Brian Clardy, associate professor of history, was unanimously elected as the new chair of the Kentucky Humanities Council Board of Directors.

Clardy, who was first appointed to the council by Gov. Andy Beshear in 2020, previously served as vice chair of the organization. 

Under former Gov. Steve Beshear, he also served on the Center for Renewable Energy Research and Environmental Stewardship.

“One of the things that I wanted to do was to serve on a board in his administration as I had done for his father,” Clardy said.

The Kentucky Humanities Council, though not a state agency, is a nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C. Both the Endowment and private donations fund the group’s goal to promote civic engagement and literacy across the state.

Because of Clardy’s past work in sustainability, he did not expect his appointment to the Humanities Council.

“When I got the call that Friday and I found out that I was appointed to the Humanities Council, I just remember feeling very, very honored because Kentucky Humanities has always done a lot of great things in the community and promoted a lot of great programs,” Clardy said.

Clardy first joined the council during the beginning of the pandemic and did not experience an in-person meeting for a year and a half.

“When we met in person… it felt like working with familiar friends,” Clardy said. “It felt like being a family and that was a great opportunity.”

A year after his appointment, Clardy was elected as vice chair.

“The whole board does vote,” Clardy said. “They get a slate of folks. They can nominate people if they’d like or self-nominate, but there’s usually a slate that’s approved by rules and bylaws.”

When he was asked to stand for chair in August 2022, Clardy said he knew there was a lot of work in his new role. Before his new position took effect on New Year’s Day, he attended several events to gain a sense of his future duties. One of these events was the Kentucky Book Festival.

“We had some great writers there — local writers,” Clardy said. “We had some great luminaries, like Wendell Berry and Crystal Wilkinson.”

The event also hosted Barbara Kingsolver, who lectured on her novel “Demon Copperhead,” and Yale University’s David Blight as the moderator for a discussion with Jon Meacham, author of “And There Was Light.”

Clardy said he also had the opportunity to attend the National Humanities Conference in Los Angeles. There, he listened to writers like Natalia Molina and Viet Thanh Nguyen, which he called an “unbelievable” experience.

At the conference, he had lunch with the president of the Federation of State Humanities Councils. He also met Jane Kaminski, the major author and editor of the history textbook he frequently uses.

Now as chair, Clardy plans on attending another conference in Indianapolis this coming fall.

He added he wants Murray State to have a seat at the table during the next Kentucky Book Festival, which plans to establish by keeping faculty members in the know about application deadlines for awards and opportunities.

“I can’t promise anything, but I’d like to see a lot of Murray State people apply, and I’m going to try to get one of the meetings in this area,” Clardy said.

Clardy will speak on Thursday, Feb. 2 to the Paducah Chamber of Commerce about the importance of humanities. He said he wants to be a spokesperson for the humanities in general and for Kentucky humanities in particular.

“If we meet students at the basic level—elementary school, junior high, high school—and get them involved in reading, get them involved in these discussions… When they get older, they will still want to be engaged, and they will want to contribute to the life of Kentucky Humanities and keep it going for the next generation,” Clardy said.