ELIZABETH KARCHER

ELIZABETH KARCHER

Executive Director of the President Wilson House in Washington, D.C.


I have three missions, topics of conversation, ideas for exhibitions and really discussions that we want to bring to life at the House, and those are stories of African-Americans, racial conflict, and social justice, as well as women and women’s stories, suffrage, and finally Wilson’s international legacy and how he was seen after the Great War. I think those three topics are topics that resonate today. So, even though they’re 100 years old and issues that he faced in his Presidency, these are topics that are still relevant. We’re still talking about social and racial justice. We’re still about women being enfranchised and women, not just in the vote, but having positions in Board of Directors, museums, companies, and corporations across the United States.

ROBERT AXELROD

ROBERT AXELROD

Former Consultant for the UN, World Bank & US Department of Defense
Professor Emeritus of Political Science & Public Policy at University of Michigan
National Medal of Science Award-Winner

I think the most critical thing is education for critical thinking. The ability to listen to a political argument or an argument of any sort, on COVID, for example, or climate change, and not necessarily understand the science behind that, but to understand how to evaluate the credibility of the speaker, how to evaluate the logic of the arguments and to see whether a conspiracy theory is behind this that has no grounding… And so I think what’s especially important in would be an educational in critical thinking.