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NEWS AND EVENTS IN THE HUMANITIES

From 10-11 March, the U.S. National Humanities Alliance held its 2009 conference, Making the Case for the Humanities, in Washington, D.C. As the Alliance s Web site describes, the annual event draws together leaders in higher education, college and university faculty, teachers, students, museum professionals, librarians, archivists, curators, and independent scholars. A detailed summary of conference events is at https://mail2.cni.org/lists/nha-announce/Message/20242.cfml.

Conference sessions addressed collaborative opportunities between natural science and the humanities, including the National Science Foundation s Science, Technology and Society Program (see www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5324&org=SES&from=home). The conference also highlighted the launch of the Humanities Indicators, a newly created Web-based collection of data on the humanities from the United States (www.HumanitiesIndicators.org). The Humanities Indicators serves as a prototype for a much-needed U.S. national system. Leslie Berlowitz is Humanities Indicators project co-director and Chief Executive Officer of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (www.amacad.org). As she explained, until this database was established in January 2009, the United States lacked a broad-based, quantitative analysis of the status of the humanities. Berlowitz said, We need more reliable empirical data about what is being taught in the humanities, how they are funded, the size of the workforce, and public attitudes toward the field. The Humanities Indicators are an important step in closing that fundamental knowledge gap. They will help researchers and policymakers, universities, foundations, museums, libraries, humanities councils and others answer basic questions about the humanities, track trends, diagnose problems, and formulate appropriate interventions. The Indicators data are accompanied by several interpretive essays at www.humanitiesindicators.org/humanitiesData.aspx#essaysHI.

On 11 March, humanities advocates asked members of Congress to support modest increases in funding during the federal fiscal year 2010 for federally supported humanities programs, including the National Endowment for the Humanities (www.neh.gov). The Endowment s activities include its innovative Summer Institutes, which provide college and university professors with opportunities for intensive collaborative study of texts, topics, ideas, and current scholarship in fields that are central to undergraduate humanities teaching (www.neh.gov/projects/si-university.cfml). In June and July 2009, for example, two marvelous Summer Institutes will focus on themes in environmental history, environmental ethics, and conservation biology. One Institute, Nature and History at the Nation s Edge: A Field Institute in Environmental and Borderlands History, will take place at university campuses, research stations, ranches, and other locations in northern Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona (www.u.arizona.edu/~kmorriss/nature/). The other Institute, whose faculty includes SCB members Curt Meine and Julianne Warren, is A Fierce Green Fire at 100: Aldo Leopold and the Roots of Environmental Ethics, and will be held in Prescott, Arizona (http://ihr.asu.edu/leopold/). Lucky Arizona!

Kate Christen (christenc@si.edu)
Humanities Representative, Board of Governors

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