Patricia Meyer Spacks, Academy Vice President
At the Annual Meeting in May, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English at the University of Virginia, took office as Vice President of the Academy. She succeeds Patricia Albjerg Graham, Charles Warren Professor of American Education at Harvard.
Ms. Spacks (Class IV:3) is a literary scholar with a deep interest in the challenges facing the humanities today. An authority on eighteenth-century English literature, she has written on the poets and novelists of the time in such books as The Poetry of Vision and Desire and Truth: Functions of Plot in Eighteenth-Century English Novels. In addition she has published books and essays on cultural as well as literary subjects, including adolescence, boredom, gossip, and women writers from the eighteenth century to the present. Her current work focuses on the concept of privacy in the eighteenth century and attitudes toward it.
As chair of the board of directors of the American Council of Learned Societies and as a trustee of the National Humanities Center, Ms. Spacks has been a strong advocate for the vital role the humanities play in American society. At the Academy, she serves on the Executive Committee of the Program on Humanities and Culture. In this role, she is responsible for a forthcoming volume of histories of the humanitiesessays by several writers on the evolution of the humanities disciplines and their institutional setting in the post-World War II periodcomposing a study that, in Ms. Spacks's words, “seeks to develop a new public concept of the humanities, partly by describing how deeply these disciplines have influenced, and in turn have been affected by, the social and cultural movements of the time."
John Hogness, Western Center Vice President
The new Vice President for the Western Center is John Hogness, president emeritus of the University of Washington. He succeeds Jack W. Peltason, president emeritus and chancellor emeritus of the University of California, who will continue to serve as a member of the Western Center Council.
Dr. Hogness (Class II:5), a physician, has had a distinguished career in higher education, culminating in the presidency of the University of Washington (1974-79). In his many years at that institution, beginning in 1950, he has acquired a broad perspective on the challenges to health policy: he has served as dean of the School of Medicine, executive vice president of the university, and director and chairman of the board of the Health Sciences Center, and he is currently a professor of health services. In 1971 Dr. Hogness became the first president of the Institute of Medicine in Washington, DC. He returned to DC in 1979 to serve as president of the Association of Academic Health Centers, where he worked to encourage integrated multidisciplinary approaches to critical health issues.
His more than 70 papers reflect his wide-ranging career, including his early work in chemistry and endocrinology, a year at Los Alamos producing reports on tracer techniques and beta-ray burns at Eniwetok, and his burgeoning interest in medical education, administration, and health policy. He has written on government and medicine, public health, academic health centers, medical school governance, and artificial hearts. His most recent publication is The University in the Urban Community: Responsibilities for Public Health.
James O. Freedman Presents Scholar-Patriot Award to William T. Golden
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"Challenges in a New Century: The Engaged Citizen" was the theme of a Stated Meeting held in New York on March 19, 2001. It was also the occasion for the presentation of the 2001 Scholar-Patriot Distinguished Service Award to William T. Goldengovernment science advisor, philanthropist, and educational and civic leader.
President James O. Freedman, Chief Executive Officer Leslie Berlowitz, and Carnegie Corporation president Vartan Gregorian welcomed the 160 Fellows and guests who attended the special event at the Time-Life Building. In his keynote address, President Freedman emphasized the need to encourage leaders in all fields and professions to become more engaged with the concerns of the larger society. In his words, "intellectuals are gifted individuals with unconventional angles of vision, often endowed with an exceptional capacity to advance the common good." Other speakers included Gordon Conway of the Rockefeller Foundation (Class V:3), Joel Cohen of Columbia and Rockefeller Universities (Class II:4), Denis Donoghue of New York University (Class IV:3), and John Steinbruner of the University of Maryland (Class III:3).
The high point of the event was the presentation of the Academy's 2001 Scholar-Patriot Award to William T. Golden. A dedicated public servant, Mr. Golden was honored for his role in establishing the framework for the National Science Foundation, the President's Science Advisory Committee, and the position of Science Advisor to the President. He was also acknowledged for his leadership of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Museum of Natural History, as well as for the advice and guidance he has given to countless scientific, educational, and cultural organizations, including the American Academy. In a citation presented by President Freedman and Margaret E. Mahoney (MEM Associates), he was lauded as a "visionary statesman, respected advisor, munificent patron of science and culture, and trusted friend and mentor to generations of men and women."
The Academy is indebted to Norman Pearlstine for his invitation to hold the meeting at the Time-Life Building and to the Planning Committee for the New York Stated Meeting: Robert A. Alberty, Leslie Berlowitz, Louis W. Cabot, Norman Dorsen, Barbara Goldsmith, Vartan Gregorian, Martin Lipton, Margaret E. Mahoney, Steven Marcus, Jerrold Meinwald, John S. Reed, Elihu Rose, Robert B. Silvers, and John C. Whitehead. A full report on the meeting will appear in the fall issue of the Academy's Newsletter.
NSF Grant: Conference on Human OriginsOn July 7-8, 2001, experts from the natural sciences, the social and behavioral sciences, and the humanities will gather at the House of the Academy to formulate research strategies that probe the origins of human biology, behavior, and society. The two-day workshop, led by Morris Goodman (Wayne State University), is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is a follow-up to an earlier study and conference on the origins of humans, also chaired by Mr. Goodman and held in Chicago under the auspices of the Midwest Center. Participants in the July meeting will focus on three interrelated aspects of a research agenda:
- The role of comparative primate genomic data in deciphering the genetic basis of being human,
- The impact of the Earth's changing physical and biological environment on human evolution and language development, and
- The use of system-level methods and related computer modeling to help scientists investigate the complex interactions between molecular genetic and organismal development and cultural-social organization.
The workshop will not only draw upon the knowledge of senior scientists and scholars from universities and museums but also will introduce talented junior researchers, including postdoctoral associates and senior graduate students, to the broad-based study of human origins, thus encouraging them to become involved in related multidisciplinary efforts as their careers progress. Participants will include Academy Fellows Francisco Ayala (University of California, Irvine), Jeanne Altmann (Princeton University), Antonio Damasio (University of Iowa), and Walter Fitch (University of California, Irvine). A report on the outcome of the conference will be posted on the Academy website at www.amacad.org.
Research and Educational Needs in Science and TechnologyThe American Academy and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy have begun work on a joint study focusing on current changes in scientific and technological research and education and their impact on the university in the United States and Germany. Many of these changes are the result of an increasing emphasis on multidisciplinary research, as evidenced by the emergence of such fields as nanotechnology and spintronics, as well as by the work of university-sponsored institutes that transcend traditional academic departments. The study proposes to examine such factors as the internationalization of research and education made possible by new communications and information technologies and the growing pressure to train students for non-research-oriented careers in the high-tech industry.
The chair of the American planning group, Henry Ehrenreich (Harvard University), and the German cochair, Klaus Pinkau (Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics), will meet in Berlin this June to identify the specific topics to be explored and to draw up a list of potential study participants and authors. A similar analysis of changing research and educational needs in the social sciences and the humanities is also under consideration.
In addition to Mr. Ehrenreich, the American planning group includes John Hopfield (Princeton University) and David Litster (MIT). Other Fellows who have been actively involved in the planning process are Harvey Brooks (Harvard University), G. David Forney (MIT), and Douglas Lauffenberger (MIT).
The project is part of a series of studies on the challenges facing higher education in the United States and Germany. In fall 2001 the Academy will issue a report on an earlier German-American study on trends in American and German higher education, cochaired by Robert McCormick Adams (University of California, San Diego) and Dieter Simon (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy).
Photo © 2001 by John Liy.
President James O. Freedman, Scholar-Patriot William T. Golden, and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Berlowitz.