"Challenges of the New Century" was the theme of the 1999 National Induction Ceremony, held in Cambridge on Saturday, October 2. Some 350 members and guests gathered at the House of the Academy to honor newly elected Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members. The evening ceremony was preceded by an orientation session that introduced new members to the history and current programs of The Academy.
Regional inductions were held at the Field Museum in Chicago on October 23 and at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla on November 6. In total, some 157 Fellows and 27 Foreign Honorary Members were elected to the Academy in 1999.
The National Induction Ceremony opened with a concert by the Boston Trio, the Academy's chamber ensemble in residence. Over the past two years, Academy members have enjoyed several of their performances in the House, as well as at venues in the Boston area, where their concerts have met with wide acclaim. For this year's induction, violinist Lucia Lin, cellist Andrew Pierce, and pianist Heng-Jin Park Ellsworth played Beethoven's Trio in D, op. 70, no. 1 ("The Ghost Trio"). Violinist Kazuko Matsusaka joined the Boston Trio for the second piece: Faure's Quartet for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello no. 1 in C Minor, op. 15.
At the reception that followed, new members greeted friends and colleagues and engaged in informal conversation with Academy officers, councilors, and members of the Strategic Planning Committee. Presiding over the ceremony and Stated Meeting, President Daniel Tosteson welcomed new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members representing 21 states, 8 foreign countries, and over 80 universities, research institutes, and corporations, as well as the arts and public affairs, Reflecting on both the history and promise of the Academy, he observed that "by electing you to membership, the Academy honors you, but in turn you honor the Academy by sustaining and enhancing its commitment to overcome disciplinary boundaries and focus its rich intellectual resources on those issues that affect all of us." He urged newly elected members to become actively involved in the Academy's work by participating in studies and projects, the membership election process, and Stated Meetings and informal gatherings held throughout the country.
President Tosteson then called on Communications Secretary Leon Eisenberg to provide a glimpse into the Academy's past by tracing the history and meaning of the Academy seal; the origin of such phrases as "Stated Meeting"; the significance of the first Academy prize (and one of the first scientific awards in this country), the Rumford Premium; and the debate surrounding the election of women members.
Adding her words of welcome, Chief Executive Officer Leslie Berlowitz reminded the audience that this year, the Academy celebrates the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking of its House on Cambridge, and next year, its 220th year of service to the intellectual community and the larger society. "There is no more appropriate time for the Academy to reassert its founders' belief that 'individuals united together and frequently meeting for the purpose of advancing the sciences, the arts, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce may oftentimes suggest such hints to one another as may be improved to important ends,'" she said. "As the Academy moves forward, we hope that the interests and concerns of its newest members will help us to shape and define its future."
The Secretary of the Academy, Emilio Bizzi, introduced the newly elected members individually, calling each of them forward to accept the greetings of the President and their class representative and to sign the Members' Book. The respondents invited to speak on behalf of their classes were introduced by Vice President Patricia A. Graham. They were asked to offer their views on the challenges facing society at the onset of the millennium and the need for concerted thinking and action to address those issues.
The first two speakers, Bill joy and Eric Lander, focused on the impact of advances in science and technology. Representing the mathematical and physical sciences, Mr. Joy, founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, emphasized that in the twenty-first century, the development of computers a million times more powerful than today's personal computers, coupled with the technology to catalogue human genes and to construct material at the atomic level, "will allow us to determine the fate of our species." However, since these technologies are likely to be small and portable, they will be extremely difficult to control. "We must think for the long term in an age with an incredibly short-term focus...Science is providing possibilities but no useful limits...Our choices should come from our spiritual, artistic, and ethical values."
Speaking on behalf of the biological sciences, Mr. Lander, Director of the Whitehead Institute / MIT Human Genome Project, observed that "the founders of the Academy, notably John Adams, were extraordinary revolutionaries who recognized that the promise of their revolution would require intellectual and social dialogue of the broadest sort." The need for such dialogue is, he noted, critically important today as we confront the far-reaching implications of the modern revolution in genetics and genomics. A table of the building blocks of biology, comparable to chemistry's periodic table, holds within it the potential for curing cancer, illuminating human differences, even creating a human being with specific properties. Mr. Lander emphasized that in order to understand the implications of human genetic diversity and to determine whether we should take a direct hand in the creation of a human being, society will need to draw on the full range of knowledge represented by the members of the Academy.
Connecticut College president Claire L. Gaudiani, representing the social sciences, noted that in the new millennium, the challenges posed by science and technology will be matched by severe social problems that have persisted for decades or even centuries in this country and throughout the world. Citing William E. B. DuBois's characterization of the "color line" as the problem of the twentieth century, she contended that the problem we face today is "still the color line and the extension of the color line: the gap between the rich and the poor." She warned that if things have not changed in another twenty years, "we who represent the most privileged DNA on this planet... will be the genesis of the defeat of this species." As an example of what can be done by educated individuals from diverse backgrounds, Ms. Gaudiani cited the work of a group of concerned citizens in New London, Connecticut, who raised more than $700 million in new investments and created 4,000 jobs in a city with 70 percent of its children on welfare. By fulfilling the Academy's historic mission to serve the public good, its members can become "transforming citizens" in the effort to lessenand, perhaps by the beginning of the next century, to endthe problem of the color line.
The issue of inequality of opportunity, "a problem that has gone largely unnoticed in the self-congratulatory public world of American today, was the theme of the respondent for the humanities, Alan Brinkley, Allan Nevins Professor of History at Columbia University. The barriers to opportunity are higher than they have ever been in all but a few periods of history, and they are evident in all aspects of societyfrom job structures to housing and health care. But for members of the intellectual community, who fully recognize the crucial link between knowledge and success, the problem is particularly acute in the area of education. Millions of children are illiterate, and millions have virtually no exposure to science; moreover, "the differences between the best American schools and the worst are now not just differences in degree but also, increasingly, differences in kind." Members of the Academy from every field have long been involved in the struggle to defend artistic and intellectual freedom; in Mr. Brinkley's view, "those of us who treasure and benefit from the unfettered pursuit of knowledge and free expression should be equally committed to ensuring that the things we value and fight to defend are available to everyone."
The evening concluded with a poetry reading by Lucille Clifton, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at St. Mary's College, Maryland, and chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In selecting poems by William Stafford, Robert Frost, and Stanley Kunitz, along with one of her own, she reminded the audience that "we read poetry not out of what we dowhat is actually our jobbut out of our humanness" and demonstrated that poetry brings together "scholars of the mind, scholars of the heart, and scholars of the spirit." As she observed, "Remembering all three is very important to me and, perhaps, to the world."
Earlier in the afternoon, new members listened to a number of presentations on current Academy projects and on the Academy's flagship publication, Daedalus. Howard Hiatt (senior physician, Brigham and Women's Hospital), director of the Academy's Initiatives for Children program, explained that the Initiatives seek to improve the lives and futures of America's children by providing research results that are directly relevant to policy concerns. In efforts ranging from a center for evaluation of educational and social policy research to an intergenerational literacy tutoring project and a study of the role of universities in K-12 mathematics and science education, the program, now in its eighth year, recruits scholars to design and implement projects in partnership with individuals working actively with children in the community.
Steven Marcus (George Delacorte Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University), cochair of the Academy's Initiative for Humanities and Culture, described this new program as part of a continuing Academy effort to support research in the humanities and the artsan effort that has included several Academy projects and numerous Daedalus issues, as well as the Academy's central role in the establishment of the National Humanities Center. Not only does the Initiative build on what the Academy has accomplished in the past; it also recognizes the important work now being carried out in the arts and humanities by numerous centers throughout the country. Its purpose is to amplify, integrate, and expand on those activities; to establish a framework for data collection in the humanities and arts; to design and carry out scholarly and policy studies in those areas; and to bring the results of its work to the widest possible audience.
The Academy conducts two major international programs through its Committee on international Security Studies (CISS) and the US Committee on the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Tracing the origins of CISS to the path-breaking 1960 Daedalus issue on "Arms Control", CISS chair Carl Kaysen (David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy emeritus, MIT) outlined the Committee's efforts to continue its study of traditional international security issues, such as conventional arms reduction, while expanding the definition of the field to include analyses of new security threats, from environmental degradation to civil strife. CISS often works in collaboration with the Midwest Consortium on International Security Studies, while the Academy continues to sponsor the US Pugwash Committee and also serves as the institutional base for the International Pugwash Committee.
Harvey Brooks, former president of the Academy and a long-term member of the US IIASA Committee, spoke on behalf of the Committee's chair, M. Gordon Wolman (Johns Hopkins University). The Academy serves as one of 15 non-governmental bodies that represent their nations in determining the overall design of the IIASA program and in advancing research on IIASA's three central themes: energy and technology, population and society, and natural resources and the environment. As Mr. Brooks explained, IIASA uses quantitative modeling and computational technologies to explore possible futures, but relies on natural and social scientists to define problems and assess results. He also reported that the US Committee is initiating a program of workshops and seminars to disseminate IIASA's work throughout the US academic, policy, and industrial communities and to increase the visibility of IIASA's Young Scientists Summer Program.
Turning to an issue of both national and international importancethe future of the cityElmer Johnson (partner, Kirkland and Ellis, Chicago) described a recently completed study of metropolitan America, using Chicago as a case study. "Chicago Metropolis 2020," a joint project of the Academy and the Commercial Club of Chicago, presents a plan to enhance the region's economy and the lives of its citizens by examining the interplay of several factors, including economic interdependency (the availability of transportation, the productivity of a growing minority population, the need for diverse occupational skills, and the strength of the downtown area); environmental integrity; access to cultural, educational, and medical facilities; and the physical and social isolation of poor minorities. In developing their recommendations, the participants directed their attention to three major obstacles that threaten the plan's success: the failure to provide all sectors of the population with equal access to good health care and a high-quality education; the bias in the governance and tax framework that encourages dispersed and stratified spatial patterns with inadequate transportation; and the high levels of concentrated poverty and racial and social segregation in the metropolis. The result is a model for thinking about the future of metropolitan areas, both in this country and abroad.
Finally, the editor of Daedalus, Stephen Graubard, presented an overview of several issues to be published in the coming year. He emphasized that in its forthcoming issues, as in those of the past, Daedalus seeks to address issues of real and immediate importance while treating themes that will demand attention far into the future. He joined with other officers of the Academy and with project leaders in encouraging new members to submit their ideas for projects and publications.
The induction ceremonies in Cambridge, Chicago, and La Jolla not only honored the Academy's newest members but also celebrated its special role in fostering objective analysis and informed action. As Eric Lander observed in his presentation, "John Adams recognized that small sparks can ignite revolutions of unimaginable proportions. This Academy was one of his generation's legacies, to serve as a continuing forum for intellectual exchange about burning questions that cut across boundaries. It seems to me a function that is no less vital today."