NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 11, #46; 2 DECEMBER 2005)

by Bruce Craig (editor) with Nathaniel Kulyk (contributor)
NATIONAL COALITION FOR HISTORY (NCH)
Website at http://www.h-net.org/~nch/

1. JEFF TRANDAHL STEPS DOWN ­ NEW CLERK OF THE HOUSE ANNOUNCED
2. NATIONAL HISTORY CENTER TO SPONSOR CONGRESSIONAL SEMINAR ON “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND”
3. REPORT: MEETING OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE RECORDS OF CONGRESS
4. JOHN DICHTL TO LEAD NCPH
5. BUSH CLOSE TO SELECTING PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY SITE
6. NUMBER OF DOCTORATES ON THE RISE; HISTORY CONTINUES ITS DECLINE
7. BITS AND BYTES: Use of FOIA Exemptions on the Rise; Seminar Announcement

1. JEFF TRANDAHL STEPS DOWN ­ NEW CLERK OF THE HOUSE ANNOUNCED On 18 November 2005, Jeff Trandahl resigned as the Clerk of the House of Representatives to accept the position of Executive Director at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. He had worked in the House for the past twenty years and served as the thirty-ninth clerk for seven years ­ from the 105th to the 109th Congress. Replacing Trandahl is Karen L. Haas, a former floor assistant to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL).

In his resignation letter Trandahl stated, “I leave knowing the incredible ability of the people who serve here and their commitment to the people they represent.” Speaker Hastert remarked, “Members of the House on both sides of the aisle have enormous respect for Jeff’s vast institutional knowledge, his utter professionalism, and his ability to get things done ­ traits which have made him a very effective and successful clerk. Jeff is the epitome of the best in public service.”

As Clerk of the House, Trandahl was extremely supportive of history and preservation. He actively served on the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress and did much to reinvigorate history in the clerk’s office, especially by greatly expanding the Office of History and Preservation. He was also influential in the re-establishment of the Historian of the House position that is currently filled by Dr. Robert Remini.

The new clerk, Karen L. Haas, began her career on Capitol Hill in 1984. She served for ten years as a Executive-Legislative Assistant to then Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-IL); Haas also has experience as a government affairs director for several corporate entities. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a Bachelors degree in political science and a minor in economics. As the clerk, Haas is the second highest constitutional official in the House of Representatives. She is responsible for leading a staff of 300 highly-specialized staff and overseeing an operating budget of more than $20 million.

2. NATIONAL HISTORY CENTER TO SPONSOR CONGRESSIONAL SEMINAR ON “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND” The National History Center’s last Congressional seminar series event for the year will be a presentation by Professor Maris Vinovskis on the history of the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) program. Vinovskis’s presentation, entitled, “From a Nation at Risk to No Child Left Behind: Federal Compensatory Education Policies from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush,” is co-sponsored with the House Humanities Caucus. The program will take place on Friday, 9 December 2005 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the Gold Room of the Rayburn House Office Building. A complimentary breakfast will be served.

This presentation is specifically targeted to meeting the policy information needs of Members, their staff, and other policy makers as they collectively grapple with the NCLB re-authorization bill slated to be addressed by Congress in coming weeks and months. The Congressional Seminar Series, that evolved out of a National Coalition for History special initiative, is rooted in the belief that historical context can inform and meaningfully assist in the development of legislation and national policy.

Professor Vinovskis is the Bentley Professor of History, Research Professor at the Institute of Social Research, and Professor of Public Policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He served as deputy staff director to the U.S. House Select Committee on Population in 1978 and worked in the 1990s in the U.S. Department of Education on questions of educational policy and research, in both Republican and Democratic administrations. He is currently a member of the congressionally-mandated Independent Review Panel on “No Child Left Behind.” From 1981 to 1985, he worked as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on the issues of family planning and adolescent pregnancy. He has published nine books, edited seven, and has written over 100 scholarly articles.

Those interested in attending should e-mail the National History Center at info@nationalhistorycenter.org or call (202) 544-2422 extension number 103 to reserve a seat.

3. REPORT: MEETING OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE RECORDS OF CONGRESS On 30 November 2005, the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress (ACRC) convened at the National Archives building in Washington D.C. The new Clerk of the House, Karen Haas, presided over the committee meeting.

In her opening remarks, Haas noted that the updated version of the Biographical Directory for Congress (a joint project of the House and Senate and last published in 1991) will soon be published. Emily Reynolds, Secretary of the Senate and co-chair of the committee, presented an update regarding the new Capitol Visitor Center. She stated that exhibits for the center have been approved and that a film crew has been shooting footage in both chambers of the House and Senate. Thus far, the crew has taped approximately 1,000 minutes of footage, which will be condensed down into a 12-minute video for visitors. Reynolds also reported that the search for an Executive Director for the Capitol Visitor Center is underway and will hopefully be completed by early next year.

Reynolds also noted that the United States Senate recently hosted a reception for a reunion of current and former Senators at the Library of Congress. There were approximately 140 members in attendance, including approximately one-half of the current members and one-third of those retired members who are still alive. Reynolds presented Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein with a copy of a recently assembled directory entitled “Faces of the Senate,” a pictorial collection of all former members of the United States Senate from 1789-2005.

In his report, Archivist Weinstein highlighted the status of the agency’s FY-2006 funding and discussed recent NARA actions and programs. He proudly noted NARA’s role in facilitating the timely release of the papers generated by Judge John Roberts before his confirmation at Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Within a span of weeks NARA released 79,000 papers related to Roberts, a process that normally would have taken 4 to 6 months. Weinstein is hopeful that the Archives will be able to continue this kind of timely release for the papers of Samuel Alito. Finally, Weinstein highlighted the effects of hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma on archives in affected states, and noted as he has at several recent meetings, that the archives community does not have an authorized seat with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Weinstein stated this needs to change if NARA is to provide the leadership and assistance needed in times of disaster.

Much of the meeting was devoted to a review of the draft Fourth Report on the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress scheduled to be printed in November 2006. Members of the committee made several useful suggestions. In the course of discussions, the committee entertained a motion to have the report note the long-term preservation impacts of the irradiation of Congressional correspondence and to go on record supporting additional corrective action that is needed to address the problem.

Senate Archivist Karen Paul reported on the recent Symposium on Presidential and Congressional Papers sponsored by the Brademas Center in New York City. Her presentation served as a catalyst for a discussion on what current efforts are being taken to preserve the papers of Members of Congress. NARA’s Richard Hunt briefly updated the Commission on the activities of the Center for Legislative Archives. Finally, the committee joined with Archivist Weinstein in bidding Jeff Trandahl a fond farewell.

4. JOHN DICHTL TO LEAD NCPH The National Council on Public History (NCPH) has announced the appointment of John R. Dichtl as the organization’s new Executive Director. Dichtl has worked at the Organization of American Historians (OAH) since the early 1990s, and most recently served as the Deputy Executive Director. While working at OAH, he advanced a number of programming, strategic planning, and development efforts; worked to raise funds; and handled a wide-range of responsibilities, including staff-management, outreach, and marketing. Dichtl has worked to create a network of historians, teachers, and public history professionals over the years. He will assume the position of Executive Director at NCPH in January 2006.

Dichtl, who holds a doctorate in history from Indiana University, will also teach courses in the Department of History at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), which hosts a highly regarded public history program.

5. BUSH CLOSE TO SELECTING PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY SITE An update to our recent stories on the ongoing competition between several universities to win the blessing of President George W. Bush to host his presidential library: including the University of Dallas, Baylor University, Southern Methodist University (SMU), and a consortium led by Texas Technological University. This week the Texas universities will make final promotional pitches to a selection committee led by former Secretary of Commerce Don Evans and Marvin Bush, the president’s brother.

After five years of intense lobbying, this last month Evans and the library panel narrowed the field down to these universities. SMU appears to be the front-runner, as it is the alma mater of First Lady Laura Bush. However, the other finalists have tapped into close associates of the Bush family in the hope of boosting their bids. Baylor University’s library committee, for example, includes Bush fund-raisers Drayton McLane, owner of the Houston Astros and Bob Perry, the Texas developer who funded the Swift-Boat Veterans for Truth. Texas Tech’s presentation features a video narrated by Red Steagall, a cowboy poet and close friend of the Bush family. The president is expected to make his final decision on the location of the library early next year. The project is estimated to cost around $300 million.

6. NUMBER OF DOCTORATES ON THE RISE; HISTORY CONTINUES ITS DECLINE The total number of doctorates awarded by universities across the United States has increased in 2004, though the number of history PhDs awarded continues to decline slightly. The total number of doctorates awarded is the largest one-year increase since 1992, according to the annual Survey of Earned Doctorates.

Over the past 40 years, the total number of doctorates awarded has increased by an annual average of 3.5%, although in recent years, the number has been flat or even on the decline. The increase of 3.4% in 2004 was the second consecutive year that more doctorates were awarded, primarily due to an influx of international students.

The report indicates that there were 42,155 new doctoral recipients in 2004. While there have been increases in all broad fields of study, 5,467 of the recipients received doctorates in the humanities, approximately 12.5% of the total number. Specifically, 975 were in the field of history, reflecting 17.8% of the humanities doctorates and 2.3% of the total doctorates awarded. Ten years ago, the number of history doctorates awarded was 2.4% of the total, indicating a minor decline in the number of history PhDs in the overall totals. Some thirty years ago, in 1974, the total number of history doctorates comprised 3.5% of the total number of doctorates awarded.

Additionally, the study found that 41.6% of history doctorate recipients were female ­ a number that reflects a 12.8% increase of female recipients over the past ten years. 402 of the 975 history doctorates were specifically in American history, reflecting 41.2% of the total.

The report is sponsored by several agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Departments of Agriculture and Education, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The full text of the report “Doctorate Recipients From United States Universities: Summary Report 2004,” is available in PDF format online at http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/issues/sed-2004.pdf .

7. BITS AND BYTES Item #1 ­ Use of FOIA Exemptions on the Rise: A new study by the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government that compared FOIA responses and denials in 2000 and 2004 has found that unclassified information was increasingly being withheld from FOIA requesters. Government agencies are making increased use of exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act to withhold information that would have been released in the past claims the new study. See "When Exemptions Become the Rule," Coalition of Journalists for Open Government, November 22, 2005 at: http://www.cjog.net/documents/Exemptions_Study.pdf .

Item #2 ­ Seminar Announcement: “Slavery: Scholarship and Public History,” a seminar co-sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is to be led by David W. Blight, Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University and James O. Horton, Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University. Selected from nominations received from chief academic officers, 30 faculty members will attend the seminar to be held at Columbia University in June 2006. There is no tuition cost and room and board expenses are covered by the sponsors. The deadline for nominations is 3 February 2006. For more information, visit the CIC website at: http://www.cic.edu/projects_services/coops/gilder_lehrman.asp.

8. ARTICLES OF INTEREST No posting this week.

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