Bidding Farewell to the Fellows of 2018–19
With the arrival of summer, the 2018–19 fellowship year has drawn to a close and the Center staff bids farewell to the remarkable scholars who have formed a close-knit community over the past nine months.
News From the Center
John Birkelund (1931–2019)
The trustees and staff of the National Humanities Center mourn the passing of trustee emeritus John P. Birkelund, who died on May 10 at the age of 88 in New Canaan, CT. Mr. Birkelund, the former chairman and CEO of Dillon, Read & Co. Inc., was as a trustee of the Center from 1992–2004, serving as chairman from 1996–2004. His legacy at the Center continues in many ways, including through the Birkelund fellowship which he endowed.
National Humanities Center Receives NEH Grant to Foster Better Understanding of the Experience of Military Families
The NHC has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a new project training educators with military backgrounds to use literature to improve their students’ and communities’ understanding of the experience of veterans and their families. The grant will help fund a weeklong institute at the Center for thirty educators from communities in North Carolina and Virginia. The participants will work with literary scholars during the institute to devise educational programs for their classrooms and communities to be implemented over the course of the following year.
National Humanities Center Names Fellows for 2019–20
The National Humanities Center is pleased to announce the appointment of 37 Fellows for the academic year 2019–20. These leading scholars will come to the Center from universities and colleges in 14 U.S. states, as well as from Singapore, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe. These newly appointed Fellows will constitute the forty-second class of resident scholars to be admitted since the Center opened in 1978.
Center Mourns Recent Passing of Trustee Anne Firor Scott, Friends Nancy Lewis and Clay Whitehead
The trustees and staff of the NHC mourn the recent passing of trustee emerita Anne Firor Scott on February 6, 2019, age 97. Scott was a distinguished historian whose long list of accolades included the National Humanities Medal, bestowed on her in 2013 for her pioneering work in the area of women’s history. The Center is also deeply saddened by the loss of longtime friends and supporters Nancy Lewis on October 27, 2018 and Clay Whitehead, who died in December 2018.
National Humanities Center Names New Education Programs Manager
The National Humanities Center has named award-winning history educator Michael “Mike” Williams as its new education programs manager. Williams comes to the Center having most recently served as chair of the history department at Warren New Tech High School in Warrenton, NC, where he has taught for the past decade. In that time, he has twice been recognized as the Warren County Teacher of the Year (2014, 2017–18) and was named the 2017 Tachau National Teacher of the Year by the Organization of American Historians.
Bill and Jean Anne Leuchtenburg Celebrate Forty Years Together at the Center
Over the past four decades, Center lunches have offered a wonderful occasion for those who love the humanities to meet and discover their shared passions, and it's not uncommon for those kindred spirits to form deep and lasting relationships. Probably none, though, can match William and Jean Anne Leuchtenburg, who met and fell in love at the Center forty years ago when he was a Fellow and she was a new member of the NHC staff.
Center Launches Online Courses for Teachers
The NHC has launched the first in a new series of online courses for teachers exploring “Digital Literacy in the Classroom.” In this five-week online course, educators will explore digital literacy through a humanities lens, considering how media has evolved in the digital age, how its messages shape our citizenry, and how this understanding can be effectively conveyed in a classroom setting.
National Humanities Center Board Elects New Chairman and Vice Chairman
The NHC Board of Trustees has selected Ben Vinson III, provost at Case Western Reserve University, and New York businessman Joshua Ruch as board chairman and vice-chairman, respectively. Trained as a historian with a focus on colonial Mexico, Dr. Vinson has been a member of the Center’s board since 2013 and was a Fellow at the Center in 2005–06. Mr. Ruch has been a trustee of the NHC since 2010 and is cofounder and chief executive officer of Rho Capital Partners, an investment and venture capital management company based in New York and Palo Alto.
Steven Marcus (1928–2018)
The trustees and staff of the NHC mourn the passing of Steven Marcus, one of the Center’s founders, on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. He was 89. Steven was instrumental in the conception and realization of the Center, and his intellectual leadership and continuous devotion helped nurture and guide the Center for most of the past 40+ years. Beyond his importance to the Center, Steven Marcus was an influential literary critic and professor at Columbia University where he taught from 1956 until 1994. His work on nineteenth-century literature and culture, including over 200 publications, continues to shape thinking in the field.