Advocacy

The CAA Board of Directors has endorsed a policy paper, released on September 19, 2012, which calls for increased funding for the arts and humanities, among other subjects.

Calls for Strengthening Partnership between Federal Government and Research Universities

The Association of American Universities (AAU) today proposed for the next Administration a detailed agenda for strengthening the partnership between the federal government and the nation’s research universities as a means of fostering innovation, prosperity, and economic growth.

The paper also lists steps that universities need to take to strengthen the partnership and improve the ways they carry out their missions of education, research, and public service.

AAU will provide the policy paper, entitled “Partnering for a Prosperous and Secure Future: The Federal Government and Research Universities,” to both major Presidential campaigns.

For some of its key proposals, the paper relies on the recent National Research Council (NRC) report, “Research Universities and the Future of America: Ten Breakthrough Actions Vital to Our Nation’s Prosperity and Security.” AAU is an association of leading public and private research universities that focuses on national and institutional issues important to research-intensive universities, including funding for research, research and education policy, and graduate and undergraduate education.

The policy paper issued today provides recommendations for government and for universities in the following areas:

Addressing the nation’s fiscal challenge. The report calls for “a balanced approach that seriously and thoughtfully addresses entitlement programs, which are a primary source of long-term spending growth, and incorporates substantial tax reform that is designed both to encourage economic growth and to raise revenues needed to reduce the deficit.”

Cultivating human capital by strengthening access to college. The report calls on the federal government to sustain vital student aid programs, especially Pell Grants, and ensure that student loan programs encourage sound borrowing and manageable repayment plans. It also emphasizes the importance of universities controlling costs while sustaining educational quality, providing appropriate institutional financial aid, and ensuring transparency about costs as well as financial aid.

Attracting and developing talent by strengthening graduate and STEM education and reforming immigration laws. To strengthen graduate education, the report calls on universities to become more efficient by increasing completion rates and reducing time-to-degree and to strengthen pathways for students in a broad range of careers, not only in academia. It calls on government to adopt career development initiatives designed to supplement and expand fellowships and traineeships.

The report notes AAU’s five-year initiative to strengthen undergraduate education in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and urges government to encourage such initiatives.

The paper also calls for comprehensive immigration reform as well as specific reforms designed to “turn immigrant talent into American talent,” including establishing a clear pathway to citizenship for advanced STEM degree graduates from US colleges and universities; enacting a version of the DREAM Act to help make it possible for children whose parents brought them to the US to attend college; and gradually replacing the seven-percent-per-country cap limitation for employment-based green cards with a first-come, first-serve system for qualified, highly skilled immigrants.

Fostering new ideas and discoveries. The report urges the next Administration to follow through on the NRC’s recommendations for sustaining federal support of basic research, including full funding of the America COMPETES Act. It also expresses support for allocating research funds by merit review as well as for sustained funding of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Ensuring a regulatory and legal framework that encourages innovation. The association calls for regulatory reform to simplify and make more efficient the regulatory framework governing federal research and higher education programs. It also urges maintaining the current legal framework for university technology transfer, as set forth by the Bayh-Dole Act; developing proof-of-concept and gap funding programs that would support the translation of ideas generated with federally funded research into viable commercial products; and rejecting proposals that would allow faculty to be “free agents” and directly commercialize federal research results. To further promote innovation, AAU calls for legislation to encourage federal research agencies to build and interconnect public-access repositories of peer-reviewed articles developed from the research they fund. The association also advocates policies that support expanding public access to both domestic and international research repositories.

Encouraging other sources of support for research universities. The policy document calls for federal initiatives to encourage states to live up to their obligation to support public higher education, including federal-state matches that require maintenance of effort by states. The report also calls for extending and improving tax policies that aid students and families in financing higher education, particularly permanent extension of the American Opportunity Tax Credit and its consolidation with the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit and the deduction for undergraduate education. The report also calls for the preservation of strong tax incentives for charitable giving.

About AAU

The Association of American Universities is an association of sixty-one leading public and private research universities in the United States and Canada. AAU focuses on issues important to research-intensive universities, such as funding for research, research policy issues, and graduate and undergraduate education. AAU universities award over one-half of all US doctoral degrees and 55 percent of those in the sciences and engineering. They are on the leading edge of innovation, scholarship, and solutions that contribute to our nation’s economy, security, and well-being.

CAA’s advocacy efforts this year addressed a wide range of issues of critical importance to the visual arts, from the necessity of artists to have affordable health-insurance options, to the ethical treatment of animals in works of art, to the ins and outs of copyright law and museum practices. Below is a summary of eleven issues to which CAA has been committed during the past twelve months.

In June 2011, CAA filed an amicus brief in the case of Golan v. Holder, which the United States Supreme Court began hearing in October. The issue raised in Golan v. Holder is whether Congress, after enacting the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994, could legally remove tens of thousands—if not millions—of foreign works from the public domain and bring them back into copyright. Consistent with the First Amendment, the brief argued that those works should remain freely available. On January 18, 2012, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s previous decision, 6–2. In short, foreign works formerly in the public domain in the US can have their copyrighted status reinstated.

In December 2011, CAA signed onto a statement from the Association of Art Museum Directors that opposed the pending sale of a fifty percent stake in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Modern American and European Art at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Since 2005 the school had been attempting to sell the collection, donated by Georgia O’Keeffe (who specified that it never be sold or broken up). “Such an action,” stated the letter, “would violate a core professional standard of AAMD and of the museum field, which prohibit[s] the use of funds from the sale of works of art for purposes other than building an institution’s collection.” Nevertheless, the Tennessee Supreme court did not block the sale to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, on April 25, 2012. The university and museum will share the collection on a three-year rotating basis, with the museum helping to conserve the collection.

CAA board and staff members represented the organization at two events this spring in Washington, DC: Anne Collins Goodyear, then-incoming board president, and Linda Downs, CAA executive director and chief executive officer, attended Humanities Advocacy Day in March; and Judith Thorpe, an outgoing board member, and Helen Bayer, CAA marketing and communications associate, went to Arts Advocacy Day in April. The goal of both days was to support continued federal funding through the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, and to articulate to Congress the vital importance of the humanities and the arts in higher education. The National Humanities Alliance’s annual meeting coincided with Humanities Advocacy Day. Goodyear and Downs have offered a summary of this important event.

At the request of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), CAA investigated the use of homing pigeons in Jon Rubin’s interactive artwork, Thinking about Flying (2012), on view this year at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado. The piece invites museum visitors to take home a bird, placed in a cardboard box, for a day before releasing it, so that it may fly back to the museum. CAA confirmed the humanitarian treatment of the birds by the artist and museum and notified PETA of the findings.

In April, CAA investigated the complaint raised by several artists who lent work to the 2010 World Festival of Black Artists and Cultures in Senegal that was not returned due to a dispute with an art shipper in Dakar. CAA determined that the situation did not need the organization’s assistance.

Michael Fahlund, CAA deputy director, testified on behalf of the organization at an oversight hearing convened by New York City’s Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations on January 25, 2012, regarding increasing access to affordable health insurance for artists. Even though CAA is an international organization, its office is in the state of New York; presently the healthcare industry is regulated state by state. Fahlund proposed that CAA be given “employer status” in relation to its members living in New York State in order to provide health-insurance options for them. The committee’s discussions are ongoing.

CAA monitored a federal bill, the Research Works Act (H.R. 3699), that was introduced in the US House of Representatives on December 16, 2011, by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and cosponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)— chairman and member, respectively, of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The legislation would prohibit federal agencies from mandating free access to scholarly articles submitted to a scientific or scholarly publication without the consent of the publisher. This act primarily addresses science and technology publications but, if enacted, could affect art and humanities publications as well. Many learned societies who are publishers oppose the legislation, and CAA board members have begun discussing the issue and are paying close attention to the legislation’s development.

Representing CAA, Fahlund contributed his expertise to a National Coalition Against Censorship committee that developed Museum Best Practices for Managing Controversy, published in May. The document offers guidance for institutions to turn controversial situations into learning experiences for their public. The committee comprised representatives from the American Association of Museums, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Association of Art Museum Curators, Columbia University, Arizona State University, the University of Washington, and the New School. CAA’s Museum Committee is reviewing the guideline and will present it for adoption at the CAA board meeting on October 28, 2012.

Fahlund also worked with a liability insurance broker, Herbert L. Jamison and Co. LLC, and Philadelphia Insurance Companies, and with two CAA members, Barbara Buhler Lynes and Nancy Mowll Mathews, to establish comprehensive, affordable liability insurance for art historians and artists who authenticate works of art. Such insurance would help defend against a damaging financial loss that could occur from alleged mistakes or negligence. CAA does not administer the insurance but acts as a referral to the insurance company; in a brief article from this past January, Fahlund offers helpful loss-prevention tips for the art professional to avoid potential workplace liabilities.

Last month CAA signed onto a letter from the Association of Art Museum Directors sent to Congress, urging legislators to pass the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (S. 2212), a proposed law that would shield a loaned work of art from a non-US collection from being seized by anyone with a claim to legal ownership while the art is on display in the country. According to the letter, the US has “long provided the crucial legal protection that helps make loans from foreign museums possible” through the Department of State, until a 2004–8 lawsuit involving heirs of Kasimir Malevich and the City of Amsterdam weakened those protections. The House passed the bill (H.R. 4086), which the Senate is now debating.

As a member of the Coalition on the Academic Workforce, a group that addresses workforce issues in higher education, CAA helped to prepare and administer a 2010 survey on contingent-faculty issues. The results have been tabulated and will be distributed soon. More than one thousand CAA members filled out the survey. [June 20 update: the survey results have been published.]

Founded as an advocate for the visual arts in higher education, CAA actively engages matters of public policy, litigation, and activism at the local, state, federal, and international levels. For further information, visit the Advocacy section of the website. If you have questions or have advocacy issues you would like to bring to the attention of the CAA board, please contact Anne Collins Goodyear, CAA president, and Linda Downs, CAA executive director and chief executive officer, at info@collegeart.org.

The American Association of Museums (AAM) sent the following email on June 15, 2012.

Senate Committee Approves IMLS Funding; Congress Needs to Hear from You

This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill to fund the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). While the bill would sustain the current $30.8 million for the Office of Museum Services for FY13, this is just the first step in the appropriations process.

The bill faces an uncertain future because it includes funding for implementation of the health care reforms enacted in 2010. In a preview of the difficult budgetary decisions to come, Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Richard Shelby said, “In this grave fiscal climate we should not fund programs we know are going to force our country deeper into debt…. We should not mortgage our children’s future for non-essential, unproven programs.”

AAM President Ford W. Bell urged continued advocacy. “At a time when every federal program is being scrutinized, Members of Congress need to hear from constituents about how IMLS funds are essential to museums and how successful they are in serving our communities,” he said. “Participating in ‘Invite Congress to Visit Your Museum Week’ is a great opportunity to demonstrate our value.”

The bill would provide $158.8 billion in discretionary funding, a $2 billion increase over FY12 levels, which is in line with President Obama’s FY13 budget request. The bill also includes $549 million (level funding) for the Race to the Top initiative, President Obama’s signature competitive grant program, which rewards states for making changes in elementary and secondary education.

Let your Members of Congress know how important funding for the Office of Museum Services is to you!

Invite Congress to Visit Your Museum.

Visit www.speakupformuseums.org to learn more about AAM’s Advocacy for Museums.

May 31, 2012

Ecole du Patrimoine Africain
01 BP 2205
Porto-Novo
Benin

Dear Ecole du Patrimoine Africain:

On behalf of the College Art Association’s Board of Directors and 14,000 international members, we would like to express our grave concern for the protection of Mali’s cultural heritage in light of the current military action in the north of the country. On May 4, two mausoleums of Saints were intentionally defaced in Timbuktu, and there is reason to think such vandalism will continue unless the government of Mali and the National Army of the Republic of Mali act to safeguard the country’s cultural property.

Mali is renowned for its cultural achievements, and its cultural heritage is considered patrimony of Mali, Africa and the entire international community. Four sites have been declared World Heritage by UNESCO and six cultural practices are considered intangible heritage; they have been inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

We urge the Government and Army to protect Mali’s people and cultural artifacts in accordance with the international Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954), the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

We appeal to the political and military authorities in Mali to work for the best interest of the Malian nation, which should take precedence in ensuring the return to constitutional order in the north. We urge them to guarantee the preservation, integrity and security of cultural goods and people in all their dimensions and components, especially in occupied areas in Timbuktu, Gao, Kidal, and ask Mali’s neighbors to prevent the illicit transfer of objects and works of art from Mali through customs and police controls at their borders.

Sincerely yours,

Anne Collins Goodyear
President

Linda Downs
Executive Director

May 31, 2012

Dr. Mary Ellen Lane
Executive Director
Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC)
PO Box 37012, MRC 178
Washington, DC 20013-7012

Dear Dr. Lane,

We are writing in support of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers’ (CAORC) proposal to the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) to continue the work and operations of overseas research centers and of CAORC itself.

Our organization’s particular experience was with The American Academic Research Institute in Iraq (TAARII), without whose help we would not have been able to bring Salam Atta Sabri, the Director of Iraq’s Museum of Modern Art to the College Art Association’s Annual Conference in Los Angeles this past February. Mr. Atta Sabri was the recipient of a highly competitive and distinguished grant to participate in an international meeting of art historians, curators, and artists during the conference. From the outset, Beth Kangas, director of TAARII, and Nada Shabout, professor of art history at the University of North Texas, offered support in any way possible, including help obtaining a visa, help arranging travel, and advancing funds for the entire trip, because Dr. Sabri was not permitted to receive American dollars in Iraq. CAA could not have accomplished this work without TAARII’s active support. (Additionally, TAARII then arranged a speaking tour for Mr. Sabri to several universities in the United States, enriching his visit here substantially.)

As the scholarly world becomes increasingly global, organizations such as TAARII, and all the groups supported by CAORC, become ever more important. We fully endorse the CAORC proposal to continue the work and operations of overseas research centers and CAORC itself.

Sincerely,

Anne Collins Goodyear
President

Linda Downs
Executive Director

Linda Downs is CAA executive director, and Anne Collins Goodyear, associate curator of prints and drawings at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, is the incoming president of the CAA Board of Directors.

Anne Collins Goodyear and Linda Downs attended a day of meetings and panel discussions presented by the National Humanities Alliance (NHA). The event, held on March 19, 2012, in Washington, DC, stressed the practical significance of the humanities for a democratic society and highlighted the important contributions of recent research projects. It also helped prepare participants for Humanities Advocacy Day, taking place on Capitol Hill the following day. CAA is a member of NHA, which advocates federal funding of the humanities. In addition to its annual meeting, NHA organizes Humanities Advocacy Day, which brings critical information to participants and prepares them for congressional visits to support the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Fulbright Program, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and numerous Department of Education programs in the humanities.

The first panel introduced a wide variety of historical research projects, such as the Dictionary of American Regional English, which took ten years to develop, according to its senior editor, Luanne von Schneidemesser, and now has a broad value to researchers of all kinds, from linguists to forensic detectives. Kenneth Price, a professor of literature at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, discussed the Walt Whitman Archive, an online resource of thousands of documents related to the poet’s writings, and Colin Gordon, a history scholar at the University of Iowa, talked about his recent book, Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City. Finally, Connie Lester, a professor of history at the University of Central Florida, presented the Regional Initiative for Collecting the History, Experiences, and Stories, an oral-history program that is taking place in her state. Each project demonstrated its uses to both academic and public researchers.

Hunter Rawlings, president of the Association of American Universities, led a second panel that focused on “The Role of the Humanities in Undergraduate Education,” offering a historical case study of James Madison to illustrate the value of prolonged study in the humanities as a means to cultivate flexible and cohesive thinking. Madison studied the classics and philosophy at New Jersey College (later renamed Princeton University). After graduation, having no specific profession or direction, he moved back home with his parents and asked the president of the college if he could continue studying under his tutelage, in effect becoming the first unofficial graduate student of the college. Madison eventually put his academic background to good use when he became the primary author of the Bill of Rights, adopted by the House of Representatives in 1789, and was later elected the fourth president of the United States. Rawlings stressed that liberty and learning are intrinsic to the humanities, noting that countries with autocratic political systems can have successful science and math curricula but that the arts and the humanities require freedom of expression to flourish.

The panel’s second speaker, Raynard Kington, president of Grinnell College and acting director of the National Institutes of Health, observed that humanities majors tend to be “life-long learners,” and that many leaders, even in the sciences, have strong humanities training. The humanities, he noted, might benefit from a stronger advocacy base that could demonstrate the tangible benefits of humanities training as a means of encouraging legislators and administrators to protect humanities education, even at times of financial duress.

The role of the humanities in undergraduate education in direct relation to the job market was addressed by Sandra L. Kurtinitis, president of the Community College of Baltimore County, which boasts a student body of 45,000. She emphasized that two-year schools provide every student with an introduction to the humanities regardless of his or her associate-degree curriculum. Kurtinitis’s figures were astounding: 50 percent of all incoming freshmen at American colleges and universities are enrolled in one of 1,200 community colleges across the country, and the average age of the freshman class has risen to twenty-eight. Five million more students, she told us, will enroll in community colleges by the year 2020. In closing, Kurtinitis emphasized that all degrees lead to jobs, whether students decide to pursue careers as varied as poets, artists, nurses, or electricians.

In his keynote address, Richard H. Brodhead, president of Duke University and cochair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences, described the blue-ribbon panel of corporate and academic leaders who have come together to address the importance of the humanities in education and American life. Echoing Raynard Kington’s story about James Madison, Brodhead evoked an America that was built on the values of humanism and a strong liberal-arts education and called attention to the plight of budget cuts across the country that are scaling back humanities programs in elementary and high schools.

Brodhead stressed the wide-ranging, lifelong effect a thorough education in the humanities can have for an individual, no matter what his or her chosen profession is. “The kind of intelligence that has brought the broadest benefits to our society,” he said, “is an active, integrative mind awakened to multiple forms of knowledge and able to combine them in new ways.” As part of Humanities Advocacy Day, on March 20, the panel presented recommendations to President Barack Obama and to Congress in support of the humanities in higher education.

NHA has published a summary of the 2012 annual meeting and Humanities Advocacy Day, and Duke Today has printed the written text of Brodhead’s keynote address, “Advocating for the Humanities.”

Images from top to bottom: Jim Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities; Luanne von Schneidemesser; Raynard Kington; and Richard H. Brodhead (photographs provided by the National Humanities Alliance)

US Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) is circulating a Dear Colleague letter that requests funding for the National Endowment for the Art and the National Endowment for the Humanities for fiscal year 2013, as requested in President Barack Obama’s federal budget. CAA encourages you to contact your senators, asking them to sign the letter.

NEA/NEH FY13 Letter to Appropriators

This letter requests funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) at the level requested in the President’s budget, which is $154 million for each endowment. This is the same level included in the Senate’s FY12 Interior Appropriations mark. More details below:

• The FY12 President’s Request – $146.255 million for each endowment
• The FY12 Enacted – $146.255 million
• FY12 Senate mark – $154 million
• The FY13 President’s Request – $154 million

Staff Contact: Jeanette Lukens, Jeanette_lukens@tomudall.senate.gov.

Deadline for Signatures is COB Monday March 26th.

Dear Colleague Letter

March 27, 2012

The Honorable Daniel K. Inouye
Chairman
Senate Committee on Appropriations
Capitol, S-128
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Jack Reed
Chairman
Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies
SD-131
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Thad Cochran
Vice Chairman
Senate Committee on Appropriations
Capitol, S-128
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Lisa Murkowski
Ranking Member
Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies
SH-125
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Inouye, Vice Chairman Cochran, Chairman Reed, and Ranking Member Murkowski:

We write to express appreciation for your continued support of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and to urge you to support the President’s funding request for the endowments as outlined in his Fiscal Year 2013 budget proposal. As our nation grapples with economic uncertainty, federal support for the arts and humanities is a vital economic, educational, and cultural priority that impacts communities across the United States.

The NEH is the primary source of federal support for humanities research and related activities in the United States. It provides support for professional development to scholars, educators, curators, librarians, historians, filmmakers, and more. Through the endowment’s efforts, heritage is preserved, civic institutions are strengthened, and Americans are better prepared to address the challenges in a constantly changing world. In addition to appropriated funding, the NEH is able to leverage significant, non-federal contributions through competitive grant awards, with direct matching totaling more than $2 billion over the last few decades.

Federal funding for the NEH includes support for state humanities councils who work in partnership with the endowment to reach millions of Americans each year through teacher institutes, family literacy programs, and thousands of other programs. With this extensive network of state humanities councils and general NEH programming, the endowment reaches every state and territory across the nation.

For over 40 years, the NEA has provided strategic leadership and investment in the arts and has proudly expanded arts activity across the nation with the mission “to bring arts to every American.” For every one dollar spent on federal arts initiatives there are eight non-federal dollars leveraged while at the same time children and communities are enriched through access to the arts that they might not otherwise have.

Federal funding for the NEA acts as seed money that generates massive economic return with the non-profit arts industry generating $166.2 billion annually in economic activity and supporting 5.7 million full-time jobs. Additionally, the federal government enjoys a direct return of $12.6 billion in income taxes, as well as the indirect benefit of improved education, community development, and increased business activity across the country.

The President’s requested funding for FY13 for the NEA will help the endowment maintain its extremely successful programs, including The Big Read, Our Town, Challenge America, The Mayor’s Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative, Blue Star Museums, Shakespeare in American Communities, and Operation Homecoming. In FY11, the NEA awarded over $124 million in appropriated funds through just over 2,400 grants reaching all 435 congressional districts.

Thanks to your leadership, the NEH and NEA continue to play a vital role in every state. We urge you to continue to support federal funding of the arts and humanities in FY13 by adopting the President’s request level for both endowments in your final appropriations legislation. We appreciate your attention to this vital funding, and look forward to working with you on this and the other important issues facing our nation.

 

On Wednesday, March 14, 2012, the American Association of Museums (AAM) sent the following email regarding federal funding for the Office of Museum Services at the Institute of Museum and Library Services. AAM represents the entire scope of museums and their professionals and nonpaid staff: more than 18,000 individual museum professionals and volunteers, almost 3,000 institutions, and 250 corporate members.

Act Now: Ask Your US Senators to Support the IMLS Office of Museum Services

Once again, in conjunction with Museums Advocacy Day, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to provide $50 million in FY13 for the Office of Museum Services (OMS) at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

The deadline for Senators to sign on to this letter is THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2012. Ask your Senators to SIGN THE GILLIBRAND APPROPRIATIONS LETTER today!

“Our collective efforts in the U.S. House resulted in a record number of supporters on the House Dear Colleague letter, with many Members of Congress signing on specifically because they were asked by constituents,” said AAM President Ford W. Bell. “Now we must ask Senators to join the Senate letter. Museums are a wise investment for Congress because they pump $20 billion into the economy and support 400,000 jobs, and Senators need to hear from us.”

Current funding for the Office of Museum Services is $30.8 million, the same amount requested in President Obama’s FY13 budget.

Please visit www.speakupformuseums.org to learn more about advocacy for museums.

Duane Webster, interim executive director of the National Humanities Alliance (NHA), sent the following Humanities Action Alert by email on Wednesday, March 7, 2012. Founded in 1981, NHA is a nonprofit organization that works to advance national humanities policy in the areas of research, education, preservation, and public programs.

Dear Colleague Letters Circulating in the House

Dear Colleague,

Please help support the humanities by taking a few minutes to contact your Members of Congress and ask them to sign two important Dear Colleague letters currently circulating in the House of Representatives.

National Endowment for the Humanities
Representative David Price (D-NC) is circulating a Dear Colleague letter in support of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The letter, addressed to the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment & Related Agencies, requests $154.3 million for NEH in FY 2013. This is the same level requested by the President. A copy of the letter is available here. Please ask your Representative to sign this letter. Click here to send an email today. The Alliance has set up a template message for you to customize. You can also contact your Representative by calling the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. The deadline to sign the letter is March 16.

Title VI/Fulbright-Hays International Education and Foreign Language Programs
Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) is circulating a Dear Colleague letter in support of Title VI/Fulbright-Hays International Education and Foreign Language programs. The letter, addressed to the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services, and Education, requests no less than $75.729 million for these programs. This is the same level requested by the President. A copy of the letter is available here. Please ask your Representative to sign this letter. Click here to send an email today. The Alliance has set up a template message for you to customize. You can also contact your Representative by calling the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. The deadline to sign the letter is March 14.

Thank you for your assistance with these important issues. The signatures on these letters will provide an important record of support for federal humanities funding in the House of Representatives.

Sincerely,

Duane Webster
Interim Executive Director
National Humanities Alliance

CAA encourages you to register and take part in three upcoming events this winter and spring in Washington, DC: Arts Advocacy Day, Humanities Advocacy Day, and Museums Advocacy Day. At each, participants meet their senators and representatives in person to advocate increased federal support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Previous lobbying experience isn’t necessary. Training sessions and practice talks take place the day before the main events—that’s why, for example, Arts Advocacy Day is actually two days, not one. Participants are also prepped on the critical issues and the range of funding requested of Congress to support these federal agencies. It is at these training sessions where you meet—and network with—other advocates from your states. The main sponsoring organization for each event makes congressional appointments for you.

You may have mailed a letter or sent a prewritten email to your congressperson or senator before, but legislators have an algorithm of interest for pressing issues, in which a personal visit tops all other forms of communication. As citizen lobbyists, it’s also important to have a few specific examples about how arts funding has affected you: don’t be afraid to name-drop major cultural institutions—such as your city’s best-known museum or nonprofit art center—in your examples of why the visual arts matter in your state.

If you cannot attend the three advocacy days in person, please send an email or fax to your representatives expressing your concern about continued and increased funding for the visual arts. If you don’t know your representative or senators, you can look them up at www.congress.org.

Museums Advocacy Day

The American Association of Museums (AAM) leads Museums Advocacy Day, taking place February 27–28, 2012, at the Georgetown University Hotel and Conference Center. With support from numerous nonprofit organizations, including CAA, AAM is developing the legislative agenda for this year’s event. Likely issues will include federal funding for museums, museums and federal education policy, and charitable giving issues affecting museums.

The entire museum field is welcome to participate: staff, volunteers, trustees, students, and even museum enthusiasts. Museums Advocacy Day is the ideal chance for new and seasoned advocates to network with museum professionals from their state and to meet staff in congressional offices. Registration has closed, but AAM is taking participants on a case-by-case basis.

Humanities Advocacy Day

The National Humanities Alliance (NHA), along with a host of other groups and learned societies, including CAA, sponsors Humanities Advocacy Day, to be held March 19–20, 2012, in conjunction with its annual meeting. Scholars, higher education and association leaders, and policy makers will convene first at George Washington University for the conference and then on Capitol Hill for congressional visits and a reception.

The preliminary program includes: NHA’s annual business meeting for voting members; discussion of humanities funding and other policy issues; a luncheon and keynote address with Richard H. Brodhead, president of Duke University; and presentations of current work in the humanities. Learn more about registration, which is open until March 1, 2012.

Arts Advocacy Day

To be held April 16–17, 2012, Arts Advocacy Day is the only national event that brings together America’s cultural and civic organizations with hundreds of grassroots advocates, all of whom will underscore the importance of developing strong public policies and appropriating increased public funding for the arts. Sponsored by Americans for the Arts and related organizations, including CAA, the event starts at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on the first day, before participants head to Capitol Hill on the second. Registration can be made through March 30, 2012.