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