Nation’s Oldest Learned Societies Hold First Convocation of Academies
Leading Experts will Explore Health, Economy, Energy, courts, Religion, Media, and Other
Topics
Washington, DC, April 23, 2007– More than 800 of
the foremost scientists, humanists and leaders in business and public affairs
will gather here April 27-29 when the nation’s two oldest learned societies –
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical
Society (APS) – meet jointly for the first time. Both organizations pre-date
the birth of the nation and include among their founding members Benjamin
Franklin, John Adams, James Bowdoin and John Hancock.
Among the more than 30 featured presenters at the April
meeting are former Mexican Secretary of the Treasury Pedro Aspe;
Librarian of Congress James Billington; journalists Tom
Brokaw and Gwen Ifill; National Academy of
Sciences President Ralph Cicerone; former Solicitor General
Wallter Dellinger III; writer E. L. Doctorow;
Institute of Medicine President Harvey Fineberg; historian
John Hope Franklin; New York Times Supreme Court
correspondent Linda Greenhouse; attorney Conrad Harper;
singer Emmylou Harris; DuPont Chairman and CEO Charles
Holliday, Jr.; media commentator Kathleen Hall Jamieson;
New York Chief Judge Judith Kaye; Chairman of the President’s
Council of Economic Advisors Edward Lazear; religion scholar
Martin Marty; Carnegie Institution President Richard Meserve;
former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; Mellon
Foundation President Don Michael Randel; former Aetna Chairman
and CEO John Rowe; former Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes;
Nobel laureate economist Robert Solow; poet Rosanna Warren;
and San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President and CEO Janet Yellen.
The Public Good: Knowledge as the Foundation for a
Democratic Society will bring together academics and practitioners for
a series of panel discussions, conversations and dinner programs that focus on
some of the most pressing issues facing the nation. Joining them for the
historic two-and-a-half-day meeting will be members of the congressionally
chartered National Academies (the National Academy of Sciences, the National
Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine).
The APS was founded in 1743 in Philadelphia by Benjamin
Franklin. The American Academy was founded in 1780 in Cambridge, Massachusetts
by John Adams. They were established to help advance “useful knowledge” in the
fledgling republic, by promoting enlightened leaders and an engaged citizenry.
They have remained faithful to their original missions to the present day.
Their current membership includes more than 170 Nobel laureates and more than
50 Pulitzer Prize winners.
The joint meeting is a project of the Annenberg
Foundation Trust at Sunnylands in partnership with the American Academy of
Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
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