Importance of these institutions and their methods for Public Policy centers on the importance of the institutions and the methods for educating and offering information no the public. This is an hour and a half. All right. We can begin the session. Thank you to all of you who have weathered the snow and the 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 panelists and i. N. S. Tunstituteinstitutes over in a few moments each, and when we then with the work that their centers are doing in the course of the 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 that many more who are not affected by the weather, but watching on cspan, and so thank you cspan for covering this panel which is being telecast. First, brian vella is the Dorothy Danforth professor at the university of virginia, professor of history. And john hopkins, ph. D. And author of many books, association of state, and 2015, government out of sight in 2009. The Miller Center is a nonpart san affiliate of the university of virginia specializing in political scholarship and political history striving to apply the lessons of history to the worlds most pressing governance challenges. Aby green cannot be with us, because he was caught by the snow in boston. If you can hear us, we miss you. He is drek r or the of the Scholars Strategy Network and using research to strengthen Public Policy and strengthen democracy. So we need to hear from him. And rob habers is here, and president of the george c. Marshall foundation at lexington, virginia, and a cambridge ph. D. And previously serving a as the executive director of the National Churchill museum. The Marshall Museum is a nonpart san body dedicated to the perpetuation of the legacy of the former u. S. Chief of staff and secretary of state general marshall, the man who quote won the war and won the peace after world war ii. The center, the foundation emphasi 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 book, and 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 h history and historical knowledge play in public Decision Making and civic life and the center facilitates historical inquiry and debate an ensures that scholarship and knowledge of professional historians are disseminated to the public effectively. David n. Myers to my left, is say di and ludick khan chair at colombia university, and he is author of three books in the fields of modern jewish and intellectual cultural history. He has beenn een a katz univers studies in jerusalem and was from 2004 to 2009 the director of the ucla center of jewish studies. And jason steinhower. He is a public historian with the university of villanova. He has a 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 n roll hand of fame, and like that one, but all of those are important. Lepage Center Brings the hor th cal college to bear and leading voice for greater consciousness among citizens 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 which 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 i will ask questions and we will go down the row, and get answers from our various presenters of a couple of minutes each. I will play the whiphand here, and try to keep everybodys answers short so that everybody can get a chance to respond. If general approach we are 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 late 19th century as various scholars have began to specialize in Research Endeavors and higher educations and largely to the scholarly audience, and now todays h historians face a different idea of the institute or the center at a university, and sometimes not at the universities, because today, we are in a world where many of the prospective audiences, and people who might consume what we have to say live in and online world. So reflecting 21st Century Technology and communications. So we find these traditional d 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 panelist, and the couple of parts for question is anyone listening . Is anyone listening or does anyone care what our centers and institutes are doing or in my case museums . So we can alling a xwree that we are living in an attention deficit society, and online chatter of enormous proportions compared to what existed certainly a year ago and the first part of the question is ohow do all of the historians and the representatives in the institutes represent here to break through the noise. Break through the noise and provide historical insight and other critical insight. So breaking through the noise is part of the question, and who are the target audiences, and are they listening to you. And so, rob, we will 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 autobiography, and the four papers of marshall in 1987 and in 2016 completed, so a lot of time and effort, but really those great scholarly endeavors are emblematic of the old world and how do you engage the young about general marshall and all he did as a secretary of state when the first point of entry is perhaps the four substantialbio how are you doing it . Trying to connect the h 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 going to be the core at the heart of that with the marshall plan, and the secretary of state through lectures and through short videos and through blogs that speak to the big news event, and we find that we have growing traction virtual traction many that people comment on the blog posts that connect either our paper collections through the three dimensional collection s with the modern events of the modern world, and then the next step is to draw them in person for the building, and you dont have to go to lexington, virginia, and i drew it there from there this morning, but you have to make an effort to come to visit uses, and the lectures in the evening and the lunchtime build on that growing virtual presence. Primarily, you are focused on getting to the marshall center, and this is the primary way of reaching the audiences. We are trying to get the people to visit us on site and endeavoring to take the lectures and programs beyond lexington. Dane . 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 on some level that there is an innate history that is foundational to everyone, and you can see it in the variety of ways with the fascination of genealogy and people are tracing the roots genetically, and the powerful influence that certain History Museums have such as the one that nick has helped to found in new orleans. And so the fact is that historians are speaking to audiences to recognize that history has some kind of value, and one of the challenges that however face those of us who work in the academic world as historians is how to reach that audience in a way that is compelling to them, and also reflects the kinds of Specialized Knowledge that we have. Part of it is framing the usage of language and understanding and how history has understood and conceptualized by different groups and audiences. So let me turn to the second part of the question which has to do with the natural History Center itself which i direct. It is located here in washington, d. C. It is an affiliate of the American Historical Association and our mission is to bring history and historian no tto th broader Public Policy conversations. And no better place to do that than washington, d. C. We focus on the particular audiences. So we are not trying to reach sort of through the general audience that would go to say the World War Ii Museum or the people interested main the jean yogology, but focused first and foe most on the capitol hill and the policy community in washington, d. C. , itself, and one of the ways that we do this is through a congressional briefing series that we have run for five or six years now which identifies the topics which are facing congress currently and trying to at least staffers and okayicationly congressmen who attend the briefings some sense of the Historical Context for these issue, and how an understanding of that historical background can be of benefitt 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 going to bring the historians to talk about the work they have recently done that has some kind of policy dimension to it. And finally, we also try to, and are are trying to develop a program which brings some of those techniques in terms of congressional briefings and how they are done to producing a briefing paper and so on to the classroom. And so, developing a full 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 per spspect on the present. And so you are focusing on the perhaps, the major effort on the policy briefings to influence the staffers, and understand, better understanding of history, and therefore a larger impact on the hill in congress than your public lectures and impact. So those are the three good areas, and david, you want to add on. Yes, it is a great pleasure to be here today. I am wearing two institutional hats. First as the inaugural director of the luskin research scenter ats ucla and the president and the ceo of jewish history in new york u which has a substantial public history role as well. I should say that the center at ucla, the Luskin Center arose out of considerable demand from the multiple constituencies, and from the students and the 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 that 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 that we have, nick. Yes, it is a time of oattention deficit, and yes, we live in a mediacrazed world in which the news cycle is reduced to seconds and not hour, 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 we get to the moment of history where people demand a historical accounting to explain the current state of Political Affairs in the United States, and something that we mentioned briefly, nick, with before the session began, and how did the post world war ii order that was such a Stable Foundation for much of the western world seem to 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 is not the case that as alex hagel said that we have reached a certain end of history, but it is a demand of more historical texture and perspective and it is, i think it is no accident that this gathering takes place with new and old centers devoted to the intersection of history and policy. So i think that what we try to do is to operate within the inner city and beyond. One of the things that we aim to do at the Luskin Center is to make the students and the faculty more receptive to the historically informed work that addresses the questions of contemporary relevance and to make it a legitimate and regular form of inquiry and discourse. Sot that is one of the things that we aim to do within the university that we expect will radiate out. From that, the plans are to produce historicallyinformed policy papers that reach actual Decision Makers at the local, regional and National Levels. It is exciting, and just chime in here, too, that to reinforce what you say about it, there is a thirstt for history out there. And so on the national World War Ii Museum, there is some evidence of that that we have now got approaching 6 million visitors since we were founded 17 years ago and this is a supply side museum. It is not demand drifen that the nation was clamoring for a dday or World War Ii Museum. So a half of the visitors from new orleans and 85 from out of state, and half say that the only reason they are coming is to see the museum. So there is a thirs oft great history well told and well presented. Just a brag point, we are ranked two by trip adviser, the largest database in the world, the number two Popular Museum in the United States and the world. You say who is the other company . Well, it ist metropolitan arch number one and the smithsonian and other museums are behind us now. What goes up is going to come down, and what the good news is that people are interested in history, and we have conferences and symposia, and you would not believe it, conferences have 500 or 600 people, and these are not most willy historian, but enthusiasts are want good history and they from 8 00 to 6 00 in the morning, with breaks to talk to the authors and the signed books, and so they are there because we are making history relevant and interesting to them. And we are also thinking about outreach and how to get the word out. So we have founded a new institute for the sdy of war an institutes and half of them with ph. D. S and world war ii media and education scenter that is going to take that once we are finished with the physical expansion, and go beyond. And now, we will look at the responses from you, jason, as well. Can everyone hear me . I apologize, because i am fighting a cold so if i keep doing that, that is why. I am really pleased to be here and i wanted to make one observation initially, which is to say that we all up here look pretty similar, and i think that one thing that is going to help us moving forward is to ensure that there is some diversity at the head of the institutions to create, so i hope that in the future when we do these types of panels that we can have women historians and persons of color and women a