Three representatives from Yale were among the approximately 200 scholars representing humanities disciplines who converged on Washington, D.C. on May 8 for a day-long lobbying effort called "Humanities on the Hill."
The scholars went to the nation's capital in an effort to reverse the "severe and disproportionate" cuts in the budget for the National Endowment for the Humanities NEH, which has dropped more than a third since 1995 -- from $172 million to $110 million. These budget cuts have, in turn, led to reduced funding for NEH-sponsored programs on the local and state levels. In fact, last year Yale saw a 90 percent drop in its NEH funding -- receiving only $284,000 for research, book preservation and other projects, as opposed to $3 million in 1995. Statewide NEH funding dropped 50 percent, with Connecticut receiving only $5 million in 1996 as opposed to $10 million in 1995.
"We should all be concerned about the declining budget for the humanities," says President Richard C. Levin. "The NEH has been essential to important projects at Yale such as seminars for continuing education of high school teachers and college faculty, original scholarship, and the preservation of rare books and museum collections. Federal funds have also made possible a wide range of cultural activities throughout the state that have engaged the public in an active discussion of our history and culture. Federal spending on the humanities in Connecticut has dropped dramatically, and a drop of that magnitude is a real threat to scholarship on university campuses and to the quality of humane and literate discourse in the public at large."
Bruce Fraser, executive director of the Connecticut Humanities Council and a member of the Connecticut delegation to Washington, D.C., adds: "The NEH is essentially the sole source of support for an enormous amount of activity in the humanities in Connecticut, both academic and public. A $5 million hole has just opened up in our cultural life. We went to Washington to make the Connecticut delegation aware of the severity and disproportionate nature of the cuts."
Joining Mr. Fraser on the four-member Connecticut delegation were three Yale representatives: Peter Brooks, the Tripp Professor of Humanities and acting director of the Whitney Humanities Center (who also represented the Modern Language Association, on whose executive board he serves); Barbara Oberg, editor of "The Papers of Benjamin Franklin" and senior research scholar of history; and Richard Jacob, director of federal relations for the Office of the General Counsel.
The team met with Congressional representatives "to explain to people on the Hill why the National Endowment for the Humanities is important in American culture," says Professor Brooks. "It provides programs of a sort that private foundations and corporations cannot."
Ms. Oberg's goal in Washington was to advocate for the project she works on at Yale -- preparing a definitive scholarly edition of the 30,000 manuscripts of Benjamin Franklin -- and similar projects. "We hoped to bring public attention to the basic research in the humanities that the NEH supports," she says. "Here at Yale, it's the Franklin papers. It's the Jefferson papers at Princeton, the Washington papers at the University of Virginia, and other projects documenting our national heritage, the founding of the country, and the ideals upon which it is based. Fundamental documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are being explained by this research."
Humanities on the Hill 1997 was sponsored by the Federation of State Humanities Councils, with the American Association of Museums, the Association of American Universities, the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, the National Humanities Alliance, and other not-for-profit organizations.