retelling of the civil rights movement with more women's stories added. let's tell our favorite books. julie? >> makers. >> yes, thank you, makers. makers three hour television special on pbs now is also a wreb site with about 200 interviews, which is a huge wonderful resource. a very, very important present. and historical resource. what other favorite books do we have here? >> words of fire. absolutely. great, yes, very, very important. >> stephanie kuntz, the way we never were. i mentioned the mermaid and the

minitore earlier, which i think was from the '70s or '80s, but really shows the degree to which the changeover to societies in which men were separated from children and didn't develop those parts of higher arcry. not enough men enter child rearing in the home and develop the rest of themselves. >> bell hooks, feminism is for everybody. >> yes, the great bell hooks. >> yes, ms. magazine in the classroom. >> ms. is in classrooms and a very important resource. and it also is in women's prisons and a very important resource.

>> betty ferdan, absolutely. a classic, especially for women in a traditional role. >> what organizations, what kind of community building do you recommend? >> well, just tell us where you live and we'll find you -- there's no shortage. and the junior league also has become much more an agent of social change than it ever was when i was growing up. >> i'm going to cut in for one more political question before we wrap it up. >> wilma mankiler wrote a

wonderful book, she interviewed 15 women from indian countries. and thank you, alison for saying that, because what you glimpse as you do in various works by women from indian country is a crucial fact that we big time are not learning, even in women's history, which is that the sufficient wrath moment like the underground railway and so many things was mainly a function of native -- of indian country. native women were -- had -- we would say equal power, but they got to be called a petty coat government, the cherokee, for instance because female elders had to sign the treaties or they weren't legal. women controlled their own fertility and they -- the native women referred to european women

as those who die in childbirth. they were appalled at these women who came from the worst stage of patriarchy and couldn't decide when to have children. we're walking around on a history that we don't know. and there are many women trying to bring it back. and there's a friend whose work you should look up as well. who has written a book called everything we want once was here. and that's not only true of native cultures in this country, but also of cultures in southern afterry car, who will take you out into the desert and dig a hole and show you what they use for contraception, for

headaches, migraines. it's true of the original cultures of 95% of human history. don't let anyone tell you that it's human nature that we live this way. no, it once was different, and it still could be. native women are very funny about it, you have to have a sense of humor, given what they've gone through. what did columbus call -- primitive, equal women. >> we are almost out of time, we have one more question. before that, just a couple housekeeping matters. first of all, i'd like to remind you about our upcoming speakers. on december 3rd, we have manuel santos, the president of columbia, on december 16th, dan agoer son, the president and ceo. chairman and ceo of general motors, on december 19th, ricky skaggs, grammy winner and blue grass legend. and january 15th, christine la guard, head of the international

monetary fund. and before the last question, i'm very pleased to present our guest with the -- for a long time now traditional national press club coffee mug. i'm pleased to give you a mug. >> thank you. >> and the last question, what did you do with that tie? >> i haven't the faintest idea, and i don't care. but what a minute, i just have one more book. there is a wonderful small well written, well researched wonderful book called ex-termen ate all the roots, which is a line from heart of darkness, actually. by sven lindquist, who is

luckily swedish, it's about the invention of racism, it is a brilliant brilliant book. exactly why it was that europeans having become over populated because they suppressed women and made women have babies. he doesn't quite say that part as he should, but then in order to take over other people's land invented the idea that those people were inferior. it's a brilliant, brilliant book. and let's keep this going. don't you love all this. at your table, keep doing it, keep handing around ideas. >> thank you. thank you for coming today. thank you all.

thank you to our national press club staff for helping organize today's event. here's a reminder, you can find more information about the national press club online at www.press.org. thank you, we are adjourned. if you're a middle or high school student. c-span's student cam competition wants to know, what is the most

important issue congress should address. make a video and be sure to include c-span programming for your chance to win $5,000. the deadline is january 20th, get more info at student cam.org. members of the senate education committee recently began to consider the reauthorization of the higher education act. considering among other things college afford ability and access for low income and nontraditional students. this is two hours. >> today's hearing is the second in our series to examine critical issues in post secondary education, as we look to reauthorize the higher education act next year. the topic we will discuss today is of great interest to policy makers in the public. that is innovation and higher

education, that we spent time previously in this committee discussing the role of innovation. much of that was focused just on college affordability. that is, of course, of paramount importance and will probably be discussed again here today. i'd like to spend this hearing examining an equally important and related subject. the landscape of innovations and higher education that increased due to learning, engagement and degree completion. if our nation's trying to educate more students, then by the year 2020, we have the status of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. we need to do more to ensure students are persisting toward and attaining quality degrees. what can colleges and universities do to maximize our force, to ensure students are getting in on time and faster and earning a meaningful credential? today's panel explores erts and progress at the institution and system wide level.

both high and low tech, to increase student success and higher education. these innovations can inform our committee's work in designing federal policy, and determine the role the federal government can play in promoting effective change to help america regain and retain its global leadership. >> too often, good innovation can be siloed, either within a college classroom. a key focus of today's conversation will be discussed to allow education to be innovated or scaled up. the impact of these innovations are having on their students learning experience and success. in completing a degree. as i said at the start of this series of hearings, focusing on reauthorization of the higher education act. this is no time to be complacent with the status quo. everything is okay is not

acceptable for this committee. the stakes are too high. so we'll need to take a tough look at reimagining how our higher education system can work better. i'd also caution we should not waste time entertaining innovation for the sake of innovation, we want to know what that innovation is doing, to make sure that students are getting the most out of their college experience. >> the make-up of this panel is indicative of the broad scope of our higher education system, and how that system needs to continue to innovate to meet the needs of all the students they serve, at whatever point those students enter our higher education system. we all understand that a one size fits all approach will not do. witnessing the emergence of many new innovative models. this is a great strength of america's system. i am proud we have such a diverse system, we must ensure that all current and future models are focused on student

success, and agree attainment. i look forward to working with my ranking member and all members of this committee on both sides. to get a good higher education bill, and one of the main parts of it is what we can do to further promote, stimulate, as i said, expand, scale up, innovations that have proven to be effective in different areas. with that i invite senator alexander for his opening statement. >> thanks for this second and series of hearings on the higher education reauthorization, i'm really looking forward to this, this is a distinguished panel of people who know what they're talking about, and so that ought to inform us in terms of what we should be doing, and what we ought not to be doing. there's a lot of talk in our last hearing about where's the innovation in higher education. and in thinking about that, it occurs to me that innovation for its own sake is not what we're

after. as the chairman said, the goal of education is to improve student performance. increase retention and graduation rates. do it in a way that reduces or maintains costs and encourages efficiency that benefits taxpayers and students. so two things come to mind about this approach. and i'll be looking for. you would think we have the perfect environment to encourage innovation and higher education, unlike many other countries in the world. in america, we think the american way is to have a marketplace, an entrepreneurial spirit, we don't have a state church, we have lots of churches. our music springs up from various places. that's the case with our colleges and universities. 6,000 different colleges and universities of many different ty types from harvard to the university of maryland. i mean, these are all different

places, and we honor the awe taken my of each institution. they really operate in a marketplace, where students have a chance to choose them, and they can beat for students scholars. that can produce the largest amount of innovation. innovation doesn't always work, i used to be involved with venture capital and helped start a business that made its way from scratch to the stock exchange. i learned along the way that most new businesses don't succeed. and most new ideas don't work. for example, in the 1980s, when i was governor, and we'll hear about mr. hall about this, we were worried about the number of students in colleges and universities who weren't prepared for that. we thought that was wrong, we said the way to deal with that was to say to them, you can come to the college or community college, but you won't get credit for a course if you're not prepared for college.

we're very proud of ourselves for that innovation. it turns out 20 years later, that probably isn't the right thing to do, and what we'll hear from mr. hall and what our state is now doing is abandoning that approach, and admitting more people, and working harder to move them through the system faster. that seems to be working a lot better. what seems to be a good innovation at one point might not be later, and it's a caution to us that we should be careful about coming up with even a very good sounding idea here, and expecting that it will work ten years from now, or imposing it on all 6,000 institutions around the country. a second concern i have, though is that one would think that at a time when the world is changing so rapidly, and we have this marketplace of 6,000 institutions that we would be seeing more innovation. we would be seeing more. maybe you'll tell us that we -- it's there, but we just don't see it. but there's some obvious things

that perhaps we should do to correct that, one may be that the federal government's in the way. for example, with too many rules and regulations that consume time. i talked with dr. kerr win for a moment, and we've talked many times about deregulation of our education, and creating more of an environment in which innovation can occur. there's also the definition of credit hour, not having the pell grant available year round. federal aid rules that don't allow students to excel through course work. i'd like to hear your comments whether these are impediments. they make it more difficult for you to innovate. the one area that seems to me that would be obvious for more innovation. and i think i understand a lot about why it hasn't happened. it seems to me it has to happen is a more efficient use of time and facilities at colleges and

universities. forth washington university's steven track ten berg once told me, you can run two complete colleges with two complete faculties in the facilities now use half a year for one. that's without cutting the length of vacations, increasing class sizes or requiring faculties to teach more. dartmouth college has one mandatory summer session for every student in four years. that would improve dr. tracktenburg's institution by 10 to 15 -- it's bottom line by 10 to $15 million a year. those were his ideas. he never did that at george washington university. so i understand some of the reasons for that, but maybe we need more of a culture of inning know vague. so what i'm looking for today is how do we encourage a culture of innovation in our 6,000

institutions, without throwing a big wet blanket over -- that smothers you by giving you an order from washington that may work at austin peete, but not the university of maryland. how do we do that? how do we get out of the way? i look fword very much to this. and i thank the chairman for the hearing and for these excellent witnesses. >> thank you very much, senator alexander. i listened very carefully to i listened very carefully to your opening remarks. captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008

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