David Benac
Western Michigan University
12/28/16
Case Statement: Public History Education and Environmental Sustainability, National
Council on Public History, 2017
As a resident of New Orleans in 2010, I watched with horror as the Deepwater Horizon
exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 13 workers and unleashing a seemingly unstoppable
torrent of crude from deep below the ocean’s surface. The spill, the largest offshore oil spill
in US history, and its aftermath created cultural and economic hardships for residents of the
Gulf South and threats to the ecological stability of the region. Three years later I moved to
Kalamazoo, where I discovered the Kalamazoo River was suffering the effects of the worst
inland oil spill in US history (a spill that occurred while oil was gushing out of the faulty
drilling rig in the Gulf). The nation watched as these events destroyed ecological systems,
damaged regional economies, threatened cultures, and traumatized local residents, then allbut
forgot that they occurred. I could not forget. From that point on I felt a moral
obligation to utilize my skills as an historian to work on behalf of a more sustainable future.
My professional life has long reflected the dual role of the public historian who finds
employment in academe. A tenure-track position at a comprehensive university in
Louisiana, resulted in tenure when I achieved the requisite level of accomplishment through
publications. Simultaneously, I acted on behalf of the university as a consultant to cultural
institutions and established myself as a contract historian and historic preservation specialist
with cultural resource management firms. My department expected this outside work, but
because it did not lead to publication it did not factor in tenure decisions. After a decade in
Louisiana, I took a position at a different university, re-acquired tenure, and once again
undertook the work to establish myself with cultural institutions, governmental entities, and
area residents as a public historian.
Environmental issues, always an intellectual concern, became my primary motivation for
action as the oil spills and their aftermath provided indisputable proof of ongoing and
unabashedly disingenuous actions by political and economic leaders and the willful ignorance
of the public to the severity of global ecological threats. My actions include the creation of
courses, certificates, and minors designed to provide students with the tools integrate issues
of environmental stability into public history practice, organizing campus/community
outreach events and direct action groups as well as taking leadership roles in politics at the
local, state, and national levels. In these and the many other ways I have utilized my skills as
a historian and leveraged my position from within academe, I have (for good and ill)
attracted substantial attention to my efforts.
Ensconced within academe, I face several issues as I promote awareness of environmental
sustainability as a component of the public history curriculum. One of the most basic is
bridging the gulf between students’ interest and motivation. Students, without prodding,
tend to express concerns for environmental issues, yet make little effort to take action. I
attribute this to exposure and knowledge. Students encounter an overwhelming amount of
seemingly equivalent information that becomes embedded in their consciousness through
attention grabbing headlines and graphics. In the face of this onslaught, students find little
need to go beyond headlines or seek out reasoned and research-based arguments. Operating
within this deluge of ideology and hyperbole requires a substantial effort to excite interest
without abdicating the ground of expertise. Success demands not just attention to ongoing
events, but a sincere effort to gain the necessary expertise to subtly direct spirited discussion
of controversial topics into productive areas pertinent to the practice of public history.
Unfortunately, this work is not generally rewarded in the tenure and promotion process.
Ethics is the other area that poses a potential obstacle when instilling a concern for
environmental sustainability in the training of students in public history. Public historians
are not new to ethical dilemmas. In this case, the dilemma is occupying a position of
advocacy while training students. To stay true to my moral code I will not abdicate my
leadership positions in political and activist groups, but I do not bring these roles into the
classroom. Students occasionally discover my activism, in which case I own the actions, but
refuse to discuss them further in classrooms, my office, or over university email.
A pedagogical strategy I use to address advocacy is to lead students in a critical discussion of
ethics. The goal is to bring them to a point where they outline an ethical code, according to
my design. This time consuming and often interesting discussion produces results that
students embrace more fully than when I simply give them the framework. My (largely
borrowed) 3-point code for ethics in public history: 1) protect historical resources, 2)
promote historical awareness, 3) interpret the past in accordance with all relevant facts.
Under this rubric it is the ethical duty of public historians to oppose anything, including
development, pollution, or climate change that directly harms historical resources or
diminishes their cultural, social, or economic value. I build on this foundation by elaborating
on examples, of which students are aware, but for which they lack detailed knowledge. In
the fall of 2016, the Dakota Access Pipeline and the National Park Service inspired our
discussions of environmental sustainability, historic resources, and the ethics of advocacy for
public historians.
As satisfying as it is to engage students in discussions of ethics and to open their minds to a
new vision of responsible scholarship a larger, more institutionalized approach is necessary.
In the past three years I have been busy enacting this vision by creating three programs.
Undergraduates seeking the specialized skills necessary for employment in heritage
management within natural resource agencies or institutions can enroll for a minor in
“Environmental Heritage Management.” Graduate students looking to hone a skill set can
pursue a certificate in “Cultural and Environmental Heritage Management.” Even students
who choose not to take courses on campus are included in my vision through a certificate in
“Democracy, Capitalism, and Activism” through our Extended University Programs. These
three programs inextricably unite a concern for environmental sustainability with the training
of public historians. To effectively prepare the next generation of public historians to
address issues of environmental sustainability we must make those concerns prominent in
our practice. Our actions, our classes, and our entire curricula need to be reevaluated and
adapted for this purpose.