New national archivist's love of history nurtured at home, Norwin

While growing up in North Huntingdon, Colleen Shogan remembers summer vacations as a mix of someplace the family could have fun — like an amusement park or beach — coupled with a visit to a historical site.

“My father exposed us (her and brother, Greg) to history,” said Shogan, a 1993 Norwin High School graduate.

That love of history was sparked in her home, grew in high school classes through her American history and government teachers, and flourished in her career. Serving as a director for a White House History center, senior vice president of the White House Historical Association and in senior roles with the Library of Congress for more than a decade, Shogan also was president of the National Capital Area Political Science Association, with her research focusing on the presidency, presidential rhetoric and women in politics.

Now, Shogan has taken on the prestigious role of Archivist of the United States at the National Archives and Records Administration, an independent federal agency based in Washington, D.C. Her service as the nation’s archivist is not limited by specific term.

“I’m offering a special invitation to anyone from Southwestern Pennsylvania” to come to Washington, D.C., to the National Archives to see the records of the nation’s history, Shogan said.

Being sworn into office May 17, she comes into the position with a perspective as both a user of national records and as a preserver of them.

She is responsible for overseeing 2,600 employees in an agency tasked with the safekeeping of 13 billion pages of federal government records, including the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, which are housed in the National Archives Museum in Washington, D.C. The records are stored in some 40 sites across the nation.

Shogan is the first woman to permanently hold the position of U.S. archivist.

She is taking over the role at time of heightened scrutiny as a result of the FBI raid in August 2022 of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, where boxes of classified documents were seized. The case of Trump’s cache of classified documents remains under investigation, and Shogan declined to comment Monday on the issue.

A more pressing point for Shogan “is the transition from paper-based records to digital records,” a process she said likely would take years. A major challenge will be how to display them in a manner that can be easily searched by the public.

In the near future, Shogan wants to focus on eliminating the backlog of requests from veterans seeking to obtain military records from the personnel center in St. Louis. The restrictions from the covid pandemic created a problem for veterans seeking those records, often for purposes of obtaining benefits.

To that end, Shogan said she will be traveling to the center in St. Louis; her first briefing on the job last week was about tackling the problem.

Nomination struggle

President Biden nominated Shogan for the position in August 2022, but the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in September was deadlocked along party lines when it came to recommending her for the post. This year, with the Democrats holding a slim majority in the Senate, she was confirmed by the Senate in a 52-45 party line vote, with most Republicans opposing her nomination.

Shogan said she spent “several weeks” preparing for those hearings, realizing there would be “heightened consideration” of her nomination.

While Republicans on the committee claimed during hearings she was partisan, Shogan won the support of nonpartisan organizations of career historians and archivists — the Council of State Archivists, as well as the Society of American Archivists and the American Historical Association.

Shogan has the experience needed to preserve records that “are foundational to democracy and an open and transparent government,” said Joy Banks, executive director of the Council of State Archivists, which consists of archivists for the states and U.S. territories.

“Our organization is really excited to work with her. We see positive things in the future,” Banks said.

While she lives in the Washington, D.C., area, Shogan has not forgotten her Western Pennsylvania roots. She remains a fan of the Pirates, Penguins and Steelers.

“I look forward to watching the Steelers games” and rooting for quarterback Kenny Pickett, she said.