thirds of the twentieth century. This can certainly account for the disparity in the first 50 years of the existence of the ASM. However, as discussed by Genoways and Freeman (2001:292), this trend was changing as shown by presentations at ASM annual meetings. “From 1974 onward, women were authors (not just 1st authors) for over 10% of presentations at the annual meetings.” The 20% level was reached in 1979 and subsequently rose to 30% in 1981, 40% in 1991, and finally women were authors on 50% or more of the presentations beginning in 1997. At the most recent annual meetings, registered women participants have slightly outnumbered men participants—2021 virtual meeting, 400 women and 362 men; 2022 combined virtual and in-person meeting, 256 women and 249 men. This change occurred for several reasons, including changing societal attitudes emerging from the 1960s; passage of Title IX in 1972 prohibiting sex discrimination in any education program, resulting in the removal of institutional prohibitions against coed activities such as field research; more women deciding to pursue their interests in science; and more women becoming skilled and eager field researchers. This 50-year period of rising contributions from women to the science of mammalogy and the ASM has seen increasing recognition given to women (Horner et al. 1996; Stein 1999; Dizney et al. 2019). Since 2000, the ASM has elected 43 honorary members of which 21 (16 men, 5 women) were from the US with 23.8% being women and 22 (18 men, 4 women) were from outside of the US with 18.2% being women. In fact, nine of the 10 women becoming honorary members have been elected since 2000 and the percentage of the women honorary members has risen in concert with their increased representation in the ASM. However, it is clear that the ASM remains far from parity in this respect, raising the question whether the Board of Directors and the Honorary Membership Committee should re-evaluate the criteria and procedures used to select future honorary members. ASM honorary members have come from six continents and 24 countries ( Appendix I), with the US having by far the most at 64 (59%) of those recognized. This should not come as a surprise because the organization was founded and continues to be supported primarily by US mammalogists. Including the other honorary members from North America (Canada, Cuba, and Mexico), the core region for the ASM, there are 72 honorary members or two-thirds of the total recognized. There is a definite bias toward honoring mammalogists from English-speaking countries, with 83 (76%) by our count. For the most part, honorary members from outside of the US attended degree-granting institutions in their home country. Only four of the non-US members attended institutions in the US—University of California, Berkeley (2), University of Iowa (1), and the University of Kansas (1). Some of the most interesting and surprising facts about members from outside of the US are places where we have not recognized honorary members. For example, in Africa we have recognized only two mammalogists both from Republic of South Africa, but there are active researchers in universities, museums, and wildlife organizations studying mammals in other parts of the continent. There has never been an ASM Honorary Member from India, but there is a long tradition of mammalian studies at universities, museums, and the Zoological Survey of India. We have not had honorary members from northern South America, the former Soviet Republics, or Central America. We are certain that there are people who are highly qualified among these regions. As the ASM continues expanding as an international organization, we may need to broaden our vision of what constitutes “distinguished service to mammalogy.” Within the group of honorary members from the US, there are interesting clusters based on birthplace, home institution, and education ( Appendix II). Honorary members from the US hail from 24 states and three foreign countries; 13 states produced multiple honorary members, with New York leading this listing with seven. California and Illinois are represented by being the birthplace of five members each, and five states—Kansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Ohio, and Pennsylvania—were the birthplace of four honorary members each. Three honorary members were born in Oregon and Missouri and two each in Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin. One of the surprising observations is that only one Honorary Member was born in a state in the southeastern US (Virginia south to Florida and west to Louisiana and Tennessee)—Lee R. Dice, born in Georgia. The thinly populated northern Rocky Mountain states are another region represented by a single Honorary Member—William B. Davis, born in Idaho. Compiling a list of the states of the home institutions (institution with which they were associated when elected) of US honorary members ( Appendix II), only 17 states and the District of Columbia are represented. The District of Columbia was the location of the home institutions for 16 honorary members, with the US Biological Survey/US Fish and Wildlife Service and subsequent iterations, US National Museum/National Museum of Natural History, and National Zoological Park. Only eight states included the home institutions for two or more honorary members, with 10 members from New York leading this group primarily because of the seven honorary members at the American Museum of Natural History. The other states represented are California (7), Texas (5), Michigan (4), New Mexico (4), Kansas (3), Illinois (2), and Massachusetts (2). The nine states with single home institutions of honorary members include Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah. Here, again, the southeastern US has only one representative—James N. Layne at the Archbold Biological Station in Florida. The final area of the background of our US honorary members that we examined was the institutions where they received their highest educational degree. US honorary members received their degrees at 22 institutions in the US and four institutions outside of the US. One Honorary Member only graduated from high school (Edward A. Preble). Twelve institutions had two or more graduates who became honorary members. Thirteen honorary members of the ASM received their advanced degrees at the University of California, Berkeley, nearly twice as many as second place University of Kansas, with seven honorary members. Also recall that California-Berkeley had two graduates become honorary members from outside the US and Kansas had one. The program with the third most graduates becoming honorary members was the University of Michigan, with five. If you haven’t picked up on the theme here, it could best be called the “Joseph Grinnell Effect.” Grinnell started the programs of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley and graduates of his program started those in Lawrence and Ann Arbor; if one were to look further into the list of the degree granting institutions, other programs in the Grinnell lineage would be found, such as University of Arizona (2), University of Illinois (2), University of New Mexico (2), Louisiana State University (1), and Texas Tech University (1) (Jones 1991; Whitaker 1994). The other institutions with two or more graduates becoming honorary members were Columbia University (4), Cornell University (4), Harvard University (4), George Washington University (2), University of Wisconsin (2), and Yale University (2). An interesting fact about the “Joseph Grinnell Effect” is that Grinnell, himself, was never elected an Honorary Member of the ASM (Fig. 1). By tradition, honorary membership has been conferred as the person approached the end of his/her career and was entering retirement. Grinnell was in his early sixties and not preparing for retirement when he unexpectedly died. Although not specifically prohibited in the Bylaws, the ASM has never elected an Honorary Member posthumously. Some other people absent from the list can probably be attributed to similar circumstances, such as Edward A. Goldman who died while serving as President of the ASM, and Past President Elmer C. Birney, who unexpectedly died at the age of 60. Only quick action by the Board of Directors allowed Terry L. Yates to be elected before his untimely death. Among other names that are mysteriously, from our modern perspective, missing from the list, we would include mammalogists such as Vernon Bailey, B. Elizabeth Horner, Wilfred H. Osgood, Colin C. Sanborn, Viola S. Schantz, and Francis B. Summer. Joseph Grinnell at age 53 in December 1930 in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology examining an American beaver (Castor canadensis) skull. Although Grinnell never was elected an Honorary Member of the ASM because of his untimely death at age 62, the training program he established at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, produced almost twice as many ASM Honorary Members than any other mammalogy program. His students and their academic progeny account for at least 36 of the 109 ASM’s honorary members. Photograph courtesy of Archives of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley (Accession MVZ:IMG 8421). Honorary membership has been a part of the fabric of the ASM since its founding. For the most part, it has served the Society well throughout its first 100 years. It has allowed ­recognition of what we as members of the ASM believe is excellence in our profession. It has allowed the shining of a light on individuals outside of the US who otherwise might not be honored within their own country. We may expect the number of honorary members being recognized to increase as more people are actively studying mammals and the ASM is increasing its international impact. Particular attention should be given to recognizing the roles and contributions of women and minorities in mammalogy, and to colleagues from parts of the world that have thus far remained unrepresented among our honorees. We thank Kay E. Holekamp and Duane A. Schlitter for providing some missing data. We appreciate the comments from Edward J. Heske and Douglas A. Kelt on an earlier draft of this manuscript, their attention to the details significantly improved the focus. Christy Classi kindly gathered the data on women/men participants at recent annual meetings. Honorary members of the American Society of Mammalogists (1919–2022) listed by continent and country. Honorary members of the American Society of Mammalogists from the United States of America grouped by their home institution/organization. Many of these mammalogists were employed at several institutions over the course of their careers, but they are listed here by the institutions with which they were associated when elected to this recognition. The institutions are listed in the order from most mammalogists recognized to those with a single person recognized. Those institutions with a single person recognized are listed in alphabetical order. Birthplace is the state/nation in which the member was born. Many of these honorary members attended several institutions in the course of their formal education, but the institutions listed here are those that granted the highest degree.

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