President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities

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The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) is an advisory committee to the President of the United States on cultural issues. It works directly with the White House and the three primary cultural agencies: the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), as well as other federal partners and the private sector, to advance wide-ranging policy objectives in the arts and humanities. These include considerations for how the arts and humanities sectors can positively impact community well-being, economic development, public health, education, civic engagement, and climate change across the United States.  

The committee is composed of both private and public members. The private members are appointed by the president and are prominent artists, scholars, philanthropists, and former state and local public officials who demonstrate commitment to the arts and humanities. Its public members include the heads of the National Endowment for the Arts; the National Endowment for the Humanities; and the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences. Ex officio members are the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; the Director of the National Gallery of Art; and the head of the Library of Congress. The President also appoints a chair or co-chairs from among the private members.

In August 2017, all private committee members resigned in protest of then-president Donald Trump's response to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.^[1][2][3] Authority for the committee subsequently lapsed on September 30 under the provisions of Executive Order 13708.

On September 30, 2022 President Joseph Biden reinstituted and expanded the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities by Executive Order 14804. Tsione Wolde-Michael, most recently the founding Director of the Smithsonian’s Center for Restorative History,^[4] is the current Executive Director of the PCAH. On April 13, 2023, key appointments to the Committee were announced.^[5]