for creating a context and a venue for this conversation. so 3 cents. let's return to woolf's proposition and asked why collective should care about the state of humanities at all. in each age we faced with insurmountable challenges. one request choices to be made, resources to be allocated and areas to be ignored. this is more the case in the united states which is really seen an explosion in the number of registered philanthropy or philanthropic organizations as well as a concomitant re- thinking of what it means to be from tropic. according to the foundation center, there are 81,777 foundations and charitable organizations registered in the united states at this time. there are notable ones such as dates, ford, robert wood johnson and rockefeller, and they command billions of dollars in

assets. but there are also quite a few with little more, a little more than a charitable arm of a small family enterprise, and their assets number in the thousands rather than the billions. think about the constellation, 81,777, small ones, large ones. there are also then a handful of older foundations led by carnegie that have been dispensing grants and forwarding agendas for more than a century, all the emerge in the last decade with articulated vision about purpose, intent, scope. if carnegie symbolized the perpetuity foundation whose boards, missions and goals changed over decades, but whose work endured generation after generation after generation, among the more subtle changes that have really given birth in the last two years is the creation of a number of sunset

foundations. these sunset foundations symbolized by gates or atlantic philanthropies which is about to cease operations in a few months, they are designed to close before the death of a benefactor, or in a specified number of years after his or her death. i don't know how many of you know that they gates foundation has said it will go out of business 20 years after the death of bill and melinda. think of the implications at a time when they have their safety billion dollars roughly when you combine the gates fortune and that of warren buffett. and then think of what it means then at the integer realize that they will sunset and how that may actually shake your agenda during this next 30 plus years. you said 30 plus years, because if you look at the actuarial tables, look at bill and try to figure out income and age, 30 years is a pretty good number. whether perpetuity, the range of

human needs warranted support ins homelessness, economic inequality and poverty, health care disparity, global health issues, war and social instability, tyranny and political persecution. with headlines proclaiming this the age of science, technology, engineering and math, or medicine, stem, one may rightly ask why spend 1 penny on furthering the humanities? or dated more bluntly, what's the case for investing in the humanities at this particular point in time? i think the answer lies in understanding and articulating the role the humanities play in educating citizens for a complex, interconnected world. too often we are captured by headlines such as the one in "the new york times" on november 4, 2013, entitled

interface in the humanities, colleges worry. noting 45% of the faculty in the stanford main undergraduate division are clustered in humanities but only 15% of the students. there's a worry and a panic. we are told of efforts by dean's of admissions and faculty at stanford and princeton among others to recruit students just for the humanities. third in the article is the assertion that a mere 7% of college graduates majoring in humanities. down from a high of 14% in the 1970s. remember those numbers. i'm going to come back to them in a few minutes. my travels around the nation and across atlanta have reinforced the need to craft a common story, and for human us to have a better command of the facts. locally, nationally and

internationally. i would use my first about and for the humanities. in a nod towards making such a case, the american academy of arts and sciences offered the following a recent report, the heart of the matter published last summer. i'm quoting, we live in a world characterized by change and, therefore, a world depended upon humanities and social sciences. how do we understand and manage a change if we have no notion of the past? how do we understand ourselves if we have no notion of a society, culture or world different from the one in which we live? a fully balanced curriculum including such amenities, social sciences and natural sciences provide opportunity for integrative thinking and imagination, for creatively and discovery, and for good citizenship. documenters and social sciences are not merely a like this, nor

are they elite. they go beyond the immediate and instrumental to help us understand the past and the future. they are necessary and they require support in challenging times as well as in times of prosperity. they are critical to our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, as described by the nations elders. and they are the heart of the matter. that's the introductintroduct ion to this report from the national academy. but what steps are necessary, therefore, to insinuate the humanities into a dialogue about the nation, any nation? for answer to that question, let's turn to the humanities themselves. perhaps the place to begin is with america. that will be familiar. what is the story we seek to tell? here i borrow from the idea of a

narrative offered by henchmen and henchmen would be concluded in a narrative that a significant narrative is more than a series of interconnected facts. instead, there's a storyline that leads to some notable action of consequence. now take for instance, the story of a demand for greater and greater attention to stem. in 1987-1999, a reference was not the stb in stem but do try to. in testimony before the house science committee, the national science foundation director neil lane began his comment on july 23, 1997 by saying, mr. chairman, appreciate the opportunity to appear today together with secretary riley to discuss the role of the federal government in sides combat medics, engineering and

technology, s.m.e.t. education. we have a long history of working with the department of education to sustain and improve our country's educational system. now, more than a decade later, mark sanders, a professor of technology of virginia tech riding in the technology teacher would know this, and it denied the national science foundation began using s.m.e.t. a shorthand for sides mathematic engineering and technology. when a program officer complained that s.m.e.t. sounded too much like smut, the stem acronym was born. [laughter] as really as 2003, relatively few new what it meant. so he goes on to note, many that you asked if the s.t.e.m. education graduate program is beginning to envision had something to do with stem cell research. that was still very much the same case in the fall of 2005 when we, the technology education program in the faculty

aof virginia tech launched our s.t.e.m. education graduate program your and he would go on, but when america learns the world was flat, they quickly grew to believe china and india were on course to bypass america in the global economy by outstanding us, and funding begin to flow towards all things s.t.e.m. now nearly everyone is somewhat familiar with the s.t.e.m. acronym. center's account it's about marriages and the construction of a story about the need to invest in s.t.e.m. he gives credit to tom friedman. i would argue that was not just friedman who make them aware, did all of us aware. federal policy in the united states shifted. the national academies said, sound the alarm issues of publications, most notably rising above a gathering storm. and perhaps most interesting, the pace of technological change example five by digital

technology redefined the sense of time and urgency. for those of us who were born in the '40s and '50s and '60s, we think of a decade as lasting roughly 25 years. in the new digital age, generations are defined in terms of 18 months. so if a typical undergraduate finishes colleges in four years, she's already experienced to .67 technological generations. that sense of exhilaration became a part of a narrative which puts them into the national vocabulary with different meanings and implications for all of us. so is there a lesson to be copied? the answer is yes. beginning with the basics. what do we know about ourselves and the humanities? let me ask you a question. how many of you know anything about a humanities indicators project sponsored by the

american academy of arts and sciences? three out of about 60. that project is part of the american academies with them to collate and up with an authoritative data set on whole range of issues related to the world of the humanities, academic committees, public amenities, publications, job placement of career choices, the ways in which students major in what fields, et cetera. i used the word authoritative because there's a lot of data sets out there but coming up with when you can trust is what norm bradburn used at the national opinion research center in chicago, norm took on the project upgrading the humanities indicators project. this is important. if we begin with a number of students major in the committees, remember the story from lewis i referenced documents ago. two storylines emerge. the number of majors indeed peaked in the early 1970s they saw available data.

hit an all time low by the early 1990s and has been on a steady rebound ever since. how do i explain this? in 1971, 140,000 students major in the human to steal. by 1981 the number was more like 70,000. but interesting, when you fast-forward to 2010, the number was 120,000. and so you'd end up seeing this roller coaster changing over time. what is the narrative we begin to offer? but the story is, not last year or the before come the all time low and, indeed, there's been an incredible changed since 1981 to 2010. the number of stents are making in literature and history and languages. second, as a percentage of overall graduates, the humanities have always been somewhere between eight to 12% of college graduates in the

united states. while you can become enamored with the roller coaster effect of the curve, it is clear that except for the period in the mid 1960s from about 1973 to the present, notwithstanding the scale of the data in the data set, eight to 12% of the total is what you see. since 1987, the numbers between 1987-2010 was closer to 10 to 12%. and so that's some piece of inherited their beginning to command the details to begin to actually shift not only the importance of understanding the terrain i think is very, very important. so what's the take away? a significant percentage of american undergraduates have chosen to major in particular fields of the humanities for a long time. why they do is a very complicated question, but it's not driven by market imperatives alone. that sense of stability

notwithstanding the alarms sounded daily by individual ask by into the institutions these important i think. part of the story america is crafting. a narrative did not start with a thesis of crisis and alarms. we all know from cognitive science research that on average humans make much better decisions when you're not caught in a flight fight response. we should remember this woman began to assemble the elements of a narrative. that in some ways it's a story about crisis and alarm commits us to about dynamic change over a long period of time and how many people understand that? how do you begin to place that in context? we can begin to see that humanities represent a range of intellectual areas and have experienced growth of one kind of another over the years. in fact, from the late 1990s

through the mid-2000s, the number of academic jobs grew by 20,000 in communities nationwide. more than most clusters, there's really been real job growth. what we need to know is what percent of those were lectures, what percent were contingent labor. this is the future work of the communities indicators project. but what we take away from this is that colleges and universities have always been places where there's new introductions and innovations and there is a way in which the fields of humanity have played a role in those institutions in a particular kind of way for some kind -- some time. on the valley of the communities i drug her attention to a recently published book by a british literary scholar and critic, small. the book is about the value of

committees. small remind us that the argument for the humanities should resist the obvious trap. she sees no utility in opposing the committees to sciences our social sciences. i agree. she argues that knowledge creates ensuring requires a multiplicity of approaches. no one's give us more intrinsically valuable than another. rather, alone or in combination, they offer another way of unraveling the mystery of the human condition. she concludes that the humanities have public value for about five reasons. let me take them off. one, they do a distinctive kind of work, reserves and extend distinctive kinds of understanding. and possess a distinctive relation to the idea of knowledge indestructible from human subjectivity. very important. number two, they were useful to society, assist in the

preservation and duration of a culture. three, the humanities make a vital contribution to individual happiness and happiness of large groups. some people may debate that one, but i think it's fair. fourth, the humanities can make a vital contribution to the maintenance of the health of a democracy through the ability to actually make sure people ask questions. and know how to read and educate the evidence before them. five, she concludes, none of these arguments is sufficient without a supporting claim that the value of the obvious and cultural practices, the humanities study, and the kinds of scholarship they cultivate have value for the own sake. that they are good in themselves. it's not just because -- they are good in their own way. professor smallest claims and

assertions will no doubt be debate in the uk and the u.s., and crafting a compelling narrative will undoubtedly produce the need to be as concerned with what the committees will become as much as what they have been. so let me go then to the next period. the first abus of the seven evidence-based narrative. the second inning, as we ponder the future, we have to expect that humanities will continue to demonstrate a vibrant and dynamic tension between continuity and change. long-standing disciplines such as literature, history and philosophy remain ever important to humanistic scholarship and discovered. for nearly a quarter of the century, humanists have also embraced an aspect of disciplinary scholarships. have studied psychoanalytic studies and those perspectives have found themselves entering

comparative literature. historians of medicine have worked with literary scholars who helped craft the medical communities. historians and cultural anthropologists have fashioned the conjoined fields of history and anthropology. at the same time many of us in the sure and have participated in animating gender studies, women's studies, such studies, african-american and ethnic studies, as well as the contemporary incarnation of american studies. i cite these examples to remind us of the creativity that exploded in the last three decades in areas of the humanities. you question new questions, new approaches and new ways of knowing as well as new things that we came to know. that is the legacy of the interdisciplinary agency of humanities-based fields for reinvigorating much in the academies. we sort of think through and we can talk about this hopefully later, as i stand before you i

can imagine the even more radical term to borrow a phrase from a good friend, robin kelley. i proposed a continued investment in the humanities is warded because our new questions to answer and new methods to be developed that link previous knowledge and new tools and methods. two summers ago, a "wall street journal" reporter asked, how many articles on shakespeare do we need a? after all, and some of you may have actually seen this piece. she explicitly question the utility of mining old materials and retracing well-traveled paths. my report today would be, as many as creative minds can produce, assuming that they either add to the base of what we know or to advance a new way of understanding the genius of the human imagination. so let me turn to the example of

adding to the base and understanding, the genius of the human imagination. i want to illustrate with two examples. first one comes from my days at emory. excuse the every reference at vanderbilt. silver years ago notice novelists salman rushdie decided positive personal papers at emory. if you go online you will find the collection include manuscripts, letters, personal documents, miscellany and, of course, his computers. at the moment of receipt, the colleagues at the emory library discovered at least one of the computers had been killed by a cola product. for emory, the irony was not missed. [laughter] given his long ties to coca-cola. and the story was, of course it was coke that killed it, and maybe some days it was pepsi and not coke.

anyway, salman thought everything on his computer had been lost forever. it wasn't. technicians were able to recover essentially every keystroke, word, deletion, et cetera. this example suggests that the next generation of literary scholars will have an advantage unknown, unknown heretofore. only will they be able to obliterate genius that enabled salman rushdie produce his book, but aspects of creativity as well. think of it. we can trace when he composed, how they change things. we can match it to the notes in marginality of his draft it we can go back and that's a great simulations to forget what made been going on in the brain as he's actually typing and retyping. but that kind of new possibility using new tools and methods also suggests that other things will

have to change. new kinds of teams will have to be created. one example may involve a literary scholar with computer science, nurse-itis, artist and method david expert. other combinations are possible but the take away here is what we see in the future, we think about investing, is that the solitary individual scholar working alone will be part of one world and to be of the world's, too, where new kinds of collaborations will be created. because there are new questions and new ways of doing what is to be known. we will have to deal of course with the prestige culture in the academy and who gets credit and how we deal with that and that we think about who should be sitting next to him and which office in consideration. at all that is solvable. the real question is how do we harness the imagination to begin to think about both new questions and new methods? that's one example.

the rushdie example also calls to mind the ways in which technology also be the pedagogical side of equation as well. this is also part of the innovation we can imagine supporting with the second been. thing. much has been printed in the last month about mood. you have your own opinion about their longevity. i mean, for one i don't believe that they will replace vanderbilt anytime soon. i say that and i'm willing to bet more than a penny. after all, typically about 10% of those initially enrolled at the complete a mood at any point. if anything the visibility of your colleagues may produce even greater demand for your residential programs. the second, it should not be confused with online learning. this is an important piece i think we need to take away. few colleges and universities no

matter how well endowed as they are can afford to give away content for ever. that's just part of the business side of what it means to run a complex organization. but the army questions that would emerge. a conference a year ago at mit, harvard on online learning and residential environment, one said angel trying to develop the joint venture between harvard and mit, he had read any of the literature on how students learn. there were 500 of us in that room that day, and i daresay most of us have never read any of the literature on how kids learn. so as it looked to the future, one of the questions i think we have to ask is, cannot be tolerated going forward? how do students learn and how do i, the faculty member, learned and mastered literature,

learning outcomes in education? i think we'll be on the table and have to be on the table at all major universities and colleges in the near term. more important, once mastered, how to begin to alter graduate similar so the next generation of faculty has spent some time studying pedagogical approaches and theories as both a scholar and a student? think of it, humanists have long been in a classroom. language, isn't that what it means to read the novel or the chapter before you come to class? but being perceived as receptive to change, asking questions about the new ways of learning i think is a critical part of what we can imagine will be the future for american higher education. at the mellon foundation would invest a second income it would be on innovation, both in areas

of research and in pedagogy. and continue to ask a question, how do we make sure that we're looking to the future, and understanding relationship to the past. cent number three, i would spend the third inning on support of spending and expanding the public display of the humanities. on this point i think two views continue to shape our world your attendance at museums, historic sites and other public amenities suggested that the broader public continues to take interest in what is produced inside of the academies. it may vary by age and year and all, but there is a demand. and all the more so in a world that is quoted quote flat to let me offer two examples here to underscore the point. last year with the 150th anniversary of the signing of the emancipation proclamation.

abraham lincoln. that anniversary celebrated by placing a sealed copy of the document on display in the national archives in washington, d.c. thousands lined the pathway into and around the national archives. they did so presumably because the document still carries deep meaning. the study of history is about the past, to be sure, but it could also be about the connection between the past and the present. in this example the presentation serves as a yardstick by which maybe we could to measure how far we've come in 150 years. certainly that's what some people said in the line. the fact anyone showed up perhaps is even more surprising. public viewing of a document that is 150 years old?

but the fact that thousand showed up is a way to acknowledge and is a reminder that what happens when the humanities through history meet the public. we make the documents accessible to the broader world. so when done at the highest level they remind us in certain kinds of ways of our shared destinies at our intertwined histories. in addition, such moments tell another story. and here i take guidance from an intimate friend of mine who offer the following one day as we were talking. he went on to come in the digital age with compressive time and space, they need to understand one another is greater than ever. for all of the cost increase in stand-alone, the sake of science and engineering, absence and appreciation of style and color, form and local sensibility,

language and culture means we could find ourselves building products no one wants, starting wars for all the wrong reasons, and asking partial questions and receiving incomplete answers. and yet, and yet remaining puzzled by why things are not working. ..

>> the use of one's precious pennies in support of the humanities requires a clear-eyed or articulation of first principles. one should start with a clear sense of a narrative or story for the humanities buttressed by data. investment then follows because the case for support is clear, and the humanities being supported attend to both the need for continuity and change. and finally, the investment promises to explode or explore aspects of the human condition and the human experience. and in the process, help sustain a literate, diverse, educated citizenry. for the andrew w. melon foundation, we are drawn to the belief that through forms of representation and expression as olds as rock art and ancient lyric and as new as graphic novels and digital lyric, human kind has developed the means to

chronicle, analyze, record and transmit dignity, history and society. much of this work has fallen to the disciplines claimed by the humanities and the arts. and in tandem, the humanities and art deepen our understanding of the human condition and the human experience and help foster global institutions and societies. the foundation aims to promote the long-term well being of the humanities and arts by supporting leading institutions of education and culture that set standards for achievement and work to secure our shared future. so with our three cents of the foundation, we support the humanities because they're critical, fullly educate, we support them because they help to generate new knowledge,

knowledge that's key to our understanding of the past and the president and prepares us for interrogating the future. and we do so in some ways because they tell us about the world as we can imagine it and the one that we want to create. just think of it. we live in the age of the human genome. just pause on that thought for a second. but how cowe understand the age of -- how do we understand the age of the human genome where absent a critical understanding of a historically constructed artifice called race? what does it mean to understand and talk about the human genome if you can't actually step back and talk about the creation of something as ever present as the term race? is the humanities and sciences and dialogue lead to a pure understanding of this human experience. three cents. think about it. if you had three pennies and you

were investing in humanities, what would you invest in? i know what we would it's in. thank you. [applause] -- invest in. thank you. [applause] >> and we have time for questions. is that okay? >> that's absolutely the best part about all of these trips, i get to have a conversation afterwards. >> i'll relate you -- >> i will. yeah, i can, and i've been told there's a narrow window for me to move, so i need to stay by the podium. and i've been known to ask questions, so -- [laughter] even of distinguished audiences like this one. be so what would you -- my last question, i throw it back. if you had three pennies, you're sitting in a foundation, what would you invest it? the president of the mellon

foundation, you could shape the direction of our future by telling me the right thing. how would you invest it? tiffany? >> i would do more to make sure, and this reflects only on my discipline of history, that we invest in a really, truly global understanding of the past and present around the world. and get away from that which is seen more important, the hierarchy of topics that we have within disciplines. we don't cover africa here, for example, as we should. and so i have students, i have one sitting next to me, actually, undergraduate student who wants to go to graduate school in african history. i had one who now is working in the white house, actually, in the commons. for four years i had her major in the history department middle eastern and african history and come to me to complain she couldn't do african history

because there was only one historian to do it. now, i happen to be one, but i'm not teaching african history right now. so here we have the largest continent in the world and one that impacts all of europe, all of the atlantic and all of the americas, but we don't investigate it. we still sit within our narrow boundaries. so i would invest if pushing collaboration -- in pushing collaboration with professors across disciplines and really -- [inaudible] what interdisciplinary is and even talk beyond to manager called transdisciplinary so we begin to really talk to each other outside of these boundaries that were actually found at the end of the 19th century and really have a conversation. we don't really, really have conversations like we should. we have a narrative that we have conversations, but i'm talking

about actual face-to-face engagement. and i don't know how to do that. that's your job. [laughter] >> i'm no longer professor anywhere in america. [laughter] i mean, you raise an interesting question. so as provost, when i was provost at emery, i decided one day i could try something on the more radical side and see how many times i get beaten down before i decide this is a bad idea. i walk into a room, imagine a whiteboard, and you could redesign liberal arts education in the united states for the next 25, 30 years. and we're starting to get rid of departments, and we're coming up with a new kind of structure. what would you do? and it generated me to the point how do we organize knowledge and the ways in can which, i mean, and there's apple on the ground -- [inaudible] that there was the second or

third most popular major in arts and sciences was in an intersection of biology, psychology and anthropology. it was a major that had not existed ten years before. it was a major where there were no core faculty -- no core faculty. and yet it was the third most popular major among the students. and somehow the intellectual intersections there had created a groundswell of enthusiasm from the top. what does it mean? i ask these questions, why are we committed to those 19th century or 18th century configurations? i'm not going to go on a recitation on the creation of professional organizations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the systems there that helped to perpetuate them. i mean, that's part of it. and having come up of age where

i was in an interdisciplinary program and folks say i don't know how to evaluate you because you're a historian in the african-american studies department in the 1980s, and we don't know what to do with you and how to assess. i say i'm at berkeley, and there's a lot of smart people. [laughter] and i figure that all these smart people, including several nobel laureates, could figure out an answer to that question. it's not one we couldn't answer. so those, part of the answer is also how willing are we, how comfortable are we thinking about how students should learn how we should actually organize the institution to enhance that possibility for learning. and then on the other side, and how do we organize in such a way we can also do the other business of the institution. it's not an either/or, we have to figure out both. those are the kinds of exciting

questions that the foundation can help in playing, but i also realize that 4300 institutions of higher learning in the united states, and we only support a few of them. and so i don't imagine that we can come up with -- we should come up with an answer from our end. we should engage each of the campuses in trying to come up with an answer. and i put it there. all right, we got now -- thanks, tiffany. [laughter] >> i'm wondering how easy humanities can work to not have people see s.t.e.m. as sort of a priority system and at the top humanities under that, and other than maybe going back to -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> that's a very, very good question because, and what i didn't say in this talk and i've said in some other talks, the idea of s.t.e.m. as a organizationing principle for investment is not an american creation alone. i was in south africa this

summer, and many of the dollars being appropriated by the south african government was directed to s.t.e.m.. i was in the u.k. two weeks ago at oxford and a few other places. there, too, the organization to's around s.t.e.m.. there's a global conversation about the need to invest in s.t.e.m. in part driven by three things. one, that we are at a particular moment in the world after the market crash of 2008-2009 where everything is viewed as having instrumental value. and so we're trying to figure out if an education really to prepare one for a series of opportunities over a lifetime was real that we are a producer of individuals who are going into that first job each june, july and august. and there's a deep philosophical debate underway, i mean, both in washington and elsewhere as to

whether or not we train or educate. and i hear many a people, well meaning folks in this administration and others, that conflate training and education. and that's a challenge for us. i think part of the answer to your question is not -- i mean, part of it is actually where i started, actually controlling -- [inaudible] in some ways. and so beginning to understand really what the conditions are on the ground not only in one's own institution, but across the spectrum of institutions and higher education, etc. two, it's also to say it's not either/or. clearly, we're training on people because they want to go out and have a job. at the end, they spend x thousands of dollars to receive an education at vanderbilt, they assume there's some return on that investment. and i think it's not good for humanists to say that i'm not about my students getting jobs.

i mean, i'm here to educate them purely for the beauty of education. as a parent -- [laughter] who paid to send two kids to two different private school in the united states over the last seven years, i want them off my payroll at some point. [laughter] and so there's, this goes back to the narrative and how we talk, recognizing an engagement with the broader public. i think the third part, and this really goes back to national priorities. so if you realize the budget for the national endowments for the humanities, the national endowment for the arts at about $150 million, $154 million in this year's budget, the budget for the national institute for health is in the tens of billions. and the budgets for the national science foundation is about $7-$9 billion, somewhere this that range.

you realize there's an order of magnitude. there's no president of any college or university in the united states who would say to me it is far cheaper to hire five humanists for the one science colleague they want to bring in just looking at the start-up costs alone and trying to sort it out. part of the job is we're not going to win the battle in washington. i've been in washington and talked to folks there. really it's the ground level here. it's that space between the public universities where i actually think we begin to continue to educate and where humanists at vanderbilt and elsewhere really become more engaged in their communities to explain the ways in which, you know, the emancipation proclamation example is one, there are local versions here, story learning and teaching. if you think about, think about something as fundamental as this: that we already know, we already know by the fourth grade which kid is most likely to drop out of high school.

their diagnostic test that have been verified over and over again. you think of something, again, that many of those kids enter elementary school with a thousand or two thousand word deficit in their vocabulary because of circumstances beyond their control. so this comes back. i mean, think of the projects that the humanities could actually work on. here in thinking of communities at risk and the shadows of our campus on language act by is decision -- acquisition and working with colleagues across campus in many different fields to bin to introduce new -- to begin to introduce new ways to actually talk about various parts of humanities. let alope because you're not going to understand dante if you haven't mastered early learning and reading. and this is the ways in which i

think there's a great opportunity for innovation here. but i won't, i wouldn't start in washington. so that part of the s.t.e.m./humanities debate, i think, may exist beyond either one of our lifetimes. and part of it is at the ground level and grassroots level. i think you can win. there's not a taxi cab driver in new york city, i've discovered, who doesn't like to talk about history. [laughter] and oftentimes at the history channel. this young lady here, and then i'll go back. >> you were mentioning in your previous question which cent would you give, and building on what professor patterson said, i think not only creating and expanding the knowledge of the humanities and making those connections, but continuing these connections. >> sure. >> because we speak of the space between the public and the university and these facts about intellectuals who had knowledge, who are willing to do such things. but then you speak of this, and you might have an event here,

there, everywhere, and then it just goes. and we lament about how, oh, nothing's going right and how things aren't really where they're supposed to be, but then there's not enough force behind that want anymore. there might be a move here and there, but there needs to be continuous flow of, i guess, push to connect those barriers. and not just in the public sphere, in the private spear, in the university also in between s.t.e.m. or smet. never heard of that, glad i didn't. [laughter] and the humanities because with like personally for me, i started in vanderbilt premed, and i was actually in professor patterson's house my freshman year which was amazingly great. that was not a shameless plug at all. and at first i saw the difficulty within my be classes and stuff because, i mean, it's vanderbilt. no ap class could have prepared me for this.

and i actually am now majoring in medicine helping society in african-american diaspora studies, and i love every minute of it. that's also not a shameless plug. and i like the fact that i'm getting almost the epitome of a liberal arts education. huh? oh, okay. and i see exactly what you're talking about and how the connections between the sciences and the humanities creates a better base for you to think about the future and think about the past, and the it's really neat. we also need to push for that and keep those connections, or we'll still be sitting in these same seats and talking about, oh, we should have done this and lamenting about how things should be. >> you raise a very, very important question and a very, very complex one. and i suspect you know how complex this is. that is, when i referenced the 4300 institutions of higher education in the united states and you realize you happen to be sitting in one of the the most privileged spaces in that

overall ecosystem, and with that privilege comes its own set of responsibility, right? because, i mean, vanderbilt and the private lead research universities in the united states account for about 5% in the group of about 5% of public institutions. but they train a good number of those who go on to medical school and who graduate from medical school ph.d.s, all of the research universities, etc. so there's this dispropositionerral effect -- disproportional effect. small in terms of total numbers, but the effect is huge. and the question becomes, at least from where i sit at the very least, how do you regulate, how do you control, how do you play with, how do you think about even what i refer to my talk, tension between continuity and change? because your freshman year my

guess is you came in, and you discovered there were what james scott used to refer to as the hidden transcripts. there are these ways in which certain cues, ways in which sometimes faculty would say things to you, and you would pick up, and there was a message being conveyed. maybe not even conveyed in a midge, but you were interpreting the message none the less. there are ways in which you walk across campus, and there are spaces that either feel inviting or don't. that's that continuity piece that any complex organization always has to struggle with. but then you come in and say i want to do this, and whether you're first generation or not, you also represent part of the change. you come in and say, well, i see this script, and it's important to me. or as one of my colleagues, the vice chancellor of rose university in south africa, said to me, said to a group last week in south africa when they were interviewing students and addressing a young african woman

who was at the university of capetown about her experience, and she said the most difficult part was that while she was in a majority, she was uncriz bl to her -- invisible to her professors. and so what does that mean then to be in the majority and invisible in certain kinds of spacesesome so to get at your question also means then there's a lot of space work that has to be done on the institutional ground itself. and people like me can come in and offer advice and philanthropy, and i can even sometimes provide resources for certain kind of work. but i also have been at universities long enough to know that sometimes it takes time. so i'll give an example. so when i was at the university of michigan, i was there for 15 years on the faculty. and as tiffany knows, in 1990 i was chairing the center for

african studies. at that point, it was a unit that was not allowed to make independent tenure decisions. it could only do so in partnership with a disciplinary unit department. and i was determined to change this. and i went across the courtyard to my colleague who was the chair of women's studies, and we made a pact that we were going to change this. and then we both looked at each other and said how long do you think it's going to take us to change it? laugh and we said ten years. and so we stayed at it for ten years. and in ten years it changed. but it took ten years of dedicated action on my part and abby's part and others to begin to keep pushing at this and pushing. part of it is the rare student who's here for ten years, and if you -- [laughter] either your participants --

parents or someone else is going, please, no, get out of here. [laughter] and here's the challenge. what are the institutions and organizations who go along with the individuals? to actually insure that the change that you can envision can actually be executed? because in my 15 years, 10 years was two-thirds of that time. ten years you're going to be somewhere else. and you'll be looking back, and the alumni organization will be calling you asking for a donation, and you will give -- [laughter] and you may be coming to have dinner at tiffany's house again. but it's that part of actually trying to figure out how do you change ab organization and what's -- an organization and what's the time horizon? where i've seen most people fail is they didn't appreciate the time it was going to take to get an organization to change. and not enough people actually stay the course long enough. so as you ask these questions,

work with your friends. because the way to do it also is to make sure that as you leave, there's someone standing behind you who's taking it up to make sure. because ten years is only, what, four -- entering classes as you sort of spread that over time. but you need a strategy and approach to ask what does it mean to then reclaim that space. those are complicated questions about something you were asking. and as i was listening, i go, yeah. some of it will happen and sometimes we'll reach out to the communities, sometimes we won't. sometimes we'll change inside. but faculty come and go. students graduate. and the institution is celebrating 100-plus years. but changes happen. i mean, i grew up in a part of virginia at the same time, and we can both talk about the virginia we grew up in, and it's not quite the same virginia now. so in our lifetimes we can see that change. but you have to be sober about

the time that it takes to actually create the change that you want. >> well, we have time for maybe two more questions. >> so what i'll do, there were a hand here and a hand there, i'll take both, and i'll answer them in one integrated question. okay. >> so you talked briefly about -- [inaudible] >> yes. >> and they do fall into a larger landscape of online education, but the characterristings of massive and open seem unprecedented. i think one of the things some of us here get excited about is our on-campus students can participate in global dialogue as part of their education. and it just strikes me there must be roles to the humanity disciplines in understanding those dialogues, understanding the cultural implications of those dialogues and even guiding those dialogues. and i'm wondering if you might comment on that. >> >> i'd be happy to. let me take -- there was a question, i saw someone's hand. yes. >> okay. i'm short, so i'll stand up.

[laughter] this might betray some of my own ignorance, but i'm very interested in how the kind of work that the humanities does to mediate between academia and the public could reach the adult population of learners. for example, adults with low lit as city -- literacy abilities which i think is a pretty big problem here in tennessee and in nashville. so what kinds of initiatives have you seen that have people implemented or what kinds of conversations exist? are universities ever reaching out to community colleges and working together with them? >> thank you. and the questions do blend into one another very nicely, thank you both. it's my sense that if you begin to look at the range of online vehicles that are out there, i mean, be it ed ex or udacity or

any of the others that have emerged in the last period, clearly there's space there for the humanities. if you go back -- >> we will leave this program at this point. you can see it in its entirety at our web site, c-span.org. this morning, north run grumman's president and ceo wes bush is the speaker at the economic club of washington d.c. he'll be talking about defense spending during budget cuts. this is just getting under way. >> since you became the ceo, so very good. [applause] wes is, grew up in various places in the united states but went to high school in west virginia. he went to undergraduate mit, got a degree in electrical engineering and got a master's degree in electrical engineering and then joined the aerospace corporation which is an entity that was affiliated with the u.s. government and later went to trw where he rose up quickly and was based in england.

then trw was acquired by northrup and ultimately became a senior official at northrup, is and at northrup he rose up and ultimately became the cfo, the coo and, ultimately, president and now ceo as well and now also, as of july of 2011, the chairman of the board also. at the company he's done a great many things that we'll talk about today to change the culture of the organization, but he's also, of course, increased the stock price, as i mentioned. he's very involved in a lot of philanthropic organizations including conservation international where he's a member of the board, and he's done a lot to increase the sustainability culture of northrup. and he's very active in the outdoors-related areas and also was associated with and chairman of the board of the aeronautical industry association board last year. so, wes, thank you very much for coming. >> thank you, david. thanks for having me. >> you've now been running this

company for about five years. how can somebody who's running a company for fife years as important as this company look so young, and -- [laughter] do you sell vitamins as well as other things? [laughter] >> well, i'll tell ya, i feel fortunate to be able to work with so many talented and smart folks in our company and in the national security community. and i think that makes us all feel young and keep energized in what we're doing. it's just a remarkable community to have the opportunity to work in. >> okay. so right now we're facing an era where we're ending some wars, and the defense budget's likely to come down. so how will northrop grumman and other companies like you deal with defense budgets coming down? do you see your sales and earnings coming down? how do you expect to handle this? >> we are in another one of our cycles. our industry is clearly cyclical, and we've been through this before with, of course, and we're actually now several years into the decline, the current decline in the department spending and, more broadly,

national security spending. i will tell you that just my perspective and experience in our industry, there is always a tendency, everybody likes to chase growth. i think it's far more important to stay focused on what we do well. and that really has been driving our thinking over the last few years. maintain our focus and make sure that we're doing the right things to create value for all of our stakeholders; clearly our customers and shareholders, but also for our employee z z ea with go through a bit of a downturn. so i would say focus is the driving thought. ..

we should make less investment in national security. those two things went together. there was some logic. we are in a different place today. i haven't met anyone either in congress or clearly in a national security environment who would say that today the threat profile to our country and to our allies is less than it was just a few years ago. and yet, we are struggling to deal with the environment. we all know defense and national security has a role to play in dealing with that environment. where we, over the last few years has been on balance. the entirety of the budget-cutting has been on the back of the discretionary budget, which is a minority of the total spending. if you look at the total spending in the united states. said don't think we have in the

right place yet. to ask our customer community to continue to deal with the fullness of the threat environment which is what they're being asked to do, but with far less resources, ma i don't think we got that quite right. >> that's your view. do you talk to members of congress and say maybe they should increase defense spending? do you lobby or not? >> our industry has been i think quite vocal on this topic, that we really believe that the nation needs to have an outline that between strategy and investment, and that we are not aligned yet today. so yes, there is quite a bit of work that we all do in terms of making that perspective known andrew marr to support what our customer community has been saying in that regard. >> or do you meet with the president of the secretary of defense on these subjects as well? does the president securitized? >> within the department, the second defense, both our current secretary and the last several secretaries of defense have been very open to in the acting with

initiative after what i think is one of the best partnerships between government and industry with respect to national security. i've seen over the duration of my three in this industry. i think there is a good partnership. >> talk about your customer base. right now northrop grumman the sales of roughly $25 billion or so annually. what percentage is to u.s. government? what percentage is u.s. companies and what percentage is over see? >> we are predominately focus on the u.s. federal government about 86% of our sales last year where u.s. federal government but our international business is growing rather quickly. last year we were about 10% internationally. we expect that to grow this year. in part that is going because the administration and those in the department of defense that are involved in setting the strategy for how we support our allies are taking i think the right approach to encouraging a broader view of what we should be exporting to our allies. so that's creating a nice

opportunity for us to better support our allies around the globe and we're stepping up to that and making our company more global. >> if you go to a european country, and alec presumably and using i'd like you did buy my products and they say, i would like to buy them, you have to get the pentagon to approve that? >> there's actually quite an approval process. certainly our direct customer needs to be very supportive of the. so the pentagon of course needs to be strategically aligned with that capability being provided to an ally. but state department also has a voice in this process as does congress. so there has to be an alignment across the political spectrum to make those things happen. >> a number of years ago you built one of the most famous bombers of all time, called the b-2 bomber. average and i think they're this about 130 of them built. only about 20 summer built so they were about a billion dollars a copy.

what happened to the b- b-2 bombers? b-2 bombers? is effected today and is worth the money we spent? >> the b-2 bomber is clearly a very, very critical part of the nation's force structure day. they are deployed and utilized as needed and have a very high availability rate and we're proud of it. they're very proud of the program and what it's contribute to national security. i think as you know there's a program that the air force is pursuing today for the next generation of long-range strike. i think that is a really important program for our country and certainly a program that we as a company support fully. >> this is a piii this is a b3? >> you this is a piii speak with you my called it b3. it would be the next that. >> if you did the b-2, wouldn't they give you the b3 automatically? >> it's a competitive environment. [laughter] >> today all of your programs are ones you can't talk about. >> that's true spirit what can you talk about in this program? [laughter] can you tell us of any great,

like product you have not our relying on other people? is anything you can tell us we don't know? we won't tell anybody. >> not really but i can tell you some of things we're most proud of. we are clearly proud of her unmanned systems capabilities. in fact, we just won the calder award for product that we delisted last year for the first time ever we landed and unmanned aircraft on the deck of an aircraft carrier, which was quite and calm judgment. you can see it on youtube if you haven't seen it before to see how this aircraft landed at very precisely, they're actually on the deck of the aircraft carrier. and, of course, it's able to take off as well. it's an example of a class of technology that think really is in its infancy that is not -- has an opportunity to grow dramatically.

>> president bush 43 and landed on aircraft they want. what you're landing better than his? >> we didn't miss the water. [laughter] >> you don't like the word drone or do you like the were drawn? why do not use that we're? >> it's a popular terminology. we think it is a poor reflection of the class of technology that really goes into making the systems work. our systems, our unmanned systems are truly robotic. so it is not simply a remotely-piloted vehicle whether someone sitting on the ground with the joystick actually flying the aircraft. our aircraft fly themselves. so the class of technology that is in their embodies a full range of both aerodynamic technology as well as the computer science and the autonomy technology that goes into making something truly robotic. >> today we have a lot of troops that are coming home and presumably they don't want to be redeployed and we will probably shrink the number of men and

women in our armed forces. do you think that's a danger? do you think we can do some of these things with electronics now that we don't need as many men and women as we've had in combat troops? >> i could look at the national security strategy. i see it as having two fundamental -- first and foremost, we have the best trained servicemen and women around the world. that is the core of the underpinning of our national security strategy. but secondly we equip those minimum with the very best technology. our strategy fundamentally relies on ecological superiori superiority. so i look at what we're doing with unmanned and some of the other things that are going on in the technology arena, really as a way of supporting our servicemen and women. your question about force structure and size of structure, naturally we've been involved in conflicts, there's always a need to take the force structure down. the department is working its way through that today. but i believe don't see the

evolution of the technology as a complete replacement for people in any sense. there needs to be constantly a right mix, the right balance, human talent and technology for us to execute our strategy, a strategy that serves us well. >> today the equipment that you design and your competitor designed is pretty public it. it's it's not like a video game. and so other people that come into the military, are they able to operate these things as efficiently as designed? >> it's interesting. the digital natives among us, the younger folks who are constantly coming into industry and coming into the military, i would never underestimate their ability to deal with technology. they are just -- it's phenomenal what can be done. we observe is collectively as a nation as we deployed many young people in the theater over these last number of years. they invented what to do with many of these technologies in the theater.

they came up with new ideas. our servicemen and women actually using these technologies that have been provided to them use them in different ways that have not been thought of as they were being developed. i'm constantly impressed with what our servicemen and women can do. >> your background and what a company does involves something that might be called spy satellites, some people not call it that but let's say it's called spy satellite. are you surprised, i was, with all the spy satellites around the world they can't find the malaysian airline? why wouldn't some spy satellites have seen something? does that surprise you square the ? >> you've got to be looking at something when you need to observe. i would surely say this is turned out to be a very challenging problem from a technology perspective. we all hope it gets solved soon. >> we have seen google earth and we sing -- >> it's amazing. >> you can look at your house or something. our spy satellites, do they have

better resolution than google earth or not? >> you'll have to ask other folks about that one. [laughter] >> so you are working your way up the company and did you ever expect to be in the aerospace defense when you were at mit or is that what you always wanted to do? >> i always had my eye on the space industry. i've really been a part of that in my mindset and thinking since i was very young, and aspired to be an engineer in the space industry. >> do you want to be an astronaut? >> i think we all wanted to be an astronaut at some point in our lives. i probably didn't. [laughter] >> i don't think i would have qualified, but okay. >> the food is lousy. >> you rise up and you are rising meteor glee of the company and then you become on january i guess jenny one of 20 can you become the ceo. the first day you see a moving headquarters from los angeles to

washington. was very surprised the people? would've given you the job if they've known you going to do that? >> i'm sure the way to the number of folks that would've thought about that. i will tell you we've got great support within our company, certainly aboard and our employees have been very supportive. the transition to washington has gone extraordinarily well. the reason for was fairly obvious. we need to be closer to our customer community. being in california was great in terms of the legacy of the company and we continue to have a very large footprint in california. we have amazing technology, a set of organizations there, huge solid capital infrastructure in california but we needed our senior team to be closer to our customer community. that has worked out very, very well. >> do you spend what are today's a we can we do with the pentagon people talking about why your products are good? is that what you do? >> i was a more broadly our leadership team spends a lot of

time in the pentagon, spends a lot of time in the offices of the other parts of the national security community, as was the other parts of the federal government. it is a team effort when it comes to national security. we need to be actively engaged acrosacross the board. >> talk about cyber warfare for a moment. i was in your company has something to do with it but you can't say. but do you think that we are winning the cyber warfare, our gang, or the chinese are others ahead of us? how would you rate as compared to other countries because we are clearly very involved in cybersecurity. it's one of the cornerstone technologies in our company. something that we didn't involved with long before the term cybersecurity became a popular term. our involvement of course came about through our work with the federal government and the need to protect the networks of the federal government. i am very concerned about this particular area come in several dimensions.

first, it is an area where when you look around the globe, the status of the threat profile is pretty advanced. and i won't name countries or go into the fine details of that, but it is asymmetric. it takes a fairly small investment on the part of an adversary to put at risk large investments that we have as a country. so we have to be very vigilant about this. i'm pleased to see the even begin in this years president's budget proposal to congress that there's a large investment on the national security side for cyber defense and cyber protection. my biggest concern though as we look forward is we really aren't yet to a place where we are thinking about the broader society impacts of cyber, and this is stepping up to really deal with that level of issue and that level of threat. there are some constraints out there that holding businesses back in many respects.

part of it is knowledge and communication. but quite frankly another aspect is legislation. one of the things i think is in front of us as a good is to get over this hurdle on legislation so that we can do the things we need to do to be more effective in securing the cyber infrastructure for the country. >> there were reports that our government was able to tap into the computers of google or facebook or microsoft or things like that. was that a surprise to you or you can't say speak was i wouldn't comment on what may or may not be happening with respect to other companies, but i would simply say that with the world being so networked together, that our country's ability to really have a presence in cyberspace and do the things that we need to do for a long time security of our nation and our allies is really, really important. >> as the ceo of your company, people want to see what's on your computer, so how do you

make sure that your mobile device and your computer, you might use at home, is not going to be invaded by some foreign country? what do you do? >> we all spent a fair amount of time and energy on our companies subsidy. our company and other companies in our industry have made large investments in that arena. and we know that that is constantly changing, the threat environment that we are dealing with is constantly changing the soviets a constant battle. just as it is for the department of defense and most of the federal agencies. >> you must have some special way. is anything you can tell us we can you on our little computers comparable speedaisspeedais h change your password often. [laughter] >> today, there are let's say five very large aerospace defense companies in the united states, you might say. and over the last couple of years the pentagon has not encouraged anybody to make acquisitions of each other.

they want to have i guess what we have now, but the were many more defense companies in the previous years now that of consolidated down. do you think as a result of the defense cutbacks we're likely to see there will be more consolidation among the large defense companies and giving the pentagon should allow them to have been? >> your observation is an important one. a large defense lines out there today were built through large-scale. it really was a necessity that we go through that can really over the course of the 1990s and the early part of the last decade. there simply wasn't a level of budget support and actual infrastructure that existed at that time. so consolidation was genuinely a necessity to enable our industry collectively to do the tough things we needed to do, scale through infrastructure so we could more efficiently and effectively support our customer community. and during that period of time to custer -- customer community was are supportive of the. those things would have happened

without customer support. i would say over the last decade the customer to me has been more focused on ensuring competition, and that is dominated about of the thinking. as we go forward its current difficult to speculate what the world events or other things might shape the thinking and whether that might change. but i was to today the focus is on ensuring competition. >> one hundred company was going to merge with lockheed martin. >> many years ago. >> do you think they could be allowed in the future? >> i wouldn't speculate. i don't see anything like that on the near-term horizon, in terms of not just our company but the industry. the world continues changed around us. if history tells us anything, things continue to change and we all need to understand what that means. >> sometimes you do those things and you do best in your shipbuilding business. and since it was the best of its than extreme the well on its own. some people have criticized

using why couldn't you manage it as well as it's being managed now. [laughter] you must have read that criticism. >> i did. [laughter] i was amused by it. speed why do you spin off your shipbuilding business? >> we are incredibly proud, it was called hii, bishop of the business was one that was a part of that aggregation that occurred in the late 90s and early part of the last decade. and started out with a lot of logic to it as to what it would make sense for a company like ours to own shipbuilding. as time went on that logic proved that this is surely be the case. it really did not turn out that by owning shipbuilding that that was a convenient way for us to our other capabilities onto ships. in fact, oftentimes our customer committee really wanted to separate those two things. it also became more clear over time that the inherited business model in ship building was different than the model we reducing to create value and the rest of the northrop grumman interface, and he was our

assessment and i think time has proven it to be true that these two businesses would fare better separated as opposed to being together. so that was the action we took on the premise that they would do well. i'm just absolutely delighted with how it is turnout. >> you are in the aerospace defense business but as you point out is probably the route is coming from the customer will go down a bit. how you consider getting out of that this is a bit and getting into other businesses or expanding beyond the aerospace defense business? >> i think it is oftentimes what companies will be because people love to chase growth. i think it's a mistake. i really do. part of the learning that many of us went through in the '90s was that it is actually difficult for defense companies to suddenly paint themselves as a commercial company. and tried to pursue things in the direction. we're pretty good at partnering, so where we develop technologies and capabilities that might make sense to be applied in the commercial arena, finding the right partners, but i think it's

more important that we stay focused, that we use the capital that we are able to generate in our business, to create value through investing in ourselves, and, of course, what makes sense to return cash to shareholders. that's really the approach we been using last one of years i think it's working well for us and we're determined to keep that focus. >> as i pointed out, you davidic interest in conservation and environment. where did not spring from? >> i think it really came from growing up and enjoy the outdoors. my dad was someone who also, still lives, loves the outdoors. i have two brothers and he costly to the three of us out and went camping and hiking and the rest of it. i hear oftentimes a product of how you grow, and i shortly them. >> you tried to make your company more sustainable in terms of its products. can you describe how you take an aerospace defense company and

make it sustainable? >> it's often kind of a quizzical look that you want to start talking about environmental sustainability. don't you make weapons? i think we all have a responsibility in this regard, if we think about any of our enterprises, whether we're in the defense business or any other business. i think we have a social responsibility, a long-term responsibility to think about sustainability and to do the best that we can with the resources we have at our disposal to think about what our companies are doing both in the near-term and long-term. we've taken on what you might say are sort of the traditional things but actually i think the important things. we've worked hard on our greenhouse gas emissions. we set a goal about five years ago to take up 25% of our emission intensity, and we actually achieved that in about three years. so our team really rallied around this. we are working hard on reducing our solid waste and also working hard on reducing our water

utilization. i will tell you one of the things that has been to me the most satisfying about this, is not getting other organizations to say, isn't that great? northrop grumman is doing something good. what's been most satisfying has been to see how our employees have rallied around getting this done. it is unleashed and energy and the pride in a company that i quite honestly thought might be there but did not expect that the level i've seen it. our ability to make progress as rapidly as it is really a credit to our employees to see this as something important. >> and today, the president of the united states called you and said you've done a great job at running an aerospace defense company. why did you community sector and defense. would you into government? you've never served in government i think. do you have any great burning desire to go into government? >> i would say that i'm completely 100% focus on doing

what i'm doing today because the blood, i love what i'm doing. secondly, i feel i'm actually able to make a difference for our country. working with the team that i work with and working with the committee, the defense committee i work with. i admire folks who step up and take on public service. i think that is, i always admire and i appreciate when people do it. everyone gets to a certain place in life i think they think about those things differently but i will say i'm completely focused in running our company. >> supposed the president called you up and said i have a problem in the ukraine and -- [laughter] you have any products or services i could use that could help me? what would be your advice about what he should do in ukraine? spend i would stay out of providing advice on that front. i was a loser i think it's important for our national security capability to be capable of supporting the president at all times, and everything we're doing. i am very worried that the

vector we are on from a budgetary perspective is one that will undermine the president's ability over the long term, whoever is president at any particular point in time, to really do what needs to be done. so i think we've got an issue that needs attention. >> can you look in the future, in other words, sometimes you're developing in your work, new products that are going to be the future. so are there any great things in the future we can see in five or 10 years that are coming out of companies like yours that will make our life better? >> you know, i would say that part of the excitement of defense industry is exactly that, that we are constantly working on the leading edge of technology. our company, with about 65,000 employees, and little more than half of them are degreed scientists, engineers, mathematicians. so this is a very technologically sophisticated enterprise, and the lifeblood of an enterprise such as this is that technology flow, and that

investment that both we make in our enterprise from a technology perspective and better customer community makes in this. so we are constantly innovating what's next. we are also constantly careful to protect what's next because it will conduct technological superiority, we're not just going to open the cupboard and let everybody see what's there. but the message that we have only get out and recruit, it might be interesting to go to work for some of the big names that are seen as commercial technology companies, but for young folks we want to work at the leading edge of technology, it's our industry. has been for a long time and we're determined to make it continue that way spent at a school like mit, a lot of very talented engineers are people that come to this country from another country. taken over from china or india or other places and they get a degree. are you able to hire these individuals if you're not american citizens for your type of company? how do you do with the issue?

>> we are able to hire somebody not many. it is a challenge. i think broadly it's a challenge not just for our defense industry for the clearance issue sometimes become more competent. i think the challenge for all of our industry, that we are educating so many bright people in our country that we aren't able to keep in our country. so i'm a strong proponent of getting on with immigration reform and enabling us to take advantage of the amazing educational enterprise that we have in the country to help continue grow our economy spent what do you see as the single biggest challenge other company going forward? what is the biggest problem you see speak is the biggest challenge i see over the long-term is talent. our enterprise runs on the brilliance of the people who work in a come both in terms of folks in our company and in terms of folks in the defense department and the other elements of the national security enterprises. and it is a tough battle for talent out there today. i think that there's sometimes a

misperception that because the economy has been a little tough for a few years, that it's easy to hire people that you need. and when it comes to getting the best, they have a lot of opportunities, particularly what comes to getting the best out of american universities, which i think continue to be among the very best educational enterprises around the globe. so talent over the long-term i think is the challenge. >> you are losing these engineers to google, facebook or hedge funds or private equity funds speak with is not so much about losing too. it's about getting them. when we're out there recruiting, and quite frankly and i think many folks have studied and understood what's happening from a s.t.e.m. education perspective, we are not graduating as a nation in a stem qualified stem graduates to support the demands we have to date an open as our economy starts to pick up over the next few years that demand will continue to grow. we've got to get more through our pipeline.

>> uintah high school in wes virginia. you went to mit. were you intimidated when you got there and thought there's a lot of brilliant people, or do you think they weren't as smart as you thought they would be? >> i think anyone who walks through the door at mit and isn't intimidated isn't awake. it is a fascinating environment, and if i'm i absolutely loved. lots of incredibly smart people, and lots of folks who are just massively talented at asking tough questions. so i really enjoyed it. >> as you become more prominent in the business world, have a, after you at mit to as for donations because we all do what we can do to help. ..

it takes a while for any person, no matter how smart you are to get the arms around the complexities what goes on national security perspective. when we talk to members not involved in the national security committees they are not inherently as fluent in all those issues so it takes some dialogue but i would say across both parts of congress, both the senate and the house and both parties, there's a strong interest in national security

and. >> and do you see any threat that foreign governments and their defense contractors have any chance of overcoming the major defense contractors in the united states in terms of their capabilities? do you see the american companies still dominating this world for a long time? >> i would say our industry is becoming more of a global security industry. there is a lot of partnering that is going on between companies based in the u.s. and companies based in our allied nations. we are working to expand our footprint internationally and i think very appropriately many of the international-based defense enterprises are working to expand their footprint here. i think of our industry as a global security industry, not just as a domestic security industry. >> now today, two other large companies are based in the washington aerospace defense. they are headed by women. general dynamics and lockheed martin. do you feel like you're part of an affirmative action program being a male running an

aerospace defense company or do you think it is not affirmative action, that your company is happy to have you as the ceo? >> let me just say i am really proud of the progress in our industry in that regard. it wasn't that long ago if you had suggested that the defense industry was a good example of diversity you would have gotten a round of laughter and very appropriate laughter because we were not. we have made great progress. we have not only some terrific women ceos in our industry and they are, they're absolutely terrific ceos. we also have outstanding women executives at all level. in fact if you look inside of northrop grumman, half of the senior executives who report to me are women. and we're a better company because we have improved our diversity and our inclusion. i think we are a better industry because we have been working so hard on diversity an inclusion. are we perfect? absolutely not. we still have in front of us a lot of work to do.

i give our credit to our customer community. this is an area where the dod best industry side of it, really began to think hard about this, dodd was thinking hard about it and our customer community worked hard on diversity and inclusion. so we all collectively have a long way to go here but we're making really good progress and i'm proud how we're doing. >> so you're in your early 50s and you have a long way to go. do you have any plans to stay for a certain number of years in your current position or do you want to do it for 10 more years or do you have any plans. >> i'm having so much fun what i'm doing i haven't really thought about that from a long-term perspective. as long as the board will have me and i'm having a good time doing what i'm doing i hope i can continue to help create value and help support our national security. >> so you do leave at some point, have you considered a higher calling such as private equity or something like that? [laughter]

>> gosh. >> no? >> not right now. not right now. >> thank you very much for your time. >> thank you, david. thank you very much. [applause] >> hold on a second. >> oh, my goodness. that is beautiful. >> this is an original map. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> so if you missed any of this

discussion you will be able to watch it again shortly in the c-span video library. you can get there by going to c-span.org. coming up later today defense secretary chuck hagel and the polish defense minister hold a joint news conference to discuss russian intervention in ukraine and u.s.-poland relations. live coverage from the pentagon starts 10:45 eastern on c-span. coming up today former british foreign secretary david miliband and robert ford will discuss humanitarian efforts in syria. we'll join their conversations at the washington institute starting at noon on c-span. tonight a future of the conservatism of the republican party. he former white house domestic policy staff member for the bush bush administration. here is some of what he said. >> i think in one way that misdescribes the model a bit. i think one way to think about

the problem we're facing, the change we're facing and another reason why some people say this isn't the america i used to know is that our idea of what america is shaped by a postwar america that couldn't possibly come back and that didn't exist before the war, that is never going to exist again anywhere in the world, a country that won that war in a way that strengthened its economy while literally all of its competitors burned each other to the ground. for decade could contain in itself the growth of global capitalism. all boats did rise in a way at least to some extent. that model defines our expectations in a way that is going to need to change and it is going to be very, very difficult to change that. you can look for example, i had the interesting experience last year of reading charles murray's new book, right after reading paul krugman's the conscience of a liberal. those two books start exactly the same way. they start with introduction with pure nostalgia for the early 1960s. almost the same terms, and

they're right. those are years we should miss. there is lot about them to miss. our politics is far too oriented how we can bring that barks instead of thinking about what does the world look like now and how we can think about america's strength today. both parties are failing that. that is not just a conservative problem. both parties are intellectually exhausted at the same time in this country. >> there is '50s no, sir tall gay for the economic. >> big labor was big and there was economic dynamism. that is true but that doesn't mean we can do it today. >> what is the future? the '60s were pretty good to me. i know you guys don't remember it, you guys were busy on the internet. >> we weren't born then. >> that's true. >> technically, we really weren't. >> that's yes enjoy them. [laughing] >> you can see more of the panel on the future of conservativism tonight starting at 8:00 eastern

on our companion network c-span. >> it is an ancient art. goes back to the veinings of human history. we don't go back that far but we do have some interesting artifacts that help people understand how long people have been making and breaking codes and a need for crip technology. when we talk about the when we talk about the united states the making and breaking of codes has been a part of america, even before we gained our independence. one of our most pressures artifacts is referred to as the jefferson cypher device. truth in advertising it is very important to note that we don't have any definitive conclusion sieve evidence that this particular device belonged to thomas jefferson but there are some interesting facts about it. one, this device was found in an antique store very close to

monticello. it appears to have the ability to cypher french and english. we know jefferson was ambassador to france. probably the most compelling point, there is a drawing of a device very similar to this in jefferson's private papers. even so we can't say for sure that jefferson owned it. what we can say is that this is an excellent example of how people used cryptology in the 19th century. >> from the nsa national cryptologic museum. making and breaking see credit codes, sunday at 6:00 and 10:00 eastern, part of american history tv, this weekend on c-span3. things got heated at the united nations yesterday between the ambassadors of russia and ukraine as each presented his version of the continued standoff between the two countries. following the annexation of crimea. the ukrainian army has not been able to pub back against

pro-russian insurgents in the east of the country and the interim president asked for u.n. peacekeeping troops. this meet something two hours. >> madam president, distinguished members of the security council you were briefed over this past weekend on the latest political developments in ukraine. my briefing today, as you requested, will address the situation of human rights in ukraine and update you on developments since my last briefing on the 19th of march. i will highlight key human rights issues, taking into account the most recent events in the east. my remarks are based on the finding of my two recent missions to ukraine as well as on the first few weeks of activities of the u.n. human rights monitoring mission in ukraine.

at the outset i wish to emphasize the strong interlinkages between chronic human rights violations in ukraine, the maidan protests and the current situation in the east. almost a third of the population in ukraine reportedly lives under the poverty line. huge disparities in standards of living and inadequate access to base being social services attributed to corruption and mismanagement were amongst the underlying factors that led to the made dan process -- maidan protests. protests that started started ie kiev and swept across the rest of the country from november 2013 to february 2014 revealed a deep rooted dissatisfaction of the people of ukraine. vie learns bit security forces against pro-european peaceful

protesters in kiev on 30th, november, 2013 created outrage and led to radicalization of the protests and clashes between protesters and police. legislation that curtailed freedoms of expression and assembly and enhance ad sense of impunity by the police was rushed through mid-january and led to violent actions by some radical protesters as well. progress is still to be made in bringing to just tis the perpetrators of serious human rights violations committed during the period of maidan protests. during the protests there were 10021 persons killed -- 121 persons killed and still over 100 persons remain account unaccounted for. the general prosecutor's office

initiated criminal proceedings and it is important to insure accountability of the perpetrators. during the protests there were expressions of religious and national hatred of certain groups and individuals? particular russians affiliated with the former government, were also reported. however these were neither systemic nor widespread. they were isolated incidents which were then exaggerated through some biased media reporting, fueling fear and insecurity amongst the ethnic russian community. there have also been some cases of incitement to hatred coming from the right-wing extremist groups such as so-called right sector. fear and insecurity breed one incitement to hatred,

discrimination of violence is not curtailed. it is therefore crucial that this issue be addressed as a matter of priority and i welcome steps already undertaken by the government and the prosecutor general office of ukraine to publicly condemn and investigate any such instances. in this context it is clearly unacceptable that one presidential candidate calls his followers to arm themselves to defend the east of the country while another is beaten because of his political views. monitors are verifying these serious allegation. madam president, my visit from 21st to 20 second of march, the most recent visit to crimea by a senior u.n. official. during my visit i interacted with a wide range of interlocutors and local

authorities and civil society and especially victims themselves. this allowed me to obtain a first-hand impression of the situation. the media manipulation significantly contributed to a climate of fear and insecurity in the period preceding the referendum. the presence of paramilitary and so-called self-defense groups as well as soldiers in uniform without insignia was not conducive to an environment which voters could freely exercise their right to hold opinions and the right to freedom expression during the referendum on 16th march. there were credible allegations of harrassment, arbitrary arrests and torture by these groups that targeted activists and journalists who did not support the referendum. while reiterating general assembly resolution 68-262 on

territorial integrity of ukraine i stress the obligations of the authorities in crimea to respect international human rights norms. it is also a concern that on 11th april authorities in crimea rushed the adoption of a new constitution. the crimea ann has raised important human rights concerns about the total lack of public debate as well as the exclusion of crimean tatars from the drafting process of the new constitution. concerns also continue to be raised regard to issues in particular that those who do not accept russian citizenship will reportedly face many obstacles in guarantying their property and land rights, access to education and health care, and the enjoyment of other civil and

political rights. madam president, when i visited eastern ukraine in march the situation was already very tense. meanwhile the situation has significantly deteriorated. reportedly armed pro-russian activists establish ad peoples republic of donesk taking control of a number of government cities in the region using violence including against law enforcement officials. russian protesters continue to occupy the local business of the security services and participants of a pro-ukrainian rally were attacked and beaten by pro-russian demonstrators who broke through police cordon, resulting in some 50 persons being injured. ongoing incidents and clashes between various groups of protesters as well as with security forces are of a serious

concern. while the reports indicate that the number of protesters including some allegedly from outside of the region has not significantly increased and we are speaking of a couple of thousand, the level of violence and the proportion of armed protesters has. this has significant human rights implications. while protests related to human rights violations need to be urgently investigated and verified, security forces must play their role in maintaining public order in accord cans with human rights standard. there are clear lines between what can be considered the exercise of the right to peaceful assembly and the violent behavior of armed protesters, however, in all cases security forces should not use force unnecessarily or excessively. the situation in the east, if

not adequately addressed as a matter of priority, risks seriously destablizing the country as a whole. those who exercise influence over the situation should take immediate action to halt the violence. the arming of protesters and their transformation into quasi-paramilitary forces must be stopped. anyone inciting violence and providing arms to protesters can be held accountable for the resulting tragic consequences. in order to deescalate tensions across the country all parties should be encouraged to start an inclusive, sustained, and meaningful national dialogue based on respect of legal obligations of ukraine under international human rights treaties already ratified. such a process should take into

consideration the concerns of all those who live in ukraine including minorityies and address issues such as language rights and decentralization of the country. finally, i can not stress enough the important role that accurate human rights reporting can play in preventing violence and diffusing -- defusing tensions. yesterday we issued our first report on the human rights situation in ukraine based on my two visits and the first month of the human rights monitoring. we intend to issue our second report on 15th of may. anyone with relevant information on human rights violations should share it with us so that we can verify it, further investigate if necessary, and include it in our next report. thank you, madam president. >> i thank mr. simonovic for his

briefing. give floor to members of the security council. i give the floor to the representative of lithuania. >> thank you, madam president. i wish to thank the nigerian presidency for organizing this public briefing. i would also like to convey my appreciation to assistant secretary-general, simonivic for his briefing. report on the 15th of april by the high representative human rights which uses its justify illegal actions in ukraine. the report points out that ukraine suffered from human rights violations lack of accountability and corruption and mismanagement of resources as well as lack of system of checks and balances and lack of free elections the blame is placed on the previous regime. the report indicates that underlying human rights vibrations were the among the root causes of a popular protest

that led to change in government. adoption of restrictive anti-protest law and special police and other security forces underrian covich, transformed a peaceful. led to violence and death that ensued. since this current government took power at the end of february, tensions decreased along with allegation of human rights violations. in crimea the main concerns are linked to the russian sponsored developments leading to a situation after the so-called referendum which has had a direct impact on the enjoyment of human rights by local inhabitants, especially the indigenous tatar community who chose to boycott the reverend dem and their situation has just been described. many people may be forced to leave their homes and face other consequences arising from the crimea's takeover. this is also confirmed bit osc special monitoring mission. the report also highlights the highly-questionable character of the referendum which was held in an environment of intimidation

by armed groups, and a total lack of media freedom. as you will recall the plebiscite was organized in a particularly hurried manner in absence of established election practices, election observation without a public debate on the merits and providing exclusively for a secessionist option. the report indicates too, that in eastern ukraine grievances with regard to the failure of central government to represent their interests have a history long predating the current government. human rights violation of ethnic minorities of eastern ukraine and crimea elsewhere in the country have not been widespread or systemic. this is clearly confirmed bit most recent statement by you know special representative on minority issues who has concluded that the overwhelming of minorities and other described harmonious interethnic and interfaith relations and conditions of non-discrimination

in all spheres of life. the current human rates situation of minorities she says in ukraine and civil and economic, political, social, economic conditions can not justify any violent actions or incitement by any party, national or international. and that is exactly what we have been saying all along. whatever the issues regarding the human rights minority rights situation in ukraine, in crimea or eastern ukraine in particular none of these issues can ever justify the invasion and annexation of crimea or ongoing destabilization of eastern ukraine and could and should have been resolved by way of established and well-tried specific instruments with the assistance of regional organizations such as osc and council of europe as well as the united nations the furthermore the report notes that there are positive changes underway or underreflex in shun ukraine today, willingness to break with the past injustices an elaborate a new vision of the country. these conclusions contain in the report are confirmed by the

current government's efforts to strengthen the rule of law, combat corruption, insure minority receipts and address the issue of decentralization. in fact the acting president recently proposed to hold a referendum on decentralization of the country together with national elections to be held on the 25th of may. all of the above points to the fact that the crisis provoked in ukraine is not about protection of one particular ethnic minority or language minority. or alleged ukraine's extremist radicalism. but we knew that too all along and there are previous conclusions by international representatives including osc repeatedly reputed such allegations. among other things it is about ukraine's destabilization with view of obstructing an preventing may 25 elections which interim government in kiev announced minute it was appointed for fear power,

destabilization and presprint elections. that power may slip from the fingers of yanukovych and his corrupt cronies. this is a land grab, naked land grab and russia's greater political and military ambitions. in disturbing deja vu in clear violation of ukraine's constitution and accepted norms of international behavior heavily armed militants without any insignia occupy local government buildings declare independence, which is sad caricature of self-determination in defiance of national and international law. furthermore the simmic and well-oiled propaganda war against ukraine and provincial leadership is dangerous game as we've seen time and again from various situations around the world and greece and central african republic. it is much too easy to release the arms-wielding genie out of the bottle, genie of incitement and hate but infinity knitly more difficult to contain it afterwards. we urge russia to stop inciting

and propaganda ga campaign before it is too late. international bodies and europe and ukraine repeatedly called for the paths to restraint and dialogue. the doors to the path are sill open in geneva with a meeting in 17th of april and we call on the russian federation to pursue that path. madam president, a lot remains to be done for the current and future governments of ukraine. fighting corruption and we welcome the fact that relevant legislation is now being put in place, improving access to education, health and social services, providing real equality for all its citizens, addressing deficiencies of the previous justice system, combating impunity which was so typical of the country are the main issues of concern where the international community including the united nations will always see and council of europe can readily provide further assistance. reporting on human rights violations will help manipulation of information by whoever and continuing reporting

by the u.n. human rights monitoring anything in ukraine to insure regular flow of updates on the situation in the country. we also provide necessary and mid and long term funding for the mission going well beyond june. this mission must continue its work on the entire territory of ukraine incrude concluding crimea. other human rights monitoring instruments are necessary. we're looking forward to visit ukraine in period between the 7th and 13th of april. requests by other mandate holders under the human rights council special procedures like the special representative and itps and visit ukraine and reports are welcome by our side. it is crucial to insuring independent monitoring on the human rights situation in crimea specifically. we call on occupying authorities to allow human rights monitoring mission in ukraine to work in crimea including opening of a office. u.n. officials should visit crimea and report on the situation of all ethnic minorities on immediate freedom

and human rights. madam president, the people of russia shandy crain are victims of propaganda and disinformation that provoked constitutional actions by militants with external assistance. the situation is very tense but a reversal of course is still possible. it is time to heed countless calls to deescalate and for moscow to stop interfering with ukraine's current affairs. the current government is set to address human rights say likes decentralization of power, corruption and strength and account and rule of laud. it is in the common interest and future government of ukraine should be allowed to carry out this work unobstructed. we should insure a free and fair election an 25 of this of ukraine with participation of all ukraine and its rich diversity can take place. i thank you, madam president. >> i thank you the representative of legitimate wayne gnaw for her statement.

-- lithuania. i give the floor to the representative of the russian federation. >> translator: are great concerns. on april 13th, having convened an emergency meeting of the security council, the russian delegation called quite insistently upon a number of members of the council to use all tools available to them to prevent the use of force in the crisis in the eastern regions of used crain. in response we heard a number of ambiguous statements and some delegations expressed their understanding for the plans of the ukrainian authorities to use force against their fellow countrymen. while the result is clear. those were the result of forcible coup to assert power in kiev have chosen to ignore legitimate demands of the inhabitants of southeast and unconstitutional use of armed