Conference on "Renewing Our National Archaeological Program" Bill Lipe and Chuck Redman

• Preface
• Introducation
• Conference Goals
• Issues and Preliminary Recommendations
  • Improving Implementation of the National Historic Preservation Act
  • Increasing Professional Knowledge and Expertise at all Levels of Archaeological Resource Management
  • Making Better Use of Existing Information in Decision Making about Archaeological Resources
  • Improving the Dissemination of Information from Publicly Mandated Archaeology
  • Recognizing Multiple Interests in Archaeology and Archaeological Resources
• Translating Recommendations into Action
• Summary of Comments on the Draft Preliminary Report
  • General Comments
  • Improving Implementation of the National Historic Preservation Act
  • Increasing Professional Knowledge and Expertise at all Levels of Archaeological Resource Management
  • Making Better Use of Existing Information in Decision Making about Archaeological Resources
  • Improving the Dissemination of Information from Publicly Mandated Archaeology
  • Recognizing Multiple Interests in Archaeology and Archaeological Resources

Preface to the Preliminary Report

In response to circulation of the draft preliminary report, a number of letters, email messages, and verbal comments have been received by members of the "renewing" task force. A summary of those comments is presented below, following the preliminary report.

The next steps for the "renewing" task force will be to take these comments into account, to prioritize the issues and recommendations, and to develop a final report. The task force is also expected to propose specific actions that the SAA, SOPA, and other archaeological organizations might take to see that the report's primary recommendations are implemented.

Introduction

As it has developed over the past 25 years, this program has changed the face and practice of archaeology in the U.S. It has resulted in a great increase in substantive knowledge, new research methods and management techniques, new career paths, and new organizations that provide research and preservation expertise. Those of us who were in the field before 1970 well remember how few tools were available when economic development or other federal agency actions posed threats to archaeological sites. From that perspective, today's treatment of similar problems is a marvel of comprehensive attention to archaeological values. Despite these successes, however, today is not a time to rest on our laurels and remain unreflectively satisfied with "business as usual."

During the past year and a half, criticisms of aspects of the national archaeological program have multiplied, and in some quarters, have grown more strident. Currently, many new ideas for productive change are being discussed by archaeologists themselves. Anyone who attended the May 1995 forum on "Restructuring American Archaeology" at the SAA annual meeting in Minneapolis or who has logged on recently to archaeologically oriented electronic mailing lists is keenly aware of the extent and intensity of the debates going on within the field of archaeology. And from outside our field, there have been criticisms of the federal role in archaeology and historic preservation from certain members of Congress, as well as from scattered voices in the private sector, state and federal agencies, Indian tribes, and the larger historic preservation community. During the past year and a half, an attempt to cut funding for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation nearly succeeded, the archaeology grants program of the National Endowment for the Humanities was suspended due to budget cuts, the Historic Preservation Fund was reduced, the federal contribution to the National Trust for Historic Preservation was halved, and most federal agencies saw declines in their allocations for cultural resource programs.

It was in this context of internal and external calls for change that a small conference on "Renewing Our National Archaeological Program" was organized by the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) and the Society of Professional Archeologists (SOPA) with support from the National Park Service. The conference, which was held February 11-13, 1996, was hosted by the Department of Anthropology at Arizona State University and co-chaired by Chuck Redman and Bill Lipe.

The participants were experienced in the major work environments present in American archaeology today: Roger Anyon (Zuni Archaeological Program), Catherine Cameron (University of Colorado--and formerly, the Advisory Council), Don Fowler (University of Nevada-Reno, and past president, SAA), Edward Friedman (Bureau of Reclamation), Tom Green (Arkansas Archeological Survey), Bill Lees (Oklahoma Historical Society and president-elect, SOPA), Steve Lekson (University of Colorado Museum), Bill Lipe (Washington State University and president, SAA), Frank McManamon (National Park Service), Mike Moratto (Applied EarthWorks), Charles Niquette (Cultural Resource Analysts, and president, American Cultural Resources Association [ACRA]), Charles Redman (Arizona State University), Lynne Sebastian (New Mexico Historic Preservation Division), Donna Seifert (John Milner Associates, and past president, Society for Historical Archaeology [SHA]), and Gary Stumpf (Bureau of Land Management). This group continued after the conference as a task force, charged with receiving input from archaeologists and other interested parties and preparing a final report on the topics considered at the conference.

Conference Goals

The "renewing" conference was intended to be an initial step in focusing debate and discussion on current problems and their solutions. The next step was the electronic circulation of a draft of the conference's preliminary report in a number of venues. The task force also hosted an open forum at the SAA Annual Meeting in New Orleans, where copies of the draft preliminary report were circulated and the floor opened to discussion. The report was subsequently published in the SOPA Newsletter, and the statement of issues and the preliminary recommendations published below is little changed from this version. Rather than attempt substantial revisions at this point, it seems more reasonable to let the draft statement of issues and recommendations stand as part of the preliminary report. The comments that have been received as a result of circulating the draft preliminary report are summarized below, and plans are being made to bring the task force together again to revisit the issues and recommendations in light of the public discussion the report has provoked.

Issues and Preliminary Recommendations

There was general agreement that the primary social contribution of archaeology is the information about past human history that can be provided by the systematic study of the material remains of that history using appropriate archaeological methods. Understanding the full range of past cultures also contributes to understanding the diverse cultures of the present. From this standpoint, the conservation and management of the archaeological record is important in order to ensure that archaeological studies can continue to provide society with new information about the human past. The conferees also recognized, of course, that in addition to being sources of information, archaeological sites and artifacts have a variety of meanings and values to numerous groups in society, and they often evoke in visitors a direct sense of connection with the past. Future archaeological study, therefore, is not the sole basis for the conservation, management, and enjoyment of the archaeological record.

After an initial review of issues that might be considered, the group decided to focus on five issues where there appeared to be problems or obstacles to achieving a more efficient and effective national archaeological program. These did not exhaust the list of issues concerning the participants, but it was recognized that the scope of discussions had to be limited if anything was to be achieved. Below is a condensed and preliminary summary of the issue areas and the conference's recommendations.

Improving Implementation of the National Historic Preservation Act

Section 110 of the NHPA calls for the development by federal agencies of comprehensive programs for the identification, evaluation, consideration during project planning, protection, and management of significant historic properties, including archaeological resources. Few agencies have been able to develop such programs under Section 110, yet this kind of approach offers flexibility and a broader view that is not afforded by the project-by-project method usually applied in the Section 106 procedures.

Given this context, the conferees felt that Section 106 needs to be applied more flexibly and with more focus on successful and timely outcomes, rather than on formal process. To this end, they proposed the following recommendations:

• To the extent possible, implementation of Section 106 should move away from a case-by-case basis to more dependence on programmatic agreements crafted to retain flexibility and public participation. The Advisory Council should periodically review the implementation of such programmatic agreements.

• Because certain types of properties (e.g., extensive, low-density lithic scatters) are not well addressed by the "standard" Section 106 process, consideration should be given to creating different approaches where warranted.

• Federal agencies should assume the responsibilities and prerogatives mandated by law and not delegate these to the SHPOs. The SHPOs and the Advisory Council should allow agencies more flexibility to make decisions, but hold agencies responsible for the outcomes of those decisions.

• Peer review should be employed more frequently, particularly with regard to data-recovery plans for large undertakings, large-scale programmatic agreements, and in certain cases where disputes have arisen.

• Training should be improved for archaeologists entering the CRM field, whether as consultants, regulators, or resource managers. The knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) required for these positions should be assessed, and both academic and on-the-job training should be modified to ensure that these KSA are effectively taught.

• Archaeologists need to achieve and be held accountable to appropriate standards and qualifications. The secretary of the interior's professional qualifications standards should apply to all personnel employed as professional archaeologists by SHPOs and public agencies, the SOPA standards of research performance and code of ethics should be endorsed by federal and state agencies and professional societies, and both state and national archaeological organizations should press for state-level certification of archaeologists.

Making Better Use of Existing Information in Decision Making about Archaeological Resources.

• Syntheses should be prepared at the state or regional level, and should focus on the characteristics of the archaeological record and substantive results useful in making decisions about National Register of Historic Places eligibility and archaeological value. Such syntheses would also help communicate the knowledge gained from public archaeology to archaeologists and the broader public.

• Much greater attention needs to be paid to developing and integrating state-of-the-art electronic databases.

• Syntheses and databases should be given a higher priority by federal agencies, tribes, SHPOs, and the archaeological community. Representatives of these groups should work together to produce and periodically revise these products, and they should forcefully pursue additional funds for these efforts.

• Advisory panels of experienced archaeologists should regularly be employed by resource managers at various levels to offer advice on project research designs and strategies and otherwise assist in developing flexible, creative management solutions. If funds are not available for the preparation of syntheses, advisory panels can serve as sources of information about the results of previous work.

• A significantly greater share of funds going into the national archaeological program should be devoted to providing direct public benefits, such as site visits, museum displays, school education programs, and quality treatment of synthesized archaeological results in print and visual media. Federal agencies, the ACHP, tribes, SHPOs, consulting firms, and individual archaeologists must modify existing practices--and regulations, if necessary--to provide greater and more rapid public access to the results of public archaeology, and these efforts should be coordinated at a state level.

• Technical "descriptive" reports should be reinvented so their results are more accessible. Major reports must have concise introductory and summary chapters separable from technical data presentations that can serve as readable project summaries. Electronic means of disseminating technical data should be explored as an alternative to presenting data in paper reports. The National Archeological Database should receive greater use for recording and accessing technical reports.

• Because discussion among professionals is an essential part of the process by which archaeological knowledge becomes assimilated and validated, concise reports presenting the results of major publicly mandated projects must be circulated to the professional community and hence be subjected to formal and informal peer review; agency practices need to be adjusted to encourage or mandate such reporting.

• Regulators and managers dealing with archaeological resources need to explicitly recognize that values other than archaeological information may exist and proactively use Section 106 consultation, ARPA notification, NAGPRA consultation, NEPA compliance, and other processes to identify multiple values and bring their proponents together in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect. Consultation must begin early enough to ensure that multiple interests are adequately represented.

• Archaeologists must understand when they are providing information and views as archaeologists (i.e., as specialists who extract certain kinds of information from the archaeological record) and when they are functioning as resource managers helping to represent multiple interests, as noted above.

• Archaeologists must recognize that considering multiple interests regarding archaeological resources may constrain what can be done with these resources in the name of research (or for other goals).

• Federal agencies, tribes, and SHPOs must use the full range of existing legal and regulatory options more flexibly and creatively to assure recognition of multiple interests in archaeological resources while permitting agency undertakings to proceed in service of the broad national interest.

The preliminary report of the Tempe conference is being disseminated to raise consciousness about the issues, largely within (but not confined to) the archaeological profession, and to promote discussion of these issues and possible solutions to the associated problems. The task force felt that a reasonable consensus among archaeologists was possible on most of the problems and potential solutions discussed at the conference. Most of the recommendations developed by the task force are at this point stated in a very generalized manner. Archaeologists, resource managers, and others participating in the national archaeological program need to consider how and whether the proposed solutions might work "on the ground," and provide feedback to the task force.

The "renewing" task force felt that many of the problems it identified were amenable to solution by changes in practice, but that some might require regulatory change. Whether amending existing laws would be desirable remained an open question; most thought there should be greater efforts to apply the laws more effectively. A number of mechanisms for promoting change in practice, laws, and regulations are available at a variety of levels.

First, as has been noted, a number of organizations that participate in the national archaeological program are engaged in redesigning and rethinking roles and practice. Federal agencies are in the process of "reinventing" themselves, and budgetary constraints are requiring them to accomplish the same functions with less money. The SHPOs are under similar constraints. The Advisory Council is in the process of revising its regulations governing Section 106. And judging by the traffic on the ACRA list-server, many consulting archaeologists are engaged in a reexamination of current practices. We hope that the recommendations of the task force can be an important influence in the outcome of these efforts to change.

Second, the major archaeological societies have some ability to promote particular courses of action in Congress and within the federal agencies, often in conjunction with other historic preservation groups. We hope that at least some of the recommendations of the task force will be adopted as policy goals by the major societies and that they will effectively promote these goals in their contacts with Congress and the agencies.

Third, most states now have active professional archaeological councils or similar groups. These organizations have the potential to be very effective at the grassroots level, and many are in fact achieving this potential. State-level groups are in the best position to work with SHPOs to promote change, and can also be effective in influencing agencies and members of Congress. These groups will also be key to any efforts to develop statewide certification processes for professional archaeologists. Again it is hoped that the reports of the task force and the discussions stemming from these reports will help focus the change agendas of statewide archaeological organizations.

Bill Lipe is president of SAA and Chuck Redman was the chair of the Tempe conference on "Renewing Our National Archaeological Program."

Many comments indicated support of the "renewing" study and general agreement with most of the recommendations made in the preliminary report. In my summary below I have concentrated on those comments that provided criticism or additional points of view. I have rarely used direct quotations in this summary. Rather, I have attempted to synthesize the main points raised. Probably not everyone who sent in comments will agree with my phrasing; however, the approach I took seemed better to me than stringing together short quotations taken out of the context of longer messages.

General

• It will be difficult for SAA to promote real structural change from within archaeology--too many professionals depend on the status quo, and are reluctant to see any change in the present arrangements.

• Rather than presenting "solutions to problems," SAA should turn the more negative problem discussions into positive goals that will create less polarization and promote participation and support.

• Arriving at effective solutions to these problems will require more than archaeologists talking to each other. Additional stakeholders, including businesses, tribes, amateur archaeologists, and members of the general public, need to be part of the process.

• The report largely ignores the deepening split between academic archaeologists and those involved in resource management.

• The report has a "western public lands" bias; more input is needed from the eastern U.S., especially with respect to doing publicly mandated archaeology on private lands. Implementation of NHPA also poses somewhat different problems for granting, permitting, and technical assistance agencies than for those responsible for the public lands.

• A national archaeological program should be concerned with all types of archaeological resources of each region of the U.S., not just those subject to Section 106 review. On private lands, qualified avocational archaeologists are often in the best position to conduct surveys and studies; they need encouragement and support.

• We need to hear from the opponents of publicly mandated archaeology and historic preservation and be prepared to take them seriously.

• Partnering with industry, states, local government, and tribes holds promise for progress on most if not all the problems under discussion.

• We need to base restructuring on a good knowledge of what works and what does not in all the areas under discussion.

• Archaeologists' responses to all of these issues is taking place within a specific legislative, policy, and regulatory environment. We need more archaeologists who understand this environment--especially at the federal level--and who can be effective advocates for archaeology within it.

• We can't just keep adding activities and costs to publicly mandated and funded programs. If we want to expand public involvement or the dissemination of results, something else will have to be cut back.

• Some of the problems that are mentioned have been with us since the 1970s. What is it about them that has been intractable? Most of the problems mentioned require improving the existing system rather than revolutionary change.

Improving the Implementation of the National Historic Preservation Act

• Regulated industries are most concerned about delays and lack of definitive closure in the Section 106 process. These issues must be addressed in any reforms that are undertaken.

• Industry should have access to an effective and time-limited appeals process regarding decisions made under Section 106.

• The Advisory Council must make a genuine effort to encourage more flexibility and common sense in applying Section 106, rather than just giving lip service to this goal.

• Changes in the Section 106 process must not unbalance the system so that tribes, states, or various publics are excluded from commenting on specific cases that concern them, or so that cases have to be revisited because these groups were initially bypassed.

• We need to move away from an almost exclusive emphasis on Section 106 compliance toward more proactive agency programs under Section 110 of the NHPA and to the production of more products for public and professional use.

• Serving the public interest is not something that can be tacked on at the end by "disseminating information." We need to involve the public more at all stages of Section 106 decision-making to ensure that the result is actually "in the public interest."

• SHPOs and the Advisory Council need to get out of their current roles as regulators and decision-makers and return to their roles as advisers to the federal agencies. The Council should focus on programmatic issues and play a mediating role for cases involving conflict and controversy.

• Checks and balances will continue to be needed in the Section 106 process to ensure that poor decisions and poor work are rejected and as a defense against political pressures on a single agency or SHPO.

• SAA should promote more simultaneous processing of projects pursuant to NEPA rather than the traditional sequential processing that creates unnecessary duplication, delays, and costs.

• Archaeologists should work more closely with architectural historians, historians, and other preservation specialists so that the treatment of archaeological sites is included within a larger historic preservation package and is not considered something separate--either by archaeologists or by others in the historic preservation field.

• More specific criteria should be developed for National Register eligibility to eliminate many of the wasteful and unproductive studies now being done as part of Section 106 compliance.

• We need to keep in mind that Section 106 is not designed to protect archaeological sites, but to protect the public interest in these properties. The public is not served when marginally important archaeological sites are elevated to National Register status.

• Beware of shifting away from Section 106 compliance to reliance on programs developed under Section 110; the latter have no regulatory checks and are increasingly being cut back due to funding problems. Agencies have much greater incentives to comply with Section 106 than with Section 110. It would be better to focus on developing good programmatic agreements under Section 106.

• We need more flexibility to combine survey and testing or testing and data recovery where it makes sense.

• We need to have more flexibility to incorporate volunteers and avocational groups into Section 106 compliance activities. This would help to ensure that these have wider public involvement and support.

• Programmatic agreements may look good on paper, but they do not work if some of the parties do not meet their responsibilities or if there are no independent checks on compliance.

• Regulators and managers need to have the timely and productive completion of required work as their primary goal; specific procedures should be a means to that end. Measures are needed to ensure that projects don't bog down because permit applications, reports, etc. languish on desks for months or even years at a time.

• The Advisory Council must move from a concern with process and control to one that focuses on successful outcomes.

• Our experience has been that when agencies get autonomy, they tend to produce lower quality, more poorly reported work done by less well-trained non-professionals. Standards are required. Review by the Advisory Council and SHPO as a check and balance works--be careful about doing away with it.

• In the case of many non-land-managing federal agencies, actions with great potential for harm to historic properties are often delegated to state or local agencies with little or no institutional preservation infrastructure. In such cases, the SHPO's active participation--on either a case-by-case or programmatic basis--becomes much more important.

• Federal agencies vary greatly in the extent to which their activities affect archaeology and other historic properties, in their staff capabilities and historic preservation procedures, and in their ability to control outcomes. We should not expect a single remedy for improving the implementation of Section 106 to be effective across all agencies.

• For agencies that have qualified staff and procedures in place, the Advisory Council and SHPOs should experiment with a more general level of oversight.

• Federal and state agencies need to prepare more detailed archaeological resource management plans than they now do and set specific heritage/archaeology priorities. Archaeology needs to be treated in agency decision making on an equal footing with endangered species.

• There is great variability from state to state in how archaeological identification and evaluation is carried out. There needs to be greater standardization of practice on at least a regional level.

• Upgrading CRM sections of federal agency manuals will promote greater agency accountability under programmatic agreements.

• Why is it that agencies expect fully professional training and experience in other scientific fields, but not in archaeology? Is it because archaeologists themselves are so resistant to the idea of professional standards, certification, or licensing?

• Professional skills should include the ability to bring archaeology to the general public or to work with people who can.

• Many of the problems in public archaeology are the result of inadequate training and experience among CRM staff on the regulatory side of the field (i.e., Advisory Council, SHPOs, federal agencies). Individuals in these positions not only need academic training, but in-the-field experience in the practical implementation of publicly mandated archaeology.

• SOPA (and the proposed ROPA) are unlikely to be successful in upgrading professional performance unless they are changed to ensure that members have met truly rigorous standards of professional training and experience. It is not clear, however, that archaeology is a profession in the same sense as, for example, engineering or community planning, and that rigorous qualifications can readily be established.

• A good CRM text is needed, but the publishing industry probably won't support one given the small classes that are involved. Federal agencies will need to encourage the production of texts and other educational materials in the context of agency-supported or partnered training courses.

• Texts and training need to be interdisciplinary and consider the role of archaeology in agency ecosystem management programs.

• There needs to be a concerted effort to improve university training for archaeologists so that it is more compatible with real-world employment opportunities. Currently, the smaller regional universities are more likely to be doing a good job of training than are the larger ones.

• More opportunities are needed for continuing education of archaeologists in practical approaches to doing cultural resource management. SAA, federal agencies, and educational institutions should form partnerships to offer such opportunities.

• Having different certification procedures in the 50 states and nine territories would cause problems. If we adopt certification, it should be at the national level.

Making Better Use of Existing Information in Decision Making about Archaeological Resources

• Advisory panels are good in themselves, but they also can substitute for syntheses and regional databases if these cannot be afforded.

• Advisory panels can function to preserve the status quo against needed change. The question of who would appoint such panels and what their responsibility would be needs additional discussion.

• By the time they are available for circulation, many syntheses are already out of date and of limited use for planning and evaluation.

• Fuller public distribution of reports stemming from Section 106 compliance can help address both this issue and the next one.

• How can we justify spending additional public funds on excavations when every state has museums, repositories, etc. crammed with archaeological materials collected and maintained at taxpayers' expense? University graduate programs should be encouraged to use existing collections and "gray literature" reports as a source of student projects, and state and federal agencies should consider ways to promote study of such collections as part of their responsibilities in historic preservation.

• Much more attention needs to be paid to electronic means of assembling, accessing, and disseminating archaeological literature. The ability of modern archaeology to generate information has outstripped our ability to publish and disseminate it in traditional site reports.

• High-quality predictive models can incorporate what has been learned and help make the Section 106 process more cost efficient. Their development requires a significant investment in time, money, information, and expertise, however.

• Consider "banking" some of the funds generated by Section 106 compliance to ensure that the information gained in publicly mandated archaeology is publicly disseminated. Don't forget that scholarly articles are often an important step on the way to reaching a broader audience.

• Who are "archaeology's many publics?" Why are they interested in archaeology? We can't design better programs for reaching the public until we know more about "the public."

• Educating K-12 teachers and students about the practice of archaeology and about what archaeologists have learned about the past is non-project specific, but it is a very cost-effective way to increase public understanding of archaeology and public support for the protection of archaeological sites.

• In some parts of the country, a dependence on close working relationships with amateur archaeologists once helped ensure public involvement in both planning and dissemination of archaeological research. The bureaucratization of the field has largely cut these former linkages.

• The incorporation of local oral histories into studies undertaken under Section 106 often helps ensure public participation and support and results in reports that are of public interest.

• Agency policies, as well as some provisions of ARPA and the NHPA, are increasingly being used to discourage the effective dissemination of information resulting from public archaeology. This is counter-productive and violates the spirit of historic preservation legislation as well as the Secretary of the Interior's Guidelines and Standards, which states that "Results must be made available to the full range of potential users."

• The profession of archaeology needs to identify, encourage, and reward its most effective public educators and spokespersons. We need a "Margaret Mead" of American archaeology, who can apply archaeological knowledge to the "big issues" of public concern and interest.

• Within each state, accessible regional repositories for the "gray literature" being generated by CRM work are much needed.

• Archaeologists should form partnerships with professional writers and media specialists to get their story to the public; archaeologists should not expect to be able to "do it all" themselves.

• Communities should be made aware of the economic benefits of publicly mandated archaeology, including potential contributions to tourism.

• The historic preservation system has been successful to the extent that the loss of major historic landmarks is now rare. As a result, the public--and legislatures--do not sense that historic properties are threatened. This needs to be considered in designing public education programs.

• Stabilized or restored archaeological sites can play an extremely valuable role in public understanding of archaeology.

• Although this section of the report emphasizes the research contributions of archaeology, a greater emphasis on public benefits will probably mean less emphasis on research as such. That is not necessarily bad in the larger scheme of things.

• Big money is being spent on public archaeology, and those aspects that have a research component should address big questions of concern to multiple disciplines and to a broad public audience.

• Archaeologists need to recognize legitimate claims made by Native Americans and other groups regarding the treatment of archaeological sites, but they must also take responsibility for defining and defending the public value of the knowledge that only archaeology can provide.

• Blanket claims by certain tribes that all or most archaeological sites are Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs) are causing a number of problems. Tribes, agency managers, and archaeologists need to work together to come up with practical and balanced solutions for treating TCPs in the Section 106 process and in agency cultural resource management programs in general.

• Archaeologists need to stand up for intellectual freedom and to resist attempts based on religion or narrow cultural interests to prohibit or censor archaeological research and publication.

• Recognizing multiple interests is much more compatible with a contextualizing, post-processual theoretical stance than with the late processualism that dominates most public archaeology. Are archaeological resource managers taking this into account?

• Balanced recognition of multiple interests will include the majority American cultural tradition that is broadly derived from European sources, as well as the more focused interests of tribal and ethnic groups.

• Archaeologists should be advocates for stewardship of the archaeological record--including conservation, study, and interpretation. They should refrain from advocacy on behalf of particular cultural, environmental, or economic interests. Rather, they should maintain their professional focus, integrity, and credibility while encouraging an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust among all interested parties.