Education

Past Projects – 1970s

• Universities and Human Rights: The Academy appointed a study group to examine the issues raised when American universities consider education, research, or service agreements with institutions in countries possibly involved in serious violations of human rights in general and, more specifically, of academic freedom. The authors examined the nature of the university, types of human rights violations, individual versus corporate involvement, university decision-making procedures, and more. Rather than make policy recommendations or suggest guidelines, the study offered a review of information that should be taken into account before a university decides to proceed with or refrain from these commitments.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1978-1984
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Stanley Hoffmann (Harvard University)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “Universities and Human Rights,” ed. Stanley Hoffmann. Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 1-80, February 1984. Contact publisher.
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: American Academy, United States Agency for International Development
  
  
• American Overseas Advanced Research Centers: Located around the globe but operated by American parent institutions, interdisciplinary American Overseas Advanced Research Centers provide essential support to humanistic and social science American scholars in foreign countries. In 1978, the Academy brought together representatives of the centers to reduce their sense of isolation and to help them band together in the face of diminishing financial support and interest in foreign study. The resulting report, “Corners of a Foreign Field,” led to the creation in 1981 of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC). Located in Washington, D.C., CAORC serves as an informational clearinghouse and organizational advocate for the centers. By 2007, the council had grown to include 19 member centers, a multicountry fellowship program, and a Digital Library for International Research. Go to the CAORC website.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1978-1979
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Robert McCormick Adams (University of Chicago)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “Corners of a Foreign Field: Discussions about American Overseas Advanced Research Centers in the Humanities and Social Sciences,” eds. Robert McCormick Adams and Corinne S. Schelling. New York: The Rockefeller Foundation, 1979. (out of print)
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities
  COLLABORATING ORGANIZATIONS: American Academy in Rome, American Institute of Indian Studies, American Academy of Iranian Studies, American Research Center in Egypt, American Research Institute in Turkey, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, American Schools of Oriental Research, Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti), Universities Service Centre in Hong Kong
  
  
• Urban School Desegregation: Nearly 25 years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision found that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the aftershocks were still affecting American society. In 1977, the Academy convened an interdisciplinary study group to examine the post-Brown urban school integration experience and to consider solutions to ongoing education inequality in American classrooms. The resulting volume, published in 1981, provides historical background on the first 25 years after Brown and a guide for thinking about the problems of racial inequality in American schools in the current context.
  PROJECT DATE: 1977-1981
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Adam Yarmolinsky and Lance Liebman (both of Harvard Law School)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “Race and Schooling in the City,” eds. Adam Yarmolinsky, Lance Liebman, and Corinne S. Schelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981. Available from publisher.
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: Ford Foundation, George Gund Foundation, Charles F. Kettering Foundation, New World Foundation
  
  
• National Humanities Center: In response to the suggestion of two Fellows, the Academy in 1973 formed a planning committee to explore the development and creation in the United States of an institute for advanced humanistic studies, somewhat analogous to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. For the next five years, the Academy served as the institutional base and catalyst for the planning and development activities associated with this effort. In 1978, the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park near Raleigh, North Carolina, opened its doors, with Academy Fellow Charles Frankel serving as its first director. The NHC is the only major independent American institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities. Each year, it supports 40 fellows who pursue individual and collaborative humanistic research. By encouraging excellence in scholarship, the Center insures the continuing strength and importance of the liberal arts and the humanities in American life.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1973-1978
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Morton Bloomfield (Harvard University), Gregory Vlastos (Princeton University), and John Voss (American Academy)
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, group of North Carolina business leaders under the chairmanship of Archie K. Davis, of Winston-Salem
  COLLABORATING ORGANIZATIONS Triangle Universities Center for Advanced Study Inc., Duke University, North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina
  
  
• The History of Organizations for the Promotion of Learning in the United States: Since colonial times, academies, learned societies, and scientific associations have played an important yet little recognized role in the organized pursuit of knowledge in the United States. This multiyear project investigated the function and historical role of learned societies in advancing research and stimulating communication about scientific and scholarly ideas, not only within the intellectual community but among segments of the larger society. Project leaders divided the history of American learned societies into three time periods: (1) colonial times up to 1860; (2) from 1860 through 1920; and (3) 1920 to 1970. Participants met for intense deliberation and discussion during summer studies, with the resulting papers published in collaborative volumes.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1972-1979
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Sanborn C. Brown (MIT) and I. Bernard Cohen (Harvard University)
  RESULTING PUBLICATIONS:
  “The Pursuit of Knowledge in the Early American Republic: American Scientific and Learned Societies from Colonial Times to the Civil War,” eds. Alexandra Oleson and Sanborn C. Brown. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. (out of print)
  
  “The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860-1960,” eds. Alexandra Oleson and John Voss. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. (out of print)
  
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: National Science Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Academy
  
  
• Public Higher Education in California: From 1950 to 1970, student enrollment in California’s system of higher education increased fivefold, a growth rate that generated internal organizational stresses, created frictions among the different university constituencies, and threatened the system’s capacity to govern itself. This volume provides an institutional history of higher education in California, analyzes the social structure of the origins of the conflict, and assesses the system’s capacity to contain and manage the stresses it faces.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1972-1974
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Neil J. Smelser (University of California, Berkeley)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “Public Higher Education in California,” eds. Neil J. Smelser and Gabriel Almond. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974. (out of print)
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: Ford Foundation, American Academy
  COLLABORATING ORGANIZATION: Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
  
  
• The Assembly on University Goals and Governance: In 1969, during a time of great student unrest across the country, the Academy founded The Assembly on University Goals and Governance to study a series of issues in higher education that were not directly linked to the problems of disorder. The Assembly felt an examination of longer-range educational issues, not just short-term campus violence, was essential, and members of the group explored such matter as learning, teaching and evaluation; research and service; models of governance; access, scale, and quality; private versus public funding; and relations with other institutions. This multiyear project included numerous studies, seminars, conferences, and workshops investigating the past, present, and future of American institutions of higher learning. Resulting reports, books, and volumes were widely distributed to Academy Fellows, elected government officials, university and college presidents, educational associations, foundations, federal agency personnel, and other interested individuals and groups.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1969-1975
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Martin Meyerson (State University of New York at Buffalo) and Stephen Graubard (American Academy)
  RESULTING PUBLICATIONS:
  “Should Students Share the Power?: A study of their role in college and university governance,” by Earl James McGrath. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1970. (out of print)
  
  “The First Report of The Assembly on University Goals and Governance,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 18, 1971.
  
  “The American University,” eds. Talcott Parsons and Gerald M. Platt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. (out of print)
  
  “Learning and Teaching in Academe: Three Essays Prepared for The Assembly on University Goals and Governance,” by Peter Caws, Walter Metzger, and Saul Touster. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1973. (out of print)
  
  “The Trammelled University,” by George Kelly. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1973. (out of print)
  
  “The Students Themselves: Assembly on University Goals and Governance,” ed. Robert Coles. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1973. (out of print)
  
  “American Higher Education: Toward an Uncertain Future (Volume I),” ed. Stephen R. Graubard, Dædalus, Fall 1974.
  
  “American Higher Education: Toward an Uncertain Future (Volume II),” ed. Stephen R. Graubard, Dædalus, Winter 1975.
  
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Edgar Stern Fund
  
  
• The History of Recent Science and Technology: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Academy organized several conferences and studies devoted to the history, origin, and development of fields of research, such as physics, molecular biology, and bioenergetics. These meetings brought together historians, social scientists, and scientists who themselves played a leading role in their fields. A committee was formed to coordinate and oversee a more systematic and long-range program of historical studies in contemporary science and technology.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1970-1975
  COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Gerald Holton (Harvard University)
  RESULTING PUBLICATIONS:
  “Proceedings of the Conference on the History of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,” ed. John Edsall. Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1970. (out of print)
  
  “Exploring the History of Nuclear Physics,” ed. Charles Weiner. New York: American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings, No. 7, 1972. (out of print)
  
  “The Historical Development of Bioenergetics,” ed. John Edsall. Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1973. (out of print)
  
  “Evolution of Modern Mathematics,” ed. Garrett Birkhoff, Historia Mathematica, Volume 2, November 1975. Available from publisher.
  
  “The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology,” eds. Ernst Mayr and William B. Provine. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980. Available from publisher.
  
  SOURCES OF FUNDING: National Science Foundation, American Academy
  COLLABORATING ORGANIZATION: American Institute of Physics
  
  
• Social Science Controversies and Public Policy Decisions: After World War II, the social sciences operated in a changed field, particularly in terms of their relations to the polity and the economy. Government, business, the courts, and nonprofit organizations began to lean heavily on the results of scholarly research, and the mass media and public attitudes were influenced by the same. Despite the new role of social sciences in the public arena, an increasing lack of confidence was expressed by the press, the public, and academics in research results on topics dealing with controversial issues. This study examined whether the social sciences can credibly claim to perform an impartial role and how to maintain ethical integrity in social science scholarship.
  
  PROJECT DATE: 1970-1975
  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Charles Frankel (Columbia University)
  RESULTING PUBLICATION: “Controversies and Decisions: The Social Sciences and Public Policy,” ed. Charles Frankel. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1976. Available from publisher.
  SOURCE OF FUNDING: Russell Sage Foundation

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