Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Public Policy Centers Roundtable 20180123

And their methods for educating and offering information to the public. This is an hour and a half. All right. Well, we can begin the session. Welcome to all of you who have weathered the snow and ice to be here this afternoon. Welcome to this panel, history and Public Policy centers sponsored by the National History center. Im nick mueller, president and ceo emeritus of the World War Ii Museum in new orleans and before that enjoyed a 32year career at the university of new orleans and i will say more about that after the panelists are introduced. We are going to take a little bit of a different approach today and rather than having each panelist stand up to talk about their respective centers and institutes, well have a series of questions ill go over in just a moment, and theyll each respond in a few moments each. And we then, the work their centers are doing in the course of their remarks. So i am going to introduce briefly each of the panelists, and perhaps you can raise your hand as i mentioned your name and for audience that is here. And i suspect we have many more who are not affected by the weather, watching on cspan, so thank you, cspan, for covering this panel, which is being telecast. First, brian vella is the Dorothy Danforth professor at the Miller Center, professor of history at the university of virginia. And john hopkins, ph. D. And author of numerous books, associational state in 2015, government out of sight in 2009. The Miller Center is a nonpartisan affiliate of the university of virginia, specializing in the president ial scholarship, Public Policy, and political history. Striving the apply the lessons of history and civil discourse to the nations most pressing contemporary governance challenges. Avi green cannot be with us. He was caught by the snow in boston. If youre watching, we miss you. Hes the executive director of the scholar strategy network, and using research to improve Public Policy and strengthen democracy. So well need to hear more from him in other ways. Rob havers sitting here, is president of the george c. Marshall foundation at lexington, virginia. A cambridge ph. D. Previously serving as the executive director of the National Churchill museum. The Marshall Foundation is a nonprofit nonpartisan body dedicated to the perpetuation of the legacy of former u. S. Army chief of staff and secretary of state general marshall, the man, quote, who won the war and won the peace after world war ii. The center, the foundation emphasizes the Leadership Qualities of marshall and the exemplary character of Educational Programs and archives and research and library museum. Dane kennedy is the elmer lewis kizer professor of history at the George Washington university and author of five books, and is also director of the National History center, which is sponsoring this panel today. National History Center is an affiliate of the American Historical Association, created in 2002 to reinforce the Critical Role of history, and the historical knowledge of the role that history and knowledge, historical knowledge play in public Decision Making and civic life, and the center facilitates historical inquiry and debate and insures that scholarship and knowledge of professional historians are disseminated to the public effectively. David n. Myers to my left, is sadie and lewdvic khan chair in jewish history at ucla, columbia ph. D. The author of three books in fields of modern jewish and intellectual and cultural history. He has been a katz University Studies in pennsylvania, taught in french and russian universities, visiting scholar of advanced studies in jerusalem and was from 04 to 2009 director of ucla center of jewish studies. And jason steinhower. Hes director of the center for history and Public Interest at villanova. Hes a noted public historian. He has over 15 years of experience, very diverse experience. In museums, archives, government, academia, the library of congress, the New York Historical society, and the museum of jewish heritage as well as the rock and roll hall of fame. I like that one. But all of those are important. Lepage Center Brings historical scholarship and perspective to bear on contemporary Global Affairs and a leading voice for greater historical consciousness among citizens and elected officials and industry leaders. For myself, my area was european history at the university of new orleans and the ph. D. And masters from the university of north carolina. After 32 years as the professor, dean, vice chancellor and the last post was president of the research and technology park, Steven Ambrose and i, some of you may remember, the late Steven Ambrose decided that the country needed a National Dday museum and we set about in 1990 to do that and i became the chairman and ceo and ultimately the president of the dday museum which got a new mission from congress a few years later, and so we are now the national World War Ii Museum in the city of new orleans and serving members and people from all over to the country with almost 700,000 visitors. We will talk a little bit more about them, but there is also a new institute for the study of war and democracy, and a world war ii media and Education Center which are part of the story about what we are going to talk about just here in a moment. So, there are mikes up here for the audience as well as for cspan. And as i ask questions, well go down the row and get answers from our various presenters of a couple minutes each. And ill play the whip hand here and try to keep everybodys answers short so everybody gets a chance to respond. The general approach were taking today is to look at the broader question of who cares what historian has to say after all. How do we stay relevant and become more so, perhaps . Most of the centers and institutes that we know of today enjoyed the first appearance in the late 19th century as various scholars began to develop research endeavors, Specialized Research endeavors in higher education, largely to a scholarly audience. Now todays historians face a very, very different environment than that traditional idea of an institute or center at a university. Its sometimes not at universities because today were in a world wherem many of our prospective audiences, people who might consume what we have to say, live in an online world. So reflecting 21st Century Technology and communications. So we find these traditional models that have grown up over the last century or so now living with a very dynamic crowded public space where the messages emanate from many, many sources, and that is, those sources are amplified now by the powers of digitization. And the question is for the panelists, and there will be a couple parts to the first question, so is anyone listening . Is anyone listening . Or does anyone care what our centers and institutes are doing, or in my case, museums . So i think we can all agree that we are living in an attention deficit society with political divisions and online chatter of enormous proportions compared to what existed 25 years ago, certainly a century ago. So the first part of the question for all of you is how do historians in their centers and institutes represented here break through the noise . Break through the noise and provide context and historical insight for Public Policy and other critical public issues . So breaking through the noise is the first part of the question, and who are your target audiences . And are they listening to you . So rob, well start with you. Thank you, nick. Good afternoon, everyone. Pleasure to be here. The george c. Marshall foundation as nick said located in lexington, virginia, been there since 1964 sitting on the post of the Virginia Military institute, and general marshall is a graduate of that institution. Prior to that in washington, d. C. , from 1953. So we have sat in lexington working on somewhat the internal part of marshalls life. In four volumes of the authorized biography, seven volumes of the papers, edited papers of george marshall, completed respectively in 1987, and just in 2016, so a lot of time and effort, but really, those great scholarly endeavors, very emblematic of the world nick alluded to, the old world. How do you engage the young about general marshall, all he did as a general or secretary of state when the first point of entry is perhaps the four very substantial volumes of that authorized biography. How are you breaking through . Were doing it in a number of ways. Trying to connect the historical marshall with the present. So all kinds of questions that are arising at the moment, and the role of the United States in particular at the moment in the modern world, and the end of that post war consensus that has been with us since 1945, and general marshall is at the core, the heart of that with the Marshall Plan, the secretary of state, through lectures, through short videos, through blogs that speak to the big news events. We find that we have growing traction, virtual traction, in the people commenting on our blog posts that connect either our paper collections, three dimensional collections with the big events of the modern world. And then the next step is to draw them in personally to the building. And you often have to want to go to lexington, virginia, its not as far as you might think. I drove from there this morning, but you have to make an effort to come and visit us. So lectures in the evening, lectures at lunch time, build on that growing virtual presence. Primarily, you are focused on getting people to the Marshall Center and thats the primary way of reaching your audiences . We are trying to get the people to visit us on site and endeavoring to take the lectures and programs out beyond lexington. Okay, all right. Deign . Yes, first of all to your initial question, and that has to do with are we reaching an audience and how. We need to recognize and we do recognize on some level that there is an innate interest in history in the broader public. This is something that is really foundational, i think, to everyone. And you see it in a variety of different ways, this fascination with genealogy, the way in which people are sort of tracing their roots genetically, the powerful influence that certain History Museums have, such as the one that nick has helped to found in new orleans. So the good news is that historians are speaking in some sense to a receptive audience who recognize that history has some kind of value. One of the challenges. However, that face those of us who work in the academic world as historians is how to reach that audience in a way thats compelling to them and yet also reflects the kinds of Specialized Knowledge that we have. Part of it is a matter of framing, a use of language and understanding of how history is understood and conceptualized by different groups and different audiences. So let me turn to the second part of your question, which has to do with the National History center itself, which i direct. It is located here in washington, d. C. Its an affiliate of the American Historical Association, and our mission is to bring history and historians the broader public and policy conversations. No better place to do that in some sense than washington, d. C. And we focus on particular audiences. Were not trying to reach the sort of general audience that would go to, say, the World War Ii Museum or people who are interested in genealogy. Were focused first and foremost on capitol hill, on the policy community, and washington, d. C. Itself. And one of the ways we do this is through a congressional briefing series that we have run for five or six years now, which identifies the topics that are facing congress currently and trying to give at least staffers and occasionally congressmen themselves who attend these briefings some sense of the Historical Context for these issues and how an understanding of that historical background can be of benefit in terms of defining and shaping current policy issues. We also have a weekly lecture series that we do in conjunction with the Wilson Center which is bringing historians to talk about work that they have recently done that has some kind of policy dimension to it. And finally, we also try to, and develop a program which brings some of those techniques in terms of congressional briefings and how theyre done, producing a briefing paper and so on, to the classroom. And so developing a particular set of techniques for allowing history teachers to better communicate to their students and get their students to more actively engage in the use of history as a vehicle for understanding not just the past but a perspective on the present. So youre focusing a major effort on the policy briefings to influence the staffers, to understand a better understanding of history, and therefore a larger impact on the hill and in congress than your public lectures, and then teacher impact. So those are three good areas. David, you want to sure, thank you very much. A great pleasure to be here. Im here today wearing two institutional hats. The first is as the inaugural director of the loven center for policy, which is a new Research Center established at ucla. Im also the president and ceo of the center for jewish history in new york, which has a very substantial public history role as well. I should say the center at ucla really arose out of considerable demand from multiple constituencies. From students, from faculty colleagues as well as from the general public that we introduce a greater degree of historical knowledge and perspective into the policy, and this is something that we feel we can do at the university. Especially in the current moment. I think that this is really important to the take stock of the moment we inhabit. Yes, it is a time of attention deficit. Yes, we live in a mediacrazed world in which the news cycle is reduced to seconds and not hours. And yet at the same time, i sense, and certainly my center is a creation, is a reflection of this, that people want to know, how did we get to where we are . How did we follow this path to where we are . In a certain sense, i think of this moment as the moment of history where people demand a historical accounting to explain the current state of Political Affairs in the United States, something that we mentioned just briefly, nick, before the session began, how did the postworld war ii order that was such a stable foundation, much of the western world seemed to unra unravel so quickly. How did we achieve the current state or descend into the state of oincome inequality to the extent that we have . It seems to me that many people are seeking deeper and more profound answers to these central questions that are very much a function of the moment. It isnt necessarily the case that this questioning means that, as hagel famously said, the munevera has spread its wings, that we have reached the end of history, but its a moment where theres a demand for more historical texture and perspective and its no accident that this gathering takes place with new and old centers devoted to the intersection of history and policy. So what we try to do is operate both within the inner city and beyond. One of the things we aim to do at the Luskin Center is to modify the culture of the academy to make students and faculty more receptive to historically informed work that addresses questions of contemporary relevance. To make that a legitimate and regular form of historical inquiry and discourse. And so this is, i think, one of the things that we aim to do within the university that we expect will radiate out. From that, our plans are to produce historicallyinformed policy papers that reach actual decisionmakers at the local, regional, and National Levels. Thats exciting. Just chime in here too, to reenforce what you say, there is a thirst for history out there. The national World War Ii Museum is some evidence of that. We have now got approaching 6 million visitors since we were founded 17 years ago. This is sort of a supply side museum. It wasnt demand driven. It wasnt like the nation was clamoring for a dday museum. So now some 700,000 visitors a year come to new orleans, and half of those, 85 are from out of state. Half of those who come say the only reason theyre coming is to see this museum. Theres a thirst for great history, well told, well presented. Just a brag point, we ranked number two by trip adviser, the largest travel database in the world, number two most Popular Museum in the United States, and number two in the world. Now, you might say, wlooz rr the other company . Metropolitan museum of arts, number one. And most of the smithsonian and other museums are behind us right now. But what goes up comes down, but the good news is that people are interested in history. And we have conferences and symposiums, and you wouldnt believe it. Conferences have 500, 600 people. These are not mostly historians. Theyre enthusiasts who want good history. Theyre from 8 00 to 6 00 in the evening with breaks for authors to talk with authors and sign books. So theyre there because were making history relevant and interesting to them. And were also thinking about outreach and how to get the word out. So we founded a new institute for the study of war and democracy, which has 12 historians in it, half with ph. D. S and developing content, overseeing our exhibits and our conferences, and a world war ii media and Education Center that, once were finished with the physical expansion, well go beyond the walls. Jason, lets turn to you and get your responses on this. Ill try this microphone if thats okay. So can everyone hear me . Okay. I appall skrz. Im fighting a cold, so if i keep doing that, thats why. Im really pleased to be here. I wanted to make one observation. Initially, which is to say that we all up here look pretty similar. And i think one thing that will certainly help us moving forward is to insure there is some diversity at the head of these institutions that we create, so i hope in the future when we do these types of panels, we can have women historians and persons of color and people of all genders represented. I think that will only help us in insuring were relevant to a generation that is up and coming and increasingly diverse and looking for the similar face in leadership roles to inspire them and make them interested in career choices and fields. I also want to do a very sort of historian type of thing here and challenge a couple of assumpt n assumptions were sort of working under. I was struck when thinking about this panel and the questions posed about this notion of the attention deficit, and it kind of occurred to me, and well see if we agree or disagree, but there arent actually a lot of things that we Pay Attention to pretty consistently, were certainly paying attention to our current administration, pretty consistently. Were paying attention to russia, north korea pretty consistently. People seem to pay a lot of attention to game of thrones and College Football never seems to get old, either. So attention deficit, i think we actually do have the capacity for longterm attention to various things. Those things just have to interest us. And history doesnt interest all people. So for those of us in these roles, our challenge is to not only engage people who are already interested in history, as dane said, that segment of the population that already does have that sort of curiosity and fundamental drive to learn more about the past, but also find ways to get people in the door who may not be interested in history at all. And you know, theres a sizable amount of people out there who fall into that category. So i also how do you do that . Well, whats pleasing me about this conversation is that this is actually a conversation about history communication, which if you know about me or have followed me at all on twitter, this is sort of a pet project of mine. Hes live tweeting this. I just want you to know that. Im looking at it. Because how we get people interested in things is not only about subject matter but its about how we communicate, where we communicate, and who does the communicating. And so all of those things are not necessarily taught or ingrained into the history pedagogy right now. We teach history students how to research, how to analyze, how to write Journal Articles and books. We dont always teach them how to be skilled communicators. We dont always teach them to take advantage of new digital platforms as they come out. We dont always teach them how to understand the basic fundamentals of media literacy, of rhetorical skills, of how to speak on camera, of how to do a twominute bite on msnbc, so thats been the premise of what we call history communication, and its something myself and many colleagues across the country, excuse me, have been working to integrate into the history profession. So how we communicate, where we communicate, who does the communicating, that all has an impact on the interest level. That brings me to the Lepage Center. The Lepage Center, which im the first director of, was created in 2016. Were a very new center. We have only been doing programming for the past five months. So i have some metrics about influence and reaching people, but its still probably too early to really tell. But i will say that the idea of the center from baked into its existence is this notion that you dont have to come to the Lepage Center to be part of it. Unlike whats happening at the Marshall Foundation, for example, you can be part of the Lepage Center anywhere in the world. You can access our blogs, listen to our podcasts, connect with us on social media. You can watch our events through live streaming. Were pretty much taking the model that the Lepage Center has multiple nodes and multiple entry points, and you can be a part of our community at any time, and you can exit our community at any time, and youll always be welcome. So its sort of a different conception of a center. Were not a building. We dont have really a prime office. We do have a room on villanovas campus. But our action doesnt happen there. Our action happens sort of out in cyberspace and everywhere. Were trying to apply these principles of history communication to the building of the center from the ground up. I will also finally just mention that we actually do have two history communication fellows at the Lepage Center. The first two history communication fellows anywhere. And those fellows are undergraduate and graduate students who specifically work with us to develop and hone their history communication skills as well as help us communicate historical scholarship through these new media. Okay. And i want to come back to the whole issue of the social media in a moment, but you want to finish up with just this first round of questions . Sure, ill try to see if theres anything left to say. Answering the question of how do we break through the noise and how do we know that were doing that, i know that everybody on this panel believes that the first order of business for breaking through the noise is producing and delivering firstrate scholarship. And we so much believe that that we havent mentioned it that much, but i think its very important. And one center that im connected with at the university of virginia, the jefferson scholars, runs the National Fellowship program, which has funded over 150 post docs who work specifically on understanding politics in the United States from a Historical Perspective. And we work very hard to get these firstrate scholars who are now tenured at yale and northwestern and michigan, to pay special attention to the policy implications that come out of their history. Whether its on the early republic or whether its on deregulation in the 1970s. So paying attention to producing the kind of scholars who can answer questions that policymakers ask, i think, is extraordinarily important. While most of these former fellows are in tenure track or tenured at universities, a number of them go directly into Public Policy, and for sure, they influence people around them, just to give you two examples, a former fellow works at the National Security council. A former fellow was assistant secretary of the air force. They have done that with ph. D. S in history and political science. But policymakers care about that. Second, im a cohost on back story which is a podcast that tries to understand the history behind the headlines. We interview firstrate scholars based on the topic were looking at. So we might interview a ph. D. Student working on a dissertation, or we might interview a very well known scholar about a book that she wrote 20 years ago. This is a way of injecting firstrate scholarship into the public sphere, and we have very good metrics on that. Our podcast is downloaded 90,000 times every week. And its been extraordinarily successful at bringing firstrate scholarship to a broad public audience. And then finally, im involved with the Miller Center at the university of virginia, which really tries to target specific policymakers. Looking at how do we close the income inequality gap, as was mentioned before. Putting together conferences, but then actually inviting people down to charlottesville. We have an advantage, people actually, turns out, like to get out of washington, d. C. , inviting folks down, spending a day, spending a couple days. Actually exposing them to the deeper histories of the policy that they worked on. I want to address the issue of diversity as well. And that goes back to the Fellowship Program and our podcast. Our podcast started out as three old white guys. We still have two old white guys, myself and ed ayers, but we unfortunately, peter, our third old white guy, got so old he wanted to retire. We were upset about that, but we brought in nathan conley, one of the leading historians of urban america, especially after postworld war ii, who is an africanamerican middleaged man. He would call himself young. And joann freeman, who is a historian of the early republic at yale. And i absolutely can tell you by changing the mix, im addressing jasons point, by changing the mix of our hosts, and boy, you know, ed, peter, and i thought we were just so cool. We had this diversity thing down. By changing the actual mix of who the hosts are, we have changed the tone of the show. And thats something im very proud of. The other thing is, the Fellowship Program has attracted a majority women fellows and a significant proportion of underrepresented minorities. So when people, for instance, at the pbs news hour, call me and say can you recommend somebody on x, im more often than not can recommend an underrepresented minority, more often than not, i can recommend a woman, and this really changes the faces of the scholars that appear on public television, on public radio. Those are all excellent contributions to the discussion here. I would say the museums perspective, we have some of the issues of diversity from the point of view of the scholars and historians, perhaps, that work in the institute. However, we have highered some young women and masters in public history, and another one with a ph. D. And worked in french and german resources and film propaganda, world war ii. So some of it comes from historians, but in the museum, the diversity is also handled by our exhibits themselves. We pay close attention to telling the story of the africanAmerican Experience in world war ii, the japaneseamerican internment camps and hispanics in world war ii and integrate that into the overall story, even how were fighting two fascist, racist regimes with a segregated military. So we bring those stories in, and the visitors then engage with us on those issues. And as well, talk about them in our conferences and in our symposi symposiums. Theres a variety of ways to get at the diversity issue. I think we all have to do a better job, the people who are doing the podcasts and who are in these kinds of programs, at the American Historical Association, and in our own conferences. I think were all working on that. We have work to do, and were all going to get better. But lets come back to the social media. I mean, the podcast is kind of interesting. We do some of that. We do a good bit on facebook and twitter, too. But let me see what anybody is doing here, either through your own institute or through your Larger University that you reside within, in the case of dane, within the American Historical Association. I mean, are you reaching these younger audiences and millennials through social media at all . Do we care . Or can we do more there . I certainly think that we can do more. The subject of our organization is george c. Marshall, who was a dead white guy. Albeit a very accomplished dead white guy, so with younger people especially, we have to explain what it was he did. How he did it, and why he is still of interest and relevance today. The method of doing that can vary considerably. And we are, as well as trying to get people to lexington, were trying to reach out beyond lexington to connect with anyone who may know of marshall,heard of the Marshall Plan and put marshall the man in context with the bigger world events. Podcast is something were going to extend a very early exploratory route with in the near future. But there were so many different platforms that its a challenge to see which actually work and which deliver the biggest bang for your buck. Dane . Well, actually, im going to turn this around a bit, since i was the one who organized the panel. And direct the question to the people who i think sort of can speak to this more effectively. I can say honestly that the National History center, we do some twitter. We have a facebook account, blah, blah, blah. I wouldnt say were particularly good at it, and in part, thats because we have limited resources, and in part its because of the audience that were trying to reach, which isnt that sort of necessarily that broad younger audience for particular reasons i can go into in greater detail. But i certainly think that people like jason and brian have developed some real expertise in the use of these new medias. And can speak much more intelligently about how they can be brought to bear in our field. So im happy to turn the microphone over, if you will. I would just say on the podcast, we were on 200 public radio stations, traditional public radio. And we were very proud of that. And all of my colleagues over the age of 55 were delighted by that. And we made a decision, very consciously, to pull out of public radio and create the show as a podcast. And the number one objective we had was reaching a younger, more diverse audience. And from all of the metrics that we have, we are doing that. It didnt change overnight. And it was a real risk. And all of my friends who are over the age of 55 say, how come youre not doing the radio show anymore . But it really, in my opinion, has been worth it to do that. And i do think that by shifting, and you dont have to make such a radical change, but we decided really to create this as a podcast. This would get off topic, so i wont go into detail, but it turns out that thinking about a show as a podcast is quite different than thinking about it as a 52minute nprlike show with three breaks. Its given us a lot more flexibility, i think. Its allowed us to take on more issues, to be a little more conversational. Typically, about how long is each of your podcasts . 52 minutes with three breaks no, im kidding. Most of our podcasts are 40 minutes to 45 minutes. The point is they vary. And you get a warning. You get complaints that you wouldnt think of. Its like, i was not done with my workout routine. Your show ended. How am i going to finish my workout routine . A varquestion. I wrote back and said be grateful. You got out of the gym. You know, thats how we know were reaching a different kind of audience. You got some feedback there. For sure. The Lepage Center is on twitter. Were live tweeting right now so you can follow us. I wasnt kidding. Lepage Center. But i mean, if you really want to reach young audiences, you have to be on snapchat, which we dont have the capacity to be on snapchat right now. All these technologies are tools. And theyre tools that can be used for a lot of different purposes and reasons depending on what youre trying to achieve. For us, the Lepage Center is its funny. We have history in our name, but were a center about contemporary events. We use history as a lens to examine them. So for us, our discussions about contemporary events happening, they largely happen on twitter and they largely happen through hashtags and things like that. Of all the social media that we were going to embark on first, we decided to embark on twitter. That way, we can interject some of our commentary and scholarship into existing conversations happening around topics that were important to us. So for example, we spent this first semester of programming focusing a lot on the issue of fake news. But examining it from a Historical Perspective, and what we determined, what this question of fake news was actually sort of a moment of crisis of authority. Right . So traditional authorities from whom we received information that theres been a shift in how we trust them, where we get them from, and so this fake news crisis emerges out of that. So we had historians and journalists sort of interrogating this premise, and we used our twitter as a way to interject our blog posts and our videos and other things into those types of conversations using the appropriate hashtags. You know, for places like museums, facebook might be more effective because facebook gives you a chance to be more visual and create more of a story. And museums and story telling go hand in hand so well that that might be a more appropriate medium to use. And as brian pointed out, which is an excellent point, whichever medium youre using, that dictates the Communication Style and the communication format of the message youre trying to get across. Which is why history communication will never become obsolete, because theres always going to be more formats that historians have to learn to work with and deal with and figure out how to communicate our scholarship through. I want to come back to something david said to the previous question. Which is which i admire. Its trying to change the culture on the University Campus itself. Because if you are looking for hundreds of thousands of young and diverse people, not to mention a captive audience, go to any university. So i think we need we should not forget that the very people were looking towards, the future, the citizens of tomorrow, as i call them, are right with us. And we often ignore that. I think especially at policy oriented institutes. I agree with that. I dont know if you want to add to that, david. I would love to, if i may, again, first, thank you, dane, for diverting the question about social media. Our center is not focused on amplifying at this point, at this very initial stage, its social Media Presence beyond the bare necessity. What we are focused on is exactly what you mentioned, which is really shifting the culture of the university and working with the University Constituencies to make what is a standard assumption in many other social sciences, namely our work can be applied to issues of contemporary relevance in everyday proposition. So where were focusing in our initial year is really on that cultural shift within the university at the undergraduate level, at the graduate level, and at the faculty level, by incentivizing graduate students and faculty to undertake Research Projects which have contemporary relevance or may in fatch eventuate in a policy recommendation, and to begin to introduce courses that expose students to the policy consequences and dimensions of historical research. Through case study methods and otherwise. So i think an essentially complement to all of this work in forging new horizons through social media is attempting to what many of us in the university know, which is the university community. Absolutely. And from within, really, really undertaking the revolution from within. Really making the connection between past and present much more seamless. So that happens to be our way. If i could add to that, i mean, i think you see theres some synergy here, theres some correspondence going on here in terms of the interest of many of these centers. One of the things that the National History center introduced a year or two ago was a program we call the history and policy education program. And its actually a sort of framework for designing history courses that are directed towards thinking in terms of their relevance to contemporary policy. And we have fortunately just received a mellon grant that will allow us to sort of bring this on the road, if you will, and workshop it at various institutions. We would love to work with you at ucla on this. And its envisioned to address exactly the point that david has made, that our most important audience remains the students that we have in our universities. And what we, i think, have failed to do as historians in the past is to think more systematically about how we can teach in a way that communicates to our students the value of history for the contemporary world that theyre facing. And so thats one of the issues that were trying to address as well. And thats a very similar challenge that History Museum would face, for example, and its not accidental that our Mission Statement at the national World War Ii Museum is to describe and portray the American Experience in the war that changed the world. Why the world was fought, its background and origins, how it was won, the second part, which is the war, the conduct of the war itself, in europe and asia, and finally, what does it mean today . Thats the hardest part. What are the lasting legacies . How do we answer the question to people 50 years from now, so what . What did world war ii mean . What did it matter . How did it change my life . How did it affect me . Thats what people want to understand. And we have tried very hard in our exhibits to provoke people to see how it connects to them. And we have also done surveys around the country and focus groups and identified between the ages of 18 and 80, theres 34 Million People in america who are interested in World War Two because of some personal connection. Theres a builtin rel vjs. We have to go out and find those people. Now, going back to social media and facebook, just to show you in the museum world, the gorilla in the marketplace is the museum of natural history, and they have more than 1 million facebook likes, just so you all know what the hill is you have to climb. And nearly 400,000 twitter followers. So were not doing so bad, because weve got great leadership in our Marketing Department and our current president and ceo Steven Watson have been working and getting our board to invest in beyond the brick and mortar. So some six years ago the museum board and our staff agreed that we would digitize everything in our collection, 150,000 photographs, all the artifacts. Not only create Management Software programs to navigate the 10,000 oral histories, to pull them up under your desks wherever you are and whatever computer you use. Weve been moving to the end of the brick and mortar phrase. But thats what every institution has to face too. I was in extension and Distance Learning was getting going at the university. It took me Hurricane Katrina before i hit myself in the head, you have to do the same thing with a museum. Reach out beyond brick and mortar and really get to people where they live and to penetrate through facebook and social media. So do we how do we respond . On issues of Public Policy among groups this group here, for example . Is it up to us to leave it to our individual ad hoc responses on issues of the day that are contemporary issues, like the Confederate Monuments being taken down . Or do we say, like we did, well, thats not our war. Thats a civil war issue. But certainly were not process, and the work of saving history. And thats taking down a part of history. So how do we do we organize this . Do we do this on an ad hoc basis . Is there a need for historians and National History center, perhaps, to assemble centers to find a more coordinated response to issues of the day . How do we do that . Is anybody thinking about that in your own centers . Do you want to go ahead . Sure. Ill maybe start by saying that one of the things we decided we wanted to do at the luscomb is convene a meeting of various institutions and people who work at the intersection of history and policy, which were calling the history and policy summit to take stock of the lay of the land, whats out there . Whos doing this work with new vigor and attention . And we want to really see what the possibilities for collaboration are. I would say in our case we understand that we cant be everything to everyone. We want to begin by focusing on local and regional issues in the main. Where we already have contacts to policimakers, where weve already produced work that has reached policymakers and made a difference. And it seems to us that thats a good way for us to start. Well at the same time were also supporting research that deals with both national and international policyrelated questions. So we think this is a good moment to bring people together, and i know the National History center is also doing that and we will do it together with them. To see what kinds of work we can join forces on, and what each of us does independently. I would say that if one of the outcomes of this work of convening is to create a formal or informal history lobby that can operate at multiple levels from local to international, then that will be very significant achievement. Thats what we think the moment demands of us. Speaking on behalf of the World War Ii Museum and my successor Steven Watson, id say wed like to join in on that effort. Its a great endeavor and worthwhile. Jason, you were going to Say Something . Yeah, its a good question. For us it gets to the heart of what we had about strategy and how to operate. We made a conscious decision to not be reactive to headlines. There are a lot of good sources for Quick Response to breaking news, including the new made by history blog which is wonderful if youve not checked it out. Its published by the washington post. Its run by Nicole Hemmer and katie brinel and brian rosenwalt. Since its published through the post they have a mandate to be reacting to things that are popping up on the news on a daily basis. Trump says something, they have to they put up a piece that responds. Something happens with the confederate statue, they put up a piece that responds. Thats hard work. Its really hard to constantly be sort of reacting to the news cycle and putting up new, fresh pieces every day. We didnt feel like we had the bandwidth to do that. So we took the approach that were actually going to try to look for issues that are sort of bubbling below the surface and do more of a deep dive, longterm examination of them. Id mention the fake news. Another issue that weve been doing programming around and doing blog posts around is the issue of endless war. So weve been in conflict in iraq and afghanistan for the past 17 years. My fellow, who i mentioned at the la page center, she her memory only goes back as far as 2001. So for the entire time shes been alive that she can remember, weve been in iraq and afghanistan. So we wanted to look at the issue of endless war and think about how we got to this moment and what historians could teach us about how weve arrived at this place, and, you know, while we were doing this series of programming, things like the ambush in niger came up and decisions about afghanistan came up. But we resisted the urge to throw up a blog post right away or to get on tv and talk about it right away. We just kind of stuck to the plan of addressing the sort of underlying issue. We feel like thats our contribution to the ecosystem and hopefully it balances out some of the other things that are happening with what brian is doing and made by history is doing and other people. To sort of go back to the National Fellowship program, Nicole Hemmer was a National Fellow and shes a ph. D. From columbia writing a very nice mono graph. But it was when she was a National Fellow that we put her in touch with people who knew how to blog and write op eds. Thats when she got started. Brian rosenwald, a ph. D. The point im making, a lot of this goes back to the scholarship itself. And if we can just think, if we can nurture that scholarship and encourage people to do scholarship that sheds light on politics and Public Policy, then i think its pretty easy to figure out the techniques to reach either policymakers or the public. Now, having an impact on the public or policymakers, thats a whole different kettle of fish. But we can at least try to get that first rate scholarship in the hands, on the ipads of policymakers. I want to speak on behalf of the museum world. American history and holocaust. In our case we fundamentally believe great exhibits, great conferences, great programs and always tools you use to get out on social media depend first and foremost on having great scholarship and the best minds on World War Ii History in our case and its aftermath at the table in designing every square inch of an exhibit to tell a story in an authentic way. We have had, from the last 15 years, a group of president ial counselors with people like rick atkins and don miller and allen malette and rich frank. We have a core of people that are an Advisory Group that help look at us when were still in the skunk work stage in trying to shape a story for the future and be sure its correct. And then the new institute for the study of democracy, weve hired our seniors, a mary stone professor, rob zatino and another four or five ph. D. S in that center to look at everything we do, and also to have that network of the Advisory Groups to examine the history that we are trying to tell. To come back to the point, though, of a moment ago, the issue of history is news. I mean, our new world war ii media and Education Center, were thinking about a podcast around the idea of world war ii news. Well, theres news on world war ii every day. Somebodys either using or misusing, whether youre talking about the munich agreement or the good war, or whatever, the atomic bomb, i mean, the justifications for munich were used by every president going into iraq, afghanistan, comparing it to pearl harbor, which is a lousy comparison. I dont think truman even had any button. No, he didnt have a button, much less the biggest button. In fact, what he had to do was really to say, no. I mean, everybody was going to use everything they had to win that war. But those are issues that are current today. As we talk about loosely now about the button to begin another nuclear war, whats the role of historians to react . How do we react to those big issues of the day . Youve taken a more deliberate role, jason. And are there other ways that some of you are exploring . Dane or i can speak about the congressional briefing series, for example. And that is much more directly reactive to events as they occur. So, for example, shortly after trump came to office and began to sign a series of executive orders, we organized a briefing on capitol hill on the history of executive orders. How unusual was this . How can we understand the context within which this occurred . Shortly after the events in charlottesville we organized a briefing on Confederate Monuments, the history, how did they win and how did they come to be and how does this help us to understand what role they play in public memory . We have done briefings on sort of historical parallels to the zika crisis when that was at its height and congress was debating funding for that. I could go on. So for us, in fact, timeliness is absolutely essential for this congressional Briefing Program because its hitting it at that moment that makes it useful, in fact, to congressional staffers and others, as well as the broader policy community in washington, d. C. And i went to one of your briefings on civil, given the try that was an outstanding briefing. Its a way to bring good history to and understanding to people, to staffers who are trying to advise their senators or congressmen and congresswomen on how to react to policies and issues with regard to that. Anybody else want to comment . Yes, rob. We dont have anything as formal as what dane does, but we have certainly seen, and i would echo what dane said about, i think, fundamentally people have an interest in history, an innate interest in history, where they came from, how we got to where we are today and if you take the view, and its debatable and hard evidence perhaps is difficult to come by, that history is not taught as well as it once was, or history isnt being taught at all. I often hear that from constituents of the Marshall Foundation. More and more people are looking to our foundation, because of its ill get phone calls, i saw x or y or z on the news. It did it really happen in that fashion . Are they accurate . We seem to be, without a lot of effort, moving into this area of being some sort of authority on events for which we hold the papers or for which general marshall was involved, how we do that in a more intentional fashion such as dane. Thats another one of our challenges. But there certainly seems to be an opportunity for organizations like ours in the public sphere, where once perhaps where history was once better known, there is an opportunity for us now to fill that vacuum a little bit, and were thinking somewhat intentionally how we might do that and build on what weve done in the past. Great. Anyone else on that point . Yup. I would just say i guess its more aspirational than a reflection of current activity of our center. But it seems to me to go back to this moment, this moment of potential of renewed interest in history, but also this moment of tremendous turmoil and upheaval, the world over, that one of the things i think historians can bring to bear on the current conversation is really a textured sense of the threat to democracy. And here im really always reminded of the litmus test proposed by the late great yale political scientist juan lints who proposed three criteria of the warning for the erosion of democracy, putting recourse to violence or endorsement of violence, curtailing the rights of ones political opponents, and denying the legitimacy of the democratically elected regime. I think thats a good place to start. And it seems to me, both in our own country, and the world over, that historians have the potential to make new waunsuanc analogies that can be of importance as warning signs to the potential erosion of democracy, really the world over, from this country to the middle east. And that seems to me a function that we together want to take on. I couldnt agree with you more on that. And at our museum as we move into this last pavilion, the liberation pavilion which addresses what it means today, what does world war ii mean today . I mean, were looking at the last 75 years in the major legacies of the war. And we feel like we are at that Inflection Point, and that this pavilion will bring us into the center of perhaps one of the biggest debates in our country and even around the world as nationalist and pop list movements are growing up around the country, old alliances are dissolving and the world order that goes back to fdrs freedoms. State of the union address, january 41, pearl harbor, he established the freedoms that would be the foundation for our war aims. He did embed that in the Atlantic Charter and in the post world war order with the united nations, the ne you can documt the advance of democracy and freedom with americas leadership over the last 75 years, not always perfectly. But nevertheless, its been the consistent framework. And without necessarily just buying into the full thesis of the good war, we can certainly say the world ended up better off in 45 as a result of the allied victory than it would have been if the racist regimes of germany and japan had prevailed. We have to enter, as historians, into these larger debates, it seems to me, and we are right at this Inflection Point right now where National History center and everybody at this table has a way to enter into that debate and engage populations, whether through social media or coming to your centers. Yeah, and i just wanted to say that im actually struck by the sort of complimentary strengths all of our sistecente pulled together, lectures, congressional briefings, white papers, podcasts, blog posts. We dont each have to do everything. So there are ways to Work Together where we could sort of focus on our strengths and amplify each others work. And so we at the la page center have been we promote stuff from back story, promote stuff from the Miller Center and promote the congressional briefings. Youve helped made by history if im not mistaken. Im on the Editorial Board of made by history. We can help each other not only in collaborating on joint programming, which we should, but also in sort of amplifying existing programming that were each doing that weve honed and refined. We would never invent a congressional Briefing Program, but we would love to keep supporting that. Theres great opportunity for that, i think. As david pointed out, that ability to reach both at the National Level and then down to the regional and local level, i think, all of us who have studied the history of the history of the United States, or been, you know, had the scotch poll imposed upon us, just kidding, understand the power of organizations that can operate at a National Level, but have the freedom in a decentralized way to operate at a local and state level. This is just a tiny, tiny piece of the picture sitting up here. I do think we have a tremendous opportunity to be effective in the world if we put our minds to it. Dane . Yeah, in organizing this panel i really had two agendas in mind. One was to bring all of us together, and to sort of communicate with one another about what were doing in the way in which we sort of intersect and can strengthen one anothers operations. I think in that context, one of the future projects id like to see the National History Center Launch is perhaps a website that links all of our operations and provides a kind of if not clearinghouse, a way in which we can effectively understand what everybody is doing and communicate with one another. There is so much activity going on right now. And the other agenda has to do with all of you in the audience. As david said near the beginning, i thought it was important and apt point, we need to modify the culture of the academy. The fact that youre here reflects the fact that you have an interest in doing this. I think that interest has been reflected in the extraordinary outpouring of activity, opeds, interviews and so on by historians in response, for example, to the charlottesville crisis and the Confederate Monument issue, the aha, in fact, solicited with its members, solicited, you know, contributions that they had made to this broader conversation. And they got hundreds of responses by historians at the local level who were interviewed by their local newspapers, or were interviewed by the local television stations or what have you. That, too, i think speaks to this hunger among historians at this moment, at this Inflection Point, on the value of a Historical Perspective on the kinds of challenges and issues we face today. So thats our other major agenda as i see it in this enterprise. David, go ahead. I just want to offer up an historical observation, if i may, which is part confession. Which is that this enhanced sense of the relevance and you ti its directly related to a set of historical circumstances. In particular, one can choose many, but the one im thinking of is the economic collapse of 20082009. Which fundamentally altered the landscape of the marketplace for historians. And really added a sense of urgency to the demand for relevance in what we do. It also made clear to us, for those of us who teach undergraduate and graduate students that the same opportunities that might have been available to a previous generation were not going to be available to that current generation. And that we needed to think of multiple career pathways. And i think that the what is good about that moment of crisis is it allowed us to think of new avenues in which we can infuse, in which we could infuse historical knowledge and perspective into domains of life where previously we hadnt thought. I think that crisis induced an enhanced sense of the relevance of history, and in a sense liberated us from thinking that the only worthwhile career outcome was an r1 research university. And so thats how i often think of this moment of relevance, as, in part, induced by that crisis of 20082009. I think thats an excellent segue to one concluding comment that i would make. And then well open it up to questions from the aud senience well. Im reminded of another Inflection Point in history, the 16th century. When Martin Luther and the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. A great line that luther slammed the door of the monstery behind him and walked into the marketplace with a bible. There are always these inflection moments in history as a broad sweep of the major currents of history. Historians do have that opportunity, it seems to me, right now to step into that moment and find ways to collaborate, and have join forces in ways that we can to have a louder voice, and to reach more people who are interested in good history, and solidly based understandings of how we got to where we are, and where we might be going based on the decisions and Public Policies that get articulated. So let me just open up to questions. We still have about 20, 25 minutes, i think. And since, for the tv audience, i guess ill just have to repeat the questions. I think we can hear your questions from wherever you might have them. And ill try to repeat them so our Television Audience can hear them as well. So do we have some questions . Yes. Thank you. I would reiterate the theme of communication. I think jasons point originally, the importance of communicating sound scholarship. And some addressed this, but would you speak specifically how is the training of historians, graduate programs addressing the need for rhetorical, verbal, literary skills on the parts of those who are going to be historians . I think we all know and have all seen presentations by highly credentialed and top scholars that were its a real lost so much of a lost clip on the table when they cant communicate effectively. Let me just rephrase the question quickly. The question for our Television Audience is, on a question of communications, and the importance of communications, and communicating scholarship and what are we doing in your universities and graduate programs to train young historians in verbal, rhetorical skills, media skills to bring their history to the broader publics. So im thrilled to say that weve already had one successful history communication course taught at the graduate level at the university of massachusetts amhurst. A graduate seminar. Eight or ten people, was highly successful. Then there are three more History Communications cases coming online in 2018 at universities across the country. The syllabi for that course came about as a result of two workshops that were held in 2016. The initial workshop held at amhurst that had about 30 historians and communicators to build a curriculum that model what Science Communications have done to apply it to history. There was a followup in washington, d. C. That put the bones on that and spelled out week by week how the course would unfold. You can find that course at history communication. Com, our website for the history communication sort of movement. Any and all of you who are in universities, and would like to bring that course to your Home University, we would encourage you to visit that website, grab the syllabus. You can also grab the syllabus for the umass course that was taught last year off of their website and adapt it to your Home University in bringing in specialists and scholars you have in your area. But we would love to see this grow and continue to expand to other universities across the country. As i mentioned, we also now have history communication fellows at the la page center at villanova. Thats another great avenue for training, giving students on the job experience putting together a podcast, working with you on media, presenting things in five or tenminute chunks. I think the movement is growing. Its not there yet, but its starting to percolate. Thats exciting. And i think there are a number of universities around the country that now have masters degrees in public history for people going into the fields of museums, and libraries and other Government Agencies and Research Institutes that would be cue rati curating and collections. The university of new orleans has a Masters Program in public history tied together with its military program. Other questions or comments . Yes. Yes, the discussion seems to be within directed at the University Level and general public. I wonder if any of you have programs aimed at secondary schools, history teachers at secondary schools, as well as students. [ inaudible question ] its almost too late. Hope not. Theres about 3,000 of them out there. Weve just got to execute some reforms. And theyve got too much of the population there to leave it all. But there are other things. Ill comment on what were doing. Do you all want to add something there . Id just like to say, albert beverage is one of my predecessors in the Marshall Foundation. It has endeavored to reach out to high schools especially, but it can be a challenge. The rigid curricula demands of High School History teaching, i mean, theres often very little opportunity certainly in public schools, a little more latitude in private schools, but it can be a challenge. Youre absolutely right, capturing the historical interest and whetting the appetite with good scholarship early on would be what is needed. Weve found it a bit of a challenge. So at the la page center one of the things we do is create online resources. In the midst of our sort of examination of fake news, and false information, we actually developed an online resource called six steps to historical literacy. And you can find it on our website and also on our twitter account. Its aimed at High School Students and High School Teachers, in fact, and its a rubric, a matrix for identifying and distinguishing good history online from bad. So is this article copied from wikipedia . Is this actually written by a historian . Is this making a historical argument . And we created this resource, put it up online and then we got it into the hands of teachers. I had a meeting with the philadelphia public schools, got it into their resource set for history teachers across the Philadelphia School system, also got it into the hands of some teachers and other places, they love it. They love it. And, in fact, i got an email from a teacher who told me that they watched some history videos on youtube and then they used that resource that we created as a guide to determine whether they could trust the videos or not. So i think the way that we found to make in roads in that is to create easy resources for teachers that they can bring into the classroom. And when i mean easy, to the point that was just made, it has to be super easy because they are overloaded, a ton of things on their plate, understaffed, underresourced. Six steps to historical literacy, a onepage online resource can be printed off, stuck into a folder, used in the classroom. Thats the way weve found success. Albert, we just discovered inadvertently at back story and the Virginia Foundation for humanities which houses back story, we have a lot of High School History teachers that are fans. They write into us. We have developed the very kind of lesson plans for some of our shows that jason was talking about, simple, straightforward. They kind of came to us. And we said oh, who knew . Well, these history teachers are listening and they report back. They use you know, we did a show on hamilton. I think that was our most successful with High School History teachers, High School Students. And we actually interviewed some of the students and the High School Teacher that taught this, you know, in the high school. We interviewed them on back story. And they, you know i know that a lot of High School Teachers use that particular episode. I will say, at least as far as the national World War Ii Museum, were doing quite a lot in that area, we have both teachers and students in k12. At the teacher level we have about three or four summer institutes that are nationally competitive, fully subsidized for about 30 teachers every year from the social sciences and history from around the country to come and get an immersive oneweek program for our european and Normandy Academy is done by don miller, rich frank pacific, does the pacific academy, the pacific war. Those teachers get 30 those 30 teachers out of about 300 who apply get immersed. They have curriculum materials making it easy, taking our millions of dollars that have been invested in our Digital Products for our exhibits and film and video and animated maps and oral histories are packaged together with the curriculum materials. They have to train at least 30 teachers in the use of these materials in their regions. Theyre doing even better than that. 30 times 30 every summer, and you get the picture. The following summer we take them to normandy, depending which cohort they are for an on the ground, boots on the ground going to battle sites or we take them to pearl harbor for a week there. We do the same thing for High School Students, an Immersive Program for about 30 students, leadership, looking at the values and understanding the history of world war ii. And with guilder lairman they approach the study of world war ii through literature. And they have programs around the country. Were one of the few museums that has the one of the guilder lairman institutes there. We have two of our own institutes, pacific and european, a third for teachers and our Leadership Program for students. We expect to reach over a million teachers in the next four or five years. Thats amazing. As far as secondary schools, i didnt hear anybody comment on connections with National History day, or with ap u. S. History. And ive recently using the john history crash course videos in introducing American History to national students. Its challenging, but its remarkable series. Were the National History day representatives for the state of louisiana. So weve been involved with them for 10, 12 years and helped them to design their Normandy Institute which takes some of the about 3,000, i guess, students who compete finally in college park every summer, about 30 of them get to go to normandy. Weve been working with National History day as a Great Network of about 800 schools around the country. Its a valuable, valuable network. Some of you all may be representing and working with them. Jason . Yeah, we work very closely with the National History day in philadelphia, which is a pretty robust program. And ive been a judge of National History day as well. Its an absolutely fantastic. Funny story, i was in lithuania earlier this year, and somebody had seen on my cv that i was a judge at National History. He said, oh, i did National History when i was younger. I loved that program. Its a connection for people around the world. Its a Great Network. And it activates students all over the country in the study of history using original resources and original sources to begin their work. I think were some more questions . I think we have a little bit more time, another five minutes or so. Can i make one yeah, sure. So i wanted to add, one audience that i think that we have all overlooked is the Business Community. We dont hear a lot about historians reaching Business Leaders or doing things for the Business Community. But certainly thats a very Influential Community in the u. S. That has a big influence on policy. And on our society in general. So one thing that were piloting at the la page center actually next week is a Business History briefing series. Well be doing history briefings for Business Leaders in center city, philadelphia. Well be piloting this program in hopes that we can make it a quarterly or biannual program that happens in center city, and then perhaps beyond if it takes off. And were actually sort of a little bit following the model that dane has set out with congressional briefings in focusing on an issue that is resonant to that particular community. Were focusing next week on brexit. Thats our first topic for this briefing and were meeting with the irishamerican Business Chamber network in philadelphia. So i think, you know, we all have so much on our plates and theres a lot of people we want to reach. But i do think the Business Community has been overlooked by historians. Were going to make an attempt to foray into that and our hope that this Time Next Year we can report back how that went. The la page center, it was created and founded by a businessman, albert la page who was an alumnus of vaillanova. He did major in history. He went on to the baking business, for 30 or 40 years, and eventually sold the business to a larger conglomerate and where he got his money and started philanthropy. It was in talking with albert that we got this idea. There would be actually a tremendous appetite for it. Im excited for it. A similar story helps explain the rise of the luskan center. I suspect theres a businessman behind all of our centers, actually if we want to go down. History major, but who credits history, and Historical Perspective with saving his business career. And actually getting him out of a very tricky situation in the middle east, and back home to other pursuits. And weve discovered that, in fact, a good number of ucla ph. D. S in history have made their way into the business world, and more particularly into the banking world. We have a network of banker ph. D. S who report back to us that the Common Thread is the problem solving quality of history, the act of contextualizing, placing a problem out of context and figuring out what created it and pulling the pieces apart to see how you can repair it. There again this business connection reveals the absolute utility of history. All of us in our efforts to survive need to raise pundits and find 60member board of Business Leaders all across the country, ceos of Major National corporations. Youd be amazed how interested they are in history and how they debate history in board meetings. For our part, we are also starting a corporate Leadership Academy to develop Leadership Principles of generals and government leaders of world war ii. And to bring these programs for a fee to corporations, decisionmaking, crisis management, how do you handle a thing how do you handle a crisis when youre getting thrown off the beaches at dday and maybe moments away from a disaster. So theres other ways that History Museums can get into that Business Community, with good history, and theyre very interested in that approach as well. But i would say all of us have donors of our centers or universities that come from the Business Community, and are interested in the substance of what we do. And we should mind them and to engage them in our endeavors, as long as they dont tell us how to do the research. And engage and respect the research that we do. Which i think has been said several times here at the core of everything. But i think as we draw this to a close, i think were just about out of time. We have, by my clock, about two more minutes. Let me just say that rob, do you want to make one more i just want to say one more thing, this the spirit of reaching out and reaching through that noise, the Marshall Foundation has for 20odd years sponsored the marshall lecture at aha. I would draw your attention to the fact that this years marshall lecturer is professor isabel hall from cornell who will be speaking on the topic of the armistice of 1819. On saturday evening at 5 30 in the marriott ballroom. This honors marshalls fascination and love of history. He addressed the aha in december of 1939 and talked about the need to study history and military history, in part, to obviate, to avoid future wars, but also if youre going to get involved in a war, so youve got a good sense of how to win that war once you are inevitably engaged in it. So this lecture honors general marshall. Please, if you can, come along and attend. And also i know historians love this, theres a reception post the lecture. Please come and enjoy. Thank you, rob, for a wonderful plug at the end of the program. I think what you can tell from this very engaging panel, and the questions from the audience, that theres a great deal of unanimity among us despite the fact that we are coming from different institutions, Different Centers with different missions. There is a desire, and i think expressed today, for us to find other ways to collaborate, to cooperate, to partner, to create more space for great history. And to breakthrough the noise of the online chatter, and the 24hour news cycle. I think with the work that the people who are sitting at this table, and on this panel, and other great History Museums around the country, and other centers who are not here, that we have a great resource to move into that Inflection Point that you were talking about, david. And i think historians need to maybe not come out of the monasteries, but into the marketplace. Were using these technology to get to new publics and new audiences. Were finding multiple ways to break into the Public Policy arena with great history. So thank you all for your participation. Thanks to all of our panel for your time and effort. And thank you, dane kennedy, for organizing the panel. Its been, i think, an interesting experience for all of us. And i hope all of you as well as those also in our Television Audience. So thank you. And we say good night. Thanks very much. Thank you all very much. [ applause ] thursday morning, were live in columbia, South Carolina for the next stop on the cspan bus, 50 capitals tour. South carolina Lieutenant Governor kevin bryant will be our guest on the bus during washington journal starting at 9 30 a. M. Eastern. Next on American History tv, journalist Cokie Roberts moderates a discussion on the First Federal congress at the american historical Associations Annual meeting. The panel talks about the nations founders, including James Madison and George Washington who met from 1789 to 1791 to determine the structure of the new federal government, and decide how it should function. This is an hour and a half, recorded at the American Historical Association annual meeting held this year in washington. Hi, everybody. Im Cokie Roberts, and i am here in my history hat