Marcie Woehl, Public Intellectualism for All at Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library
Marcie Woehl 0:01
You've spent any time in North Dakota, you know that we are very proud of the fact that TR said something along the lines of, I never would have been president if it weren't for my time in North Dakota. And you can think about it a step further sometimes, as he would have never become the Theodore Roosevelt that we know him now, as if he hadn't spent this time in the Badlands of North Dakota, this is the place to which he fled after the twin deaths of his wife and his mother, but this is also a place where he started to really learn and grapple with how to be something other than what he was raised as.
Tayo Basquiat 0:41
Welcome to the study podcast, a virtual room for thought where there is always room for you. I'm Teo, and joining me in the study today is Marcie Woehl, who is the manager of public programming and education at the Theodore Roosevelt presidential library in Medora, North Dakota. Marcie Woehl, thanks for joining me in the study today. Appreciate it. I actually was very fortunate to have you as a student at Bismarck State College, and then you completed your Bachelor's at UND, then you went on to the University of Rochester for your PhD. So tell us a bit about your intellectual journey, and what brings you back to North Dakota?
Marcie Woehl 1:25
Well, thank you for having me, and I would say that my intellectual journey not to be too obsequious, does start with you in a lot of ways. You were my philosophy professor at BSC, and I cruised into BSC, not really sure what I was going to do, not really sure what I was fully capable of. And you were this fantastic advocate for me as a scholar and as a learner, and you sort of opened up my horizons to realizing that I could do way bigger, greater, more fantastic things than I had ever previously realized. And of course, what happens when you have a really good philosophy professor is you pursue what they did. And so I became a philosophy major at University of North Dakota, where I double majored in English because my dad thought that would be more practical if I added the English Literature degree, which is funny. It did pay off, though. And when I was finishing up my undergraduate degree, I wanted to keep the party going in regards to the study of English literature, and I applied to graduate schools, thinking that I would be a modernist. So James choice and the like, got into grad school, realized, oh no, digital humanities is actually what I'm interested in. And then did a bit of Digital Humanities, quite a lot of it at the University of Rochester, and realized my favorite thing about the digital humanities, which tied back to English, which tied back to modernism, which tied back to philosophy, was the ways in which we can make people think more critically engage with ideas they haven't previously engaged with. And so my graduate work at the University of Rochester turned into a dissertation about public intellectuals and contemporary modes of public intellectualism, more broadly, which really lined me up really well for my current goal at the trpl, managing public programs and education. So I guess I will then put the onus on you as to why I'm back here, because you started me on the journey. And I never thought I would come back to North Dakota, never thought I would be back here. Told people when they asked if I would move back to North Dakota like, Ah, what a what a quaint idea. And now here I am back in North Dakota, working at the trpl. And frankly, I do love it.
Tayo Basquiat 3:55
And for those who may not know what that acronym is for, what is trpl?
Marcie Woehl 4:01
The Theodore Roosevelt presidential library. So TR is just now getting his presidential library in Medora, North Dakota.
Tayo Basquiat 4:10
Fantastic. That's a That's a dream or a project that was started when?
Marcie Woehl 4:16
2014 was when this sort of iteration of the project really kicked off. It's been a concept, of course, that's been talked about for decades. But this project, as we know it, really got its traction in 2014 and it was one of those things that even as I was at BSC, I was keeping my eye on it, like, Oh, that would be pretty cool, a fantastic project to be able to work on, and as it's developed into this incredible thing that it is. Now, I was right in 2014 It is an incredible project to work on.
Tayo Basquiat 4:49
Well, I just want to say to North Dakota and to trpl, you're welcome if I had a hand in bringing. Marcy back to the state and to this project, because you are fantastic. So your specific job at the library is in public programming and education. What's your vision for this role? And how do you think about the programs and experiences that you might bring into the work.
Marcie Woehl 5:25
My vision for this role is sort of deliberately, almost aggressively, sort of expansive. So I want to be thinking about the traditional educational opportunities that might be afforded to Regional students at a museum. So thinking about how we can have students coming to the library, how we can be thinking about how people from the library can be meeting the students where they're at. But I also like thinking at the biggest scale possible. And when you think of intellectualism, which is, you know what education is, in a lot of ways, it's the practice of intellectual activity. You don't often think North Dakota, and I'm really excited to be in a position at the library where we can make the TRP all a new sort of hub of intellectual activity across the country. So thinking about how we can get some of the greatest thinkers of our day right now, and getting those people to be doing events, talks, you know, the standard fair at a presidential library, but also thinking about how that intellectual activity can be practiced, so not just learning from oration, you know, hearing a lecture, hearing a talk, but thinking about what Would it look like if we had this particular person and then we organized a suite of activities around that particular talk that brought those ideas to life, and as is the case in my doctoral work, where I'm thinking about broad forms of public intellectualism, my idea of the figures that could fit within this category is also broad. So thinking about what would it look like, for example, to bring Taylor Sheridan out to the trpl and have him do demonstrations on writing and talking about his ideas of the American West, and how you capture that for Americans in a way that brings or continues rather the romance of those open spaces and that style of work,
Tayo Basquiat 7:25
I think it's great to talk about the practical, the thing you're not typically associated with intellectual activity, which is that you're reading a book or doing something very sedate. But what is it to actually have this experience of Taylor Sheridan coming in and actually horseback riding, you know, and experiencing that way. So I'm just curious if you have some other things that you're also thinking about would be fun, maybe experiential or practical intellectualism?
Marcie Woehl 7:55
Yeah, that's where my mind is right now, because those are the events that I'm currently working on. But another one that I'm really excited about is, and you know, this is something that I think you wouldn't think of when you think presidential library in Medora, North Dakota, but we are very fortunate to have an executive chef at the trpl who practices food medicine and brings in foraging and an indigenous perspective to cooking and the culinary arts, and she brings that practice across everything that she does. So the cafe is super hyper local. It's focused on Prairie ingredients, focused on things that are going to make you feel better rather than feel worse. And so one program that I'm working on planning is a sort of mid winter table in the trpl, December holiday ish season, but thinking about how we could use the library as a venue for highlighting local producers, local growers, local ranchers, and having them come and Talk about their products and say, like, you know, the steak that you're eating came from this cow in this pasture from this family farm. And so it's not just your sort of standard banquet style of it, where you're just like, eating food and thinking, wow, this food is so incredible, and I'm so happy to be here. And aren't the candles beautiful, but incorporating, like almost sneakily, almost to a captive audience, in some ways, those moments of education where you can be bringing in and talking about the food, and really being thoughtful and really being intentional about that which you're engaging with. And so that's one that I'm really excited about because, you know, I am a foodie, so this is self serving in some ways, but to be able to highlight the community of North Dakota, the people in the area that produce fantastic things and have done that for generations, is a style of intellectualism that I'm really excited to be able to uplift.
Tayo Basquiat 10:02
And since that was such a part of your dissertation, maybe you could give a little bit of understanding to what you consider public intellectualism to be. Because, of course, you know, the United States has quite a history of anti intellectualism like these are seen as very elitist topics in drafty institutions, out of the reach of the common the commoner. You know, pragmatism is maybe the bridge that we went between, you know, sort of an intellectualism through pragmatism down into a rejection of intellectualism. So what are some of the nuances or the more expansive notion of public intellectualism that you you found in your in your work?
Marcie Woehl 10:54
To me, I would say public intellectualism, it's easier to show where it isn't operating than where it is. And I get that that can be a contentious statement, I would say, sort of in the contemporary moment, but I'm really sort of looking at things as sort of innocuous and quotidian as social media posts, like if you see something on Instagram and it's talking about Joan Didion core and what it means to be someone channeling the Spirit the vibe of Joan Didion, I spend pages sort of unpacking all of these sorts of implications that are occurring in that post, like what it takes for someone to understand that, what it takes for someone to share it with another person, and how that sort of form of really casual engagement with ideas in those spaces is operating in a sort of intellectual discourse. You're having those conversations with people in a way that isn't super high brow. It's not like those drafty spaces. It's not like the discourse that is occurring in academic halls and seminar rooms, but it's something that's really engaging the same sorts of mental muscles in a way that I think is really fun. And so I'm looking at things like that, but I'm also starting to look now about what does it mean to do public intellectual work at a presidential library. What does it mean to be looking at memoirs as something that isn't just a book that's sort of like a creative autobiography, but what kind of intellectual work is it performing based on who in that particular text might be talking and how they're talking.
Tayo Basquiat 12:48
It sounds like a very accessible notion. Actually, I was reading this really interesting article about a group of miners back in the 1700s in England was the late 1700s moving into the 1800s before there was any collectivization around workers rights or anything. And they so they, you know, you just imagine the work of a miner back in those times. And they actually had a few of them that knew how to read and that had some access to books, and then they would pass these books around, and the miners who could read were teaching other miners how to read. And out of this, you know, and I can't imagine, like you spent your day digging for coal, and then you decide, oh, I think I want to learn how to read, and then read this book in the evening, supposedly, or something. And out of this came the collectivization movement. Really fostered a sense of, I think, their own worth and humanity. You know, that they were worth something other than the work that they could do, and that that's intellectual work, and it's, you know, it's not happening in an institution, but it's happening between people who are trying to understand things and are curious about, you know, various facets. So, so I love these projects and this vision you have that elevates the quotidian, as you said, but just like the average encounters that we have, that there's questions to be asked in everything that we encounter, whatever we can notice, whoever we can meet, there's just so much to be interested in in those moments. So I've gone on long enough about that, but I just, I just love this kind of work and and reclaiming the right of the average person to just, I'm a public intellectual as well, if I'm engaged in this work, you know.
Marcie Woehl 14:57
Yeah, isn't that fun? Like to think? Think that it isn't this particular thing where it's, oh, you have to be a Noam Chomsky or, you know, if you want to get sort of, not necessarily polemical, but you could think about Malcolm Gladwell operating as a public intellectual, or Neil deGrasse Tyson, like, What if everybody has the capacity to be engaging in public intellectual work? And what does it mean more broadly for a broader culture, if we sort of recognize, and okay, that, and it's really sort of empowering for the average person, it's dangerous too. There's going to be downsides to the people who think that they're engaging in intellectual activity, and in many ways are but for potentially less beneficial or magnanimous, and you know, and that's something that I have to grapple with in my dissertation. But if we focus on the positives and the empowerment of thinking about public intellectualism like this, it really does have the capacity to uplift in a really meaningful way.
Tayo Basquiat 16:00
So I have a recollection of you back in one of my classes mentioning your enthusiasm for Richard Nixon. And here you are. You've come over to the other side. Theodore Roosevelt is now your guy I know, and aside from just like, this is the opportunity and that you, you know you clearly are not only interested in Richard Nixon, but is there some, is there some, like meaningful shift to be noted? There are there things that actually interest you about Theodore Roosevelt?
Marcie Woehl 16:38
I'm gonna graciously or ceremoniously or ungraciously, rip off Rick perlstein's quote that he wrote about Richard Nixon. And he said, if you're tired of Nixon, you're tired of life. And I'll say the similar one, or just frankly, rip it off for TR. If you're tired of TR, you're tired of life. And frankly, I'm a North Dakotan. You aren't allowed to sort of be a North Dakotan without having some passing affinity for Theodore Roosevelt. But it's sort of both things where the institution was really being sort of very ambitious, very forward thinking about how they were going to be a presidential library, how they were going to add to that career, that lineage of presidential institutions across the United States, and that, in itself, is alluring, like if you think about the certification that we're trying to achieve as a building, or thinking about, you know, we just don't want to be teaching people about TR and just sort of giving them this knowledge, we want them to learn from TR and really sort of engage with those ideas and practice them, and think about how different aspects of tr's life and legacy really resonate with them and might change them in a really dramatic way after leaving the library. But TR is a figure, though, you know, I like Nixon because he's he's controversial. He's a guy that I think sometimes we tend to hate because he reminds us of the worst qualities of ourselves. And TR is a little bit more accessible. He's a little he's got that broader appeal across, you know, political history, but he's ebullient, ebullient. I've never said that word out loud. He's vicarious and vivacious and full of life and full of spirit in a way that is really inspiring and exciting to anyone like this. Was a guy who really lived life to the fullest, like some times to you know, perhaps an extent, that was dangerous to him or his family at times. But I think that there's something really charming about seeing someone who is like, I've got one go around on this planet, and I am going to make the absolute most of it. And I really like that. I like that he was also sort of a complex guy. Or if you look at the historical image of him, and again, this is sort of like Nixon in that way, you get the TR as the real guy versus the TR as the myth. You get the Nixon as Nixon versus Nixon as Watergate, sort of parallel and TR at the same time as being this guy who was, you know, manly and knew what he was doing, and confident and strong. He was also someone who was insecure and felt things very deeply, and could be anxious at times, and had to be sort of wrangled by some of his sisters sometimes. And I love even those facts, like finding the delight in seeing that this mythical person is just as nervous as you or I are when we're speaking on a stage sometimes, or is just as you know, thinking twice about something that they might have said. And isn't that so comforting to know that even TR the Little moose was like us too.
Tayo Basquiat 20:03
Yeah, he has such a not only inspiring, but I think there's also features of him which are directly either contradictory of himself, like internal contradictions, or he's just full on, full forward, and you can deal with the Wake that's left behind him. And as a philosopher, you have a unique perspective, I think, on the way that we engage challenge or complexity or conflict, cognitive dissonance. Are there ways in which you are hoping to introduce that into the educational experiences that the public has there, like, Are there elements that you're already identifying within Theodore Roosevelt's life that might cause some people to have those cognitive dissonances for themselves or go against what they have always believed or thought about him?
Marcie Woehl 21:12
Yeah, I would say that we are trying to really be thoughtful, thoughtful about how we engage with cognitive dissonance, and really sort of unpacking that mythical character that we think of as TR of this guy who never did any wrong, who was the perfect gentleman, who was the man's man, sort of thing. And showing you know, if we think even about Ed O'Keefe book, like this was a man that was made by the women in his life, his sisters, his mom, his two wives, Alice and then Edith. You know, this was a guy that was formed by all of the people around him and didn't always have the right answer, know necessarily what to do. He was someone that turned to Fanny or Connie. And I think that that's really sort of thought provoking in some ways, to show the network behind a person the family support structure of someone like TR but we are sort of approaching that through all of our exhibits and all of our experiences, as we want to be adding that nuance and that depth to someone that can seem one dimensional in his fantasticness, in his strength and his vitality, and sort of unpacking and saying, you know, almost moving past cognitive dissonance. And you know, as much as we can with people who are visiting the library, and it's sort of a yes and experience, he was these things, but he was also these things too. And I think that that's going to be really enriching and rewarding for the people that visit the library, is we're really unpacking the life legacy and mythos around TR
Tayo Basquiat 22:53
As people visit the library. If you are in North Dakota and you you're familiar with Medora, perhaps with its location in western North Dakota. If you're listening from elsewhere and you've never visited North Dakota, which I often hear, you know that North Dakota is the one state that I've never been to. So I've, I've heard that often with with people, and then they'll immediately confuse it with South Dakota. But so let's talk about the location of this library. What are the features of the place itself that intrigue you in incorporating the library's work and programming with with the place?
Marcie Woehl 23:38
Yeah, so the trpl was chosen. Its location was chosen very deliberately. If we're thinking broadly about Medora, and if you're from North Dakota, If you've spent any time in North Dakota, you know that we are very proud of the fact that TR said something along the lines of, I never would have been president if it weren't for my time in North Dakota, and you can think about it a step further sometimes, as he would have never become the Theodore Roosevelt that we know him now, as if he hadn't spent this time in the Badlands of North Dakota. This is the place to which he fled after the twin deaths of his wife and his mother, but this is also a place where he started to really learn and grapple with how to be something other than what he was raised as he came from a very privileged family in New York, had gone on sort of world tours throughout his life. Was very well educated, gone to Harvard, but going to the Badlands of North Dakota was a place where he, you know, his status didn't necessarily matter. It mattered if he was going to do the work, and he was going to go on the roundups with the people on the various cattle operations, and if he was going to saddle his own horse or have someone else do it for. Him. And so this was an area that he learned a lot about, how to be the Theodore Roosevelt that he would become, but how to be sort of a more, in some sense, as you could think, like well rounded individual. And so when we think about public programs at the library, we want to be engaging in that same kind of work of practicing things hands on. And our exhibits are going to be experiential in a lot of ways, where you can sort of literally practice the things that TR might have done in his time out here, from branding cattle to shooting game exercises. But I want to also be thinking about what it means to have land foraging classes and really engaging directly with the land, and not foraging for the sake of grabbing everything, but speaking about it within the context of stewardship. And I think about Robin wall Kimmerer here, and the relationships that you want to have with the land as symbiotic, and not as something that we have the right to take as much as we want, but a relationship that we have to be nurturing and stewarding for the lands that we're on, and so thinking about how that can be incorporated into programming, or even thinking about what it means to be talking about love and loss and family on our green roof with our 360 degree view of the bad lands at sunset, to be situated in a place that so many people from TR and onwards have gone to heal. I think that there's just a fantastic opportunity for a variety of programs that are really going to show why place matters and why it makes such a big difference in how you're engaging with ideas, but also the people around you.
Tayo Basquiat 26:51
It makes me want to visit for sure, this library is primarily a place, a gathering place, rather than the, you know, a traditional collection of archived material. So the, you know, people can interact with the library from wherever they are through the digital archive, correct?
Marcie Woehl 27:16
Yep. So we are not a collecting institution, and we do not hold the papers of Theodore Roosevelt on site. A good number of papers are held at our partner institution, the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University. But in regards to the brunt of his papers, letters, manuscripts, etc, those will be held in a digital archive that we are building in partnership with Microsoft. And so that's particularly exciting in the sense that it provides access to hundreds on hundreds of 1000s of documents to anybody with an interest and an internet connection. We want them to come out to the trpl. We want them to see this incredible space that blends in with the landscape, that you can walk on the roof, that you can go on a picnic on the boardwalk. But we also are huge proponents for democratizing that information in a way that can make it super accessible to people who may not have the means, the resources, etc, to be able to make the journey out to western North Dakota. So it's the best of both worlds. I'd like to say,
Tayo Basquiat 28:31
I'm going to ask you a follow up question about that. But first, before we move on, you just said, Walk on the roof. And earlier, you said it's a certified building. And I'm wondering if folks are picking up what, what is in the works here in terms of the design, what, what you're talking about when you're mentioning these, these things.
Marcie Woehl 28:56
Yeah, we are a building unlike many others. So we are a very green building. To put it at its most simplistic, we are pursuing Living Building Challenge, certification, Leeds, Platinum certification and sites platinum certifications, which all have different standards for how we use energy, the space we create for the people, how we are just trying to be a very sustainable green sort of institution in everything that we're doing at the library, and this is, you know, phenomenally entwined with the project in so many really cool ways. From one instance that is particularly cool is the cement that you see on our property was invented by a Dickinson ready mix in western North Dakota, and it repurposes fly ash from mining operations across the state. And this is a lower carbon type of. Cement that we're using throughout our building, and all of our choices that we've made in the structure of the building itself have been really sort of thoughtfully designed along sort of similar ideas. We have geothermal wells that heat and cool our building. Those are housed under our parking lot, on top of our parking lot, our solar canopies, which are used to power the electricity of our building. And we have a building, and this is so cool. This is the building that I work at. You can walk on the roof. So it's a very sort of gradual arch that really blends in to the bad lands. In fact, if you're standing in downtown Medora. I guess you can't really see it from there, but if you're standing in the Badlands and you look towards where the library is, you have to squint. Then that's even for the people on the staff. And it was designed very deliberately that way by our architect, Snohetta, and we have a green roof, and our green roof is planted with a mix of seeds that were collected from the area. And so we're doing our part to restore biodiversity to this area in western North Dakota that was sort of ravaged by overgrazing. And so we have a roof that comes into bloom in the summer, and it's a DA accessible. You can walk up to the very top of the roof, and then you can, there's stairs going the other way down. But it's, it's just a very cool building for a lot of different ways. And I would recommend that if you want to know the details that went into the building of this project, really look at our website, where we break down some of the particular aspects of the construction of the building, because it's just amazing how much thought and care went into its construction.
Tayo Basquiat 31:49
Man, that's just really impressive. I and not only check out the website, but just go there and see that you can have the this experience where I can imagine a bunch of you know, fifth graders on the roof getting this firsthand look at what a native prairie might look like, or or at least features of a native prairie, and being able to ask questions about this location where you have, you know, the preservation, the conservation history of a national park, and all of the activity of the energy development in that section of North Dakota, you know, coming into, like a geothermic, you know, type of choice for a building. So like just fascinating elements and such a wealth of education to be had. Very, very impressive. Back to the digital archive. Are you involved in that aspect of the project at all, actually assembling the digital archive, or is somebody else doing that?
Marcie Woehl 33:06
I am not directly involved with it right now, but my department does work in that, and that was one of the hardest choices that I've had to make at the trpl. Like my heart is in digital archives. I love that work from my work on the William Blake archive, but it's been it's been delegated to a wonderfully talented employee who's leading those efforts right now.
Tayo Basquiat 33:31
I definitely agree that our Digital Archives has the virtue of democratic access anywhere and everywhere. I also worry about digital archiving, because I'm a materialist in in this way in which I worry about the ability to modify Digital Archives and the you know this, the seeming impermanence, how quickly a digital archive can be eradicated through crafty zero and one manipulation. So maybe you could put my, my heart at rest on these matters, since you're since you're enthusiastic about it, other than the democratization being a virtue, are there? Are there other winsome features that you would have me believe?
Marcie Woehl 34:30
I mean, even if we think at the sort of literal level of accessibility, that's something that I am super excited about, because on digital archives, you can transcribe the document so it's readable to anybody that maybe doesn't understand the language it was written in, or doesn't understand the penmanship that it was written in, in the time period that really applied on both the Blake archive and for Theodore Roosevelt. And then thinking about the metadata. Data in the provenance that you can collect and aggregate in one centralized location. And sure that's going to be, you know, it can have its downsides based on who's collecting that information, how that information is being framed, because there is no archive without a bias. We are not we can't make any pretense of saying that this is objective information that we're collecting and putting out into the world, we can do our best to make sure that it is objective. But when digital archives are done right, they provide access in every sense of the word, from readability to literal access in that you do not have to fly on the plane and go to the Houghton library at Harvard, or in the case of William Blake, if you had wanted to see different copies of some of his eliminated books, you didn't have to fly to London and LA and then New York, you get to centralize that information in a place for people to access. And I think that that's really wonderful and beautiful, and when we're thinking about public intellectualism, and what does it mean to introduce intellectualism into everyone's life, Digital Archives help create those opportunities more readily for all sorts of people. And it's just, it's so cool. And I mean, archives are never even if you think about the physical ones, those can be modifiable. You know, the sprinkler system goes off and it's not a well maintained archive. Your papers, they're ruined. There's a fire. If there's an arsonist, you know, there's always going to be issues with any sort of archive. And we can't pretend that digital archives are going to be a perfect solution by any means, but the pros, I think, of a digital archive, are worth really celebrating.
Tayo Basquiat 36:48
And I'm assuming that the access to these archives are entirely free through the digital platform. Yep. Well, maybe you've won me over. I don't know. I'm just, you know, a technological curmudgeon, so maybe I don't need to worry about it quite as much, so.
Marcie Woehl 37:08
you can worry about it. Worrying is productive. Sometimes maybe you'll be the reason that we make even better archives in the future.
Tayo Basquiat 37:16
All right, so you are just about through the the hazing that is the PhD process, and you made a choice to not do you made a choice not to pursue. You know, the traditional academic professorship move into the public realm. As an academic, I would still say, but what are some of the possibilities about the public facing intellectualism that you know really made you make that choice rather than institutionalize yourself?
Marcie Woehl 37:55
I mean, the way you just phrased it is almost an explanation in itself. I love, like, Well, I suppose I'll take a step back and that I deliberately pursued my PhD, knowing that I would not want to be a professor. And I think I was really optimistic when I entered my program, thinking about what that could look like in practice. And I think my optimism in part, like it really did pay off. But I love that if you don't go the academic route, and you're as lucky as I am to have been afforded an opportunity like the one I've been afforded at the presidential library, your cause for impact for just fantastic swaths of people in the population, not just people who are in sort of one central location where your university might be. And I understand that universities will attract and gather and teach, you know, multitudes of people in their time, but when you're in a public space like this, you really get to educate and connect with so many different people on so many different topics. You're never sort of shoehorned into one particular class, and you know, bureaucracy will always exist in places and institutions, but the potential you have for reach and access and sharing ideas with as many people as possible in an accessible way, at the level of how you're sharing that information, how you're speaking, how you're connecting with another person, is really what drew me to places like this. And you know, I really enjoyed teaching too. I taught writing at the University of Rochester, and there was a glimmer of a moment where I was like, Oh no, I thought I was against this from the very beginning. I didn't want to be a professor, and this was actually really fun, and I really enjoy this, but I just love institutions that are thinking about how you can share ideas with as many people as possible. And that's sort of. I ended up right now. So it's pretty cool.
Tayo Basquiat 40:03
In some ways, you're getting the best of both worlds, because you get to engage the the larger, broader public, but you also have a platform, a location and institution, because it is those that that puts you in the path of the larger swirl of ideas and such like you have access to that in a way that you wouldn't if you were a very intellectual plumber. Say, you know so like you can, I understand you had an encounter with someone of note today for lunch
Marcie Woehl 40:45
I did that was a really graceful connection, and I'm just sometimes floored by the situations that I find myself in here at the Presidential Library, because you do, by nature of the institution and the work that it's doing, get to encounter people that you would never think you would have encountered in your life. So for lunch today, one of the people at my table who bought the lunch was David Hume Kennerly, who is a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, and was the White House photographer for Gerald Ford, which as a Nixon lover. You know you're you're one degree of separation away from Richard Nixon. And I learned from David that he had a drink with Richard Nixon on Christmas Eve in 1970 and Nixon made him a very good Martini. And if I think six months ago, seven months ago now, I was in Rochester, and granted, I was having a wonderful time going to the wineries and the Finger Lakes, but I was also grading research papers. And you know, day in, day out, you work on your dissertation. You get tired of working on your dissertation, you stare at the wall. You grade some more papers, you try to work on your dissertation, you stare at the wall, and now I am having casual lunch chats with people who have photographed and are on a personal relationship basis with so many you know, former presidents, and that's my life now. And how phenomenally cool is that, and how lucky am I like to be in those kinds of scenarios where we're making jokes about, you know, B 52 bombers, and whether or not he said something to Gerald Ford that made him change a decision in major geopolitical relations Like that is so cool. We did a wine tasting last night. I was at a wine tasting with a Pulitzer Prize winner, who would have thought? It's so cool.
Tayo Basquiat 42:50
I just love that. You know, you do, you have a world class mind and distinctive intellectual style. That was, it was so it gave me such heart each day in the classroom that I that I got to have that sort of classroom experience with you, and now to see you at this, you know, end of your educational journey, or at least the formal version of it, and starting this position, I'm just absolutely delighted that the good folks at trpl recognized what they saw in this candidate, and then were able to get you on board, sucked back into the vortex in in the northern prairie. There, I'm going to put you a little on the spot, so we'll see what you come up with with this. But what would you say is the fingerprint that Marcie Woehl will leave on the work that you do at trpl in the days ahead, something essential to the way that you go about doing what you do.
Marcie Woehl 44:02
Oh my gosh. I think my fingerprint would be sort of neon in that I recognize that one of my greatest strengths is really the public side of public intellectualism. I love a story. I love connecting with people. I love seeing the spark of recognition when someone finds fascination in a subject that they weren't previously interested in, and those are the conversations that I get to foster and engage in on the regular now. So I think my fingerprint will be characterized by my ability to have sparked and fostered those connections at the trpl, to have connected with the people that have come to the institution, you know, maybe already interested, maybe uninterested, and left with a greater fascination for TR or the Badlands or Medora or North Dakota. So it would be a bright I'm going to say pink, bright pink fingerprint of look at what intellectual activity can look like when it's characterized by joy.
Tayo Basquiat 45:10
Thanks to Marcie Woehl and to you listener and fellow student for joining me in the study today. I hope this has been Time Well Spent before you go, we'd love to welcome you into the wider work of the study. Head to thestudynd.org for free and low cost, online classes, lectures, living history performances, study clubs and other ways to curate your own study, practice on your terms. Join us when you can bring a friend you.