In recent months, several new members have joined the staff at the House of the Academy. We are pleased to welcome James Miller, Editor of Daedalus; Martin Malin, Program Director, Committee on International Security Studies (CISS); James Buzard, Program Officer, Humanities and Culture; and Charles Rooney, Public Information Officer.
James Miller
Author and critic James Miller has been named the new Editor of Daedalus, succeeding Stephen R. Graubard, who edited the Academy's quarterly journal for over forty years. Mr. Miller was chosen by a selection committee consisting of the Editor of the Academy, Steven Marcus (Columbia University); Bill Kovach (Committee of Concerned Journalists); Sandra Scarr (Holualoa, Hawaii); Robert Silvers (New York Review of Books); Neil Smelser (Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences); Patricia Meyer Spacks (University of Virginia); President James O. Freedman (ex officio); and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Berlowitz (ex officio).
Commenting on the appointment, President Freedman said, "Jim Miller brings a wide range of intellectual interests and a long list of accomplishments to his new role at Daedalus. We look forward to working with him to continue Daedalus's tradition of publishing on emerging topics of concern to the intellectual and policy-making communities. Executive Officer Leslie Berlowitz added that "Mr. Miller's intellectual versatility makes him a strong editor for a journal that brings cutting-edge scholarship and multidisciplinary analysis to a broad audience."
Mr. Miller is currently professor of political science and director of liberal studies at the New School for Social Research. Since receiving his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1975, he has also taught at the University of Texas, Boston University, Harvard, and Brown. In addition, he is the author of five well-received books on topics ranging from rock and roll to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Two of his booksDemocracy in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago and The Passion of Michel Foucault were National Book Critics Circle finalists. His most recent bookFlowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977has received the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Music Writing.
Martin Malin
The Program Director of CISS, Martin Malin, is also Director of the Academy's newly organized program on Science, Security, and International Cooperation. The program establishes a coherent framework for long-standing Academy projects - including CISS, the Midwest Consortium for International Security Studies, the US Pugwash Committee, and the US Committee for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysisas well as a series of scientific studies on topics ranging from the biological, social, and environmental factors that shaped human origins to the social implications of new technologies. Mr. Malin received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. Before joining the Academy staff, he taught international relations at Columbia and worked as a consultant to the Social Science Research Council MacArthur Program on International Peace and Security. His research focuses on great-power relations with the Middle East and the sources of conflict in that region.
James Buzard
James Buzard, associate professor of literature at MIT, has joined the staff on a part-time basis this year as Program Officer for the Academy's Humanities and Culture initiative. After earning his doctorate in English from Columbia, he was a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows, Harvard University (1990) and a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1997). A specialist in Victorian literature, he is the author of The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the Ways to Culture, 1800-1918 and is currently writing Anywhere's Nowhere: Fictions of Autoethnography in the United Kingdom.
Charles Rooney
Charles Rooney has been named the Academy's first Public Information Officer. To implement the Strategic Plan's recommendation to increase the Academy's presence in the media, Mr. Rooney is developing press materials, including a newsletter, and building an infrastructure to improve dissemination of Academy publications, reports, and other documents to print and broadcast journalists. Before coming to the Academy, he was a communications and public relations consultant, directing public information campaigns in education, public health, and economic development. He holds a master's degree in public policy from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Reorganization of the Committee on Studies and the Committee on PublicationsCommittee on Studies
One of the key recommendations of the Strategic Plan was to provide Academy members with greater opportunities to engage in analytic studies and develop practical policy alternatives through its program of projects and studies. To help achieve that goal, the Committee on Studies (COS) has been separated from the Committee on Publications and given a larger role in the development and evaluation of proposed studies as well as in the oversight of those projects that have already received the Academy's imprimatur.
The COS has also adopted a two-tiered organizational structure to facilitate more frequent meetings of an executive group and, at the same time, to broaden the expertise needed to evaluate a wide range of studies. The executive committee, which includes representatives of each of the five classes, consists of seven members: Robert McCormick Adams (chair), Henry Ehrenreich (Harvard University, Class I), Lincoln Chen (Rockefeller Foundation, Class II), Robert C. Post (Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, Class III), Wendy Doniger (University of Chicago, Class IV), Victor Rabinowitch (Washington, DC, Class V), and Chief Executive Officer Leslie C. Berlowitz. The executive committee will call upon individual members of an advisory group, composed of one Fellow from each of the twenty-three membership sections, to review projects relating to their specific areas of interest. The new structure should enable the COS to respond more effectively to proposed ideas for Academy projects.
The COS is also drawing up a set of guidelines to assist Fellows in developing projects to be undertaken in the name of the Academy. All such projects must be multidisciplinary in nature, drawing on the resources of Fellows and non-Fellows from more than one institution and, preferably, from throughout the country. They must also serve the intellectual community - and, more broadly, the larger society - by drawing on the strengths of the Academy. Investigators proposing a new project should first contact the Executive Officer or the Director of Programs to determine if their project meets these general criteria. If it does, the proposal will then be forwarded to the chair and members of the COS executive committee for preliminary review. After their initial approval, the executive committee will recommend the most appropriate members of the advisory group to review the proposal in depth. In deciding whether to grant the Academy's imprimatur, the COS will be guided by the intellectual quality of the study, the clarity of its focus, and the relevant expertise of the principal investigator and colleagues involved in the study.
The COS has limited funds to provide small start-up grants to support the preliminary planning stages of some projects. If such funds are requested, the COS must also take into account the relative quality of the proposals under consideration in a given fiscal year. When Academy staff or financial resources are used to launch a project, the Academy has the right of first refusal on future sponsorship of the full-scale project. Copies of the guidelines for Academy projects are available, upon request.
Committee on Publications and Public Relations
The now-separate Publications Committee has been given an expanded mandate to oversee all aspects of the Academy's publication program, including its website, and to guide the development of a new Public Information Office. The Academy's current printed publications include its quarterly journal, Daedalus; books, monographs, and working papers resulting from its studies; its internal publications, the Bulletin and the Records; and an occasional newsletter that has recently been launched to provide Fellows, foundations, and the media with information on current programs and events.
The public website, which includes information on the Academy's history, membership, programs, and publications, is being redesigned and will be supplemented with a "members-only" site. The proprietary site is currently being tested on working databases and web servers. The Academy's goal is to furnish log-in names and passwords to Fellows next spring.
The overall objective of the new Public Information Office will be to coordinate the Academy's efforts to secure greater media coverage of its activities and the achievements of its members. In addition to producing a newsletter, it will help coordinate media strategies and develop targeted press materials for projects and studies.
In carrying out its work, the Committee on Publications will ensure that the Academy's publication programs reflect its mission of public engagement and broad intellectual inquiry. A new design will be developed to give a coherent look to the Academy's printed matter and to promote wider recognition of the institution. Whenever possible, and as resources allow, Academy publications, in whole or in part, will be made available on the website as a means of increasing dissemination of the results of the Academy's work.
The Committee on Publications is chaired by the Editor of the Academy, Steven Marcus, with a Subcommittee on Public Relations led by Sandra Scarr. Other members of the Committee include Bill Kovach, Malvin Ruderman, Robert Silvers, Neil Smelser, Patricia Meyer Spacks, and Torsten Wiesel.