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.

The 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding is approaching, and the opportunities are huge for museums to reframe history and engage their communities more deeply.

The Commission on Opportunities After High School held illuminating listening sessions with high school and college students, K-12 administrators and teachers, higher education administrators and faculty, employers, philanthropic leaders, and community partners. The insights shared will guide the commissioners in their work to ensure that all students can thrive.

Rolena Adorno offers an abbreviated version of the remarks she made at the 130th Modern Language Association Annual Convention on January 10, 2015.

Does locking up more people reduce crime? More Americans are serving time in prison or jail than at any point in the nation’s history, reflecting an incarceration rate that greatly exceeds those found in other advanced democracies.

Frank Wilczek discussed the modern concept of substance and the nature of the Higgs particle following an introduction given by Jerome Friedman.

Historian Bernard Bailyn opened the celebration of the 220th annual meeting of the Academy with a commentary on the personal characteristics of John Adams as revealed in his diary and his autobiography.

Learning to cope with the transitory nature of information storage and transmission will eventually become a normal feature of
twenty-first-century scholarship. In the worst cases, one wrong click of a mouse button and weeks of research, years of written text, and decades of preservation can be undermined, effectively making the written word as transitory as the spoken one.

William G. Thomas III, Anne Cong-Huyen, Angel David Nieves, and Jessica Marie Johnson engaged in a panel discussion on pedagogy in undergraduate digital humanities classrooms. The discussion, which was presented in collaboration with Emory University, was moderated by Erika Farr. Stephen G. Nichols and G. Wayne Clough provided national perspectives as respondents to the panel.

On November 15, 2016, the Academy’s San Diego Program Committee hosted Veerabhadran Ramanathan and David G. Victor for a discussion on the state of scientific understanding of climate change and the implications of this knowledge for the development of future policy.

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

American Institutions, Society & the Public Good

Can community colleges and employers create skills-based credentials of value?

Reflections on the American Academy’s work on New Dilemmas in Ethics, Technology, and War and its engagement with international organizations

The Academy, in collaboration with the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA), hosted the Morton L. Mandel Public Lecture on “How Are Humans Different from Other Great Apes?” featuring Ajit P. Varki, Pascal Gagneux, Fred H. Gage, and Margaret J. Schoeninger.

Essays explore Russia under Vladimir Putin and the prospects for significant political changes today and in a post-Putin era.