Kathleen Sprows Cummings was elected vice president of the American Catholic Historical Association. She will become vice president in January 2016 and a year later will become president of the organization. The association, founded in 1919 in Cleveland, Ohio, is a professional organization for scholars, archivists and teachers of Catholic studies. The association has approximately 1,220 members and holds its annual meeting in collaboration with the American Historical Association.
Dr. Cummings is the director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She is also an associate professor of American studies and history and a senior fellow in gender studies at the university. She is the author of New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era (University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
Dr. Cummings hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. She earned a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. at the University of Notre Dame.