STANFORD – The White House has announced that President George W. Bush will present the Hoover Institution with a National Humanities Medal at the official awards ceremony in the Oval Office tomorrow. Hoover director John Raisian will accept the medal on behalf of the institution.
The president will be joined by First Lady Laura Bush, Dana Gioia, chairman, National Endowment for the Arts, and Bruce Cole, chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities.
“This is a distinct honor for the Hoover Institution and Stanford University,” said Hoover director John Raisian. “We have been honored recently with the awards that were bestowed on Hoover fellows Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele. To have the medal awarded by the president to the Hoover Institution, as an institution, is a wonderful tribute and a huge source of pride for all of us.”
Research Fellow Shelby Steele received the medal in 2004, and Thomas Sowell, the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow in Public Policy, received the medal in 2002.
The National Endowment for the Humanities notes in its release about the award: “The Hoover Institution became one of the first and most distinguished academic centers in the United States dedicated to public policy research. Today, with its world-renowned group of scholars and ongoing programs of policy-oriented research, the Hoover Institution puts its accumulated knowledge to work as a prominent contributor to the world marketplace of ideas defining a free society.”
Joining Hoover as winners of National Humanities Medals in 2006 are
Fouad Ajami, Middle Eastern studies scholar, Washington, District of Columbia
James Buchanan, economist, Fairfax, Virginia
Nickolas Davatzes, historian, Wilton, Connecticut
Robert Fagles, translator and classicist, Princeton, New Jesey
Mary Lefkowitz, classicist, Wellesley, Massachusetts
Bernard Lewis, Middle Eastern studies scholar, Princeton, New Jersey
Mark Noll, historian of religion, Notre Dame, Indiana
Meryle Secrest, biographer, Washington, District of Columbia
Kevin Starr, historian, San Francisco, California
The National Humanities Medal, first awarded in 1989 as the Charles Frankel Prize, honors individuals and organizations whose work has deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens' engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand America's access to important humanities resources.
