Two New Members Join the National Council on the Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced today that two individuals prominent in the humanities community—Daryl Baldwin and Genine Macks Fidler—have been sworn in as new members of the Endowment’s advisory board, the National Council on the Humanities.

“We are delighted to welcome these two distinguished leaders to the National Council,” said NEH Acting Chairman Adam Wolfson. “Daryl Baldwin and Genine Fidler bring a breadth of experience in language and cultural preservation, education, and nonprofit and university management. Their expertise will strengthen NEH’s grantmaking.”

The new Council appointees were nominated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in May, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in September 2021.

The 26-member National Council on the Humanities meets three times a year to review grant applications and to advise the NEH chair. National Council members serve staggered six-year terms. Baldwin and Fidler will join next week’s November meeting of the National Council of the Humanities.

Below are biographies of the two new members:

Daryl Baldwin is a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and serves as the Executive Director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and Co-Director of the National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages. He was born during the mid-twentieth century, at a time when the last speakers of his heritage language were passing. This loss motivated him to begin seeking documented language resources and linguistic support, which ultimately led him to pursue an MA in English-linguistics at the University of Montana. In 1991, he and his wife, Karen Baldwin, embarked on the difficult work of raising their four children with the Myaamia language in a homeschool environment, which lasted for 18 years.

Growing community interest in language and cultural education prompted Miami tribal leaders to approach their allies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 2001 to create the Myaamia Center. Baldwin was asked to be the founding director, and since its inception he and his staff have continued capacity building for this effort. The work of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, with its partner Miami University, has become nationally and internationally recognized for its research, planning, and implementation of community language and cultural revitalization efforts. In the fall of 2016, Baldwin’s lifelong efforts, and arguably those of his family, tribal community, and university, were recognized with an award from the MacArthur Foundation. 

Genine Macks Fidler is a retired attorney now serving in leadership positions in numerous nonprofit enterprises. She earned her JD from NYU School of Law in 1980 (cum laude) and served as an editor of its law review. Fidler’s legal practice specialized in trusts and estates, taxation, and not-for-profit organizations, first at Wilkie Farr & Gallagher in New York City and then at Shapiro & Olander in Baltimore, Maryland. Fidler is president of the Louise D. & Morton J. Macks Family Foundation, Inc., and a board member of several other private foundations. She is a life director and a past chair of the board of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore.

Recently, Fidler concluded a six-year term as a trustee at Brown University. She continues to serve Brown in numerous capacities, including as founding co-chair of the President’s Advisory Council on Internships, which is dedicated to reimagining co-curricular experiential learning and providing internships and research opportunities for Brown undergraduates regardless of financial circumstances. In this capacity, she and her co-chair led Brown’s effort at the onset of the pandemic to reimagine a meaningful summer experience for Brown students in a period of unprecedented disruption. Fidler’s team marshaled all university stakeholders, along with Brown’s global network of alumni and parents, to develop, create, and oversee impactful and educational virtual experiences for more than a thousand students in the summer of 2020. Fidler is also a founding co-chair of the Brown Women’s Leadership Council and remains a board member. She also serves as a trustee of Brown/RISD Hillel.
 

National Endowment for the Humanities: Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at neh.gov.