June 5, 2009
Dear Colleagues,
The opening week of the summer months coincides with the welcome news about a new chair for the National Endowment for the Humanities!
News from the NEH
The big news of this week for all of us was the White House announcement of the nomination of James Leach to the chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Humanities. We applaud this selection of an individual who was known throughout his career in Congress for his integrity, his bipartisanship, and his highly principled approach to legislative work. As a founding co-chair of the Congressional Humanities Caucus, Mr. Leach was well acquainted with the impressive work of the councils, and we very much look forward to continuing our collaboration with him.
The Federation has prepared a press release that we encourage councils to adapt for use with their local outlets, using it as an opportunity to highlight the value of their own council programs and the strong partnership councils have with the Endowment.
We are told that the timeline for finalizing the process from this point on could be relatively fast and that Mr. Leach could be in place at the Endowment within the next couple of months. We are preparing materials about the councils to present to Mr. Leach upon arrival, with the aim of supplementing materials that the Federal-State Partnership will be providing.
News from the Hill
The House appropriations subcommittees have begun mark-ups of FY 2010 bills, even though final action on the war supplemental spending bill, which the leadership had hoped to complete this week, has been postponed because of differences over provisions in the bill. The Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), approved its bill this week, and the Interior subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) is scheduled to take up their FY 2010 funding bill next week.
Councils with members on that subcommittee are contacting those members now to urge them to support increased funding in the bill for the Federal-State Partnership and the NEH. In addition, the Federation is asking that all councils ask their members to contact Rep. Dicks and Ranking Member Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) in support of the increase. We have posted a template letter at the "Taking Action" section of the Federation website, which we ask that you distribute to your network of supporters and urge them to contact their members. We thank you in advance for your help!
News from the Federation
Many thanks to all of you who provided information for the annual salary survey. The electronic survey is now closed, and the compilation of the report will begin shortly. Thanks too to those of you who offered substantive and helpful suggestions for improving the survey in coming years. We are still educating ourselves about the mechanics and the capacities of this web-based tool, and we are grateful for all feedback.
We are proud to announce the recent publication of two books by current and former state humanities council representatives. Laura McCarty, Vice President of the Georgia Humanities Council, is the author of "Coretta Scott King: A Biography,"which "follows the trajectory of Coretta Scott King's tumultuous life at the heart of the most important American social movement of the 20th century." The book is published by the Greenwood Press and is widely available through Amazon.com and other online vendors. "Mississippi in Transition: The Role of the Mississippi Humanities Council," by Cora Norman, former Executive Director of the Mississippi Humanities Council, "represents a major contribution to our understanding of that intriguing period," according to former Mississippi governor William F. Winter. The book is available from the University of Tennessee Press. Our congratulations to these present and former colleagues!
I hope you will all have a good weekend!
Esther