Providence

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
PLENARY SESSIONS
Worst. President. Ever.
Thursday April 7, 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
#OAH_badpres
Chair: Claire Potter, The New School
Panelists:
• David Greenberg, Rutgers University
• Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University
• Sean Wilentz, Princeton University
Discussions of leadership frequently turn to the U.S. presidency,
and discussions of the presidency frequently turn to ratings. The
top presidents, and the reasons for their greatness, are familiar and
literally graven in stone. The worst presidents, though, are a more
nebulous group. We take the time and expertise of a variety of top
historians to talk about what makes for poor performance in the
White House, how we know it, and what it tells us about American
leadership more generally.
Historian Presidents
Thursday April 7, 5:15 pm – 6:45 pm
#OAH_histlead
Chair: Jon Butler, Yale University; University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Panelists:
• Drew Faust, Harvard University
• Ricardo Romo, University of Texas at San Antonio
• Edward Ayers, University of Richmond
This plenary session features four prominent historians who lead
or have lead universities, organizations, and foundations. OAH
President-Elect Ed Ayers will lead a discussion that will take up the
challenges and rewards of leading complex institutions.
The panelists will consider several questions: As a productive,
working historian, why did you agree to take a job as a president
of a university or foundation or as a dean or director? What in your
scholarly life has made a difference in your administrative life?
Looking back, do you think scholars, and historians specifically,
should encourage graduate training in academic leadership? What
tools should we look to develop? What are the pleasures of academic
administration? What are the obstacles, pitfalls, problems? And
finally, we are snowed with accounts of the academy in crisis, of
the humanities pushed to the sidelines, of declining enrollments in
history. How have these stories looked from your office?
New Bees
If you meet someone with a bee on their name badge, make
them feel welcome! If 2016 is your first year at the OAH Annual
Meeting make sure to pick up your bee sticker at registration!
Can We Use History?
Friday April 8, 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
#OAH_Krugman
Presenter:
• Paul Krugman, CUNY Graduate Center;
Luxembourg Income Study Center; Woodrow
Wilson School, Princeton University
Discussants:
• Naomi Lamoreaux, Yale University
• Eric Rauchway, University of California, Davis
These are glory days for economic historians. Those who knew
their economic history were far more successful at tracking and
predicting events since the global financial crisis than those who
didn't. Yet policy makers have repeatedly ignored the lessons of
history. Can this ever change?
Paul Krugman holds two titles at C.U.N.Y. Graduate Center,
distinguished professor in the Economics Ph.D. program and
distinguished scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center. In
addition, he is Professor Emeritus of Princeton University’s Woodrow
Wilson School. He is best known to the general public as Op-Ed
columnist for The New York Times, a position he’s held since 2000.
In 2008 Krugman was the sole recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize
in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade
theory. In 2011, Time magazine ranked his New York Times blog,
"The Conscience of a Liberal," as number one in their listing of
“The 25 Best Financial Blogs.”
In addition to winning the Nobel, Krugman is the recipient of John
Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association, an award
given every two years to a top economist under the age of 40.
He also received the Asturias Award given by the King of Spain,
considered to be the European Pulitzer Prize.
Author or editor of more than 25 books and over 200 published
professional articles, Krugman has written extensively for non-economists
as well.Before joining the staff of The New York Times, his work appeared in
Fortune, Slate, Foreign Policy, The New Republic and Newsweek.
Krugman's approach to economics is reaching a new generation
of college students. He and Robin Wells have coauthored college
textbooks on micro and macroeconomics that rank among the topselling
economics textbooks used in American colleges today.
Krugman has served on the faculties of MIT, Yale and Stanford. He
is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and a member of the Group
of Thirty. He has served as a consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank
of New York, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the
United Nations, as well as to foreign countries including Portugal
and the Philippines. In his twenties, he served as senior international
economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers under
Ronald Reagan.
He is a regular contributor to ABC-TV's This Week with George
Stephanopoulos and makes frequent appearances on Charlie Rose,
PBS NewsHour, Bloomberg Television, NPR and MSNBC.
Krugman's four recent trade books, End This Depression Now!, The
Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008, The Conscience of
a Liberal and The Great Unraveling became New York Times bestsellers.
Photo Credit: Fred R. Conrad, The New York Times
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2016 OAH ANNUAL MEETING PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND