When the Federal Reserve celebrated its centennial in December 2013, it bore only passing resemblance to the institution created by Democrats, Progressives, and Populists just a century before.

Arms trafficking has a long and influential history. At an Academy event held in Berkeley, California, historian Brian DeLay described how U.S. arms trafficking intervened at critical moments to destabilize Mexican governance. The program included commentary from historians Priya Satia and Daniel Sargent, as well as from political scientist Ron Hassner. The presentations explored how the history of arms trading may help to better understand the history of state-making and the power relations between the United States and the rest of the world.

Norm Augustine and Neal Lane, cochairs of Academy project on “New Models for U.S. Science and Technology Policy,” argue for a coherent national roadmap to strengthen U.S. R&D, basic research in particular, and to drive American innovation throughout the 21st century.

For the past two years, members of the Academy’s Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship have engaged in research, round tables, and discussions about strengthening American democracy in the 21st century. Now, as the impact of COVID-19 surges through every aspect of American society, Commission members are applying their expertise in public policy and civic and political engagement to meet and understand critical challenges at the local and national levels.

On a gray London morning in January, I walked past familiar markers of institutional gravity on my way to the Royal Society. Stone facades. Heavy doors. Plaques engraved with names that have outlived the controversies of their eras. It is easy, in places like this, to slip into a kind of historical reverence that feels comforting, even anesthetizing.

When Daniel Barron (Brigham and Women's Hospital) delivered a keynote address at an event with the National Association of Social Workers, he proposed ways to approach the use of AI to help social workers advance innovation without compromising compassion.

How might social research contribute to a retreat from mass incarceration, make the world fairer, and promote alternatives to punishment that help communities become safer and healthier? In a presentation at the Academy, Bruce Western explored this topic and the implications of mass incarceration for racial and economic inequality.

Judge Theodor Meron on his experiences being an international criminal judge.

The Winter 2022 issue of Dædalus on “Reimagining Justice: The Challenges of Violence & Punitive Excess,” guest-edited by Bruce Western and featuring authors from academia, advocacy, and the justice system, shows how violence, criminalization, and punitive excess have been shaped by the deep contours of racial inequality and poverty in America.

One of the recommendations for strengthening American democracy proposed in Our Common Purpose - the report of a bipartisan Academy commission - is to invest in civic education programs and professional development opportunities for educators in all communities. This article examines legislative progress at the federal, state, and local levels concerning civics education.

Cultural institutions across the United States—regardless of type or size—are facing unprecedented uncertainty, which is challenging long-standing models for communicating the value of arts and culture, for supporting these institutions, and for collaborating across the sector. To help address this uncertainty, the Academy held three virtual roundtable discussions in the fall of 2025 that brought together leaders from the arts and culture sector to reflect on these challenges and begin to outline strategies to move forward. To encourage open and candid dialogue, the discussions were held under the Chatham House Rule, so neither participants nor their comments can be identified in any materials related to the roundtables.

Building a more just society has become a unifying theme for much of the Academy’s work, and we are addressing issues of justice and equality as they relate to our past, present, and future.

On September 6, 2018, at Emory University, the American Academy hosted a Morton L. Mandel Public Lecture on “The Study of African American Women’s Writing: Pasts & Futures.” The program, which included a welcome from Dwight A. McBride, served as the 2069th Stated Meeting of the American Academy. Michelle M. Wright introduced the evening’s speakers – Frances Smith Foster, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and Pellom McDaniels III – and moderated the discussion.

Joel E. Cohen and David E. Bloom, codirectors of the Academy’s UBASE project, discuss the urgency and feasibility of educating all children well.

Public libraries and their grounded, portable and invisible civic infrastructure give us another, better way to relate to ourselves and to each other — not only as consumers, but as citizens.

The Summer 2021 issue of Dædalus on “The Administrative State in the Twenty-First Century: Deconstruction and/or Reconstruction,” guest-edited by Mark Tushnet, features fourteen essays by scholars in the fields of law, political science, public policy, public administration, governance, and ethics on the future of the modern administrative state—the more than two million civilian employees working largely in government agencies and institutions.

Attendees of the 21st Annual Conference of the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities were urged today to consider advancing new strategies to sustain and strengthen public research universities by members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Lincoln Project.