The Electronic Smithsonian

Installation Address, 19 September 1994

I. Michael Heyman, law professor and former chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, was installed Sept. 19 as the 10th secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Smithsonian chancellor, presided at the ceremony, which was held outdoors on the Mall in front of the Castle. Secretary Heyman succeeds Robert McC. Adams, who has retired after 10 years as secretary.

The U.S. Navy Ceremonial Band performed a medley including "This is My Country," "Columbia" and "America," and the audience sang the national anthem during the Presentation of Colors by the Joint Armed Forces Color Guard.

Chancellor Rehnquist opened the ceremony, remarking on "the infrequent succession of great scholarly leaders, rooted in the rhythms of academe more than politics," that has brought SI nine secretaries in a span of time that has seen "30 presidents, 33 speakers of the house and 12 chief justices." The installation, he added, was "momentous by any Washington standards." Rehnquist then announced that the regents had bestowed on Adams the title of Secretary Emeritus.

Adams thanked the regents and recalled "just such a splendid day in September a decade ago," at his own installation. The task of managing the Smithsonian, he said, is like uneasily threading along a knife edge between beckoning abysses...change and opportunity and stability and caution. "My own conviction is that a decade is long enough for this balancing act." He spoke of his sense of satisfaction and pleasure at the regents' choice of Heyman. "He is an acutely perceptive, supple, pragmatic, broad-ranging generalist.... I think he can be counted on to provide wise leadership during the lean times that lie ahead."

Heyman then stepped to the podium with his wife, Terese, and Chancellor Rehnquist presented the new secretary with the 5-inch brass key that has become the traditional symbol of installation in the position. Adams received it from then-Chancellor Warren Burger in 1984, and S. Dillon Ripley received from retiring Secretary Leonard Carmichael in 1964. It is believed to be an original key to the Castle.

Heyman, who is 64, was elected by the Board of Regents at a meeting May 25. (See "Ira Michael Heyman to become the Smithsonian's 10th secretary," Page 1, The Torch, July 1994.) His installation address follows:

Distinguished guests: One of my mentors, Clark Kerr, when running afoul of a new governor who was outraged by 1960s protest and disruption at the University of California, told reporters that he left the Presidency fired with the same enthusiasm he had had when appointed President years before. You should know that I, similarly, am fired with enthusiasm for this extraordinary Institution, but I don't have any intention to speculate on how my tenure might eventually end.

Every Secretarial era reflects unique circumstances and poses its own opportunities and problems. At present, resources are relatively short. My recent predecessors until a few years ago could count on a generous Congress and Executive Branch. Public fiscal prospects, however, are bleaker at this time. Agency budgets are largely capped. Appropriation subcommittees must stay within set limits.

While we must argue vigorously for special treatment, realism counsels that we not depend solely on public revenues to grow substantially in the near future. Realistically, we must work very hard to guard against erosion of our base budget and for adequate resources to fund the heavy future obligations which the Smithsonian and the Congress and the Office of the President have jointly undertaken, such as the completion and full staffing of the National Museum of the American Indian.

This means that the Smithsonian must rely more heavily in the future on private support from individuals and corporations. A systematic effort to increase private support has started very well under Secretary Adams. We must enhance that success by working closely with donor groups--ones that already exist and others that will come together in the future especially in support of each of our museums and other major activities. And we must enlarge our connections with the corporate world.

Substantial movement in these directions presents great opportunities to shore up our resource base, but change is also threatening. Many, especially internally, shrink from any identification of the Smithsonian with corporate sponsors. I remember outrage among some faculty at Berkeley when professional chairs endowed by corporations bore the name of the business donor. We obviously should not sell the Smithsonian's name; on the other hand, we should not shrink from tasteful indications in advertising that the corporate donor supports the Smithsonian.

I refer to this because we're working very hard to interest corporate sponsors in joining our 150th-year celebration. If we're successful, the Institution's logo will appear broadly, and the Smithsonian will go public nationally on television and media in ways new to all of us. I ask my colleagues to applaud this audacity rather than grumble at the change.

This new era also demands from public (as well as private) organizations increased fiscal accountability. We must use our resources efficiently and intelligently both to husband them and to underscore our credibility to those who provide them--the government and our donors. I believe that frugality also has a positive side. For example, it will require us to agree more specifically than in the past on the dimensions of our mission.

The Smithsonian resembles to me a great public university with a very broadly stated mission: the increase and diffusion of knowledge. Within this we have centered on three major tasks. First is public education (largely through our exhibitions of art and scientific and historical objects, but also in a host of auxiliary ways: tours, classes, print and audio publications, and lectures). Second is a university--ike research operation, primarily in the biological and physical sciences. We also accomplish serious research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, but there more frequently in relation to organizing exhibitions. The third task is hosting and maintaining at last count 140 million objects (this undertaking has led, of course, to that description of us as "The Nation' attic").

Generally speaking we do an excellent job. Most of our exhibitions are well conceived. Each of our museums is in the top groupings of like museums in the U.S. and the world. We carry on research programs important for both the creation of new knowledge and the application of knowledge to solve real-world problems. We expend considerable resources maintaining our collection.

It is crucial that we sustain excellence in all that we do. If our resource base shrinks, we must be prepared to jettison the less important of our activities rather than reduce all our activities pro rata and thus threaten the excellence of our most important ones. To do this rationally we have to plan, and I expect that a goodly portion of my time, and the time of my colleagues, will be devoted to shaping a comprehensive plan for the Institution for consideration of the regents.

Tough financial times, however, ought not to mean institutional paralysis. We must find ways to finance needed new activities, and I have two in mind presently.

One is deeper participation by the Smithsonian in the environmental debates raging in this country. My time at the Department of Interior (and my background in teaching) reinforce my belief that the Smithsonian can convene and preside over conferences that explore both the scientific and policy issues that surround contemporary environmental disputes. And we can do this in an even-handed manner that involves responsible people on the many sides of issues and that will inform the political debate and give interested people a relatively neutral template through which to make their own judgments.

I am appointing Thomas Lovejoy as a Counsellor to me, to the Secretary, and I am asking him to plan the first of what I hope will be annual conferences. The first topic, timely because Congress will be facing the need to legislate, is biodiversity and endangered species. And I'm looking down there at my former boss, the Secretary of the Interior, and wondering if he's glad or sad that we make such an undertaking.

As the example indicates, I see as an important educational role of the Smithsonian the presentation of facts that surround controversial subjects--subjects that are within the circle of Smithsonian activity and expertise. We are all aware that a planned exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum on the 50th anniversary of the ending of the war in the Pacific by the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the display of the Enola Gay, has caused considerable controversy.

The Smithsonian could have avoided controversy by ignoring the anniversary, or by simply displaying the Enola Gay without comment, or setting forth only the justification for the use of atomic weapons without either reporting the contrary arguments or indicating the impact of the bombs on the ground. My view is that the Smithsonian has a broader role than simply displaying items in the so-called Nation's attic or eschewing important topics because of the political difficulties created by the exhibition. The Smithsonian, as a meaningful and responsible public educational institution, should seek to present matters in their full dimension. At the same time, however, we should do our level best to be balanced, especially when we deal with matters that engender serious political controversy. Our viewers should make up their own minds.

This is what we are trying to do now, as we revise the Enola Gay exhibition. Our first script for the exhibition was deficient. Too much of the context for the use of atomic bombs was taken for granted. In this and other ways, the proposed exhibition was out of balance. This is being remedied as we consult with additional historians and interested groups. I believe that our final product, to go on exhibition next May, will properly present the record of what happened and will be the basis for justified national pride in the sacrifices of our veterans, the technical proficiency of our scientists, and the productivity of our industries. And this evenhandedness is what I have in mind with environmental topics like the protection of endangered species.

The second activity, much more massive and potentially important for the Institution, is the development of our capacity to give electronic access to our collections throughout the nation. The technical capacity exists now to record our collections in digital form and to transmit them in on-line computer networks and on discs. Presently, a number of firms are experimenting with like television transmission, although it will take some time before substantial numbers of homes can be reached in such networks. In the short run, however, it is probable that transmissions will be broadly accessible to schools; the formal educational opportunities by one-way or interactive systems will become substantial in the near future.

These technological developments will enable the Smithsonian to be truly national. We presently share our exhibitions through a splendid system of traveling shows, and we obviously share research information through articles and books and on-site work by visiting scholars. Electronic communication, however, broadens our potentialities immensely and at a relatively low cost, certainly at a much lower cost than seeking to build buildings and run them throughout the United States.

Parts of the Smithsonian are already engaged in these undertakings. I intend to devote considerable time to enhancement and coordination of our present activities. Five years hence I hope that the Smithsonian (together with the Library of Congress, the National Gallery, and other federal, state and private agencies) will be deeply engaged in this new world of information transmission and sharing. We should be more than the place to visit in Washington; we should also be present throughout the country in a whole variety of ways.

My last observation suggests that the Smithsonian should be working with other institutions in sharing electronic communications. A broad view of institutional interrelationships is another way to enhance and enlarge our effectiveness. Our joint program with Harvard in astrophysics is an example of what I mean. I hope that we will explore deeply its effective emulation in natural history and other of our activities.

There is a third area of prior achievement which deserves our continued attention and energy. The Smithsonian is becoming self-consciously inclusive: more of its exhibitions and activities reflect the art, culture and history of all of our major ethnic groups. We still have a way to go, and we will be paying special attention in the next few years to that large group of Americans of Hispanic origin whose culture has not adequately been represented at the Smithsonian. We do this not to differentiate, but to educate all of us about our origins in a way that will foster senses of pride and thus counter separation and make more attainable the creation of one set of Americans out of many.

I am delighted to be named the 10th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. I look forward with pleasure to leading one of the great cultural and scientific institutions of the United States. I urge all of you to participate deeply in our 150th-year celebration through your energy, your creativity, and, when the time comes, your pocketbook. Thank you.

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