Academy Humanities Initiative Receives Major NEH Grant
President Patricia Meyer Spacks of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences today announced the establishment of a $2.5 million
fund that will launch the Academy's effort to improve the position of the
humanities in America. A grant of $600,000 from the National Endowment for the
Humanities–one of the largest made this year by the federal
agency-will provide the seed money for a fund to support fellowships in the
humanities, an active lecture series, and ongoing investigations into the state
of the humanities.
According to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a champion of the
humanities and an Academy Fellow:
This funding will go a long way in both sustaining and supporting
the integral research that the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
contributes to the humanities. So much of what we hold dear as Americans has
been touched by the Academy, and with this funding, it can continue to do some
of this country's greatest work. The Academy's passion for the humanities,
combined with its nonpartisan studies on international security and education,
are one of America's treasures.
"This grant," stated Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, Executive
Officer of the Academy, "confirms the Academy's role as one of the country's
major centers for research in the humanities. We are grateful to the NEH for
not only affirming the significance of the Academy's work in the humanities,
but also for enabling us to increase resources for an emerging generation of
scholars."
The Academy's initiative has received widespread support from
educators, including the presidents and chancellors of 41 colleges and
universities. As University
Affiliates, they provide financial and institutional assistance
to the Academy. The initiative will also draw on the research of the Academy's
Fellows, both in the social sciences and the humanities.
The Initiative encompasses four major components:
- Fostering research by the Academy's Fellows and other experts into the
history of the humanities, with recommendations for possible improvements to
the national humanities infrastructure.
- Launching an unprecedented ten-year effort to create more data for the
humanities–the Humanities Indicators–that will dramatically
improve the information available about the general state of the humanities.
- Creating resources for younger scholars and new research through the
Academy's Visiting Scholars Program.
- Expanding public knowledge of the humanities through symposia, meetings, and
lectures.
Among the distinguished Fellows who have contributed to the
humanities initiative are Steven Marcus of Columbia University; Denis
Donoghue of New York University; Stephen Raudenbush of the
University of Michigan; Pauline Yu, President of the American Council of
Learned Societies; Francis Oakley, the former President of Williams
College; and Nobel-prize laureate economist Robert Solow of M.I.T.
The Academy has long been a recognized leader in the humanities. It
was largely responsible for the establishment of the National Humanities Center
in 1970s, and played a key role in the creation of other national institutions
such as the Independent Research Library Association and the American
Council of Learned Societies.
The Academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams and other
scholar-patriots "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance
the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and
virtuous people." Its current membership of over 3,900 Fellows and 600 Foreign
Honorary Members includes more than 150 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize
winners. Drawing on the wide-ranging expertise of its membership, the American
Academy conducts thoughtful, innovative, nonpartisan studies on international
security, American institutions, education, and the humanities.
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