U.S. Senate confirms Miami University's Daryl Baldwin to the National Council on the Humanities

Miami University's Daryl Baldwin has been confirmed to the National Council on the Humanities. A vote Friday by the U.S. Senate confirms the nomination President Joe Biden announced in April. His term becomes official once the president signs the commission.

Baldwin is executive director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University. Baldwin has been a driving force behind the center for decades and is a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. The center's goal is advancing the Myaamia Nation - from which Miami University draws its name - with a focus on language, culture and history.

"Many of the branches within the humanities lie at the heart of our work supporting language and cultural revitalization," Baldwin says in a statement. "I hope that my position on the National Council on the Humanities will increase awareness of the important role the humanities play in the preservation and promotion of Indigenous knowledge, language, culture and values."

A citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma - where the tribe was eventually relocated after being forcibly removed from their traditional homelands in Ohio and Indiana - Baldwin is a leader in Native American language and cultural revitalization.

The Council serves as the advisory board to the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its 26 members are appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate and serve staggered six-year terms.

As WVXU previously reported, work began at Miami University in 2000 on a language revitalization project to preserve and reinvigorate the Myaamia language. That one-person assignment turned into the Myaamia Project and then the full-fledged Myaamia Center in 2013.

Baldwin was awarded a MacArthur "genius grant" in 2016 for his work as a leader in Native American language and cultural revitalization. He also serves as co-director of the National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages.

The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma was recognized by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government for its cultural heritage and language revitalization program in 2018. It received the Honoring Nations Award from the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

You can read more about Baldwin's work and the partnership between "the two Miamis" here.

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