Centering the Presidential Records Act

A movie about policy disputes includes a scene where a supplicant visits a government official in his home as he sits at a table with his family. And asks for a job. The official refuses and the man leaves in anger. The official’s family demands he take action against the threat the job seeker represents to his livelihood. But the official stands firm on the rule of law. He asks his son-in-law how he could stand upright if he cut down laws one by one to harm someone, then lost protection himself as strong winds blew. The official tells his family he gives everyone benefit of law.

An article this morning about the Presidential Records Act (PRA) fails to center a statute which mandates the transfer–not giving, selecting, choosing, or using in a museum–of records of a president and statutorily covered White House aides into the legal custody of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The reporter includes no quotes from current or former National Archives employees who have worked on PRA transitions.

One such employee, Mark Fischer, wrote a promotion program essay in 1990 for NARA (available internally and to the public) about the move of Ronald Reagan’s PRA records to California. President Reagan’s records were the first transferred to NARA under the PRA. Fischer worked on the transfer as a temporary detailee to the White House in 1989 while employed as a line archivist on NARA’s Nixon Presidential Materials Staff. He transferred from the NARA Nixon Presidential Library and Museum to the Ford Presidential Library in 2009 and retired in 2018. His essay (“A study of the planning and archival control methods for the movement of the Ronald Reagan presidential records”) is available in the NARA library in its College Park, MD facility. And also in administrative records of the Nixon Presidential Library’s predecessor unit.

NARA’s FOIA electronic reading room includes detailed information on how presidential transitions work in the context of recent changes of administrations. National Archives officials also did outreach interviews on presidential transitions for AHA, OAH, and UMD iSchool grad students in 2021. Although underutilized by scholars, journalists, and pundits, these make clear that as he leaves office, the president does not select records to place under the control of NARA. But rather that all materials covered by the PRA as related to official functions automatically transfer to NARA’s legal custody the day a president leaves office. And that by law NARA takes charge of PRA covered paper and electronic records (99% of Trump’s are electronic, 95% of Obama’s electronic) at 12 noon January 20 as a president’s one or two term tenure ends.

Today’s article fails to fully explore the origins of the PRA. “‘Nixon showed he wasn’t interested in following precedent,’ [Bob] Clark said. ‘And we’re in one of those crossroads moments now.’” Yet Congress passed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA) in 1974 to cover his records because Nixon expected to follow the precedents established by his predecessors. Presidents Roosevelt through Johnson and their designees selected what to donate as personal property, with deed of gift restrictions, to the government–the National Archives.

While none of Nixon’s predecessors were under investigation as they left office, or stipulated publicly destruction of records as significant as Nixon’s tapes, there’s no way to determine what records they did not include in such donations and what percentage, of whatever significance and however small in volume, they destroyed rather than donating to the National Archives. They could do so as by custom White House records then were treated as a president’s personal property. A provision in PRMPA created the public documents commission which recommended passage of the PRA and established future government ownership of covered White House records.

None of the quotes the reporter used (Clark; Paul Musgrave (“it is, in fact, very difficult to get critical materials into the [presidential library’s] museum”); Tim Naftali (“President Trump’s decision to withhold or take material with him”) make clear how departure records management works in the PRA process. White House counsel and designated officials working for the president traditionally oversee records transfer during transitions. Greater clarity in quotes to reporters as to which functions of a presidential library or museum fall under the PRA helps improve civic literacy. NBC’s description of Obama’s presidential records and construction of his presidential center, which is separate from NARA’s Obama presidential records unit, may have confused some readers.

Barack Obama decided in May 2017 that given his records are 95% electronic (no paper version), he would not raise money to build a traditional monumental presidential library and museum with a set endowment to cover a small part of operating costs when taken over by NARA under a joint operating agreement. (The approach used by Presidents Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush.) But that his records, already in NARA’s legal and physical custody as of January 20, 2017, would stay in space the government leases or maintains using appropriated funds rather than in a huge library constructed through private fundraising. Former President Obama instead is building a privately funded Presidential Center which will contain no original presidential records as those are and will remain in NARA’s custody under the control of its Barack Obama Presidential Library operating unit.

It’s time to center legal transfer to NARA custodial units of statutorily controlled presidential records and stop talking about NARA “getting” records from presidents for presidential libraries (or museums). Or PRA covered presidents “selecting” as they leave office items for the NARA presidential records operating units mandated by law. As Obama’s law-premised choice reminds us, the establishment of existing presidential library-associated museums, however valuable, has been discretionary, not codified in law as inherently governmental.

Centering presidents rather than statutes in framing presidential records issues may play a part in the current myth, shared by some members of the public on Social Media, that Obama “took” his classified and unclassified records to Chicago as he left office and failed to turn any over to NARA. The National Archives issued a statement last month reminding the public that

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama Presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA). NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area where they are maintained exclusively by NARA. Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, DC, area. As required by the PRA, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration.

August 12, 2022, statement

Such myths may have played a part in threats by some members of the public against the NARA Obama Presidential Library unit’s government-leased suburban Chicago facility. And threats against others employed by the National Archives. Language matters, framing matters, word choices for sound bites a reporter chooses to use matter because that’s all the public will see regardless of whatever else someone says when interviewed. Especially when civil servants face the threats and vitriol described in a recent NARA Notice made public by the agency. The National Archives officially posted the Notice for all to read on its website.

This wasn’t a selective leak, surreptitiously made available by current staff to past employees or others outside government without access to other nonpublic information. A practice I oppose and condemn as corrosive and antithetical to the authorized archival disclosure most NARA archivists honor. Rare within NARA, unauthorized disclosures go back to a 1993 document leak to Nixon’s lawyers by internal critics of Acting Archivist Trudy Peterson’s policies. A leak which surprised and drew a well-deserved rebuke from the bench from District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth in 1993 when he presided over a hearing on litigation over access to the Nixon tapes.

On August 24, 2022, Acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall provided an update to all employees on Trump presidential records. In an integrity-based release, NARA shared it with all members of the public, as well. The Acting Archivist provided context:

In February, former Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero shared with you information about Trump Administration Presidential records and the National Archives. In NARA Notice 2022-082 and NARA Notice 2022-087, he wrote that NARA received 15 boxes that contained Presidential records from former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, including items marked as classified national security information, and, accordingly, had been in communication with the Department of Justice. He also shared that NARA staff did not visit or “raid” the Mar-a-Lago property; that representatives of President Trump informed us that they were continuing to search for additional Presidential records that belong to the National Archives; and that some of the records we received at the end of the Trump Administration included paper records that had been torn up.

We continue to be unable to comment on potential or ongoing investigations.

However, this week a representative of President Trump released the text of a letter I sent to Trump representative Evan Corcoran on May 10, 2022. Typically, we do not publicly share non-routine correspondence with former Presidents and their representatives but, under these circumstances, we have released an official copy of the letter ourselves. The letter is now available on our FOIA Electronic Reading Room, at https://www.archives.gov/foia/pra-trump-admin.

After summarizing the letter to the former president’s lawyer, Debra Steidel Wall provided public links to NARA correspondence with the Congress. She stated, “In those letters, I report that, since our initial referral, the DOJ has been exclusively responsible for all aspects of its investigation, and NARA has not been involved in any searches that it has conducted.” She also linked to NARA’s August 12 statement on the Obama records which I quoted above.

The Acting Archivist of the United States noted,

The National Archives has been the focus of intense scrutiny for months, this week especially, with many people ascribing political motivation to our actions. NARA has received messages from the public accusing us of corruption and conspiring against the former President, or congratulating NARA for “bringing him down.” Neither is accurate or welcome. For the past 30-plus years as a NARA career civil servant, I have been proud to work for a uniquely and fiercely non-political government agency, known for its integrity and its position as an “honest broker.” This notion is in our establishing laws and in our very culture. I hold it dear, and I know you do, too.

She concluded by thanking NARA employees for their dedication to the mission of a “fiercely nonpolitical agency,” one in which they uphold the public trust with “professionalism and integrity.” She closed her remarks to the employees of the National Archives with an affirmation: “We will continue to do our work, without favor or fear, in the service of our democracy.”

In talking to each other, formulating answers for reporters, writing op eds which include perspectives shaped by personal experiences (policy support or opposition; jobs applied for, attained or not; pride in separate accomplishments in disparate NARA functional areas or settings), let’s strive to center the law, not individuals. And do this whether we worked in a PRA environment or not.

I mostly worked PRMPA as a NARA archivist team leader in its Office of Presidential Libraries. But also did some PRA work as a NARA temporary detailee to the Reagan White House Office of Records Management (WHORM). You can see in a government publication how WHORM handled its work during the Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2 administrations in a transition essay by its former director,Terry Good.

Centering laws is what our present and former National Archives PRA-aware colleagues have done from November 2009 to the present as archives technicians; archives specialists; archivists; audio-visual experts; mission-support staff; NARA’s White House liaison officials; lawyers; public affairs experts; Congressional relations advisors; program and staff office managers and executives; the senior management team; and the top NARA administrator.

Let’s honor these public servants of all ranks by doing the same.

“All those boxes should not be moved”

He caught them loading the former president’s records onto a truck on the White House grounds to send them out of Washington to his home.

A Washington Post reporter, George Lardner, used a cable television documentary in 1997 to describe what happened as investigators sought information on “abuse of governmental powers” in 1974. “[Benton] Becker says he told the colonel in charge of the unit that [President] Ford had ordered that all of the Nixon materials be kept at the White House, but the colonel said he took his orders from [Alexander] Haig and kept loading.”

Exigency collided with “we’ve always done it this way.”

Lardner noted the “Nixon tapes would likely have disappeared forever if Becker hadn’t gotten the Secret Service to stop the truck while he hurried into the White House to warn Ford that what would be regarded as ‘the very final act of coverup’ in the Watergate scandal was about to take place. Ford put a stop to it. ‘I said those tapes and those documents in all those boxes should not be moved out of the White House, period,’ Ford says on the program.”

Records in Ford’s presidential library, administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and an oral history interview, show how Benton Becker resisted Antonin Scalia’s case for sending Nixon’s records to California. And why all involved–National Archives’ officials, Nixon, his associates, his family, faced situations unlike their peers.

Lardner wrote in 2000, “When the next 420 hours of Nixon tapes are made public this fall, Karl Weissenbach expects his phone will be ringing off the hook. Some of the callers will be cussing him out and asking, ‘Why are you continuing to crucify Richard Nixon?’ Others will complain that he didn’t go far enough.”

He described how Karl handled his job. “As director of the Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the National Archives in College Park, Weissenbach, 46, is used to the harangues. A steady professional who can duck any punch, he has a standard response for Nixon haters and admirers alike: ‘Come on out here, go through the records and decide for yourself.'”

Lardner understood the challenges. “It isn’t an easy job. Of all the presidential library collections around the country, Nixon’s is the only one governed by a law of its own, an intricate statute that Congress passed in 1974 to keep Nixon from destroying his records, especially the tape recordings that had forced his resignation.”

A NARA archivist explained that “‘Karl makes sure all of us know the laws and regulations inside out, backwards and forwards and in Greek,’ said John Powers, a Nixon tapes and papers specialist. ‘He backs the recommendations we make 100 percent. And he’s fought hard to get promotions for pretty much everybody.'”

If you research presidential records NARA acquired by deed of gift (Hoover through Johnson; Carter) or statute (Nixon; Reagan to the present day), consider the origin stories. Becker, a lawyer and advisor to Ford since 1973, helped him block what the Attorney General suggested when Antonin Scalia pointed to past practices.

Starting in 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt established a presidential library to house archival materials from his time in the White House, presidents and their designees selected records to donate to the U.S. National Archives using deeds of gift which spelled out access restrictions. Private foundations raised money to construct presidential library facilities for the U.S. government to hold donated records.

Then came Watergate.

A White House official informed staff on August 9 that “By custom and tradition, the files of the White House Office belong to the President in whose Administration they are accumulated.” Nixon believed this would result in shipment to California. But the man sworn in December 6, 1973 as Nixon’s second Vice President, Gerald (Jerry) Ford, previously a member of Congress (R – MI), sought a way not to voluntarily send Nixon’s files to the former president to dispose of as he wished. Becker ensured President Ford could act within his Constitutional, ethical and political comfort zone.

Ford asked key Nixon aides to stay on for a month for an orderly transition. Nixon chief of staff Al Haig soon left–Ford wanted him gone–but still worked at the White House when former senator William Saxbe (R – OH), Nixon’s last Attorney General, met with the President. Saxbe delivered to Ford a memorandum on presidential papers written by DOJ attorney Antonin Scalia.

Becker notes of Ford’s meeting with Saxbe that “Al Haig is there…Bob Hartmann was there, and I was there, and the…memo was given to the president.” But Ford is not the first recipient of the memo on presidential papers. “Justice had given a copy of the memo to the Washington press corps before it was given to the president. I always believed this to be a maneuver to lock the president into the position urged in the memo. Specifically, to send the records and tapes to Nixon in California. It became a very antagonistic meeting in the Oval Office. Not the president. The president was quiet during it.”

As Saxbe and Haig argue for sending the Nixon files and tapes to him in San Clemente, Becker tells the president why he shouldn’t. “If you send that to Nixon, if you send those records, papers and the tapes, to Richard Nixon, there will be a hell of a bonfire in San Clemente.” Ford’s face turns red as he listens. Becker understands his boss well. He knows Ford wants a reason to refuse to send the records to Nixon.

The Attorney General then makes a tactical error. “Saxbe jumped in and said something like, ‘I’m the attorney general. You should listen to my advice.’ And it was a senator talking to a congressman again….I didn’t see the Oval Office, I saw a senator talking down to a congressman. And that was a mistake.”

Ford tells Saxbe and Haig, “‘Those damn things are not leaving here. They belong to the American people, they are going to stay here. They are not leaving.'” Becker notes, “I had made the argument that by custom, tradition and practice, outgoing presidents had claimed ownership of their records. But the nation never had a criminal proceeding against a president, we never had White House tape system and so forth. It was a whole different set of distinguishing arguments.”

Ford sends Becker to talk to Nixon about signing a deed of gift for his files with the General Services Administration (GSA), then the parent agency of the National Archives and Records Service. (NARA regained administrative independence in 1985.) And about a pardon. “The Nixon staff wanted to talk about a pardon, I don’t want to talk about the pardon, I want to talk about the deed of gift that he’s going to sign over to GSA, which we’re using as a holding device, until Congress can act.”

As to the controversial pardon, which he later admits cost Ford an election, Becker brings tape transcripts with him. Nixon, whom Becker sees as anxious and depressed, deflects, complaining about staff actions during Watergate. But Becker quotes Nixon’s words from the tapes and tells him which point to obstruction. He walks Nixon through a legal case, United States v. Burdick, in which the the Supreme Court found in 1915 that “acceptance of a pardon is an acknowledgement of guilt.”

There’s something the former president doesn’t know. “Nixon wanted to have executive privilege…to prevent…journalists from getting [the records]. This is out of the question. Executive privilege can only be asserted by the occupant of the White House…they never knew what we knew secretly in Washington…we want this controversy over where the tapes are going to be. And we want the American people to know that Jerry Ford was concerned enough to protect the papers and records of Richard Nixon for posterity.”

Ford’s lawyers don’t bully the National Archives. When GSA Administrator Arthur Sampson signs the Nixon deed of gift, the Archivist of the United States, James B. “Bert” Rhoads, goes to the White House prepared to lose his job.

Rhoads tells Sampson he will not publicly support the GSA agreement which gives Nixon the right to destroy his tapes at a set time. Asked to meet with President Ford’s legal staff, the Archivist thinks, “Bert, I think you’ve bought it. Enjoy your last day as Archivist.” But as he recounted to NARA archivist Rod Ross in a 1984 oral history interview, White House officials understand the Archivist’s position. Expecting Congress to step in (Ford quietly talks to Hill contacts), they don’t force Rhoads to face that choice.

To nullify the Nixon tapes destruction provision in the GSA agreement, Congress passes the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA). The law establishes government ownership of Nixon White House records that reflect Constitutional duties. Files in NARA’s Ford Presidential Library show how White House counsel Phil Buchen lays out options for Ford. Ford chooses the option that adds his public approval to passage of PRMPA.

Nixon files a lawsuit to block PRMPA. His lawyers argue the records law is punitive and a Bill of Attainder setting him apart from his predecessors. The U.S. Supreme Court upholds PRMPA in June 1977. In August 1977 NARS archivists supervised by Joan Howard move Nixon’s records to two of its facilities in the Washington area. Rhoads comes to a basement stack to meet with Howard for an agency photo opportunity.

An article in 1983 by political scientist Clement Vose (“The Nixon Project“) examines the mandate to transition from deed of gift processing to public ownership of presidential records. Joan Howard and William Joyner serve as mentors to new NARS hires, I among them.

Gerald Ford believed that “presidential papers, except for the most highly sensitive documents involving our national security, should be made available to the public . . . and the sooner the better.” His NARA-administered presidential library is in Ann Arbor. His presidential museum is in Grand Rapids. Having the archives in a different city in Michigan has the advantage of avoiding the public confusion seen when writers use “presidential library” when discussing museum rather than archival functions.

In 2005 Karl Weissenbach becomes Deputy Director (later Director) of the NARA Eisenhower Presidential Library. Congressional amendment of PRMPA in 2004 opens the door to moving Nixon’s White House files to a NARA administered presidential library and museum in California. The Nixon tapes remain in NARA’s College Park facility in the care of Supervisory Archivist Cary McStay. In 2018, she posts an integrity-based history of processing the Nixon tapes.

The privately administered archives facility Nixon opened in 1990 to house his pre- and post-presidential records became part of the federal system of presidential libraries in 2007. The first director, an academic historian appointed by Archivist Allen Weinstein, served 5 years. The 10th Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero, appointed the second, who holds degrees in political science and law.

This spring, after the second director left after 7 years on the job, NARA called for candidates to participate in public service at its Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. There also are a few director vacancies at other NARA presidential records units. As a result of President Barack Obama’s Open Government initiatives, candidates can assess competencies required for working for NARA’s Executive for Legislative Archives, Presidential Libraries, and Museum Services. And–importantly as the work is a team effort–competencies for the subordinates they will supervise. NARA values Emotional Intelligence displayed in communications, leading change, recognition of varied stakeholder situations, the ability to understand differing backgrounds and experiences, and organizational awareness.

In 2014, an academic historian wrote an op ed calling on David Ferriero to fill an earlier Nixon Presidential Library and Museum director vacancy by August 8, 2014, the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation announcement. But personnel appointments by the Archivist aren’t connected to historical anniversaries, whether joyful (Inaugurations; enactment of landmark legislation) or painful (Kennedy assassination; Nixon resignation; Clinton’s impeachment) for users of records or the families and associates of former presidents.

Dr. Tabitha Warters examined the political roles of the children of presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt through Bill Clinton in her political science Ph.D. dissertation (2004) and M.A. thesis (1998). The Kennedy assassination affected two families. Luci Baines Johnson, 16 years old at the time, recalled hearing in school that Kennedy had been shot in Texas. When she later saw a Secret Service agent walking towards her on the school grounds, she tried running away from him. She knew it meant her father now was president. And that her life would never be the same. The video of Nixon’s farewell remarks posted online by NARA shows his daughters, their real time reactions visible, standing on either side of him on August 9, 1974, as he addresses White House employees before flying out to California.

Social Media platforms now draw users into experiences television viewers once watched from afar. Twitter displayed reactions–racial epithets and crude caricature; solidarity or sympathy–by members of the public to Barack Obama’s Black family while President. Trauma once remote or hidden now visible.

On August 8, 2014 David Ferriero hosted at NARA headquarters a presentation on the Nixon tapes by two historians who had done extensive work with the materials. He described the tapes as “some of the most fascinating and important recordings of our time – the secret tapes made between 1971 and 1973 in the Oval Office during the Nixon Presidency.”   

Ferriero, who looks in books for acknowledgments of staff labor, added his thanks to that of the authors: “This book…benefited greatly from the help of many helpful archivists…first at what was known at the Nixon Presidential Materials Project, then the Nixon Presidential Library. Singled out are many of the people in the room today so thank you on behalf of the authors. And thank you also from the Archivist of the United States for the work that you have done to make these tapes available.”

Becker’s 2009 oral history interview reminds us of what we don’t know as events unfold. That the Nixon-Sampson “deed…is viewed by President Ford, Phil Buchen and I as a little more than the holding device until…Congress acts on presidential papers.” And that the history of the Nixon records doesn’t begin in 2007 in California. Or 1996, after settlement of Nixon tapes litigation. Or 1974. But in 1969, when Nixon takes office expecting to handle his files as his predecessors did.

Alternative models for presidential libraries and museums–and us, as well

When President Barack Obama visited Austin, Texas, to speak at a Civil Rights Summit on April 10, 2014, he saw the past of presidential libraries administered by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). As Obama toured the museum associated with NARA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library he saw a replica of the Oval Office as it looked when LBJ lived and worked in the White House.

Obama had not yet decided simply to leave his White House records (95% electronic with no paper copies) in NARA custody as required by law. And not raise money through a private sector foundation to build an LBJ-style monumental library and museum. NARA General Counsel Gary Stern later said Obama’s decision appeared based on cost considerations of the volume of born digital as compared with old-style paper records.

Obama also listened to an excerpt from one of Johnson’s taped conversations in which his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, critiqued one of his speeches. An example of people who know you best advising you out of love or friendship in order to help you. The event marking the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act brought together as speakers the incumbent president and three of his predecessors (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush). The Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero, an Obama appointee, also spoke.

You can read President Obama’s speech on NARA’s website. As with all archival materials, it’s up to individual readers to interpret and select extracts as needed for a wide array of purposes. For me, as a student of the presidency, Obama’s remarks reflected a mixture of idealism and realism.

Those of us who have had the singular privilege to hold the office of the Presidency know well that progress in this country can be hard and it can be slow, frustrating and sometimes you’re stymied.  The office humbles you.  You’re reminded daily that in this great democracy, you are but a relay swimmer in the currents of history, bound by decisions made by those who came before, reliant on the efforts of those who will follow to fully vindicate your vision.

But the presidency also affords a unique opportunity to bend those currents — by shaping our laws and by shaping our debates; by working within the confines of the world as it is, but also by reimagining the world as it should be.

Until 1974, U.S. presidents, including Lyndon Johnson, treated records they created in the White House as personal property. Congress first established government ownership of records created in the course of a president’s official duties with passage of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (1974). The statute applied solely to Richard Nixon’s White House records, some then still in use by Watergate investigators.

A later statute, the Presidential Records Act (1978), established government ownership of the records of presidents who took the oath of office starting January 20, 1981. No law requires a President to raise money through a private foundation for the construction of a presidential library (with or without a museum) handed over to the government with a set endowment percentage. Their records automatically now transfer legally to NARA (physical custody can be complicated).

On January 20, 2017, the National Archives took legal custody of the portions of Obama’s White House records governed by the PRA–an inherently governmental function. You can find photos of the president at the LBJ presidential library in 2014 (below) in NARA’s online catalog. Days before leaving office, Obama met in the Oval Office with National Archives employees. A West Wing Week video shows him with Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero, NARA General Counsel Gary M. Stern, NARA Executive for Legislative Archives, Presidential Libraries, and Museum Services Susan Donius, John Laster, head of NARA’s White House Liaison Division, and electronic records specialist Kenneth Hawkins.

Kate Theimer’s Archivesnext blog reflected a hopeful, participatory, exploration-embracing, safe space for examining archives, records, museum, and civic issues between 2009 and 2015. When she launched her blog in 2007 Kate rarely mentioned the National Archives, where she once worked in a policy office. Over time, she wrote more about NARA. Several of the essays Kate posted from 2009 to 2011 examined change management at NARA after Obama nominated David Ferriero to be Archivist of the United States. She included at her blog a link to Ferriero’s pre-confirmation Senate questionnaire (September 16, 2009).

As a former NARA Office of Presidential Libraries employee and Federal historian, I participated early in my career in hallway and snack bar chats with colleagues about the traditional presidential libraries system. After promotion from archives technician to archivist and team leader, middle managers and executives provided formal classroom lessons and informal mentoring on big picture operational issues, including cultural and fiscal stewardship. Ferriero’s pre-confirmation responses to questions asked provide insights on some such issues.

What plans or ideas do you have concerning the future of the Presidential Libraries?

Having grown up in three large decentralized collection environments, my experience shapes my concerns about the physical and environmental security of primary materials in facilities constructed over 75 years. In addition, the projections for facilities for future presidents raise sustainability issues.

What changes, if any, do you believe are necessary to the Presidential Library system to lower costs, improve preservation, and help reduce delays in access?

I look forward to working with the NARA staff in assessing the recommendations of the forthcoming report and developing a plan of action for review.

The questionnaire also shows how NARA operates within the Federal government. When you read news reports, op eds or tweets about NARA, look to see if the writer mentions the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Or the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice (Biden administration example pertaining to NARA here.)

Even just noting “within the executive branch legal, management and regulatory framework” signals recognition that no Federal agency head, including the Archivist (or an Acting Archivist), carries out duties as a “lone wolf.” And that his or her subordinates, if supervisors, managers, and executives, have opportunities to convey that as mentors to their own subordinates. Doing so is a mark of respect that shows you recognize subordinates may rise in rank at NARA.

On October 1, 2009, Ferriero’s confirmation hearing included questions about sustainability of the traditional presidential libraries system, collections security in NARA facilities, and electronic records. Responding to a mandate to examine costs, Acting Archivist Adrienne Thomas had just issued a report on September 25, 2009 on alternative models for its presidential libraries. These included operating presidential libraries without museums as that function is discretionary, not codified as inherently governmental.

NARA’s Nixon Presidential Materials office operated as a records holding unit without a museum from 1977 to 2007. Karl Weissenbach, who began work with NARA’s Nixon records staff in 1990, rose through the ranks and served as director until 2005. He later served as NARA director of the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. Karl reflected a NARA ethos that David Ferriero (pictured giving him an award in 2010) recognized (see NARA competencies page for managers and senior officials). Understanding the purpose of public service, willingness to face difficult challenges with grace and class, and personal and professional integrity in carrying out duties in the face of adversity.

Senator Thomas Carper (D – DE) prefaced a hearing question to Ferriero about presidential libraries by referring to the 9th Archivist of the United States. He noted Ferriero’s predecessor “said in a hearing last year that the presidential libraries are consuming ever more of the time and resources of the National Archives and he was not sure if it was fiscally possible for the Archives to continue this trend.”

Ferriero replied “the more facilities you have, the more problems you have around security of collections and the facilities themselves. So we have in this situation a series of buildings that have been built over time, since the 1930s, which are in varying states of need, and I think the capital issues around them continue to grow.”

He added, “I have read the report that was submitted on Monday outlining five different scenarios for the future, ranging from status quo with some minor adjustments all the way to some kind of centralization of the collections. This is something that we need to have more discussion about. But I am concerned about security of collections, and sustainability of the model, I think, is my biggest problem.”

Ferriero noted, “the projections for facilities for future presidents raise sustainability issues.” Asked by Carper what actions he would take “to lower costs,” he replied that he would work with NARA staff to come up with a plan for action. As I got to know David (I first met him in 2011), I understood the learning oriented approach the response reflected. You also see it in a Q&A he did with me when he retired April 30, 2022.

Shortly after becoming AOTUS, David did an interview for Information Online (May 2010). Asked about the NARA-administered presidential libraries, he said, “There is a report done by the staff just before I started. It suggested five models. We expect to have a series of hearings probably in the next 6 months by both the House Oversight Committee and the Senate Oversight Committee to go into this in more detail. It is an incredibly political issue. Its current model is unsustainable financially.”

He then shared information often omitted in news reports about presidential libraries. “Right now, one-quarter of the Archives’ budget goes to the presidential libraries. If you look at the projections out to 2030, it does not work. Something has to change. According to the model, the president establishes a foundation, the foundation raises money for construction, and then turns the library and the museum over to the archives. The foundation then continues to fund activities on the museum side and sometimes on the library side.”

As to solutions, Ferriero said, “I really think we need to look seriously at different models. There are a lot of different facilities with a lot of security and environmental risks, especially around primary materials spread out across the country. If you look to the shift to electronic information at some point, it doesn’t matter where the materials are because the information will be primarily electronic.”

This pointed to where we are now, with Obama’s White House records 95% electronic and his immediate successor’s 99% electronic.  Given the endowment requirement, there’s little incentive to fund an archives building rather than leaving the largely electronic records in the custody of NARA’s Office of Presidential Libraries. And just establishing a privately funded and operated Museum, as Obama did.

Ferriero candidly discussed budget issues with a class of library and information graduate students in 2011 (video 38:35 mark at link). He said operating a system of presidential libraries consumes 25% of NARA’s budget (their holdings comprised 5% of the government records NARA then held). And that a study projected that by 2035 the estimate for adding, then maintaining, separate presidential library buildings was 50% of NARA’s whole budget. He told students, “something’s gotta give.”

It is 3 years since the New York Times published a paywalled article with a headline, “The Obama Presidential Library That Isn’t,” which alarmed some readers unfamiliar with what Ferriero and his predecessor discussed with Senators in 2008 and 2009. Twitter topic searches for “Obama presidential library,” “National Archives,” and “presidential library” show no tweets or links shared by the general public that reflect how government officials support policy and decision making. That you best serve colleagues who operate in the environment Ferriero’s Senate pre-confirmation reflects by discussing options in terms of making a fiscal and intellectual “business case” centered in situationally aware stewardship.

I appreciate the offer in 2019 to explore the NARA Obama records issues in a journal article (“Making History Together with the National Archives”) for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. At the top, many officials reflect the combination of idealism and realism Obama mentioned in Austin. Recommendations offered with situational awareness within a legal, statutory or regulatory framework resonate. Yet there are times nisperceptions that show up in Twitter topical searches for “National Archives” bring to mind one of the most poignant records releases during Ferriero’s tenure as Archivist.

On October 16, 1962, President John F. Kennedy quoted a verse by Domingo Ortega as translated by Robert Graves.  The context was an appearance by Kennedy at a foreign policy conference for public affairs broadcasters. Archival records hold some information about Kennedy’s appearance: “Presidential Backgrounder 16 October 1962 #50,” White House Staff Files of Pierre Salinger, box 134, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Although JFK slightly misquoted the verse, a declassified briefing for November 22, 1963 provides the correct version:

“Bullfight critics ranked in rows
Crowd the enormous Plaza full
But only one is there who knows
And he’s the man who fights the bull.”

It isn’t easy to encourage collaborative problem solving. Models for doing so vary; Kate Theimer highlighted Tim Gunn’s humane, trauma informed approach. I explored its impact in the context of presidents’ families and how our social media experiences reflect what it’s like to be in the public eye (“What You Can Do to Make It Better”).

From 2009 to 2016, Kate at Archivesnext reflected an Obama era vibe now rare online. But through the labor of archivists working in back room jobs, the National Archives preserves his words as well as those of other presidents. Including on January 12, 2011 at a memorial service in Tucson, Arizona after horrific violence. What he said then applies to rhetorical violence, as well. “I know that how we treat one another, that’s entirely up to us.”

Q&A David Ferriero: “Naming the Feelings and Offering Support”

April 2022: Questions by Maarja Krusten and answers from AOTUS David S. Ferriero

Maarja Krusten, Question 1: 

On entering office, some newly confirmed or appointed administrators use available civil service hiring processes to bring in, from the start, one or more people to work with them in their immediate office or to take on a role in a program office.  You did not. 

You came in by yourself just like most civil servants throughout the ranks who join the NARA team. In your immediate office, Sam Anthony and Maureen MacDonald already were in place when you started your job as the Archivist of the United States in November 2009.  Both continued to support you during your tenure in their jobs as Special Assistants to the Archivist, Sam until his death in 2021, Maureen still part of the team as you leave office at the end of April 2022.  Some early personnel changes occurred in program offices in 2011 during implementation of the recommendations of the transformation task force that produced “The Charter for Change” report (October 2010).

What led to you to handle staffing in your immediate office (“we’ll figure it out together as we go along”) and in program offices as you did?

David Ferriero, Answer:  In all of my transitions—MIT to Duke, Duke to NYPL, and NYPL to NARA—I have deliberately spent time getting to know the staff, learn the history of the organization, and, in the process, identify talent.  Especially talent that has not had a chance to “shine.”  I never came with a posse! 

Sam and Maureen were important participants in that orientation process and early demonstrated their value to my new administration.

MK, Question 2:

In your remarks after your formal swearing in ceremony on January 13, 2010, you said that in your first days on the job in November 2009, you had initially “failed” the fingerprinting and been caught on security cameras trying to get into the locked National Archives building on a weekend.  What happened?

DF, Answer:   Fingerprinting is always a challenge for me—whether it is Global Entry or NARA Security!   Always takes several tries before we get a good print.

It took me some time to discover the secret to entry when the building is closed to the public.  No further comment!

MK, Question 3: 

President Barack Obama premised his Open Government initiative on “recognizing that government does not have all the answers and that public officials need to draw on what citizens know.”  And on the need for greater transparency and proactive and equitable sharing of information, data, and records. 

How did you connect the President’s 2009 Open Government vision with the needs and contributions of a highly varied community, which includes at the beginning of the records life cycle the creators of records NARA takes in? And then users of records, such as historians, genealogists, citizens interested in history, K-12 educators, journalists, government employees – anyone and everyone? 

DF, Answer:  The belief that the National Archives could contribute to the new President’s vision was the tipping point for me in making the decision to leave the New York Public Library.  The question was how can we engage the American public in improving access to our records.  The answer was the Citizen Archivist initiative, where we created opportunities to enhance access by tagging, transcription from cursive, etc.  We partnered with Wikipedia to host a series of Editathons to scan and describe topical NARA records.  We partnered with Old Weather to scan and transcribe U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessel deck logs to track weather patterns in the Pacific Northwest.  We partnered with the Veteran’s Administration to scan and transcribe the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard deck logs of vessels deployed to Vietnam to support Agent Orange claims veterans.  

MK, Question 4: 

During the 20th century, research at the National Archives and many other archival repositories meant coming into a building to look at records.  And talking to or writing to reference archivists. (Over a decade ago, some writers described one long-serving archives employee as “legendary” and “an institution unto himself”).  Articles about archives sometimes pointed to well-known researchers who thanked front-line staff in book acknowledgements. 

You noted in library jobs before coming to NARA that employee “recognition is individual-driven; each person has different needs for recognition.”  In the past, only a few front-line staff received public recognition in book acknowledgements or employer press releases.  Members of the public had no ready access to information reflecting internal contributions and recognition of back-room employees who make access happen.  And what their jobs entailed.  How did you change that by using Social Media and other means, including your public remarks, to highlight a wide array of contributions for all to see?

DF, Answer:  I have always felt a responsibility to those whose work we have supported to acknowledge and celebrate the final product.  I always turn to the acknowledgement pages of a new book to discover how we did our work could have supported the research of the writer.  I share those acknowledgements with the staff cited, as well as the entire staff. And I am always disappointed to read a new book which could have been so much better if the author had consulted with the staff about records relevant to their topic. 

Our public programming across the country provides an opportunity to showcase those publications and our role in making them possible.   

MK, Question 5: 

In 1982, as a supervisor in the MIT Humanities Library, you wrote “Burnout at the Reference Desk” (American Library Association, RQ, Vol. 21, No. 3 Spring 1982). Your essay looked at the characteristics of burnout, how to assess its symptoms in yourself so you can help staff do the same, and options for mitigation. You centered the role of team members in looking out for each other.  And for the supervisor, the value of ensuring staff have back room quiet space to recharge on the job.  And how to create space where they can express their feelings about their day-to-day work experiences in staff meetings. 

What led you to write the article?  And how have you applied or built on that advice in later jobs, including at NARA, where, as you are, many employees are Introverts? 

A former NARA employee once described herself as a “people-liking Introvert.” As an Introvert yourself in a job with many public facing duties, how did you recharge in a 24/7 job?

And what lessons from you caregiver time in the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman and throughout your public service career did you draw on to support NARA employees during budget cuts, sequestration, lapses in appropriated funding resulting in 2 lengthy government shutdowns, and at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic?

DF, Answer:  The pop psychology and management literature of the 70s and 80s was full of articles about burnout.  The topic resonated with me because of my Navy training as a Hospital Corpsman with a specialty in Neuropsychiatry.  While not equivalent to the stress of the battlefield, long stretches of dealing with the public can result in similar pathology; e.g., fatigue, short temper, and a whole host of excuses to avoid working with the public.  Factor in the fact that most of the people attracted to careers in archives and libraries are introverts.  Introverts need time to process and regroup, luxuries not possible in intense public service interactions.  I recognized that those pathologies amounted to burnout, hence the article which I co-authored with a colleague in the MIT Humanities Library.

A natural progression in the literature is the concept of emotional intelligence—the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.  The COVID-19 pandemic was a situation ripe for the application of emotional intelligence. Understanding how 2700 staff members across the country were dealing with the fear, isolation, and security of the workplace led to a weekly video message from me—in addition to the normally scheduled All Hands, Management Team, Managers and Supervisors Zoom meetings. 

My early messages focused on naming the feelings and offering support.  I did a series of virtual tours of the flagship building since many staff have never visited Washington.  I did several tours of my office.  And then I shared a very funny New York Times article about how Martha Stewart was in isolation at her farm in New York with her housekeeper and gardener.  Which then led to 52 weeks of cooking lessons from the NARA Pandemic Comfort Food Test Kitchen—everything from pimento cheese, to mac and cheese, to Bess Truman’s pound cake.  Lots of positive engagement with the staff throughout.    

Read more:

David S. Ferriero, AOTUS blog

NARA press release, “Ferriero to Retire as Archivist of the United States

David S. Ferriero, Kathleen Powers, “Burnout at the Reference Desk” (1982), via JSTOR

Context:

“In the Spirit of Helping One Another” Includes open access extracts from “Burnout at the Reference Desk” (Ferriero, Powers, humanities librarians, 1982), and selections from remarks I heard at David Ferriero’s retirement reception at NARA, April 21, 2022.

“We’ll Figure It Out Together” (David Ferriero’s NARA career overview)

On Sam Anthony, Special Assistant to the Archivist, “Let’s Make it Count for Something,” August 2021.

“In the spirit of helping one another”

Caregivers in the Free Clinic Movement who worked with drug addicts in the 1970s first brought popular awareness to the concept of burnout. Historian Jill Lepore noted in 2021 the subsequent use of the term by a wide range of writers, some of whom have examined the impact of working in an “achievement society.”

Lepore wrote that the “World Health Organization recognized burnout syndrome in 2019, in the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases, but only as an occupational phenomenon, not as a medical condition. In Sweden, you can go on sick leave for burnout. That’s probably harder to do in the United States….”

I still was in the workforce in 2010 when I joined Twitter and started Following archivists, historians, genealogists, librarians, political scientists, and archeologists, many of whom live-tweeted conference sessions or shared achievements at work. Popular phrases then included “all the cool kids are” and “like a boss.” By 2019, archivists and librarians I Followed increasingly focused on the harm of required “fit,” barriers to inclusion, vocational awe, and labor-management relations.

Lepore noted that Christina Maslach, the social psychologist who developed indicators for identifying burnout, wrote in March 2021 that the diagnostic tool “was meant to encourage employers to ‘establish healthier workplaces.'” A young Supervisory Librarian, David S. Ferriero, drew on Maslach’s work in 1982 when he and colleague Kathleen Powers looked at burnout in library settings. In “Burnout at the Reference Desk,” he described options for librarians to consider in helping each other.

Ferriero looked at burnout from the worker’s perspective (he had been library association employee representative) as well as the first-line supervisor responsible for staff welfare. He recognized that burnout can feel isolating for employees, noting “a danger, especially in the situation where not everyone is aware of the characteristics of burnout, that the sufferer will feel very alone…at this point you lack the objectivity to see that perhaps it is the situation and the combination of circumstances.”

His analysis placed the supervisor among the staff:

Become thoroughly familiar with burnout symptoms so that you are able to recognize potential problems in your staff and in yourself. Learn your own limits, strengths, and weaknesses, and then set realistic and attainable goals. Become familiar with personal work stresses and how you deal with them or how you could deal with them. Make a list of effective coping mechanisms and then one of ineffective mechanisms. Once you are fairly confident about your own personal inventory, share with your staff what you have learned. Teach them what burnout is, how to recognize it, and how to cope with it. Encourage them to analyze their own motivation for public service work…

David wrote in 1982 that feedback can be two-way, supervisor to employee, employee to supervisor:

Second only in offensiveness to the public reprimand is the reprimand that offers no positive alternative. Positive feedback is used too sparingly. When you see some thing that pleases you, comment upon it.

Go out of your way to recognize good performance and praise it. Cite the performance as an example for the rest of the staff to learn from when appropriate. But be careful not to single out one person as the favorite to the neglect of the other performers.

Encourage and expect feedback, both positive and negative, on your own performance. Establish a climate where the staff is comfortable in sharing their perceptions and accept it as you expect them to accept it–in the spirit of helping one another.

Staff need quiet time and breaks, routinely but also as “crisis times-out.” If able, the supervisor should shorten “the work hours spent with the public. Short periods of intensive user contact are healthier for both the staff members and the user: eight continuous hours of public service are damaging….Allow for times-out.”

Ferriero advocated for flexibility: “Public service schedules should be flexible enough to accommodate both breaks during the workday and for on demand times-out in crisis situations….Extend this same attitude of flexibility to vacation scheduling. People should take time when they need it not necessarily during the summer months.” During the workday and on vacation days, find ways to recharge: “if need be, get out of the library, take a walk, meditate, etc. Learn by experimentation what helps you relax.”

Group conversations can help with burnout, as well. Ferriero urged supervisors to create a supportive psychological environment for honest, realistic discussion, including in staff meetings:

Staff meetings serve many functions: socialization–a chance to get away from users and the cluttered desk, to exchange pleasantries with the rest of the staff in a relaxed atmosphere; support group–a place where a public service person can vent the frustrations of dealing with problem users and get tips from the group for making the next such encounter less frustrating and the nod from the group that it is alright to have those feelings.

He also pointed to the value of team members looking out for each other. And offered alternative ways to doing so.

Members of the team must look out for one another and step in when the situation warrants and provide support where appropriate….Supervisors may choose to be team members, in which case they share the responsibility with the rest of the staff for keeping an eye on each other; or the supervisor may act as coach and assume the responsibility for knowing everyone’s strengths and weaknesses….The latter situation, while potentially viable, may lead to feelings of distrust on the part of the supervised. The former situation reduces the work load of the manager and, at the same time, contributes to the sense of “group” within the organization.

In-person conferences, association committees, in-house workshops provide breaks from the reference desk. Understanding strengths and weaknesses, including your own, helps others shine. When I first read “Burnout at the Reference Desk” by Ferriero and Powers in 2014, I saw in the last sentence of this paragraph in the 1982 article my twin sister Eva’s approach to supervision.

Certain reference activities such as classroom presentations and subject seminars, while rewarding for the librarian and useful for the client, demand great amounts of energy in terms of preparation and execution. Ensure that one librarian does not assume a disproportionate amount of the stress. Share the work and the glory with other staff members. Vary work assignments and be attentive to individual strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes; work with and around them.

Eva, a Supervisory Archivist and team leader, worked at NARA from 1983 until her death in 2002. Professional networking then included conference attendance, publication in journals and newsletters, and participation through Web 1.0 email subscription Listservs. She spoke up on behalf of students and line workers at times on the latter but rarely shared outside the workplace processing details of her work in NARA’s national security records declassification division (“Declass”).

With the development of more collaborative online platforms, many knowledge workers joined Kate Theimer at her ArchivesNext blog for mutual support, group problem solving, and conversation. As I am, Kate is a former employee of the National Archives and Records Administration. She recognized complexity and reached for nuance in discussing her former employer. And contributed thoughtful insights on a range of public and private sector archives issues from 2007 until she shut down her blog in 2017. (In 2011, David Ferriero wrote the Foreword for Kate’s book, A Different Kind of Web.) Her examination at the end of 2008 of the qualities needed in a new Archivist of the United States (AOTUS) looked beyond the traditional.

In a June 2008 interview, Ferriero, then the Andrew W. Mellon Director of New York Public Libraries, described how he became active in library issues after finishing library school. Writing to an older practitioner to ask for advice and guidance led him to start participating on committees. As he rose in rank he looked for other-centered people.

There is a set of interpersonal skills a person has to have to be a good leader, and they can’t really be taught, but after all these years I can tell pretty quickly if someone has them. I look for an individual who truly cares about people, who has good listening skills, who has empathy and is able to understand what people are going through and is genuinely sensitive to the situation.

As the position of Archivist of the United States opened up at the end of 2008, Kate observed in a December 19, 2008 post,

In my opinion, as a former employee and an observer, the next Archivist is going to need the managerial skills necessary to transform NARA as an organization into one that is in a position to succeed in the 21st century. NARA needs a leader who is not afraid to make changes and who will listen to the smartest people in the room and support them, even if they are not the most senior. In short, the next Archivist must be prepared to shake things up and to follow through on it for the long haul.

On July 28, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated David S. Ferriero to be Archivist of the United States. He retires from public service on April 30, 2022 after 12 years as AOTUS. Kate’s post proved prescient as he followed through on shaking things up and brought NARA into the 21st century.

On April 20, 2022, David, a Navy Hospital Corpsman in his youth, blogged about laying a wreath on behalf of the National Archives at the Tomb of the Unknown at Arlington National Cemetery. And walking in Section 27, the oldest section of the cemetery and site of the graves of Civil War dead, U.S. Colored Troops, and “contrabands.” He included a map of Freedman’s Village, where formerly enslaved persons once lived.

During our time together as NARA employees, my twin Eva and I often walked in Arlington as well as on the National Mall. David wrote last week about his walks while Archivist of the United States, “Early on in my time here, I walked over to Arlington and wandered the paths. It quickly became my destination for peaceful reflection and solace. Stepping through the gates of the cemetery gave me the same feeling I get on a sailboat when leaving land behind—all the cares of the world are left on shore and ahead is tranquil space for thinking.”

During his tenure as Archivist, David also walked on the Mall across Constitution Avenue from the National Archives. At his retirement reception at NARA on April 21, 2022, friends gave him a whimsical gift which reflected some of his stories about his walks there. He walked over to show me the gift and I snapped a photo which I then shared with his friends.

NARA Chief Operating Officer William (Jay) Bosanko spoke on behalf of NARA employees and the leadership team at the reception. Eva was his supervisor and mentor in “Declass” at the National Archives early in his career when he was an archives-technician and young archivist. As I stood last Thursday in the Archivist’s Reception Room a few feet away from the podium, I recognized my late sister’s early influence on Jay in what he highlighted among David Ferriero’s accomplishments.

“David served as a U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman.  Corpsman take a pledge after their training –I encourage you to look at the words – they ring true as to how David has carried himself as the Archivist of the United States – as an example of all that is honorable and good….

Stewardship of the records is clearly an important role for any Archivist of the U.S., but for David, this was merely a starting point.  He never said it – but it was clear in his actions and his leadership – that he also took seriously his role as a steward of much, much more.  He cared about the records and he was, of course, a good steward of our facilities and resources, and of the agency itself.  

However, whether researchers, museum visitors, personnel from other agencies, veterans and their families, customers of every possible type, or all of us who worked for him, he truly cared about and for the people.

David, you made a clear and very real difference during your tenure in many ways – but your faithful and true stewardship of the role of the Archivist of the United States is one that you should, and we hope you will, take pride in.

David Ferriero’s thank you remarks at the reception were brief and inclusive. He opened (characteristically) with a self-effacing quip. Then thanked his wife, family, friends, present and former colleagues, and the diverse communities inside and outside NARA in his care. “Go forth and wring the highest possible good from each day.”

I sometimes walk on the Mall in some of the same areas near the National Archives as David. We’ve randomly seen each other and talked at times. What did he bring to NARA and what does he leave there as he returns home to North Carolina at the end of this week? You’ll see his answers to some of my questions in my next post here, “Naming the Feelings and Offering Support.”

More than just law books

In calling librarianship “one of the four feminized professions” Dr. Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress, gave the diverse audience of a Sunshine Week panel a glimpse of what library practitioners often discuss among themselves. Many library administrators are men yet women comprise 85 to 90 percent of the workforce.

Social Media provides insights into how librarians and users of library services view the Library of Congress (LoC). History adds context. For legislative branch agencies their clients, appropriators, and oversight officials are in the same branch of government. Legislative support agencies include the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as well as the Library of Congress.

Every Federal agency has institutional triumph and trauma in its past. Most feel unable to discuss the latter fully in public. I covered some in a history manuscript I researched and wrote as GAO’s historian and turned in for publication as I retired earlier than expected in 2016. See in-context link here.

A 1986 ruling in litigation over GAO’s role in the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act focused on the statutory provision authorizing removal of the agency’s top official by the Congress. GAO argued that as a presidential appointee, the Comptroller General was an officer of the United States who could handle some some executive duties. A 7-2 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bowsher v. Synar disagreed:

“Appellants urge that the Comptroller General performs his duties independently and is not subservient to Congress. We agree with the District Court that this contention does not bear close scrutiny. The critical factor lies in the provisions of the statute defining the Comptroller General’s office relating to removability. (478 US 727).”

During my time as historian at GAO, its director of Public Affairs, Cleve Corlett, co-chaired the weekly Office of Congressional Relations meetings the Comptroller General (Charles Bowsher) asked me to attend as an observer. Cleve’s background included work as a journalist as well as a Hill staffer, two professions which include at-will employees without civil service protection. He drew on that to offer insightful feedback to a boss who could be removed from office despite having a set 15-year term.

David Ferriero and Carla Hayden sat on the stage of the McGowan Theater at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and answered questions for an hour on March 14, 2022. Members of the audience watched a livestream of the event marking Sunshine Week. The News Leaders Association established Sunshine Week in 2005 to highlight the importance of public information and the Freedom of Information Act.

Cultural context and situational awareness showed in subtle ways in the answers Ferriero and Hayden gave. They’ve known each other for a long time and have worked together in Washington, D.C. since 2016. Their bosses are different but they face some similar workplace challenges and opportunities. They share a commitment to making their holdings equitably accessible not just to broaden knowledge of history but to deepen understanding of civics, as well.

In 2017 (my photos) and again in 2022, I noticed how often the answers each gave supportively opened the door to insights the other then shared. And the authentic collegiality with which Dr. Hayden said on April 4, 2022 that many job seekers work at LoC and then move on to NARA and vice versa. The way the two top administrators joke about “rivalries” in other areas reinforces that.

On March 14, 2022, the moderator asked what being agency head means in Washington. Did mentioning their high positions enable them to bypass people waiting in line at restaurants and just go on in? Dr. Hayden said no, she doesn’t do that. David noted he doesn’t do that, either. He added that neither one of them is the type of person to throw their weight around that way. They wait just like anyone else without referring to their titles.

I can attest to that, I’ve seen it in person including inside NARA, where I once worked as an archivist and until the pandemic helped staff public events as a Volunteer. His schedule is intensely tight and 24/7 job obligations many. Yet I once saw David line up behind visitors at a midday book signing inside NARA and wait “just like us” to get his copy signed. More often he has a copy of the book with him and the author signs it before David gives welcoming remarks in the McGowan Theater.

Asked about the history of the Library of Congress, Hayden described its origins, starting in 1800 with a small collection of 600 law books for legislators who might need texts for reference. The scope expanded due to the realization that Senators and Congressmen might need “more than just a few law books.” The burning of the Capitol during the War of 1812 led to the acquisition of 6,000 books on varied topics.

In November 2011, NARA held a “Social Media Fair” prior to a McGowan Theater panel moderated by Alexander Howard, a journalist, Open Government supporter, and transparency advocate. By 2011, I had come to recognize the limitations and risks in separate niche Listservs for archivists, historians, records managers. What I wrote after attending the Social Media event at NARA showed my joy at opportunities for crossing professional boundaries.

“Pamela Wright of NARA…totally gets it.  Asked during the Q&A portion how agencies can get the public to engage with them, she turned the question around.  Pamela observed that it was not a case of finding the public but developing the awareness within NARA that there are people out there with so much hunger for history and a desire to connect with the agency that holds the records that document our past.”

I noted of Alex Howard in 2011, “He was fun to listen to and a great moderator of the event.  I really like his vision of social media and connecting people.” In listening to panelist David Weinberger speak, I placed his remarks in the context of a 2009 blog post by history professor Dr. Timothy Burke.:

“David Weinberger offered insightful comments about how people connect on the web and how subtle touches add human value and personalization to so many social media interactions.  His observations about the ownership of social media sites and the implications of proprietary sites were quite thought-provoking.   And when he replied to a question about filtering by saying social media connections often draw together people with ‘love of the same,’ I nodded and thought of Professor Timothy Burke’s 2009 essay about why learning to hear different voices requires working through challenges.”

In “Mr. Obama’s Neighborhood,” Dr. Burke touched in 2009 on men’s and women’s comfort zones in sharing stories as part of open learning. And the value of navigating the public and personal aspects of a presidency.

“The hardest challenge, in many ways, falls in the space in between the titular, symbolic Presidency and its interior deliberative work, in the way that the President and his officers operate within the public sphere, in how they formulate and present and defend policy in front of and in dialogue with the public. This is hard because it requires a very fine distinction between the voices that authentically speak from a habitus or perspective that’s at odds with the worldview of the President and his advisors and much more calculated and cynical bids at ‘framing’ that come from a well-oiled machine that approaches public dialogue as a pure instrument, as a zero-sum exercise which either advances or defeats narrow self-interests.

The distinction between the two is most easily glimpsed if you cultivate a taste for the unlike, force yourself to speak in unfamiliar and uncomfortable tongues, travel across ways of seeing and talking as one might travel across geographies. This commitment is not a safe, happy kind of venture of unity-in-difference, not a boat ride through “It’s a Small World”….the person with the taste for the unlike can hear better the difference between a public voice that comes from somewhere real and a cynical attempt at framing that comes from some rag-and-bone shop think tank.”

Inspired by the 2011 NARA forum, I Follow not just archivists and historians, but also librarians, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, K-12 educators. and transparency advocates who work outside the government. A librarian noted of Carla Hayden’s keynote address at the Association of College and Research Libraries conference (ACRL) in Baltimore in 2017 “Those of us who work for Gov’t can’t always speak our minds – but we *can* listen.”

I nodded during Sunshine Week last month when David declined to answer a question about security measures in the event of a nuclear war. Asked if Members of Congress read much, Carla Hayden turned to Ferriero and said that was her version of his nuclear war preparedness answer! Then gave a measured and insightful response about books and reading.

When you first start out in a knowledge, data, or information job, your circle may primarily reflect your immediate peers. (NARA’s workforce is about 50-50 male and female.) Workplace conversations occur in cafeteria bull sessions or griping in hallways. In my 20s, I remember chats with colleagues premised on bosses being all-powerful free agents: “why don’t they just…?”

By the end of my career (I worked for some good bosses both at NARA and GAO) I came to realize from increasing contact with senior officials that agency heads absorb a wide range of “I want/need” requests internally from unit managers looking out for their part of mission operations. And from others, as well. My online experiences after 2002 gave me a sense of what it is like to have men call me “corrupt” when I used my NARA and GAO acculturation to describe the human and Constitutional, legal, and civic framework in which Federal employees, including agency heads, work.

“Support in, dump out” summarizes the Ring Theory of Support. I see a variant, as well. For care-oriented senior officials, people who depend on you stand in compartments in the largest, not the classic conceptual smallest, central space. Although they rarely see or know what peers need or experience, the administrator does. And walks in to each compartment to support the person. Good bosses mostly internalize their own dump options.

Executive agencies are subject to Congressional oversight and rely on appropriated funds. NARA, a nonpartisan agency, works on budget, management, and regulatory issues with OMB and OIRA. Although 44 U.S.C. § 2103 states the President “shall communicate” a reason to the Congress for removing the Archivist from office, elected officials in the legislative branch have no means to enforce that. In the only case where a President asked for a letter of resignation from the Archivist, George W. Bush did not inform the Congress why he asked John W. Carlin to resign.

David Ferriero is the longest serving Archivist since NARA regained independence on April 1, 1985. After 12 years in office, he informed the White House and then told employees on January 12, 2022 he will retire this April. As he revealed in the March 14 panel, he has advised the Biden White House not to nominate another White male to head NARA (“we’ve had 10 of those”).

In last Friday’s discussion group for records managers throughout the Federal government, Chief Records Officer Laurence Brewer asked David what lessons he would pass on to his successor. David replied as he also did during the 2022 Sunshine Week session: Don’t bring a posse, get to know staff and stakeholders, learn agency history. Get to know constituents who depend on you.

https://twitter.com/ArchivesMaarja/status/1509613250744356867

Members of the Society of American Archivists who registered for its annual conference in 2015 heard a candid discussion of Federal records issues between Kathleen Roe, then New York State Archives director, and David Ferriero. Ferriero revealed his “dream scenario” for changing the handling of records. To my knowledge, I’m the only blogger who wrote about the highly arcane issue in two posts at my old (2010-2017), now shuttered, blog, The Changing Archives Sky.

Yesterday in NARA’s McGowan Theater, Carla Hayden and David Ferriero joined Tom Medema of the National Park Service to talk (video link) with Elaina Norlin of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries about ongoing work to add missing voices and historical context at their agencies. All shared learning moments that helped them try to see what’s been missing. And what to add.

Medema pointed to history books he read which helped him reconsider what he thought he knew but didn’t. He acknowledged structural issues in working on educational initiatives with various states. David talked about the Task Force on Racism he established in June 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. It examined how NARA does its work and how employees see the agency and visitors view its work.

Asked about the upside and downside of NARA initiatives, he noted the importance to NARA staff and visitors of a commitment to community-informed work to add equitable context (not alter or erase content of archival holdings). Reactions outside NARA from some non-practitioners who relied on news or “new media” stories about reparative description and NARA banner alerts showed the agency’s actions can be subject to misunderstanding or misrepresentation. The U.S. National Archives is planning and designing an exhibit, “Created Unequal,” which will open in 2027.

In speaking about change initiatives in the Library of Congress, Dr. Hayden talked about ongoing work on catalog issues. Just as with reparative description initiatives by many private and public sector archives in the U.S., the Library’s goal is to improve, add, and ease paths to finding material. She noted that there’s a large community of librarians in varied private and public sector jobs which shares perspectives on these issues.

As she finished her response and waited for the next question, David, sitting beside her, added context about the cataloging environment in which she works. He addressed an issue few others have. That it’s important to note that the Congress has changed in how it reacts to what once were routine matters handled by the Librarian of Congress. David added that certain LoC catalog changes now draw intense interest and strongly articulated reactions from particular groups of U.S. legislators.

I literally applauded at my home computer as he opened the door to see that context. Heads of legislative and executive branch agencies navigate a much more complex environment than often recognized, much less seen, by many inside or outside their institutions. Dr. Hayden took the opportunity to share a few insights on what it is like to testify in hearings on Capitol Hill.

My GAO duties included “fatal flaw” review of historical facts in the context of statutory authorities mentioned in prepared hearing statements. In retirement, I read with interest accounts of hearings in a newsletter published by Daniel Schuman of Demand Progress.

David noted in the ASERL conversation that change depends on trust and gaining trust takes sustained effort over years. So where do I find myself a decade after the NARA Social Media panel? Seeing the online stress scholars, users of records, and archivists and librarians in front line positions expressed during the pandemic helped me recognize what different “stakeholders” faced. The pandemic highlighted what “Women Out in Front, especially those viewed as “handmaidens” to knowledge seekers, experience.

Yet I’m optimistic a new generation of knowledge professionals and Open Government advocates will tap into what they’ve experienced growing up online. And learning and teaching based on their own mistakes and successes. And joy at community-informed opportunities the next generation of library and archives leaders will take on, to build on the work of Carla Hayden and David Ferriero as change agents.

To Become Like Living People

Margaret M. H. Finch once said that working with permanently valuable Federal records made the people described in them “almost become living people.”  Who was Finch?  And what provides context for her own story?  Records.

After the death of her husband in 1918 during the influenza epidemic at the end of World War I, M. M. H Finch joined the Pension Bureau.  She became a branch chief and top expert in the pension records of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.  In 1940, the Pension Bureau transferred the records to the National Archives.

Finch transferred to the National Archives at the time the pension records were accessioned and worked there until her retirement in 1949.  In 2015, the staff of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) shared Finch’s story on Social Media:

“She continued to help researchers locate pension files but also gave numerous talks about researching in the records. . . .In an interview conducted upon her retirement, she explained the files made the men who served ‘almost become living people, and their descriptions of battles in which they fought are so real you feel like you’ve been an actual participator.’”

The research I’ve done on the construction of office buildings in Washington, DC. enhances and provides context for Finch’s story.  The National Archives holds textual and photographic records from the Commission of Fine Arts (Record Group 66) and the Public Buildings Service (RG 121). These include a photo taken in 1940 of the Pension Building where Finch once worked. 

We can use such stories to show why records matter.  Records managers ensure the proper disposition of records, including the retention of those that have historical value and destruction of temporary materials.  But information professionals know that the people they serve in academic, corporate, government, and other office setting are busy with day-to-day mission work.

Where do employees hear about what is happening with records? Often it’s in a negative context—a data hack, the leak of internal documents, controversies over who said what and when, uncorroborated allegations on a partisan website. But there are positive examples out there, as well.  And not just in the history books some of us write or love to read.

I’ve been thinking about that in the context of helping staff museum division events at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  Some related to permanent displays, others to long-term temporary exhibits, such as “Remembering Vietnam,” which ran November 10, 2017 to February 28, 2019. When I was a NARA employee, my colleagues and I did disclosure review of several records used in the exhibition.

I met many Vietnam war veterans between 2017 and 2019 as I helped staff programs related to the exhibit.  I found it deeply poignant to see veterans reconnect with their past experiences through the records shown in the exhibit and displayed during panel discussions.

In February 2018, I talked to visitors to the National Archives Museum about the Emancipation Proclamation.  It’s a fragile document displayed only once a year, at most, and then only for three days.  I especially enjoyed the questions from students, one of whom pointed to a faded circle on the last page and asked if someone had set down a cup of coffee! A great opportunity to talk about iron gall ink and how the seal and ribbons at the top of the last page deteriorated over time.  And why President Abraham Lincoln signed his full name, not just the A. Lincoln he used in routine documents.

Some visitors came in as tourists, others lived in the Washington area, among them a few retired records managers and archivists. Members of the public asked how long NARA had had the document in its custody. I explained it initially was kept in a ledger in the Department of State and. Exposure to light affected it while on display before the National Archives took custody in 1936.

[Until the 1980s, textual record keeping largely meant filing paper. Federal employees created and received written materials in the course of conducting official business. Designated filing and records specialists collected and put into storage the records designated in NARA approved records control schedules as temporary or permanent.

As people working in government settings increasingly embraced electronic methods of communications, initial records management efforts between 1995 and 2008 often relied on everyone who handled an electronic record becoming a a file clerk. (If you worked in academic or corporate settings then, you may have seen similar approaches to filing.) This changed during the Obama administration as accountable officials developed situationally aware guidance and policies.*]

Now employees participate in records management training sessions in-person or online. But unless they work as historians, policy analysts, lawyers, or in other knowledge-dependent functions, they may follow the rules but not have time to think about the impact of saving valuable records. They may see news of an important records release by the National Archives. Or they go to see exhibits in archives, museums, historical societies. But they may not think about the insights records preserve about their own places of employment.  Let’s help them see that as their stories matter, too.

Whether we work in academic, corporate, or governmental settings, we can look for stories about the places where we work.  And use them to bring the past to life. By providing interesting historical information about the construction of the buildings in which our colleagues work.  Or how an employing organization’s workplace evolved over time. And what it took to make change happen.

To connect past and present.  And to remind employees that they are part of a valuable through line.  One that stretches from those who came before to those who will follow.  Preserved for future use by records managers and the colleagues who support them.

* This is a slightly modified version of an essay with the same title that I published at the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Records Management Section blog in 2019. Two paragraphs added for substantive context appear in brackets in the revision published here. You can read the original post at the SAA blog, The Schedule.

“What you could do to make it better”

At 26, he miscalculated on a high profile project. Tim Gunn, then an educator at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C., only had a week in 1979 to design and produce ornaments for an official White House Christmas tree. The theme? Folk art in the 18th century. Officials of the Carter White House contacted him after changing at the last minute who would handle the creative assignment.

Gunn and his students worked hard to make folk art ornaments evocative of the past but did not realize until they entered the Blue Room in the White House how big the tree was. To his eye, the simple white and pastel folk art ornaments they produced for the 1979 White House Christmas theme seemed to get lost on the large fresh cut fir. Understanding that he needed to make the ornaments pop, he raced to the Sears Roebuck department store on Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. He bought up the entire supply of shiny big red apple ornaments to add in among the folk art decorations.

At its most basic, the professional challenge Gunn faced in his 20s exemplifies the signature phrase from his later time as television host of Project Runway: he “made it work.” Biographical details reveal his harrowing journey to the White House. He grew up in Washington, D.C. in a household with a homophobic father. Bookish and uninterested in sports, as a child Gunn faced bullying and physical harm from some fellow students.

The bloody noses, scrapes and bruises evident when he came home from school weren’t his only injuries. Gunn struggled to reconcile expectations he described as more internal than external (“I need to be like Dad. But somehow I felt more like Mom.”) Looking back, he described his youthful struggles with sexuality. Not attracted to women, afraid of being attracted to men, he described himself as a teenager as non-sexual, antisocial, deeply insecure.

Unable to see any days ahead better than what he then endured each day (“I hated the world”), he attempted suicide by overdosing on all the pills he could find in the family home. Gunn felt out of place and deeply distrustful during psychiatric treatment at Yale-New Haven Hospital that followed. (“Homosexuality then was considered a disease.”) What he saw there led to increased suppression of his own reactions.

The presence of someone able to read the situation well and react with understanding and compassion made a difference for Tim Gunn. He met Dr. Philip Goldblatt, “who wouldn’t let me run from myself.” As a patient, he initially lashed out at him but Goldblatt persevered (“he was this immovable rock”). Gunn began to open up and engage with him–first steps to finding some stability. But he still could not fully explore who he was.

For Gunn, learning that the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC offered museum studies proved a turning point. He signed up for a summer class that left him feeling “unshackled” and “liberated” for the first time in a classroom. He later said that discovering he was good at museum and design studies helped him become “an active participant” in the world. Being around people who were openly gay helped him, as well. (“The answer isn’t in the back of the book. The answer is in you.”) He made an appointment with Dr. Goldblatt and for the first time “presented him with my very own gayness.”

On December 11, 2014, Tim Gunn spoke at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on a holiday panel, “Deck the Halls.” Lynda Johnson Robb, daughter of President Lyndon B. Johnson; former White House Chief Usher Gary Walters; Coleen Christian Burke, author of a book (Christmas with the First Ladies); and Genevieve Gorder, host of a HGTV’s White House Christmas, joined him in sharing their Christmas experiences.

Gunn shared why he had no photos of himself at the White House on a special day enhanced by the challenges he and his students overcame. First Lady Rosalynn Carter posed with him and the Corcoran students but they later learned the photographer forgot to load film in his camera.

As the program at the National Archives drew to a close, the Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero, stepped to the podium. David said Rosalynn Carter could not attend the evening event at NARA but sent her best wishes. And that on learning he would be present for the panel in NARA’s McGowan Theater, she inscribed for him an archival photo taken by another photographer. David’s assistant, Maureen MacDonald, walked onto the stage and handed Tim Gunn the photo.

My iPhone 5 photo, taken from my seat near the Green Room, shows Gunn’s gasp of surprise. The agency head, the Archivist, could have made the presentation. As he often does, Ferriero stepped aside and let NARA team member Maureen walk into the spotlight, instead.

Learning about experiences in person or virtually (photos in blog posts, documentary videos, Zooms) provides insights into the lives of others. Tim Gunn’s on-camera pauses and facial expressions in his 2014 “It Got Better” video make vivid his painful past. So, too, a “It Gets Better” Trevor Project video introduced by Ferriero and featuring NARA employees.

Social Media platforms provide insights not yet available to the public in the 1970s. Before he chose to share it after becoming a celebrity, Tim Gunn’s struggle to accept who he was wasn’t known beyond a few people with whom he once shared his pain. Recognizing trauma helps us interview people as historians or political scientists. And more generally to humanely supervise individuals in workplaces.

When Jimmy Carter took the oath of office as President in January 1977, his 9-year old daughter Amy stood with him and her mother, Rosalynn Carter. In January 2009 President Barack Obama took the same oath at the U.S. Capitol, then walked along Pennsylvania Avenue with Michelle Obama to the White House. Photos from February and March 2009 show their daughters Malia (age 10) and Sasha (age 8) as they settled into life in the White House.

Social Media platforms displayed real time reactions–some using racial epithets and crude caricature, others expressing solidarity or sympathy–by members of the public to Barack Obama’s Black family while he was in office. Blogging platforms and Twitter help scholars study dehumanization and humanization and provide opportunities for interdisciplinary exploration of history, political science, sociology, psychology, library science, and archival methods.

In 2004 a political science graduate student wrote a thesis about the daughters and sons of U.S. presidents of both political parties, then all White. In “Political Roles of Presidential Children: FDR through Clinton,” the grad student categorized her subjects as symbols; surrogates; informal advisors/confidantes; skeletons; hybrids with more than one primary role. At times the grad student accepted as dispositive published statements that the son or daughter of a president “enjoyed” giving speeches or volunteered to represent a parent in “spare time” from college classes. When the family had more than one child, she explained why she looked at some as individuals, others as a unit.

The grad student noted the public reactions, some negative, to scenes of Amy holding hands with a Black classmate and reading a book during a state dinner in the White House. And press coverage after President Carter mentioned in a debate with Ronald Reagan a conversation with his 13 year old daughter about nuclear weapons when he ran unsuccessfully for a second term.

What the lives of presidential children studying in K-12 schoolrooms or college classes might have been like had their fathers not been in politics is beyond the scope of the Master’s level poli sci thesis. Scholarship by historians covers a wide range, from T. J. Stiles’s insightful biographies to era-specific specialized subject matter research. Students of political science learn to apply quantitative and qualitative research methods in analysis of actions and events but the environment in which they work has changed.

In the age of Social Media, historians, political science professors, archivists, librarians, and records managers–ordinary people not just those in the news–can experience in real time what it is like to be in the public eye. Dr. Timothy Burke, a history professor at Swarthmore College, long has offered analysis of complex issues in longform essays, first at his Easily Distracted blog, now at Substack.

Burke’s analysis of self-sorting, swarming, and the impact of “fighting words” among scholars touch on underexplored issues of online engagement. (“I wonder in this sense if sometimes we write in ways that pick bigger fights than we mean to—if constructive readings slip away because of a general culture of combative argument embedded in certain phrasings and tropes.”)

Twitter makes vivid real time reactions–praise, idolization, fact-based analysis, advocacy commentary, criticism, mockery, and racial, gender, gender identity, economic, class, and other demographic stereotyping. Tim Gunn’s story reminds us of the harrowing journeys people may undergo in childhood and youth. And the joy for those who reach personal and professional liberation and some measure of fulfillment as they discover what they do well.

Kate Theimer, a former National Archives’ employee, established an influential meeting place in 2007 at her ArchivesNext blog. For ten years, she explored complex knowledge work issues online and through presentations at conferences for members of the American Historical Association and the Society of American Archivists. She taught me that models for teaching and learning exist outside our own professions and perceived peers when she wrote “WWTGD” (“What Would Tim Gunn Do?”) in 2010.

A news link with quotes from young designers from Project Runway formed the core of Kate’s blog post. That Kate quoted this still stands out for me: “Christian Siriano (winner, Season 4): ‘I had confidence, but he showed me how to be a little more humble in my work. He never said, ‘I don’t thi’k it should be that.;It was always, ‘It could be something else.” It was always about what you could do to make it better.’”

That someone could emerge from so challenging a childhood to gently nudge others to find ways to excel shows a way to walk the runway online as we navigate personal and professional issues. Kate wrote

If you’re wondering what this has to do with archives, you can chalk this post up to my friend Terry….This post isn’t an answer to his, but I read the thoughts of these designers right after Terry’s post, and I think that what they learned from Tim are lessons that we all probably wish we followed more often: ask questions instead of making judgments, find your own identity and focus there instead of trying to please someone else, conduct yourself with class and decency, be generous, and encourage others to do better. I know I don’t always live up to those kinds of ideals myself, but I think they are pretty good ones to shoot for….I don’t have an answer for you, Terry, but, as the great Ron Burgundy always said, “Stay classy!”

In September 2014, I met Tim Gunn at a small private reception at NARA prior to a panel at which he and others discussed the history and symbolism of attire worn by president’s family members in the White House. It brought to life what the poli sci grad student described from afar in the classifications she used in her thesis. Other guests included Lynda Johnson Robb and her daughter Lucinda Robb.

I invited Kate Theimer to be my guest at the reception but she had a schedule conflict: speaking at a conference in New Zealand. Yet I had her wise advice in mind when I talked to Tim Gunn and other guests in the Archivist’s Reception Room. In chatting with Lynda and Lucinda Robb, I acknowledged to them that I understood that a President’s daughter has a representational role performed in a setting that Lynda once described as like living in a zoo. But also commented on the comfort (and pockets!) of the dress from the 1960s that Lynda wore to the reception. Lucinda, who once worked on archival assignments in the National Archives’ Center for Legislative Archives, wore one of her mother’s LBJ era outfits, as well.

On Social Media, we catch glimpses of who people are. Having heard about his work in academic assignments managing an intern program and with interesting oral history interviews in a governmental setting, I started Following Amherst political science Professor Paul Musgrave in 2017. I asked Dr. Musgrave when he worked on NARA issues. He replied with an implied reference to Allen Weinstein’s tenure. Adrienne Thomas, a long time NARA official with whom I worked early in my career, later served as Acting Archivist

Asking and answering questions on Twitter humanizes people we don’t know. When I wrote my archival records essay for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Policy Passport j journal in 2019, Dr. Musgrave’s very human tweet helped me look at change management issues faced by David Ferriero, Dr. Weinstein’s successor as Senate confirmed Archivist of the United States. This is where I once planned to end this essay, which I started writing on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2022.

Current events as I publish this on March 10, 2022 lead me to highlight Dr. Musgrave’s Substack essay on why he views Wargames differently now than years ago. And for me to reflect on the broader impact of dehumanization and remote observation.

David Ferriero, AOTUS: “We’ll Figure It Out Together”

“I find myself often trying to get the real story and not what people think I should hear,” the Archivist told the employee of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). David Ferriero, who is retiring in April 2022 after 12 years as the Tenth Archivist of the United States (AOTUS), thanked the staff member he met on a visit to a NARA regional facility. David noted, “I appreciate, especially, your honesty in telling it like it is.” He added, “You’re the real deal.”

In September 2010, Ferriero asked NARA’s employees to think about Social Media and a “new vision of leadership.” He explained,

Charlene Li describes what’s needed: ‘Leadership requires a new approach, a new mind-set, and new skills. It isn’t enough to be a good communicator. You must be comfortable with sharing personal perspectives and feelings to develop closer relationships. Negative online comments can’t be avoided or ignored. Instead, you must come to embrace each openness-enabled encounter as an opportunity to learn.'”

Let’s go back twelve years to NARA in November 2009 when David Ferriero took the oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution on his first day on the job just as the rest of us in Federal service have done. Acting Assistant Archivist for Administration Richard Judson administered the oath at the AOTUS office at NARA’s building in College Park, Maryland. A formal ceremony with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer followed in January 2010 in front of the Constitution in Washington, DC. You’ll find all the photos of the swearing in and Rotunda ceremony, not just the press handouts, in the current NARA Catalog.

Soon after taking office, Ferriero discovered that a small group of National Archives employees had been meeting quietly on their own initiative to discuss how NARA best could use Social Media. When he walked in on a meeting, they feared they were “busted” for an “unauthorized” meeting. He instead found their exploration of new ways of connecting the agency’s work with the public one of the best meetings he had attended at NARA.

That the employees believed they had to meet in secret also gave him a sense of the problem with employees assuming restrictions applied to creativity. You can hear what happened next at the 5:13 mark at a 2015 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) session. His comments on graduate school education provide context for his earlier speech to the Association of American Library and Information Science Education. His IMLS observation that employees doing traditional work deserve as much recognition and attention as ones doing creative work resonated. They reminded me of his words as a young library association employee representative and later a library supervisor at MIT (“Burnout at the Reference Desk,” 1982).

If you explore the National Archives Catalog today, you’ll see how the agency’s access vision has changed to become more inclusive since David joined the NARA team in November 2009. But when Ferriero introduced the Citizen Archivist concept in public at AOTUS blog in April 2010, online reactions reflected a range of opinions among practitioners in traditional academic, corporate, nonprofit, and government archives jobs. Ferriero’s blog post drew lively discussion among archivists at ArchivesNext blog. NARA continues work on revising and improving the Catalog’s content and interface but citizen participation remains a key element.

The content banner autogenerated throughout the Catalog since the summer of 2021 reflects the work of the Archivist’s Task Force on Racism that Ferriero chartered in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. Debra Steidel Wall, whom David named Deputy Archivist in 2011, will ensure continuation of key initiatives when David retires in April 2022. You see Deb in May 2021. I appreciate Deb’s work chairing a task force which resulted in a thoughtful and candidly aspirational handbook for new NARA supervisors in 2014. Insightful advice on trust (hard to build, easy to lose), making the transition from technical expert to supervisor, and how to find for yourself (not just provide) learning support.

How you see NARA issues depends on where you started. My Web 1.0 experiences from 1998 to 2009 (private sector web sites and comment boards and email discussion lists) brought mixed results. (I did well at times but also made some mistakes and learned from them over time.) One lesson has stayed with me. I learned on Web 1.0 that quoting statutes and Constitutional obligations in comments at dot com sites can result in a wide range of public reactions to civil servants.

In my job as a Federal historian, I had studied in the early 1990s the work of the public service commission which pointed in 1987 to elements creating “a quiet crisis” in civil service. One stood out: “Washington bashing going ‘even beyond our traditional compulsions of that kind.'”

You internalize this as a Federal employee and recognize you represent to some writers or speakers a stereotype or symbol shaped less by who you are than by the onlookers’ experiences (home, school, workplace) that you cannot fully see or know. Information and knowledge asymmetry also is part of life online, especially at the higher levels where you have fewer peers.

The 1987 commission looked at other elements as well. Budgets, salaries, willingness of people in private sector jobs to take Federal jobs for less pay, how young people reacted to the idea of joining the government in the 1980s, leadership training. The psychological elements caught my attention and helped me understand employee reactions during the National Performance Review and the impact of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 and its 2010 modernization statute. At NARA and other agencies, some change management officials turned during 1993-2008 to the 1991 William Bridges change and transition model which offers useful analysis but also problematic framing around the word “fear.”

In 2001, I wrote in a Federal analysis of another agency that “The transition…brought major changes to…staffing, organization, and job processes. Some of the changes were difficult and triggered extensive debate among the agency’s senior managers. Executives who managed units that played prominent roles in [traditional agency work] now faced the abolition of their offices.” To David Ferriero’s credit, he focuses on what the present and future require. Wayne Gretzky, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been,” AOTUS blog, “Developing a Hockey Mindset.”

NARA’s new approach to Open Leadership and learning pointed to a path on which I’ve enjoyed walking. At the start of his NARA career, David subscribed to the Society of American Archivists-administered Archives & Archivists email discussion Listserv. Although he never posted (his online approach centers on listening) he sent me a Listserv interface message in 2010 thanking me for a posted comment.

Best part? Ferriero said in 2010 that he was “still on a steep learning curve regarding NARA’s history” his first full year on the job. I thought back to that in 2012 when a NARA friend shared in an archives building hallway conversation what David said soon after he took office: “We’ll figure it out together.”

Others helped me stay open to learning, as well. Kate Theimer, a former NARA employee who met with David Ferriero early in his tenure, prepared the way for me to understand his vision and Web 2.0 with her book, A Different Kind of Web (2011). I was thirsty for change and so were many employees at NARA. That Ferriero (whom I wouldn’t meet in person until 2011) started a blog in April 2010 led me to explore blogging by starting an experimental anonymous blog the same month.

In “A Thirsty Archives,” I wrote at Archivesmatter(s) in 2010 that

Ferriero leads an agency which has to move forward while keeping some old ways working, too. The volume of the records NARA holds makes it impossible to pivot and go all digital ‘n DIY overnight.

Definitely, then, interpreters needed. “To be a good interpreter means you need fluency in two languages, as well as cultural fluency on both sides.” Barack Obama at Harvard Law School, according to David Remnick’s recently released book, The Bridge.

Someone who knew him back then said of the young Obama and his bi-racial heritage: “He has had to come to an understanding of the two worlds he’s lived in. . . Living in two worlds, he functions as an interpreter to others. He has seen people in both worlds at their most intimate moments, when their humanity and imperfections shone through. His role is an interpreter, in explaining one side to the other.”

In 2011, NARA held a Social Media Fair at its McGowan Theater to highlight its Citizen Archivist initiative. Pamela Wright, whom David later named Chief Innovation Officer, participated in a panel about public engagement. Meredith Doviak, who now works on the National Archives’ Catalog, then provided technical staff support for Ferriero’s AOTUS blog. Pam (pictured with Deputy Archivist Debra Wall in 2018) looked back at the Innovation learning journey in an October 2020 interview for Government Executive.

Arian Ravanbakhsh, Supervisory Records Policy Analyst, used an iPad to demonstrate records management outreach at the 2011 Social Media Fair. When Ferriero stopped by the table where he talked to visitors, I told him I found Arian’s August 2011 blog post about records appraisal exemplary. Although NARA sometimes has to put out supplemental information on arcane issues involving records statutes and procedures, I’ve found its Archives.gov content useful and reliable during the last 12 years and confidently share links online.

In 2012, I attended an open meeting of the Public Interest Declassification Board at NARA. In his welcoming remarks, David Ferriero quoted Thomas Carlyle.  “Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”

A NARA photographer, the late Earl “Mac” McDonald, snapped a photo as I live tweeted the meeting. Mac’s photos, and those of the equally talented staff photographer Jeff Reed, bring Record Group 64, where NARA files its operational records, to life in the Catalog. Wherever you work, you can share the joy of tagging friends and colleagues, as I did in the Catalog with Tim Mulligan last year.

Two key members of David’s AOTUS office staff supported him starting in 2009. Maureen MacDonald, Special Assistant to the Archivist, shared a photo of a staff meeting at the @ThisIsArchives account in 2016. You see the late Sam Anthony, Special Assistant to the Archivist, at the meeting in the Archivist’s office. Sam, an Extrovert, offered me good advice on how to adapt my Introvert attributes to public facing work.

In my tribute blog post about Sam, “Let’s Make it Count for Something,” I wrote after his death in August 2021 that

An agency head at NARA (and other executive agencies) has a complex mix of duties with each successive leader taking on the obligations of deciding mission priorities and setting policies within a stated vision. …History shows that the overall picture often contains humanistic scenes with finely textured brushstrokes but the colors available on the palette differ.

As events occur, only sketchy figures, sometimes drawn by outsiders on poster board with marking pens rather than fine brushstrokes, may be visible. Some structural elements are a constant, such the role of the Congress and of the White House (Office of Management and Budget), in areas covered by Articles in the U.S. Constitution that the National Archives displays in its Museum.

During the first five years of Ferriero’s tenure, some NARA public programs featured the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Civil War. Historian Nancy Koehn wrote in 2013 about how Abraham Lincoln prepared a letter expressing his distress at Gen. George Meade’s actions during the battle of Gettysburg but never sent it.  Dr. Koehn observed, “Executives face the challenge of navigating their own and others’ emotions with forethought and consideration.”

The higher your rank in Washington, the fewer your peers. As Dwight Eisenhower told John F. Kennedy, “No easy matters will come to you.” I’ve thought of that often as I reflected on carefree bull sessions in the National Archives canteen with colleagues when, at age 25, I started at NARA as an archives technician.

The letters David Ferriero sent to Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson in his youth hang on the walls in his office suite in Washington, D.C. His own legacy? Leading the way in opening the doors to making history together with the National Archives.

The grand staircases in the National Archives building are lined with portraits of David Ferriero’s predecessors. But his is the voice that will echo in the research room, on the stairs, in the elevators, in the hallways, and on the street in front of the building where employees and contractors and security guards laughed along with him in 2015. And in his thoughtful support of employees who’ve lost a beloved family member or colleague or cherished animal companion–cat or dog.

And for me, as someone who last was on duty at NARA in March 2020, but have thanked the guards outside it often on my walks and exchanged quips with David as we passed each other on the sidewalk recently, his extraordinarily strong resolve during the pandemic to keep safe everyone in his care.

Whether your facility is reopening or not, please continue to take care of yourselves and each other. If you need assistance, please take advantage of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). EAP services are free, confidential, and available to all NARA employees, supervisors, and family members. EAP counselors are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by telephone 24/7 at 1-800-222-0364 (TTY 1-888-262-7848) or online at http://www.FOH4YOU.com. EAP information can also be found at the NARA@work EAP page.

Today, we are continuing our efforts to reopen our facilities where it is safe and appropriate. We will continue to make reopening decisions based on local conditions and to prioritize the health of our staff. Thank you for your resilience and flexibility as we carefully reopen our facilities and prepare for the eventual return of all NARA activities and functions.

DAVID S. FERRIERO
Archivist of the United States

From Archives Maarja, thank you, NARA team, and continue to take care of yourselves and each other and all who depend on you.

The job search: credentials and community

In April 2021, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) published an academic jobs crisis forum edited by Daniel Bessner and Michael Skenes. Contributors shared structural, cultural, economic, and organizational analysis and personal perspectives. Essays drew on some of what we see and consider as historians: records, memoirs, retrospective accounts of events, and the results of qualitative and of quantitative research.

My essay provides additional context on how to support and prepare job seekers as they consider where to find employment. Although alt-ac can be taken to mean a second choice or alternative to what didn’t work out, some have public history or history-adjacent knowledge worker jobs in mind during their undergraduate and graduate school years. James Grossman and Anthony Grafton looked in 2011 at the wide range of jobs history PhDs do outside the academy and the impact of language and framing. My essay covers related issues, including seemingly unmediated yet often “guided” conversations online about job searches.

Job precarity and contingent labor affect some alt-ac as well as academic workplaces. Competition for scarce job openings for archivists, librarians, museum educators and curators continues to reflect sharp supply and demand imbalances highlighted by the 2008 recession. As with history PhD programs and academic jobs, library and information science graduate programs produce more degree holders than the market demands.

During the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. Federal government employers sought historians for archival employment and for agency history programs which grew out of efforts to preserve institutional memory during World War II. In 1986, the U.S. General Accounting Office (since 2004 the Government Accountability Office) issued a Fact Sheet on the cost and use of Federal history programs at one Cabinet department. In 1987, GAO established the internal History Program office where I later would work as sole agency historian from 1995 until retirement in 2016.

Federal agencies still hire academically trained historians but there are fewer openings than in the 1980s. During the Bush administration (January 2001-January 2009), initiatives to separate “inherently governmental functions” from ones deemed suitable for privatization led some agencies and departments to adjust hiring practices. Records management, traditionally done by civil servants, now reflects hybrid teams of permanent staff and contractors. Some agencies use skilled contract historians with Master’s or PhD degrees to support public history activities, as well.

How you use and demonstrate credentials in a job search is dynamic. What works in one setting (academic, corporate, government) may need adjustment in another. The individuals who affect your future may hold credentials reflecting subject mastery equivalent to but different from yours. Some potential colleagues will recognize yours while others may not. The public display of expertise academic historians rely on in the publication process is not always available to practitioners in backroom alt-ac jobs.

Informal networks can help set expectations for job options. Familiarity with others’ work may reduce some of the microagressions that add stress during academic and alt-ac job searches. Older historians, political scientists, archivists, and librarians got to know each other by word of mouth, letters and email, scholarly publications, newsletters, and in-person conferences (photos Society of American Archivists (SAA) and American Historical Association (AHA), 2014). Now students and practitioners meet online. No two online communities are the same as people Follow and engage with practitioners with different experiences.

The online voices of Jarrett M. Drake of Yale (B.A. History) and Harvard (PhD candidate Anthropology); Timothy Naftali of Yale (B.A., History); and Harvard (PhD History) and Jake Anbinder of Harvard (PhD candidate, U.S. History) illustrate this. Tim Naftali’s tweets reflect experience in jobs as an academic, consultant, program director, former Federal official, and CNN presidential historian. Jake Anbinder reflects individual Social Media use by an Ivy League U.S. history doctoral candidate.

Jarrett Drake provides insights on community engagement, liberatory memory work, prison abolition, and change activism. He holds a M.S. in Information Science from the University of Michigan and worked in the archives field from 2011 to 2017. His research interests in Social Anthropology include intimacy, temporality, class, gender, race. I first met him in an online professional forum where his experiences from 2013 to 2017 offered insights on navigating a virtual community dominated by older members of majority White professions.

An adjunct who left the University of California (UC) system recently wrote about labor unions, working conditions and churn. She faced hardships she couldn’t share in the classroom while hearing from students who thought she had “already made it.” Some of her students said they wanted to turn to PhD programs because of her. One pointed to her example as an admired “first Latina professor.” Despite having to leave UC, the educator still meets with students (some first gen college) but struggles internally with a sense of failure. “After all my grandparents’ and parents’ sacrifices, here I was with a PhD but without stable employment. …The reality is I will never be able to give back to my parents. For children of immigrants, this feels like absolute failure.”

Along with the college tuition debt burden come expectations. You hope that an academic field of study you initially chose in your late teens will support your goals for a job and career. As you interview for jobs, you navigate display of the subject mastery your degree and credentials indicate and also the other skills that particular academic and alt-ac workplaces require. Knowing how to highlight “soft skills” if you get to the interview stage can help, especially for some alt-ac jobs.

Depending on the private or public sector employer, you may need to adjust the brag/self promote and teamwork/collaborate elements in describing your potential contributions to a workplace. Government jobs reflect a number of legal requirements, among them veterans preference. In applying for jobs using the Federal USAJobs portal, current job seekers need to address (but not copy/paste language directly from) requirements in specific job announcements.

Some potential employers post useful information on competencies, including core elements. If there’s a union, learn how it voices group values, not just what it can do for you. AFGE Council 260, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), comments letter, 2013: “NARA’s employees believe that they are part of something bigger than themselves, and view their labor, at times tedious and repetitive, to be part of the foundation of our democracy.” If you’re coming in to an alt-ac job at a rank outside the bargaining unit, general awareness (at a minimum) of colleagues’ contributions and whether their career options differ from yours will help you connect with and respect others. Workplace ethics training also helps.

Thoughtful observers of academic life such as Dr. Timothy Burke of Swarthmore offer technical, cultural, and psychological insights. In “Academia: Falling Away” Dr. Burke wrote that “if you’ve been hired into a tenure-track position in an American university or college, unless you are supremely arrogant or unobservant, you know you’ve mostly been lucky.” He noted,

You’ve already dealt with increasingly aggressive intrusions of for-profit publishing, corporate money and administrative dictates into the core work of scholarship and teaching. You’ve likely had faculty mentors who feel increasingly helpless as local traditions of faculty governance wither and fall away, as fundamental changes in the workings of the university are made without any consultation while administrative hierarchies perpetually widen and lengthen. You have likely dealt with undergraduates who feel increasingly confused and anxious about what awaits them after graduation, who are increasingly cynical about the accelerating credentialism of all of higher education, and who are deeply impatient with the unfinished work of making higher education a welcoming and supportive home for all. You may have had campus police constantly challenge you for your ID because they think you look like someone who doesn’t belong there.

Stacie Williams, then an intern manager in an academic library, observed in 2016 that the student experience in supporting campus knowledge work offers lessons in privilege and fit.

We ask them to work in spaces that have historically been cruel or closed off to them — especially if we are talking about city-based universities, many of which have contentious relationships and histories with their surrounding communities. And then we ask these students, interns, and volunteers to be grateful for the privilege. We tell them to apply for this privilege and we will bestow on them the honor of accepting it only if they “fit in,” as Angela Galvan concludes in her article “Soliciting Performance, Hiding Bias: Whiteness and Librarianship.” If they make our gatekeepers comfortable. If they know the right jokes or listen to the right music or watch the right kinds of shows or perform gender identity in a subjectively acceptable way. And we expect little to no criticism for it.

Lagerwhat wrote at Finding Aid blog of peers’ failure to recognize her credentials at a SAA conference. “Between the older women in shock that I left, the young grad students who couldn’t seem to fathom this whole house?… wife?… thing, to pretty much every single attendee who asked what I did for a living and had their inability to process ‘home now, still learning, planning to work again later’ visible on their faces.” She added, “Relevance dissolved. Intellect disappeared. Existence extinguished.” Yet her MSLIS degree reflected the same classroom subject mastery as that of others at the conference.

I’ve learned from Lagerwhat’s blog posts and her tweets about new primary sources, research, and books I hadn’t read. The unwarranted rejection to their faces of others’ credentials can reflect group members’ fear that they, too, may lose group-valued status too narrowly defined by “select” jobs. Vocational awe, if present, need not lead academic or alt ac practitioners to lose sight of shared credentials.

Creation of an inclusive online community of the type Kate Theimer wisely guided for a decade at her website requires skills useful in jobs where you have people in your care. How individuals interact online can provide clues about workplaces. Jobs that affect many lives put you in the spotlight. If you’re a history or political science professor, prepare your students for recognizing the skills of a T. J. Stiles. But also for seeing educators and civil servants reduced online to stereotypes (or worse). Social Media use can’t change dug-in beliefs but can enhance community values.

Pamela Wright (NARA Chief Innovation Officer) shared a tweet from T. J. Stiles in 2018: “The biographer’s ethic is pretty much the opposite of social-media culture. You have to seek—& appreciate—contradictions, complexity. You value context. You retain an awareness of the good & bad in someone at the same time. As Brenda Maddox asked, ‘What’s love got to do with it?’”

In 2020 a reporter asked Paul Musgrave, a political science professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, about his use of Twitter. “If you study politics, you just have to be there.’ He keeps up with news, colleagues, and research on Twitter and sees his own tweets as an escape valve.”

Kevin Kruse described Twitter in 2015 as “global office hours.” As a well-established senior scholar, he found that “Twitter works best as a conversation….keep the door open and your mind too.” He noted the value of learning from “colleagues down the hall” as well as “younger professors, grad students and independent historians who work outside of academia.”

Some scholars of government turn to quantitative research while others focus on how individuals handled their careers. But workplaces, including universities, corporations, non-profits, government offices, also have rich and complex “biographies.” Recognizing and respecting humanity in the workplace helps you affect policy and decision making in certain jobs. Several PhD historians who supported my work as USGAO agency historian reflected the influence of Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (New York: The Free Press, 1986) by by Richard Neustadt and Ernest R. May. The agency head who hired me (Charles A. Bowsher, CPA) read widely in history even before entering government service.

Social Media provides only partial insights on workplaces. (The history standards we apply in our research help us sort through online storytelling.) An academic who once worked in government observed of knowledge asymmetry that at the upper levels you’re part of a team and your use of communications channels requires careful thought. Some reactions you might air out in the open as a senior academic (or address in hot takes as an undergraduate) do not fit traditional public remarks by government executives.

This level of discipline makes sense based what I’ve observed in person with executives presently at GAO and NARA. And it applies outside government, too. Timothy Burke notes that as he moved into academic administration he worked in areas he couldn’t address in public the way he talked about other issues as a student and later as a faculty member. The higher your rank, the greater your awareness of institutional stewardship and having people in your care. While sometimes misunderstood outside the peer group, self discipline can reflect acceptance of very complex obligations worthy of respect.

A former Federal official with whom I had an opportunity to talk in 2012 offered this advice at the beginning of the Obama administration. “‘Align yourself with good people’ who can determine what’s ethical and what’s not. Avoid groupthink. And challenge requests and decisions you think are wrong.” The former official recognized that questioning what you’re told to do can be risky: “‘I’m not saying it’s easy,’ he said.” He explained that challenging people may mean you won’t be invited “to the next meeting.”

There’s as much to be learned in the job search from people who struggled, as the former official did, as from ones whose bios highlight successes. But as you participate in events that will make up your own memoirs, you’re catching small glimpses of others’ different biographies and histories. Let’s use our academic credentials to understand, respect, and support them.