On February 13, 2019, Anthony Abraham Jack (Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, Assistant Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Shutzer Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) spoke at a gathering of Academy Members and guests about his new book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students. The program, which served as the 2078th Stated Meeting of the Academy, included a welcome from David W. Oxtoby (President of the Academy) and an introduction from Bridget Terry Long (Dean of the Faculty of Education and Saris Professor of Education and Economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education). Danielle Allen (James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and Director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics) participated in a conversation with Anthony Jack following his opening remarks. An edited version of his remarks and of his conversation with Danielle Allen appears below.

As the Academy continues to look at issues related to public perceptions of risk, uncertainty, and scientific research through its Public Face of Science initiative, it partnered with the University of Chicago to organize a public symposium on “Communicating Scientific Facts in an Age of Uncertainty.” The symposium featured presentations by Olufunmilayo I. Olopade and Arthur Lupia.

To celebrate the arts, artists, and the work of the Academy’s Commission on the Arts, Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” talked with Commission Cochairs John Lithgow, Deborah Rutter, and Natasha Trethewey. The program included poetry, music, and a discussion of the recommendations developed by the Commission to elevate the arts, support artists, and promote arts education in America. The event also introduced Mixtape, an online collection of arts experiences that features members of the Commission and members of the Academy.

A new report sets forth concerns about America's inadequate investment in R&D for science and engineering as China advances. The report makes recommendations that could help ensure the United States secures its strong position of global leadership in discovery and innovation.

What challenges confront U.S. courts as democratic institutions in the twenty-first century? And what does the changing role of courts teach us about our conceptions of justice?

Anna Deavere Smith is many things: an actress, playwright, author, and founding director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at New York University, where she is also University Professor at Tisch School of the Arts. In 2019, she became a member of the Academy and was a featured speaker at the Annual David M. Rubenstein Lecture held during the Induction weekend. After performing two original pieces that combine art, commentary, and journalism, she joined David M. Rubenstein in conversation. Their discussion explored a wide range of topics, from auditions and growing up in Baltimore to memorization and the school-to-prison pipeline.

Public Higher Education and the Private Sector on Tap for Discussion

Looking forward to the Academy report on the future of undergraduate education, Jeffrey Selingo outlines three basic recommendations to improve undergraduate education in the United States.

In the latest publication from the Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education, a team of analysts from Moody's Analytics attempted to lay out the costs and benefits of a sustained investment program aimed at boosting program completion rates, especially for disadvantaged students.

The Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education releases its first report, using data to lay out a broad picture of students at today's two- and four-year colleges.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic crisis, and a political climate dominated by fear, resentment, and division, the cochairs of the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship find reason to be optimistic about America’s faith in democracy: the civic heroism of our 2020 election workers.

Profile of Kathy Cramer, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and her leadership of the Academy's Commission on Reimagining Our Economy and the work to advance an American economy that works for its people.

Inspired by the Academy report on "America's Languages," Congressmen David Price (D-NC) and Don Young (R-AK) announced the creation of the Congressional Caucus on American Languages, a bipartisan effort to support and enhance foreign language competency and international education in the U.S.

What would it take to pull American politics out of the fire and make Americans feel, in any real sense, that we are all in this together? Evan Osnos, in The New Yorker, cites the recommendations in Our Common Purpose as a possible path forward.

The Spring 2022 issue of Dædalus on “AI & Society,” guest edited by Academy member James Manyika, explores the many facets of AI: its technology, its potential futures, its effects on labor and the economy, its relationship with inequalities, its role in law and governance, its challenges to national security, and what it says about us as humans. What follows are a few additional remarks and insight from the volume’s guest editor on the collection.

In "The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?" Michael J. Sandel argues that the divide between winners and losers has poisoned our politics and pulled us apart. The problem, he contends, is not only that we have failed to live up to the meritocratic ideals we profess, but that a meritocratic society is a flawed aspiration. It produces hubris among the successful and humiliation among those left behind. In the first virtual Stated Meeting in the history of the Academy, Michael J. Sandel joined T. J. Jackson Lears and Anna Deavere Smith in a conversation about his new book and the destructive consequences of linking socioeconomic status with personal worth.

A dinner discussion on DNA and Art: In Search of the Genome of Leonardo da Vinci, featuring Jesse H. Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University and introductory remarks from Kenneth Wallach (Central National Gottesman Inc.) who cochairs the New York Program Committee.