The Academy Archives preserves and shares the acceptance letters of members. Selected letters are shared in online galleries and include letters from George Washington, Mary Leakey, and Nelson Mandela.

Marking the start of the 2016 National Humanities Conference, the Indicators released several updates about the public humanities this morning, describing the financial condition of key humanities institutions.

Arts and sciences faculty sticks with a three-course-sequence foreign language requirement, even as other institutions shrink their language requirements.

Recent Member Events

Academy Fellow Robert Pinsky, Professor at Boston University and former Poet Laureate of the United States, discussed the Favorite Poem Project at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on October 14, 2011.

A Boston Globe editorial endorses responding to the nation’s “redistricting war” by increasing the size of the House of Representatives from its current 435 members, as recommended by the Academy in Our Common Purpose and a subsequent detailed proposal.

This was a year of reemergence and celebration for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Our building reopened for staff and events. We held a joyous Induction Weekend in September, making up for two years of cancellations due to the pandemic. And we finished a very successful capital campaign through the hard work of President David Oxtoby, campaign cochairs Louise Bryson and David Rubenstein, and Chief Advancement Officer Ginger Saariaho, exceeding our $100 million target. We are deeply grateful to them and to the members and friends who gave generously to support our work.

Recent Member Events

Despite declining postsecondary interest, engagement is growing in K-12, according to analysis by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Humanities Indicators project.

Stanford University hosts American Academy’s Commission on the Humanities & Social Sciences as it examines a new age of teaching and learning.

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Ways to Engage with the Academy

Robert Frost received the American Academy of Arts & Sciences literature award in 1958. He spoke about his connection to Emerson and recited his poetry at the event.

Martha Nussbaum accepts the Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies and speaks about a philosophical approach to anger and fear.

A selection of Dædalus essays from MIT Press on the history, culture, and struggles of America’s indigenous peoples

There are several ways members may be involved in the life and work of the Academy.

The Our Common Purpose report was the foundational reading used by Seniors at Westlake Community Services and Senior Center in Ohio for a conversation series on reinventing American Democracy.

The environmental costs of war and how to minimize them were a focus of an Academy seminar, writes participant Saleem H. Ali in Forbes. In his article, Ali explores meeting themes including the costs of military greenhouse gas emissions, the "greening of warfare," the costs and impact of post-conflict reconstruction, and the ways military forces could engage in environmental remediation.

The Academy's publication, Habits of Heart and Mind, was included in an Opinion piece by Daniel Stid (American Enterprise Institute) on the importance of local approaches to rebuilding civic culture and strengthening democracy.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded by visionaries who foresaw that the nascent republic would benefit from the expertise of learned citizens to guide its development, health, and integrity through whatever challenges may arise.