UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS TO TEAM WITH UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA FOR CLINTON HISTORY PROJECT

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. --- The University of Arkansas will team up with the University of Virginia to conduct the Clinton History Project, a multi-year initiative to chronicle the life of the nation’s 42^nd president through audio and videotaped interviews with hundreds of people who knew and worked with him.

The initiative is similar to history projects on former U.S. presidents such as Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush.

The Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History, headquartered at the University of Arkansas, will conduct some 400 interviews covering the years before and after the Clinton presidency. The University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs through its Presidential Oral History Program will focus on the presidential years.

"I am pleased that these two great universities will be handling the project, and look forward to the end product, which should generate a wealth of information and insight to serve both the scholarly and public interests," Mr. Clinton said. " I am particularly grateful to my good friend, mentor and colleague, former Arkansas Governor and U.S. Senator David Pryor, whose donation of unused campaign funds brought the Arkansas Center into being two years ago. I want to thank University of Arkansas President Alan Sugg and University of Arkansas Chancellor John White for their support of this venture, as well as Professor Jeannie Whayne for her direction of the Arkansas side of the project."

Whayne is chair of the history department at the University of Arkansas and director of the Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History.

"We are delighted that the University of Arkansas will be engaged in this comprehensive documentation of the life of President Clinton and equally delighted to be working with UVA’s Miller Center, which has earned a stellar reputation through its work on the Carter and Bush oral history projects," said University of Arkansas Chancellor John A. White.

"The University of Arkansas has special strengths in Southern history and especially Arkansas history and politics, and we will be putting that expertise to work in providing leadership and coordination with interviewers across the state," White added.

"Dr. Whayne has done extraordinary work in getting the new Arkansas Center off and running and in laying the groundwork for the Clinton History Project," White said. "Her leadership has won the confidence of President Clinton and we know she will provide superb direction throughout the duration of this internationally significant effort."

Added Whayne: "We are looking forward to this work and already are moving ahead. We have been mapping out the project, and have held four workshops, including two with scholars who have experience with other presidential history projects. We will begin to schedule and conduct interviews this fall."

A group of distinguished scholars and citizens has been jointly appointed by the Arkansas Center and the Miller Center to serve as independent advisors to the project. Included on the advisory committee are the following individuals:

• Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and independent scholar, Baltimore, Md.
• Thomas E. Donilon, senior vice president, Fannie Mae
• Jacquelyn D. Hall, Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History and director of the Southern Oral History Program, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Bancroft Award-winning author
• Charles V. Hamilton, Wallace Sayre Professor of Government, Emeritus, Columbia University, and biographer of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
• Darlene Clark Hine, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of History, Michigan State University, and president of the Organization of American Historians
• David Levering Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of History, Rutgers University, and two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author
• Sylvia Mathews, executive vice president, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Richard E. Neustadt, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Emeritus, Harvard University

Also sitting on the advisory committee will be senior representatives of the two universities: Dean Randall B. Woods and Professor Jeannie Whayne for the University of Arkansas and Professors Philip Zelikow and James Sterling Young for the University of Virginia.

Serving as Mr. Clinton’s advisors on the committee will be Skip Rutherford, president of the Clinton Presidential Library Foundation, Little Rock, and Bruce R. Lindsey, attorney, Cabin John, Md.

The Arkansas Center’s project will cover four areas:

--Clinton’s childhood and family life in Arkansas.

--Clinton’s years before holding public office, including his college and law schools years, and his tenure (1973-76) as a law professor at the University of Arkansas.

--Clinton’s political activities and tenures of office before his inauguration as president.

--Clinton’s post-presidency activities.

The Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History will use 19 scholars to conduct more than 400 interviews in a project that is expected to take at least five years to complete. Because the Center is responsible for the Clinton post-presidency, that aspect of the project could extend indefinitely.

The interviewers are faculty members from history, political science and journalism at the University of Arkansas and four other Arkansas colleges and universities: the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Southern Arkansas University, Arkansas State University, and Lyon College. A few independent scholars and scholars affiliated with other Arkansas organizations also will serve as interviewers.

"This is a splendid example of cooperation between scholars at various institutions in Arkansas toward the common goal of illuminating the life of the first Arkansan to be elected president ," said Dr. B. Alan Sugg, president of the University of Arkansas System, which includes the state’s major research university—the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville—and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "Even with the leadership of the University of Arkansas, a project of this magnitude is beyond the reach of any single institution. I am confident this alliance of institutions will get the job done well and in good time."

Sugg spoke from the University of Arkansas System Office in Little Rock, where today’s announcement was made.

The tapes and transcripts will be turned over to the Clinton Presidential Library Foundation in Little Rock, with a copy of the typed transcript to go to Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville; the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia; and the U.S. National Archives for the Clinton Presidential Library. At these sites, researchers will have free access to the materials, unless access has been restricted at the request of the interviewee.

By the end of the multi-year project, a significant number of interviews, in both audio and typed form, will be available over the Internet via the Clinton Presidential Library website and the Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History website. Internet access is a critical component of this oral history project because it will make information available to students throughout the nation and around the world. The Arkansas transcriptions will be posted as soon as they become available.

The Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History at the University of Arkansas was established in 1999 with a donation of $220,000 in unspent campaign funds from former U.S. Senator David Pryor. Housed in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, the Center is a part of the Diane Blair Center for the Study of Southern Politics and Society, which itself was established in 2000 with a $2.5 million federal appropriation.

Though headquartered at the University of Arkansas, the Arkansas Center for Visual and Oral History is a statewide organization, with an advisory board of more than 20 distinguished Arkansans from all geographic regions. The Center’s mission is to capture Arkansas’ past as told by the people who lived it.

"It is gratifying to see the Center not only come to life in such a short time but also grow to maturity so quickly in gaining the confidence of scholars across the nation for this project," said David Pryor, now the director of the Institute for Politics at Harvard University. "The work the Center is undertaking is exactly the vision I had in mind for it. It already is making a tremendous difference for the people of Arkansas and now with the Clinton History Project will make a tremendous difference for Americans and people the world over."

The Center’s first project, now nearly complete, is titled "The Last Days of the Arkansas Gazette," which chronicles the demise of the state’s former newspaper of record, the Arkansas Gazette (1819-1991). Chief interviewer was Roy Reed, professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Arkansas and former reporter for the New York Times.

The second major project, currently in progress, is "Interviewing the Governors." This is being conducted in cooperation with the Rural Electric Cooperatives and the Arkansas Educational Television Network. Two of those interviews, with former governors Sid McMath and David Pryor, will air on AETN in October.

The Center’s third major project, "Interviewing Arkansas," is also in progress. The project involves interviewing people across the state on their experiences growing up during the Great Depression and World War II.

(Editor’s note: Please see the following two attachments for names of interviewers and advisory board members)

###

Interviewers for the Clinton Oral History Project:

University of Arkansas:

• Jeannie Whayne, History
• Susan Dollar, History
• David Edwards, History (emeritus)
• Michael Pierce, History
• Charles Robinson, History
• Gerald Jordan, Journalism
• Janine Parry, Political Science

University of Arkansas at Little Rock:

• Harri Baker, History (emeritus)
• Steve Recken, History
• Francis Ross, History
• Fred Williams, History
• Arthur English, Political Science
• Peggy Scranton, Political Science

Arkansas State University:

• Calvin Smith, History

Southern Arkansas University:

• Ben Johnson, History

Lyon College:

• David Stricklin, History

And:

• Elizabeth Jacoway, Independent Scholar, Newport
• Janis Kearney, Independent Scholar, Washington, D.C.
• Bobby Roberts, Central Arkansas Library System, Little Rock

Advisory Board, Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History:

• Harri Baker, Professor of History Emeritus, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
• Christie Brocchus, Special Projects Producer, Arkansas Educational Television Network, Conway
• Michael Dabrishus, Director for Special Collections/Director Of Development,
• Mullins Library, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
• Bob Douglas, Columnist, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Fayetteville
• John Graves, Professor of History, Henderson State University, Arkadelphia
• Don Holley, Professor of History, University of Arkansas at Monticello
• Elizabeth Jacoway, Independent Scholar, Newport
• Ben F. Johnson, III, Associate Professor of History, Southern Arkansas University, Magnolia
• Gerald Jordan, Associate Professor of Journalism, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
• Waddy Moore, Professor of History Emeritus, University of Central Arkansas, Conway
• Janine Parry, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Arkansas,Fayetteville
• David Pryor, Director of the Institute for Politics at Harvard University, and former Arkansas Governor and U.S. Senator
• Jo Ann Pugh, Trustee Emeritus, Arkansas Historical Association, Portland
• Roy Reed, Professor of Journalism Emeritus, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
• Bobby Roberts, Director of the Central Arkansas Library System, Little Rock
• Charles Robinson, Assistant Professor of History, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
• Frances Ross, Professor of History, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
• Calvin Smith, Professor of History, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro
• Phillip W. Steele, Folklorist, Springdale
• David Stricklin, Assistant Professor of History, Lyon College, Batesville
• George West, History Teacher, Arkansas School of Mathematics and Sciences, Hot Springs