THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                         (New York, New York)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                 September 21, 1999

          PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES IRA BERLIN AND EVELYN EDSON 
          AS MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON THE HUMANITIES

     The President today announced his intent to nominate Ira Berlin 

and Evelyn Edson as members of the National Council on the Humanities.

Dr. Ira Berlin, of Washington, DC, is University Professor at the University of Maryland, and this spring is also teaching at Yale University. During his time at the University of Maryland, he has also served as Dean of Undergraduates and Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. Dr. Berlin has written several books dealing with slavery and African American life, including Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South and Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, which won the Bancroft Prize for the best book in American History awarded by Columbia University. Dr. Berlin has been awarded a number of grants and fellowships, including those from the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a Fulbright Bi-Centennial Professor at the University of Paris. He has served as a member of the Advisory Board of the National Archives and as a consultant on the Ken Burns' Civil War documentary and to the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Berlin received a BS, MA and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.

Dr. Evelyn Edson, of Scottsville, Virginia, is Professor of History and Humanities at Piedmont Virginia Community College. She has also been a Project Director of a three-year grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities on "Strengthening General Education Through the Humanities", and has been the recipient of other NEH grants and a Newberry Library Fellowship. Among her recent publications are the book Mapping Time and Space: How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World and an article, The Historian at the Community College. Dr. Edson received her BA from Swathmore College and her MA and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

The National Council on the Humanities is responsible for advising the Chair with respect to the policies, programs and procedures necessary for the operation of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition, the Council reviews applications for the awarding of grants and makes recommendations to the Chair. Staff support and funding for the council are provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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