Academy Update

Transfer of Presidential Gavel

At the Annual Meeting on May 10, 2000, Daniel Tosteson, current President of the Academy and dean emeritus of Harvard Medical School, will pass the presidential gavel to James O. Freedman, president emeritus and Bicentennial Professor of Law and Liberal Arts, Dartmouth College. Mr. Freedman will be formally introduced at the Induction Ceremony on October 14. Full reports on these events will appear in the Bulletin this fall.

New Class V - Public Affairs, Business, and Administration

Fellows of the Academy have overwhelmingly approved the creation of Class V - Public Affairs, Business, and Administration. The new class will consist of Section 1 - Public Affairs, Journalism, and Communications; Section 2 - Business; and Section 3 - Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Administration. The last major change in the Academy's classification system was made in 1931, with the addition of a class recognizing the social sciences.

The establishment of the new class is an important step in fulfilling one of the major goals of the Strategic Plan: to move beyond a membership confined primarily to the university and to restore the historic concept of an Academy that encompasses individuals from all fields and professions. Nominations made in Class III:5 and III:6 for the 2001 election will be transferred to Class V.

New Academy Class and Section Designations

Class I - Mathematical and Physical Sciences

• Sect. 1: Mathematics
• Sect.2: Physics
• Sect. 3: Chemistry
• Sect.4: Astronomy (including Astrophysics) and Earth Sciences
• Sect. 5: Engineering Sciences and Technologies
• Sect. 6: Computer Sciences (including Artificial Intelligence and Information Technologies)

Class II - Biological Sciences

• Sect. 1: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
• Sect. 2: Cellular and Developmental Biology and Immunology (including Genetics)
• Sect. 3: Neurosciences, Cognitive Sciences, and Behavioral Biology
• Sect. 4: Evolutionary and Population Biology and Ecology
• Sect. 5: Medical Sciences, Clinical Medicine, and Public Health (including Physiology and Pharmacology)

Class III - Social Sciences

• Sect. 1: Social Relations (Anthropology, Sociology, Social and Developmental Psychology, Education, Demography, Geography)
• Sect. 2: Economics
• Sect. 3: Political Science, International Relations, and Public Policy
• Sect. 4: Law (including Practice of Law)

Class IV - Humanities and Arts

• Sect. 1: Philosophy and Religious Studies
• Sect. 2: History and Archaeology
• Sect. 3: Literary Criticism (including Philology)
• Sect. 4: Literature (Fiction, Poetry, Short Stories, Nonfiction, Playwriting, Screenwriting)
• Sect. 5: Visual Arts and Performing Arts - Criticism and Practice (including Art, Architecture, Sculpture, Music, Theater, Film, Dance)

Class V - Public Affairs, Business, and Administration

• Sect. 1: Public Affairs, Journalism, and Communications
• Sect. 2: Business
• Sect. 3: Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Administration
  

New Pugwash Website

The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, whose main offices are located at the House of the Academy, recently launched an expanded and redesigned website at www.pugwash.org. Under the direction of Pugwash secretary general George Rathjens, greater effort is being made to use the website to communicate with the several thousand members of the international Pugwash community, located in more than seventy countries around the world. The new Pugwash website contains archival material on the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955 and on the organization's first meeting, held in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, in 1957; numerous reports of Pugwash meetings on nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons, and regional conflict and humanitarian intervention; and an interactive web section that enables members of the Pugwash community to post their thoughts and comments on all aspects of the Pugwash agenda.

IIASA Natural Hazards Seminar

A new modeling effort at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is examining the macroeconomic impacts of natural disasters in developing countries. Paul Freeman, leader of the IIASA project on "Catastrophic Risk in Developing Countries," presented preliminary results of the model on February 8 at a seminar sponsored by the Academy's US Committee for IIASA. The gathering took place in Washington, DC, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Freeman described the model as an effort to understand the vulnerabilities of developing countries to natural catastrophes so that policy makers can incorporate these risks into development-assistance strategies and so that the insurance industry can develop financial instruments that will use markets to distribute risk. The World Bank and the Swiss Reinsurance Company are engaged as partners in the research, providing data and models to help make IIASA's results as useful as possible for the relevant policy makers and industries.

The US Committee for IIASA carries out the Academy's responsibilities as the US National Member Organization for IIASA. The chair of the US Committee is M. Gordon Wolman of Johns Hopkins University. For more information on IIASA and on the "Catastrophic Risk in Developing Countries" project, visit the IIASA website.

Programs for Fellows and Guests at the House of the Academy

Book Group

The Book Group concluded its 1999-2000 series of meetings with a discussion of the meaning of the term "Southern literature"—the focus of its conversations over the past year. Daniel Aaron, professor emeritus of English at Harvard University, pointed out that although Southern literature may not be distinct or definable, what we generally refer to as Southern literature is very talkative—filled with conversations about traditions, customs, and kin. It usually focuses on rural settings marked by realism, roughness, and comedy. The writings considered by the group included The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor, The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter, and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

Those who have attended these meetings know that the success of each one depends in large measure on the moderator's knowledge of and familiarity with the author's work. The Academy is indebted to literary critic Pearl Kazin Bell for leading the group through lively exchanges on several occasions, both this year and last. For a number of years, Bell wrote the "Fiction Chronicle" for Partisan Review; she has also been a contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and the New Republic. Book Group meetings have been enhanced not only by her wide-ranging knowledge of modern fiction but also by her wonderful ability to engage everyone present in conversation.

The Fund for the New Century Sets a New Record

Special thanks are due to the many Fellows and friends who made new and increased gifts in support of the Academy's Annual Fund, The Fund for the New Century. We are grateful for your contributions to our recordbreaking success for the fourth consecutive year. As this issue went to press, final results had not yet been totaled, but funds raised had already surpassed $700,000—an all-time high for the Academy's Annual Fund.

For assistance in making a gift to the Academy, please call the Development Office at (617) 576-5037.

Back to the May/June 2000 Bulletin