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Promoting Understanding: New Leadership at Federal Cultural Agency..( Page 1 of 1 More of the Chairman's columns are availablehere. News USA: February 1998 Promoting Understanding New Leadership at Federal Cultural Agency The South's cultural diversity defines me. By William R. Ferris My hometown of Vicksburg is a community on the Mississippi River where Jewish, Lebanese, Chinese, Irish, Italian, The National Endowment for the Greek and many other ethnic families Humanities is a small federal agency in have lived for more than a century. For Washington, D.C. But its impact years I have interviewed, photographed nationally far exceeds its size because of and filmed southern storytellers, the importance of its work. By providing musicians and artists whose stories have grants throughout the nation for cultural become very special to me. Through their preservation projects, educational voices southern culture speaks its heart, improvement, scholarly research and whether it is Jimmy Rodgers' country public programs, the NEH promotes music, B.B. King's blues or Elvis Presley's knowledge of human history, thought and rock and roll. culture, thereby enriching the nation's cultural life. Perhaps my philosophy runs against the grain, for we Americans are taught to A folklorist and anthropologist by training, devalue the places we come from. We are I am NEH's new chairman, and I am from taught that to achieve success and make Mississippi. I say that not to brag but a mark on society, we must separate rather to make a point about the ourselves from our roots. I believe that philosophy that guides me in my new these places, memories and values are role. For the past 18 years I have been essential to life and should not be founding director of the Center for the abandoned in the name of progress. Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, but my Those in politics have voiced their philosophy has gestated for much longer concern over the impoverishment of than that. It is this: Each of us American life and values, but no one has everywhere defines ourself through the found an answer to our problems. I place where we were born and raised. suggest that the solution lies in the The sense of place shapes each of us in familiar worlds into which we are born. deep and lasting ways. Each of us carries We must study and understand the within ourself a "little postage stamp of worlds that make each of us American native soil," as novelist William Faulker and through that journey we will renew put it, and it is to this place that each of American culture. us goes to find our clearest, deepest sense of identity. As the new chairman of the NEH, I am committed to creating opportunities for all Americans to join in this important endeavor. William R. Ferris is chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/chairman/papers/usal99802.html 9/4/01 Honoring Thomas Jefferson: Historian Receives Top Humanities Honor. Page 1 of 1 More of the Chairman's columns are available here. News USA: March 1998 Honoring Thomas Jefferson Historian Receives Top Humanities Honor Professor Bailyn is the nation's By William R. Ferris preeminent historian of colonial and Revolutionary America. He wrote a book in 1968 that changed our understanding Imagine a gifted American president who of the founding of America. Ever since its would rather be remembered as the publication, The Ideological Origins of the founder of a university than as president American Revolution has influenced how of the United States. That was Thomas historians study American history. The Jefferson, who in writing his own epitaph thesis is that the American founders, in listed his roles as author of the defying the sanctity of British enlightened Declaration of Independence and founder despotism, were motivated not just by of the University of Virginia, but not as principles of freedom but also by a deep the nation's third president. suspicion of political power. That attitude of suspicion is the "ideology," or Jefferson's commitment to education and worldview, that drove the founders scholarship is celebrated annually with a toward rebellion and creation of a huge springtime gathering in Washington, restrained form of government that had D.C., sponsored by the National never before been imagined. Endowment for the Humanities. The occasion is the Jefferson Lecture in the Here is an excerpt from Bailyn's lecture: Humanities, the highest honor the federal government confers for achievement in "The Founders of the American nation the humanities. The humanities are the were one of the most creative groups in fields of history, literature and modern history. ... We have neither their philosophy, in all of which Thomas need nor their opportunity to begin the Jefferson excelled. Each year NEH selects world anew. But we do have the a distinguished American scholar to give obligation, as inheritors of their success, this prestigious national lecture, which to view every establishment critically, to honors intellectual and civic remain in some sense on the margins, accomplishment as exemplified by Mr. and forever to ask. why things must be Jefferson. the way they are. ." This year marks the 27th Jefferson NEH's Jefferson Lecture honors Thomas Lecture, which NEH established in 1972 Jefferson's questioning spirit, which is as a forum for discussing important both the heart of our democratic way of contemporary issues in historical and life and the essence of the humanities. philosophical perspective. In March, Bernard Bailyn, a Pulitzer Prize- winning If you would like to receive an invitation historian who taught at Harvard to next year's Jefferson Lecture, please University for some 40 years, gave the email your name and mailing address to lecture at Washington's Kennedy Center us at [email protected]. We'll put you on our for the Performing Arts. It was titled "To list. Begin the World Anew." William R. Ferris is chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/chairman/papers/usal99803.html 9/4/01 Commonwealth Club (Mar 27, 1998) Page 1 of 11 Commonwealth Club San Francisco, California March 27, 1998 Rediscovering America through the Humanities William Ferris, Chairman National Endowment for the Humanities I'm delighted to be back here in San Francisco, speaking to the Commonwealth Club. As some of you will recall, I was here just two short years ago--almost to the day. At that time, I came here as the Director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Now, I have an exciting new job, I'm very proud to serve as the new Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Emile Zola once said, "If you ask me what I have come to do in this world. I will reply, I'm here to, live my life out loud." Today, I have come to San Francisco to live the humanities out loud. I want every citizen, everywhere, to know what we can do for each of them. The National Endowment for the Humanities theme for the coming years will be Rediscovering America through the Humanities. If I could choose theme music it would be Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. I'm here on behalf of my clients, a distinguished group of uncommon men and women: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Willa Cather, Thomas Edison, FDR, Dwight Eisenhower, and others. You know those names. I'm also here on behalf of Paul Fussell, James McPherson, Laurel Ulrich, Professor Patricia Parker of Stanford, and Professor Marianne Constable of U.C. Berkeley, to mention just a few of the scholars, writers, and teachers who keep America's stories alive. The National Endowment for the Humanities helps them keep the stories alive so we can enjoy and learn from them, and our children can enjoy and learn from them. I want to talk to you today about these clients, and how they can help answer two important questions. What kind of country do we want to be in the year 2000? What kind of citizens do we want to be in the year 2000? This is the time and this is the place to ask those questions. The millennium approaches. We have less than 670 days left in this century. As the famous philosopher Yogi Berra once observed, "It's gettin' late early." What will we do with this time? There will be celebrations and dancing in the streets, but we can also use the occasion to explore http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/chairman/speeches/19980327.html 9/4/01 Commonwealth Club (Mar 27, 1998) Page 2 of 11 where we're going as a country. Before I discuss where we're going, allow me to briefly explain how I got here. I grew up on a farm outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi. I went to a school where I was the only student whose parents had attended college. One day Mrs. Barfield, the sixth grade teacher, asked the students who planned on going to college. No one raised his or her hand. She pointed at me and said, "Billy Ferris, you will go to college. Your parents will make you go." I said, "I ain't going to no college!" Well, after four decades, one Ph.D., several books, and stops at the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow and Trinity College in Dublin, I am here. Mrs. Barfield was right, and I'm glad I was wrong. She was a great teacher. Without her help and that of my parents, my wife and my daughter, I would not be where I am today.