Clinton honors IU professor

With only a handful of days left until he leaves office, President Bill Clinton has appointed Folklore Professor Henry H. Glassie to serve on the National Council of the Humanities.\nGlassie is also acting chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Along with him, there are nine other appointees. These include educators, archivists and a film director.\nThe council advises the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities on operational procedures, said John H. McDowell, folklore and ethnomusicology department chair. \nThe endowment awards millions of dollars in grants to professors for research and also to museums, McDowell said. \n"They do a lot of things. They also provide resources to community groups who might be interested in exploring their history or the local culture," McDowell said.\nWilliam Ferris, chairman of the Endowment for the Humanities, said Glassie is one of the premier folklorists in the world. Ferris said he has known Glassie since graduate school.\n"His career as a scholar, teacher and administrator is unparalleled," Ferris said. "He's also a very lovely human being. He will be an enormous addition to our work here at the agency."\nThere are four committees on the council -- research, education, public programs and cultural preservation and access, endowment spokesman Jim Turner said. Each committee examines peer review comments on proposed funding for humanities projects and then makes a recommendation to Ferris. Turner said the final decision on funding comes from the chairman himself. \nThe endowment was created in 1965, and there are 26 current members on the council that advise the endowment. Each appointee has to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, a process which Turner said is expected to be completed by the end of Congress' first session next fall.\n"It's quite an honor for one of our colleagues. It certainly does reflect, I think, well on us in a way that one of us is given an honor of this kind," McDowell said. "We do feel very encouraged that folklore and folklorists are in these prominent and visible positions, and it's nice to have Professor Glassie added to that list."\nGlassie received his doctorate in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania and eventually became chair of Penn's Department of Folklore and Folklife. He has also served as co-director of Turkish Studies at IU and has adjunct appointments in Central Eurasian Studies, Middle Eastern Studies and American Studies. \nThe praise for Glassie ranges from his department chair, McDowell, who said, "Professor Glassie is somebody that is highly respected by his colleagues, not just here at Indiana University, but across the country," to national figures like Ferris.\n"Henry Glassie is one of my oldest and dearest friends," Ferris said. "I have always admired and looked up to him as a model for everything that I have sought to do"