March 9th, 2025 was the day that the National Humanities Alliance (NHA) invited colleges from all across the country to Washington, DC to speak with representatives. The NHA is an organization full of motivated experts specializing in bolstering the humanities on both a local and national level. Alex Klein, Director of Government Relations for the NHA, was an instrumental actor in coordinating this mass exodus of higher-ed institutions (including students!) to DC. Thus sets the stage for National Humanities Advocacy Day 2025.
I’ll now take you closer in on the action, focusing in on four individuals attending NHA Advocacy Day, from an institution you might be familiar with—Colby College. Their names are Prof. Dean Allbritton, Prof. Sarah Duff, Nate Dunn ’27 and Hunter Mawn ‘27. That last one is me. Last year, Nate accompanied Rory Hallowell ’24, and now I was accompanying Nate. And boy, was it cool.
On the first night we arrived, there was a casual welcome reception. This wasn’t part of the official programming and so the venue, while well attended, was small. It wasn’t until the following morning that I realized how many people were involved in the NHA Advocacy Day. We spent the entire day preparing to meet with State Representatives. The two-floor conference space was full of scheduled keynote lectures and discussions designed to familiarize us with the mission of the NHA and the specific legislation we’d be advocating for: the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Title VI funding, and supporting the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
At the end of preparations, every state met with their special coordinator who would come with them to DC and help with meetings. We were the only school in attendance to represent Maine, and our guy was named Andy Vaughn. Andy wound up being crucial to the following day’s success, not to mention, he was insanely nice. After that, the Colby crew got dinner in the evening, at a place called the Vue—an aptly homophonic name. See below.
Then came the day of advocacy! We took a bus down to the Senate, and walked into an annex building where each representative had an office full of staffers. We met with the staff of Jared Golden, Susan Collins, Angus King and Chellie Pinegree. Each office had a wholly unique vibe, with the particular highlight of Angus King’s office being chock-full of Colby alumni. The conversations with staffers were interesting and felt productive to varying degrees. Most staffers heard us out for our whole lengthy pitch on why these programs—and the humanities in general—matter, which was nice.
Did I mention we ran into Bernie Sanders? No? Oh, well we saw Bernie Sanders. That was cool too. I didn’t think to pull my phone out for a picture until he was already turning the corner, so all I got was the back of his head from a distance. Still, it’s definitely a picture of Bernie Sanders. See below.
All in all, it was a successful trip! Though I can’t say that this was solely my work, or even that it was strictly thanks to the Colby crew. If there’s one thing I took away from the experience, it’s that a lot of people care about the humanities. Today it’s easy to feel a bit alone when you advocate for the humanities to family or friends. When academic science is being threatened by the government, who has time to defend the more artistic, expressionist avenues of academia? But this trip reminded me that humanities do matter to higher education, and that I’m far from alone in believing as much.
Written by By Hunter Mawn ‘27, Vice Chair of the CAH Student Advisory Board.
