SDSU Graduates to Hear Humanities Fund’s Chief

Lynne V. Cheney, chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, will address the nearly 7,000 graduates at San Diego State University in May.

SDSU President Thomas B. Day said Cheney was invited to speak to the 91st graduating class because of her “contributions to journalism, literature and the humanities.”

Under Cheney’s leadership the NEH/Reader’s Digest Teacher-Scholar program was established in 1989. The program gives elementary and secondary school teachers who qualify $27,500 to study humanities for a year. Reader’s Digest provides one-third of the funding.

Cheney also oversaw the establishment of a $1.5-million research center at UCLA to study the way history is taught in the country. It will make recommendations for improving teaching methods.

NEH is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1965. It provides grants to scholars, colleges, museums, libraries and other cultural institutions to support research, education and public programs in the humanities. Cheney was appointed to NEH in 1986 and was recently reappointed by President George Bush. Her husband is Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.

“I hope everyone will have an appreciation for what she has to say,” said Rick Moore, an SDSU spokesman.

“We don’t just train people to go into marketing or to become scientists and engineers. They all take courses in the humanities, and, we hope, they learn how to appreciate the significance of what they are doing and how it fits in with the rest of society. That’s what the humanities are all about.”