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----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Forwarded from the NINCH list. Judy -------------Forwarded Message----------------- From: INTERNET:[log in to unmask], INTERNET:[log in to unmask] To: Multiple recipients of list, INTERNET:[log in to unmask] Date: 4/29/97 7:29 PM RE: SENATE HEARING ON REAUTHORIZATION OF NEA & NEH *************************************************************** NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT April 27, 1997 SENATE HEARING ON REAUTHORIZATION OF NEA & NEH Please forgive any duplication and the length of this posting, but I felt many members would find interesting and useful this account in the NCC Washington Update of today's Senate Hearings on the reauthorization of the Endowments. David Green ============================================================== NCC Washington Update, vol. 3, # 17, April 29, 1997 by Page Putnam Miller, Director of the National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History <[log in to unmask]> SENATE HEARING ON REAUTHORIZATION OF NEA & NEH On April 29 the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources held a hearing to consider reauthorization of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Senator James Jeffords (R-VT), chair of the committee, opened the hearing by stating that the intent of this hearing is to cover the issue of reauthorization with a broad brush and to focus particularly on education. "Both agencies," he stated, "have great potential to enhance and improve the educational opportunities for the people of our nation." Jeffords lamented that Congress spends too much time discussing controversial grants and not enough on the agencies' meaningful accomplishments, such the educational programs. In the last Congress, Jeffords noted the Senate passed by a bi-partisan vote of 12 to 4 a reauthorization bill that aimed at tightening up the administration of both agencies, closing loopholes, and streamlining functions. "It is legislation," he said, "that I hope that we can use as a basis for discussion this year." He ended his opening statement by saying that he was confident that this Congress would move forward on reauthorization legislation for the endowments. This lengthy hearing consisted not only of remarks by the eight Senators who attended but also of testimony from two panels -- one made up of the heads of the endowments and the other of witnesses testifying about successful endowment funded educational projects. Sheldon Hackney, Chair of NEH, and Jane Alexander, Chair of NEA, summarized their testimony and spent more of their time responding to Senators comments and questions on a wide range of issues. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), the ranking minority member of the committee, stressed that these small agencies had a crucial impact on the arts and humanities of the country and that a few controversial grants shouldn't warrant the elimination of the endowments. Senator John Warner (R-VA) complimented the two chairs of the endowments and said they had brought their agencies enhanced credibility. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) emphasized the positive role of the endowments in his state and called for new exploration of ways that the endowments' educational work could relate to Headstart programs. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) commented on the indispensable role of the endowments in economic development as cultural and heritage tourism gain increased momentum. Mike DeWine (R-OH) restated a point that he has been making over the last several years which is that in a time of reduced resources the endowments priorities need to be on the underserved in our population, particularly children and rural areas. After recognizing the key role of the endowments, Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) presented again his idea for building a true endowment for these agencies, an idea that he has been promoting for the last several years. His plan calls for expired copyrights to be auctioned for a period of perhaps 10 years and for the funds from the auction to build an endowment for the NEH and NEA. He noted that the Copyright Office had been somewhat hostile to this idea but that he was going to continue to pursue it and would be seeking cosponsors. Senator Tim Hutchinson (R-ARK) voiced the only criticism of the hearing, and his remarks were directed only at NEA. In sharply worded comments and questions he attacked the high administrative costs of NEA, the fiscal problems of the NEA, and the failure of NEA to respond within a year to an Inspector General's report. Hutchinson stated that no federal dollars should be spent on NEA and that the argument that NEA funds are a catalyst for securing private funds is a bogus one for private funding for the arts has increased even when NEA's funds have been cut. No responses to these criticisms by either Senators or witnesses were able to change Hutchinson's firmly held views on these matters. The panel on exemplary education projects consisted of Dr. Edward Ayers, Professor of History at the University of Virginia; Dr. Victor Swenson, Executive Director of the Vermont Council on the Humanities; Mr. Jeff Hooper, Founder and Director of the Mad River Theater Works in Ohio; and Ms. Alicia Dandridge, a 6th grade teacher in a Washington, DC school. Ayers and Swenson addressed NEH funded projects. Ayers, project director of the "Valley of the Shadow Project: Two American Communities in the Era of the Civil War", gave a demonstration and talked about how this project reaches thousands of people every week who visit the WEB site of the Valley Project to look at evidence and to draw their own conclusions about the Civil War. By perusing diaries, letters, slave census, newspapers, church records, photographs, and many other surviving documents, visitors to the WEB site are able to gain knowledge first hand about the Civil War and to sift through quantities of evidence with a powerful yet simple computer tool. Ayers noted that the project has received many positive responses, some from teachers who comment that students who have visited the Valley Project write better papers and ask more insightful questions. Senator Jeffords applauded this use of technology to make history come alive and said he was "excited by what you have shown us." Ayers concluded by noting that there is no way to recover costs of making this vast range of documents available to people around the world and that it was too big a project, with too many people involved, to have undertaken with NEH support. Swenson talked about a variety of programs that the Vermont Council on the Humanities have sponsored to tackle the thorny problem of illiteracy. One program, "Never Too Early: Teaching the Earliest Teachers," provides training on reading to children for people engaged in child care programs for the very young. "Our approach to literacy through the humanities in Vermont," Swenson said, "depends on a central love of books and reading and on intense cooperation among many agencies, organizations and devoted individuals." The Vermont Council also sponsors programs on adult literacy and has a program for teen mothers to show them the ways of reading to babies and toddlers. Swenson concluded by stating that they have discovered that "if reading is central to the humanities, it is equally true that the humanities are central to reading." Jeffords had high praise for the state councils' literacy programs. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NCC invites you to redistribute the NCC Washington Updates. A complete backfile of these reports is maintained by H-Net. See World Wide Web: http://h-net.msu.edu/~ncc/ * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *