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(FWD) NCC Washington Update, Vol 7, #2 January 11, 2001



NCC WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 7, #2, January 11, 2001
by Bruce Craig <rbcraig3@juno.com> of  the National Coordinating Committee
for the Promotion of History
*****************
1.  107th Congress Convenes: New Committee Assignments for Familiar Faces
2.  Senate Reaches Historic Power-sharing Agreement
3.  American Historical Association Meeting in Boston Sets Attendance Record
4.  Clinton Presidential Papers To Be Moved To Arkansas
5.  News Bits and Bytes: NEH Appointments to Council; Jefferson Lecturer
Announced; Library of Congress Online Postings

1.  107th CONGRESS CONVENES: NEW COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS FOR FAMILIAR FACES
The 107th Congress convened on January 3, 2001, and attended to a variety of
housekeeping tasks, including making new committee assignments. Of particular
interest to the historical/archival community are the selections for the
appropriations subcommittees such as the Interior, Labor-HHS-Education and
several authorizing committees in the House of Representatives.

Rep. Bill Young (R-FL) will chair the House Appropriations Committee with
Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA) chairing the powerful Committee on Ways and Means.
Rep. Joe Skeen (R-NM) replaces Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) as chairman of the
House Interior Appropriations subcommittee; Regula moves over and becomes the
new chair of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriation subcommittee. Regula is
viewed as a moderate who is supportive of research.  Other committee
assignments are: Education and Workforce, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio);
Government Reform, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN); and Select Intelligence, Rep.
Porter Goss (R-FL). Boehner plans to "play a pivotal role" in advancing
President-elect Bush's education proposals.

Rep. James Hansen (R-UT) will chair the House Resources Committee, which
(among other charges) has authority over national parks and historic
preservation.  Hansen has vowed to work toward dismantling a number of
President Clinton's environmental initiatives at the earliest possible date.
Of particular concern to Hansen is the 1906 Antiquities Act which empowers
the President to designate (and thereby preserve) public lands as national
monuments. Hansen is expected to be able to work well with Interior Secretary
designee, Gale Norton; they share similar views on a number of
issues.

If any readers of this publication have personal contacts with ANY of the
above, please contact the NCC < rbcraig3@juno.com > at your earliest
convenience.

2.  SENATE REACHES HISTORIC POWER-SHARING AGREEMENT
Because there are 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats in the Senate (on January
20, 2001, Vice-President-elect Richard Cheney will give the Republicans the
tie vote advantage) on January 5, in an historic agreement, the Senate passed
a power-sharing resolution that allows bi-partisanship in that body. Under
the terms of the resolution, the GOP will retain committee chairmanships but
each Party will have budgets and staffs of equal size, and most importantly,
each Party will have an equal number of members sitting on committees. The
agreement provides a vivid illustration of the Democrats increased power in
the new Congress.  The agreement enhances their ability to influence
President-elect Bush's legislative programs.  Had an agreement not be
reached, most Hill observes believe that gridlock would have bogged down the
incoming Bush administration.

3.  AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION  MEETING IN BOSTON SETS ATTENDANCE RECORD
The 115th annual meeting of the American Historical Association was held
January 4-7, 2001, in Boston, Massachusetts.  Some 5,270 historians and
others attended, thereby making the meeting the largest in the AHA's history.

During the AHA business meeting, several important resolutions were adopted
by the membership.  Based on a report of the AHA Committee on Part-Time
Employment of Historians the following resolutions were adopted:

"Resolved, that history departments should not continue the growing tendency
to replace permanent lines with part-time, adjunct, and graduate student
lines, which limits academic advising and other services for students and
seriously undermines the level of scholarship at institutions of higher
education;
Resolved, that history departments should adhere to the employment standards
for part-time faculty approved by the AHA, which include a reasonable salary,
health and retirement benefits, library privileges, office space, and
computer access;
Resolved, that the AHA encourages grant agencies and institutions of higher
education to offer funds for research and travel to conventions to part-time
faculty;
Resolved, that history departments should assure fair consideration of the
candidacy of part-time employees when recruiting and hiring for full-time
jobs;
Resolved, that the AHA should distribute this resolution to academic
accrediting agencies."

During the meeting, the AHA also announced the hiring of Phil Katz as
Research Director.  Katz, who most recently was employed by the New York
Council for the Humanities, will conduct a two-year study funded by the
Carnegie Corporation of New York relating to graduate training in the US.
Among other things, the study will assess graduate training and its impact on
teaching at all levels.

Also at the meeting, AHA staff received word of a successful $100,000 Ford
Foundation grant to organize a summer seminar for community college teachers.
 The grant builds on a previous successful grant made in July 1999 which
enabled the AHA, in collaboration with the Library of Congress and the
Community College Humanities Association, to fund community college faculty
to exchange ideas on "Globalizing Regional Studies" with leading scholars and
to pursue individual research projects at the Library of Congress. This
year's grant continues this program but focuses on a new theme -
"Explorations in Empire."

4.  CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS TO BE MOVED TO ARKANSAS
The physical legacy of President William Jefferson Clinton's eight-year term
of office - some 835 tons of stuff (which would fill an estimated 50
tractor-trailers) including 77 million pages of documents consisting of such
items as policy memoranda, speech drafts, studies and reports, e-mail and
other communications, some 1.85 million photographs, and over 75,000 gifts
from John Q. Public to foreign dignitaries - will be transported on January
13, 2001, aboard the military's largest transport aircraft (the C-5), to a
temporary storage facility - a  former Oldsmobile dealership - in Little
Rock, Arkansas, the future host city for the Clinton Presidential Library.
In accordance with provisions of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, at
12:01 pm on January 20, all this material becomes public property, controlled
and administered by the National Archives.

A 27-acre site in Little Rock has been selected as the future site for the
Clinton Presidential Library.  A private foundation is currently raising the
$100 million needed to build the museum and library where the documentary
records will ultimately be made available to the public.  No president has
accumulated so large a legacy - the nearest historical contender is the
two-term administration of Ronald Reagan which produced some 50 million
documents. For five years the collection will be closed while National
Archive curators and archivists organize and prepare the materials for
researchers.

5.  NEWS BITS AND BYTES
Item #1 - NEH APPOINTMENTS: On December 29, 2000, President Clinton appointed
10 new members to the National Council on the Humanities. These are "recess
appointments" and will be effective through the end of the first session of
the 107th Congress, unless the Senate confirms them to their regular terms
prior to that. The National Council is responsible for advising the Chair of
the National Endowment for the Humanities with respect to the policies,
programs, and procedures necessary for the operation of the NEH.  For bios of
the ten individuals, see the White House announcement at
http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2001/1/2/4.

text.1

Item #2 - JEFFERSON LECTURER: Playwright Arthur Miller, author of such
notable works as "The Crucible" and "Death of a Salesman," has been selected
as the 2001 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities. The 85 year-old Miller will
deliver his lecture on March 26 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts in Washington D.C. For information on attending the free
lecture, call the NEH at (202) 606-8400.

Item #3 - ONLINE POSTINGS: On January 10, the Library of Congress announced
that it had reached its goal of placing 5 million American historical items
on its National Digital Library "American Memory" website. There are 90
online collections on the website that cover the breadth of U.S. history; it
receives more than 18 million "hits" a month. To access the collection tap
into: <http://www.loc.gov>.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  * * * * * *
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