The Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (CCAS) presented to the American Academy the 2014 Arts & Sciences Advocacy Award for issuing "The Heart of the Matter" and for its long-standing commitment to recognizing outstanding scholars and for working to address critical challenges facing our global society.

An event with Professor Akhil Amar, Professor Charles Fried, journalist Kimberly Atkins Stohr, Fix the Court Executive Director Gabe Roth, and Judge Patti Saris focused on the new report from the Academy's bipartisan U.S. Supreme Court Working Group in favor of Supreme Court Term Limits.

New members arrived at the House of the Academy in a state of anticipation, awaiting the morning orientation. Many vividly described the moment that news
of their election arrived.

Morton L. Mandel, business leader and entrepreneur, named as the recipient of the American Academy's Scholar-Patriot Award in recognition of his philanthropy and dedication to public service.

The Academy hosted a multi-faceted conversation about the interconnectedness of polarization, institutions, and the public’s trust in science. The panelists shared views from academic, journalistic, and institutional perspectives about how the public trust has been eroded and how the trust can be restored.

Lack of health care, food and shelter typically kill more civilians than bombs and bullets.

In March 1945, Mrs. Laura M. Agassiz sent the Academy three portraits of members of the Agassiz family: her late husband, Maximilian (1866–1941); his father, Alexander (1835–1910; elected to the Academy in 1862); and his grandfather, Louis (1807–1873; elected a Foreign Honorary Member in 1846). Both elder Agassizes were active members of the Academy; Alexander served as president from 1894–1903. The Academy accessioned the portraits into its collections and put them on display in the Newbury Street headquarters, which the Agassiz family helped to build.

This has been an extraordinary year, marked by a historic pandemic, bitter political strife, and unsettling civil unrest, and capped by a presidential election unlike any before. The new administration faces daunting challenges—uniting a deeply divided country, marshaling science and public health expertise to quell the coronavirus pandemic, improving relationships with international allies, striving for racial equity, addressing climate change, and making our economy work for all citizens. Members of the American Academy will play important roles in these efforts, both through public service and through the work of our organization. I believe we are as relevant and important now as at any other mo­ment over the past two hundred and forty years.

The Member Guide is a new publication this year developed to illuminate ways in which members can connect to one another and the Academy. This resource offers an overview of Academy activities, projects, and processes with highlights throughout to indicate how members can get involved and who to contact with questions.

William H. Gates, Sr., Frank Thomson Leighton, Carolyn R. Bertozzi, and Michael Wood Speak at Induction Ceremony Sherrill Milnes Performs

Poet recognized for exceptional talent, promise

National Public Radio affiliate KUNM gathered a panel of citizens to discuss and debate the recommendations in Our Common Purpose, the final report of the Academy’s Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship.

Wendy Freedman gives the remarks for Class I – Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the 2010 Induction ceremony.

On May 5–6, 1956, the Academy hosted a conference on “Science and the Modern World View–Toward a Common Understanding of the Sciences and the Humanities.” The conference, funded by the National Science Foundation, was held in honor of physicist Percy Williams Bridgman and mathematician and physicist Philipp G. Frank. At their request, the meeting was not a celebration of their individual work. Rather, it highlighted the discipline of the philosophy of science, which they both advanced. Specifically, the conference examined the history of a scientific worldview and its intersection with the humanities in the mid-twentieth century.

The cochairs of the Academy's Public Trust in Vaccines project discuss what research is needed to reverse the surge of outbreaks in vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States.