LETTER ABOUT THE ADMINISTRATION’S DETAILED BUDGET PROPOSAL

MAY 26, 2017

Dear ASOR Colleagues and Friends,

Many of you, especially those of you who are United States citizens, have written me in the last two days to voice your concerns about the Trump administration’s budget proposal that was announced on Tuesday, May 23, 2017. ASOR is concerned too.

More specifically, ASOR is concerned that the administration’s budget proposal recommends—as we had anticipated—the elimination of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which has been committed to fostering ASOR’s work of scholarly and personal engagement in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds as part of the NEH’s larger mission of supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities and in those social sciences that use humanistic methods. The proposal also recommends the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), both of which have sustained ASOR members in their work by supporting museum exhibitions, care of collections, conservation, community engagement, and education activities.

More specifically still, the budget proposal recommends funding of $42 million for NEH in FY18 (as opposed to $150 million in FY17)—basically, according to our friends at the National Humanities Alliance (of which ASOR is a proud member), funds for salaries and the expenses required to shut the agency down and funds required to honor pre-existing grant commitments. Likewise, the $23 million that is recommended for the budget of the IMLS (as opposed to their FY17 budget of $231 million) is designated to pay for an “orderly close out.”

Equally disturbing: while we had thought that significant cuts would be proposed for the Department of Education’s International Education Programs, which include the Fulbright-Hays and Title VI programs that help support language and area studies and American Overseas Research Centers, we had anticipated—based on the so-called “skinny budget” that the Trump administration released in March—that Fulbright-Hays would be fully funded, whereas Title VI would suffer a proposed cut of 25% or so. This scenario was already devastating, given the degree to which ASOR’s affiliated Overseas Research Centers—the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) in Jerusalem, the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan, and the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) in Nicosia, Cyprus—benefit from Title VI funding.

But the budget proposal that came out on May 23, 2017, seems more damaging: according, again, to our friends at the National Humanities Alliance, allocations of $144 million that, combined, went in FY17 to International Educational Programs, Title VI, and Fulbright-Hays are recommended to drop to $0. Furthermore, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Trump administration proposes that the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF), which dispenses grants to (among other things) archaeological research endeavors, be trimmed by $776 million, an 11% cut. NSF had not been mentioned in the administration’s earlier budget outline, which was released in March, so this is new and obviously disturbing news.

For our members, especially our US members, and for their work, all these proposals have profoundly negative implications. So what can we as ASOR members do?

1.  ASOR members can work with the National Humanities Alliance to take action on behalf of the NEH and other federal humanities programs: at http://www.nhalliance.org/take_action.

2.  ASOR members who are US citizens can be in touch directly with your state’s congressional delegation, ideally, by personal letter or by phone call, to indicate your support for:

a.  Level funding (at a minimum) for the NEH, the NEA, and the IMLS (it’s worth noting that the current budget of the NEH [$150 million], like the current budget of the NEA [$148 million], is equivalent to only one postage stamp per American citizen per year, surely an investment the richest nation on earth can afford);

b.  Level funding (at a minimum) for Fulbright-Hays and Title VI (whose budgets, as indicated here, have already suffered devastating cuts in this decade: the Fulbright-Hays’ budget declined from $15.6 million in FY 2010 to $7.1 million in FY 2016, and Title VI’s budget declined from $110.3 in FY 2010 to $65.1 in FY 2016);

c.  Level funding (at a minimum) for the NSF, especially the NSF Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences, which funds archaeological research.

3.  ASOR members who are residents of US states whose congressional representatives sit on relevant appropriations committees should especially be in touch with these representatives—ideally, by personal letter or by phone call—to stress the importance of their representatives’ support in committee for reasonable appropriations for all the agencies cited above. Lists of congressional committee members that we can share at this point (thanks to our friends at the Council of American Overseas Research Centers) are catalogued below.

4.  ASOR members should always feel free to be in touch with me (asorpres@bu.edu), or with ASOR’s Executive Director, Andy Vaughn (executive-director@asor.org), or with ASOR’s other officers—Board Chair Richard Coffman (link), Vice-President Sharon Herbert (link), Secretary Lynn Swartz Dodd (link), and Treasurer Chris White (link)—to tell us what ASOR can be doing to support your work during these challenging times.

Sincerely,

Susan Ackerman
ASOR President
asorpres@bu.edu

Addendum: Relevant Senate and House Appropriations Committees

Senate—State, Foreign Operations Subcommittee

(oversees the Educational and Cultural Exchange programs at the State Department)

• Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
• Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
• Roy Blunt (Missouri)
• John Boozman (Arkansas)
• Jerry Moran (Kansas)
• James Lankford (Oklahoma)
• Steve Daines (Montana)
• Marco Rubio (Florida)
• Patrick Leahy (Vermont)
• Richard Durbin (Illinois)
• Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire)
• Christopher Coons (Delaware)
• Jeff Merkley (Oregon)
• Chris Murphy (Connecticut)
• Chris Van Hollen (Maryland)

House—State, Foreign Operations Subcommittee

(oversees the Educational and Cultural Exchange programs at the State Department)

• Hal Rogers (Kentucky)
• Kay Granger (Texas)
• Mario Diaz-Balart (Florida)
• Charlie Dent (Pennsylvania)
• Tom Rooney (Florida)
• Jeff Fortenberry (Nebraska)
• Chris Stewart (Utah)
• Nita Lowey (New York)
• Barbara Lee (California)
• “Dutch” Ruppersberger (Maryland)
• Grace Meng (New York)
• David Price (North Carolina)

Senate—Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

(oversees the Title VI funding at the Department of Education)

• Roy Blunt (Missouri)
• Thad Cochran (Mississippi)
• Richard Shelby (Alabama)
• Lamar Alexander (Tennessee)
• Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
• Jerry Moran (Kansas)
• Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia)
• James Lankford (Oklahoma)
• John Kennedy (Louisiana)
• Marco Rubio (Florida)
• Patty Murray (Washington)
• Richard Durbin (Illinois)
• Jack Reed (Rhode Island)
• Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire)
• Jeff Merkley (Oregon)
• Brian Schatz (Hawaii)
• Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin)
• Chris Murphy (Connecticut)
• Joe Manchin (West Virginia)

House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

(oversees the Title VI funding at the Department of Education)

• Tom Cole (Oklahoma)
• Mike Simpson (Idaho)
• Steve Womack (Arkansas)
• Chuck Fleischmann (Tennessee)
• Andy Harris (Maryland)
• Martha Roby (Alabama)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (Washington)
• John Moolenaar (Michigan)
• Rosa DeLauro (Connecticut)
• Lucille Roybal-Allard (California)
• Barbara Lee (California)
• Mark Pocan (Wisconsin)
• Katherine Clark (Massachusetts)