Recent Member Events

James Carroll states the case for American support of the International Criminal Court. This editorial was initially published in The Boston Globe.

Academy’s Humanities Indicators Cited in “Dear Colleague” Letter

Today the Academy’s Humanities Indicators launches its latest informational resource, the National Inventory of Humanities Organizations (NIHO).

Essays examine the history of the business press, the economics behind it, and how business journalism is taught today

Academy members and guests attended a matinee performance of Robert Glaudini's The Poison Tree, in its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum. After the show, they adjourned to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for dinner and the Stated Meeting, presided over by Western Center Cochair Jack W. Peltason.

How long can U.S. science lobbyists keep repeating the same message—that boosting federal funding for basic research and removing barriers to innovation is a proven way to ensure economic prosperity—without tuning out their intended audience?

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.

The American Academy has received one of the largest donations since its founding in 1780. David M. Rubenstein, co-CEO of The Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset manager, has donated $5 million to establish the David Rubenstein Enhancement Fund at the American Academy. This gift will provide funding for new Academy projects (both major commissions as well as exploratory initiatives), and it will also enhance the visibility of the Academy and its projects and commissions among policymakers and the general public.

Among the 31 recommendations in the Academy's cross-partisan publication, Our Common Purpose, was a proposal to enlarge the House of Representatives to ensure better and more responsive representation for Americans across the country. The idea was explored in a "Vox, America Explained" video which featured the Academy's work.

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences has received a $1 million grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to advance the recommendations in Our Common Purpose from ideas to implementation.

A working group of the American Academy project “Challenges for International Scientific Partnerships,” led by Arthur Bienenstock and Peter Michelson, calls greater global cooperation “increasingly essential.”

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.

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.

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.

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.