On newsmakers republican senator john hoeven of north dakota. William adams, the 10th chair announces a new initiative to enhance the significance of the arts and humanities. The initiative is part of the institutions 50th anniversary celebration. The Government Institute titian was founded in 1965 with a mission to support research, education, preservation, and programs and humanity. This National Press club event is about one hour. Tuesday night, president obama delivers his state of the Union Address. Live coverage begins at it 00 p. M. Eastern. The gop response, delivered by joni ernst and the reaction for open phones, live on cspan and cspan radio. On cspan2, watch the speech and congressional reaction in the u. S. Capital. The state of the Union Address live on cspan cspan2 cspan radio, and cspan. Org. William adams the 10th chair of the National Endowment for the humanities announces a new initiative to enhance the significance of the arts and humanities. The initiative is part of the institutions 50th anniversary celebration this year. The Government Institution was founded in 1965 with a mission to support research, education preservation, and programs in humanities. This event is about one hour. Good afternoon. Welcome. Before we begin, i would like to ask you all to stand and observe a minutes of silence in memory of the attack in france. The publication whose editor and for leading cartoonists were among those killed last wednesday. We honor their memories and their contributions to our profession and to the freedom of the press. As a mark of special respect to those who died, we at the National Press club are observing the silence in memory at the start of every event at the club this week, including with our annual number should meeting tomorrow. [moment of silence] thank you very much. Please be seated. Welcome again. I am an adjunct professor at the George WashingtonUniversity School of media and public affairs, former International Bureau chief with the associated press, and 107th president of the National Press club. The National Press club is the worlds leading professional organization for journalists committed to our professions future through our programing with events such as this while fostering a free press. For more information about the National Press club, please visit our web site at press. Org. On behalf of our members worldwide i would like to , welcome our speaker and those of you attending todays event. Our head table includes guests of our speakers and working journalists who are club members. I note that members of the general public are attending, so its not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity. I would like to welcome cspan and public radio audiences and you can follow the action on twitter using the npclunch. After the speech concludes, we will have a question and answer. I will allow questions as time permits. Its time to introduce our head table guests. I would like you to stand briefly. From the audiences right, a Hubert Humphrey fellow and fulbright scholars program. Freelance journalist. Washington correspondent for the arkansas democrat gazette. Carol Schneider president of the , association of american colleges and universities and guest of our speaker. Nicks apostolate us deputy c. E. O. , of the United StatesCapitol Visitors Center and coorganizer of this luncheon. Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and guest of our speaker. Washington bureau chief for the buffalo news chair of the Speakers Committee and former National Press club president. Skipping over our guest of honor for the moment, Amy Henderson historian america of the National Portrait gallery and coorganizer of this luncheon. Thank you, amy. Thank you again, neck. Philip lewis, Vice President of the Andrew Mellon foundation. Director for president information at the austrian embassy. George thompson president of , thompson and associates. [applause] this year marks the 50th birthday of the National Endowment for the humanities, an independent federal agency that is funded by taxpayers. Our speaker today has chaired the Organization Since mid2014 and we hope to hear the plans for marking that anniversary. Like its Sister Organization the National Endowment of the arts, it has had shared its share of politically charged controversy over the years. Those cultural debates have been eclipsed in recent years in the 146 million budget grants go to state Humanities Councils, museums, research and educational institutions. A native of michigan, adams has degrees from Colorado College and university of california at santa cruz. His formal education was interrupted by three years of service in the army, including one year in vietnam. It was partly that experience, he says, that motivated him to study and teach in the humanities. He has said, quote, if they be serious in a certain way, and as a 20yearold combat infantry adviser, i came face to face acutely with questions that writers, artists, philosophers and musicians examine in their work, starting with what does it mean to be human, unquote. Later he coordinated the great works in western Culture Program at Stanford University and served as Vice President and secretary of Wesleyan University and president of Bucknell University in 1995 and president of Colby College in last spring, 2000. President obama nominated adams to serve as the 10th chairman of the National Endowment for the humanities. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm National Press club welcome to growbro adams. [applause] thank you for those nice words. Welcome. Thank you so much for coming. Its great to be here at the National Press club and i want to thank its organizers for giving me a chance to talk about n. E. H. And the work we are doing. I am also very grateful for the inspiration of the cupcakes. [laughter] we have been talking a lot about the 50th at n. E. H. And havent talked about cupcakes, but i know now thats what we are going to do. And thats all im going to say on planning the 50th. But there will be cupcakes. [laughter] some additional expressions of thanks to those who are here today. I thank my colleagues from n. E. H. , including members of our National Council and National Trust being with us today and i thank judy for helping make these arrangements. My guests at the head table, you have heard them announced. They are passionate advocates for the humanities and im honored by their presence and grateful to friends and colleagues from other organizations and many friends here today from Colby College , where i had the honor to serve as president for 14 years. Thank you all for coming. I have come today particularly to announce an Important New Initiative at n. E. H. , one i think will bring n. E. H. Scholars humanities scholars and organizations to the forefront of discussions of american life. First by way of important context, i want to talk about n. E. H. , its history and role in our cultural life in the United States. As my rentmyron said, on september 29 1965, nearly 50 years ago, president johnson signed the National Foundation of the arts and humanities act. The act created the National Endowment for the arts and the National Endowment for the humanities and it was part of a truly remarkable legislative agenda. Consider this in a brief fouryear span. The Congress Passed in addition to this act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights act of 1964, the wilderness act of 1964. The Social Security amendments of 1965, which created medicare and medicaid, the National Preservation trust act of 1966 and Civil Rights Act of 1968 known as the fair housing act. Wow. Thats an amazing legacy. And the legacy of these pieces of legislation are still being debated here in washington and elsewhere around the country but theres no question at all that they changed this country profoundly and changed it forever. In the intervening 50 years, n. E. H. Has changed some things. Since its founding, the agency has made roughly 71,000 grants to individuals and organizations totaling approximately 5 billion and leveraging 2. 4 billion in private philanthropy. These grants have supported scholars and teachers, colleges and universities, museums, libraries, historical associations and sites in every state and territory. They have funded documentaries museum curators, librarians and helped many large and small organizations, preserve documents and collections that serve as the Building Blocks of cultural memory and history. They have enabled scholars and organizations to exploit Digital Technology for research and presentation and the dissemination of humanities materials and resources. The most significant result of all this work and there have been many, but the most significant one has been the steady growth of what i call the Cultural Capital of the United States. We have had a lot of partners in this work, including Humanities Councils in every state and territory, state and local governments, private foundations and generous individuals. But without the endowments leadership and without its symbolic authority and without its singular commitment to the entire nations cultural legacy and capacity, our cultural foundations, which we all benefit today would be far less impressive and less appreciated by the American People and by many others around the world. The importance of Cultural Capital can be assessed and measured in a number of ways beginning with the depth of Public Engagement that it creates and sustains. And two programs i want to mention are exemplary. In the early 1970s under the leadership of the chairman n. E. H. Made the decision to invest aggressively in museums and documentary film making and in television productions. The results were felt almost immediately. On the museum side, very important part of what we do n. E. H. Grants supported large and hugely successful art exhibits in major museums including the exhibit in 1976, which was seen by nearly eight Million People here in washington, new york los angeles, new orleans, san francisco, seattle and chicago. In new york alone, nearly 30 of the visitors were first time museum goers. This exhibit and several others like it and im sure betsy knows a great deal about this, changed the way museums think about their public and the way the public thinks about museums and. It also led wonderfully to a steve martin song which you can still access on youtube. I did it the other day. N. E. H. s investment in documentary film making has had extraordinary impact in ken burns work stands out from all of the work we have done. The Brooklyn Bridge came out in 1982. Followed by life and times of huey long and civil war and in the first viewing had 12 million viewers. Kens most recent film which many people have seen, the roosevelts was seen by 33 Million People on Public Television stations across the country. These productions are very impressive and important to us but they represent only the tip of the iceberg of n. E. H. s impact. Millions more americans have been touched by the state Humanities Councils, museums historical associations by the work of n. E. H. Funded scholars , which include 18 pullitzer prizewinners and 20 bancroft prize winners. And by the courses these educators offered in the wake of their n. E. H. Experience and there is also our web site which offers humanities resources to primary and secondary School Teachers and draws more than three million visitors every year. Public engagement really matters. Its very important to us, but Cultural Capital matters in other ways. Two i want to mention briefly. The cultural economy is hugely important to the Economic Health of thousands of communities around the country. I came from one recently waterville, maine, and likely to matter more as the economy of the United States shifts from being a manufacturing economy to one based on financial services, health care, retail, education and so forth. More important still our democracy relies on the knowledge that citizens have of our political history and the principles and values that history was built upon in ensuring that this story is told broadly and powerfully is among n. E. H. s most important responsibilities and its accomplishments. The legislation creating n. E. H. Was inspired by the report of the National Commission on the humanities, which was formed in 1963 through the combined energies of the American Council of learned societies, the council of graduate schools and the united chapters of phi beta kappa. I am pleased to note that the leaders of these organizations are here today. The commission was chaired by bobby keeney, the president of Brown University and n. E. H. s first chairman, and it included an array of university administrators, scholars librarians and museum directors. Interestingly, it included tom watson junior, the second president of i. B. M. And ambassador to the soviet union who knew a thing or two about cultural imagination and technological innovation. The commission had several basic arguments for the establishment of these agencies devoted to arts and humanities that were later used in the founding legislation. I want to mention them briefly. Here they are. The humanities embraced the human values of justice, freedom, equality, virtue, beauty and truth. Without the deliberate cultivation of these virtues in the public sphere, we risk losing sight of them. American democracy demands that its citizens understand its history and fundamental principles and values. The humanities promote the kind of Cross Cultural and multi cultural understanding that is required in an increasingly interconnected world. Given its economic and military power in the world, the United States must be a leader in the realm of the spirit and ideas and therefore has a compelling state interest in developing humanistic knowledge and institutions. Shaping all of these arguments was the conviction that n. E. H. Would have to be focused at once on two related, but slightly spheres of activity. On the one hand, the agency would have to invest in fundamental research in the various fields composing the humanities, philosophy, literary study, history, language political theory and forth. At the same time, the founders and particularly i found early supporters in congress were also determined that Humanities Research have public meaning influence, and impact. The legislation declared, quote, the humanities belong to all the people of the United States and accordingly n. E. H. Had to be committed not only to the cultivation but the best what has been thought and known and in the repeated words of Matthew Arnold to the public and where , the public actually lives. The Current Conditions of national life. Thats also from the legislation. An early member of our National Council and was an official in the Atlanta Public School system expressed this populist impulse in a wonderful way, which i love. When he called for the n. E. H. To broaden the general area of the humanities as the equipment of all t