New Leaders Appointed by President Obama to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities

President Barack Obama appointed George Stevens, Jr. and Margo Lion to serve as co-chairs of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. To serve as Vice-Chair the President appointed Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell. Each of these distinguished appointments is exemplary of this Administration’s belief that the arts and humanities are at the core of a vital society. No entity is better positioned than the President’s Committee to help bring together the public and private sectors to advance the non-partisan cultural objectives of the Administration since it is comprised of private citizens from around the United States, as well as the heads of government cultural agencies, including the National Endowment on the Arts, the National Endowment on the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

President Obama said, “My administration is committed to . . . investing in the future of arts and the humanities, and these individuals will serve my team well as we work to accomplish these goals. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

The President’s Committee welcomes the new chairs and vice-chair and congratulates them on their appointments.

George Stevens, Jr.
In a career spanning fifty years George Stevens, Jr. has created a legacy of distinguished work as a writer, director, producer of motion pictures and television, and he has been a force for celebrating American excellence in the arts as founder of the American Film Institute and creator of The Kennedy Center Honors.

He learned his craft and gained his passion for excellence as a young man working alongside his accomplished father, motion picture director George Stevens, on A Place in the Sun, Shane, Giant and The Diary of Anne Frank.

In 1962, at age 29, he accepted Edward R. Murrow’s invitation to head the Motion Picture Service of USIA during the Kennedy Years where he fostered a new generation of documentary filmmakers. Nine From Little Rock won USIA its first Oscar and Murrow described Stevens as “revolutionizing” the USIA’s motion picture operation, infusing it with “a new creative spirit…imagination and vigor.” In addition to being the long time producer of the Kennedy Center Honors, Stevens has been recognized with 11 Emmys from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, two George Foster Peabody Awards for Meritorious Service to Broadcasting, nine awards from the Writers Guild of America and several Academy Award nominations.

Margo Lion
A Broadway producer, Lion’s career has spanned theatre, politics, and education. She has worked with the pre-eminent theater writers of our time including: Tony Kushner, David Mamet, Arthur Miller, August Wilson and George C. Wolfe, and her productions have garnered 20 Tony Awards, 4 Olivier Awards and 1 Pulitzer Prize. Lion is also an adjunct professor and a member of the Dean's Council at the New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She began her career as special cultural projects coordinator in Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s New York office and after his death, taught elementary school. She now serves on the Board of Directors of the LAByrinth Theatre and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids, and on the advisory boards of the Baltimore Young Women’s Leadership School (Opening August 2009), the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts and PUBLICOLOR.

Mary Schmidt Campbell
Dr. Campbell is the Dean of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, one of the nation's leading centers for the teaching of the performing and cinematic arts. Since her appointment as Dean in 1991, she has initiated major renovations of the School's film facilities; inaugurated new programs in Art and Public Policy, Film Preservation and Archiving, and Recorded Music. She is the former Chair of the New York State Council on the and began her career in New York as the executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Under her leadership, the Studio Museum in Harlem emerged as a major national and international cultural institution. In 1987, Mayor Edward I. Koch invited Dr. Campbell to serve as Commissioner of Cultural Affairs of the City of New York. She earned a Ph.D. in humanities from Syracuse University in 1982, and has been awarded Ford and Rockefeller fellowships. She is author a book Memory and Metaphor: The Art of Romare Bearden, 1940-1987.

In early August, President Obama appointed Rachel Goslins, independent TV and film producer, as the President’s Committee's Executive Director.