News Briefs, September 1987

Pulitzer Prizes for 1987: Bernard Bai­lyn, history professor at Harvard Uni­versity, won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in history for Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution, published by Alfred A. Knopf. For biography a   Pulitzer was awarded to David J. Garrow, associate professor of history at City  College  of the City University of New York. His book is Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, published by William Morrow and Company.

Ninth International Smithsonian Sym­posium: Several bright spring days in May backdropped the Ninth Internation­al Smithsonian Symposium, “Constitu­tional Roots, Rights, and Responsibil­ities,” commemorating the bicentennial of the United States Constitution. Chaired by A.E. Dick Howard, White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Pub­lic Affairs at the University of Virginia, the symposium, May 19–23, was jointly sponsored by the American Bar Associa­ tion and the University of Virginia.

Of the eighty-eight distinguished par­ticipating scholars, educators, jurists, journalists, and political figures from the United States and abroad, thirteen Amer­icanists and members of the American Historical Association served as either speakers or questioners during the five days of scholarly lecture and debate.

American Historical Association mem­bers who participated in this Bicentennial celebration included:

William W. Abbot, James Madison Professor of History and editor of the Papers of George Washington, University of Virginia, moderated a morning session on Tuesday, May 19, during the opening day activities at the University of Virginia.

Merrill D. Peterson, Jefferson Founda­tion Professor of History, University of Virginia, and R.R. Palmer, professor of history emeritus, Yale University and visi­ tor, Institute for Advanced Study, were among the scholars to address the topic “The Idea of a Written Constitution.”

Joseph F. Kett, professor of history, Uni­versity of Virginia, acted as questioner for the morning session. Frank G. Burke, Acting Archivist of the United States, was a featured speaker at the evening’s recep­tion, held at the National Archives in Washington, DC.

Wednesday morning’s session, in the Departmental Auditorium in Washing­ton, DC., site of the 1949 meeting of President Truman and the foreign minis­ters that led to the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, was moderated by Maeva Marcus, historian and director of the Supreme Court Documentary History Project, and visiting professor at George­town University Law Center. The morn­ing sessions addressed the Old World roots of American Constitutionalism. The New World roots provided the basis of the afternoon’s discussions. Jack P. Greene, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Johns Hopkins Universi­ty, spoke on “The Local and Consensual Foundations of Constitutional Authority in the Early Modern British Empire.” Joyce Oldham Appleby, professor of his­tory, University of California, Los Ange­les, followed with “Capitalism, Liberalism, and the Constitution.” Serving as a ques­tioner for the lectures addressing the New World roots, was Stanley N. Katz, Class of 1921 Professor of Law, Liberty, and Public Affairs, Princeton University and president of the American Council of Learned Societies.

Thursday, May 21, was “rights” day, on which a thorough exploration of the ori­gin, evolution, and reality of rights was presented. Participating members includ­ed Michael Kammen, Professor of Amer­ican History and Culture, Cornell Uni­versity, who spoke on “The United States Constitution, Public Opinion, and the Question of American Exceptionalism,” and Harry N. Scheiber, professor of law, University of California, Berkeley, whose topic was “The Structures of Liberty: Federalism and Separation of Powers.”

“Responsibilities” day was Friday, May 22. Educating citizens for self-government, citizen participation, and citizen­ship and other American constitutions were the umbrella topics under which journalists, activists, and scholars ad­ dressed the role of the individual. Mat­thew Holden, Jr., professor, Institute of Government and Department of Govern­ment and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia, served as a questioner during the afternoon discussion of citizen partici­pation.

Exploring constitutions across the globe occupied Saturday, the last day of the symposium. One of the highlights of Saturday’s activities was a lunch-time speech by sage historian Henry Steele Commager, Simpson Lecturer, Amherst College.

As A.E. Dick Howard wrote in his introduction to the symposium, “Nothing in modern discourse is more central to a policy than its constitution.”

A Guide to Celebrating the Bicentenni­al of the Constitution: National anni­versaries serve an important function in a nation’s public life. They provide a unifying force, an occasion for celebra­tion. But in the case of the bicentennial of the Constitution, another important opportunity presents itself-the oppor­tunity for reflection, study, and reevalu­ation. To encourage that kind of thoughtful observation of the anniver­sary, the Federation of State Human­ities Councils, at the request of NEH Chairman Lynne Cheney, has published Celebrate the Constitution: A Guide to Public Programs in the Humanities, 1987–1991. This book, which offers sample pro­grams, advice on planning, execution, and pitfalls, and lists of scholars, gives citizens throughout the country a tool for undertaking serious study of the nation’s founding document.

The idea for Celebrate the Constitution grew out of one of Cheney’s first initia­tives as NEH Chairman. On September 10, 1986, she announced the establish­ment of the “Bicentennial Bookshelf,” a matching grant program to encourage libraries across the country to develop “a valuable collection of new texts as well as classic and standard ones.” But Cheney also recognized the need for programming information to help peo­ple make the best use of the books, so in November she awarded a Chairman’s Emergency Grant to the Federation to produce a workbook of model pro­ grams culled from the collective wisdom and experience of the state humanities councils.

The Federation quickly pulled to­gether an advisory committee of state council personnel. Within a month, members of the committee had submit­ ted guidelines and sample programs in four formats: reading and discussion groups, conferences, lecture series, and seminars and institutes. ACLS President and Princeton University scholar Stan­ley Katz reviewed the materials and wrote a foreword. Simultaneously, the Federation staff compiled an extensive list of qualified scholars in each state who were willing to participate in public programs. Other state council staff con­tributed advice about securing funding for public programs. By January, a com­plete draft of materials was presented to NEH staff for review.

The finished publication, an eighty­ page, softcover volume, was presented to Lynne Cheney in June 1987. Compli­mentary copies were immediately sent to all the libraries that had received Bicentennial Bookshelf grants. Each state humanities council received a ship­ment for distribution in their states, and the Commission for the Bicentennial of the US Constitution purchased a large number of the books.

Celebrate the Constitution is also avail­ able for purchase directly from the Fed­eration. To order a copy of the publica­tion, send a check for $6 (plus $1.50 for postage and handling), payable to the Federation of State Humanities Coun­cils, to the Federation office, 1012 Four­teenth Street N.W., Suite 1207, Wash­ington, DC 20005.

1987 Bowker/Ulrich’s Serials Librari­anship Award: The American Library Association announced the presentation of the annual Bowker/Ulrich’s Serials Librarianship Award to James P. Danky, Newspaper and Periodicals Li­brarian at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. He has proved a major force in alerting librarians, educators, stu­dents, and the general public to alternative and minority literature. He was presented the award June 27 by the ALA in Washington, D.C.

Report Released on Assessment: Evi­dence gathered by the American Council on Education’s Division of Policy Analysis and Research shows that most colleges and universities are responding to calls for assessment of student learning.

Preliminary results from “Campus Trends 1987,” this year’s report of a survey ACE conducts annually, indicate that about half of the nation’s campuses are developing methods for assessing stu­dent learning. Administrators at three­ quarters of all institutions report that discussions of assessment are taking place, and as many as eight in ten admin­istrators expect that some form of assess­ment will be introduced on their campus­es in the next few years.

Most colleges are acting on their own to develop assessment procedures, the sur­vey found; only about one in four said they face a state mandate to do so.

One of the major concerns of the col­lege administrators that surfaced in the survey was that seven in ten administra­tors said that most campus officials fear misuse of assessment by external agen­cies.

Copies of the report are available from ACE, Division of Policy Analysis and Re­search, One Dupont Circle, Washington, DC 20036; 202/939-9450. Call for price information.