As I reflect on my first few months as president of the Academy, one of the great joys has been getting to know our extraordinary fellowship of members. As of this writing, I have had the opportunity to visit our vibrant member communities in North Carolina, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, New York, Southern California, Chicago, and, of course, the Academy’s home in the Boston-Cambridge area. In each location, I have been awed by our fellow members: their achievements, their passions, their hopes for the future. The articles in this issue also represent the power of the local—with deliberations in San Diego, New York City, and Los Angeles.
As you might expect, our members have also shared their worries related to this tumultuous time in our national life. Whether in person, online, or in writing, the message has been clear: these are the times the Academy was made for. The Academy must respond.
Our members are right. The Academy was founded in 1780, one of the most trying years of the American Revolution. During that year, the British seized Charleston, South Carolina, the currency’s value plummeted, continental soldiers mutinied in New Jersey, and the treason of Benedict Arnold was revealed.
We should take inspiration from the fact that, at such a time of upheaval, our founders had the vision to create an Academy with the purpose to “cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”
And so we will respond. First, as we face unprecedented threats to higher education, the research enterprise, the free press, and an independent judiciary and legal profession, the Academy is gathering the nation’s leading minds for a series of virtual events to address such issues as constitutional crises, cuts to science funding, tariffs, and executive power. I hope you have had the chance to join some of these discussions and that you will participate in future sessions.
Second, the Academy’s Board has also released a formal statement (an infrequent event in the Academy’s history) reaffirming the Academy’s founding values and committing “to urge public support for the arts and sciences and also work to safeguard the conditions of freedom necessary for novel discoveries, creative expression, and truth-seeking in all its forms.” The statement is available online.
Third, the Board statement does not just reaffirm our values, it also provides a vision to guide us in the years to come. In a strong move that focuses our work, we are placing democracy at the center of the Academy’s efforts, emphasizing its essential relationship to our projects in the areas of American institutions, science, education, global security, and the arts and humanities.
We also hope to call attention to the many dimensions of the word—starting with the constitutional democracy that Our Common Purpose has emphasized. In our activities in these areas, we hope to ask the important questions again, in and for this time: What is democracy’s relationship to republic? To the pursuit of truth and the creation of knowledge? To the common good? To bridging and working across ideological difference?
As we developed the Board statement, we gained an appreciation for an underrecognized element of the Academy’s history: the motto on our seal, SUB LIBERTATE FLORENT, “they flourish under freedom.” In it our founders offer us both a truth and an exhortation. Let us work together to preserve the freedom so essential to the pursuit of knowledge.
Yours cordially,
Laurie L. Patton