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.

A new photojournal produced by the Academy’s Commission on Reimagining Our Economy is part of their work to put the American people and their well-being at the center of discussions about the nation’s economy.

On March 30, 2016, the Academy hosted a program on “The Poetry of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg for Baritone and String Quartet” that featured a presentation by Bonnie Costello and a performance by David Kravitz, baritone, and the Arneis Quartet.

Reflections from Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on Receiving the Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies

Academy President David Oxtoby speaks at the 2019 Miami Dade College commencement and receives an honorary degree.

On June 11, 2020, the Academy’s Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship celebrated the release of its final report: Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century. Nearly 1,200 people viewed the launch event, which featured Commission Chairs Danielle Allen (Harvard University), Stephen Heintz (Rockefeller Brothers Fund), and Eric Liu (Citizen University); Academy President David Oxtoby; as well as Commission members Judy Woodruff (PBS NewsHour) and David Brooks (The New York Times).

The world may need to adopt new multinational arrangements to ensure the security and safe storage of nuclear materials that result from a global expansion of nuclear energy, according to the authors of a new collection from the American Academy.

This essay by Chris Mooney cogently distills off-the-record workshops for experts from the scientific community and representatives of the public to explore how scientists currently understand their obligation to the broader social and cultural contexts in which their work is received, and to examine ways to improve engagement between the scientific and public communities.

What do students learn in college? When do professors learn how to teach? How can we ensure students are truly being educated for the future? The answers to these questions are determined in part by the quality of instruction students receive, yet public policy discussions about higher education rarely focus on teaching. Michael S. McPherson and Sandy Baum explored the importance of improving teaching and strengthening the college learning experience in the Fall 2019 issue of Dædalus.

The Academy is engaged in a number of projects, studies, and meetings that, when taken together, support the quality education and informed exchange that shape a healthy and inclusive democratic society. Just recently the Academy announced a Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship

It is with profound sadness that I note the death on October 10, 2014, of Robert W. Fri, my cochair on the Academy’s Alternative Energy Future project.

A panel discussion on Institutions of Democracy and the Public Good was the focus of the Academy's 2012 Induction Weekend, featuring Diane Wood, Governor Phil Bredesen, and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry alongside Judy Woodruff, Alex Jones, and Marty Baron. The discussion was moderated by Norman Ornstein.

The Commission on Reimagining Our Economy issues final report and new dashboard in its efforts to advance an American economy that is centered on working for the people who make it work.

In the early 1800s, the Academy received reports of a sea serpent, described as 60 to 100 feet long, in what is now Maine’s Penobscot Bay. In 1810, upon hearing that the reports had been lost, minister and politician Alden Bradford, with the assistance of Lemuel Weeks, collected and presented to the Academy sworn statements of witnesses. In doing so, Bradford acknowledged, “Accounts of this sort, I am aware, should be received with caution.”

The report, Forging Climate Solutions: How to Accelerate Action Across America, was developed over a two-year period by a diverse commission of leaders sharing their expertise and priorities. Their report recommends how corporations, frontline communities, government, and environmental groups can work together to mobilize investments, build infrastructure, reduce emissions, and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

Among the founding documents in the Academy Archives is a large bound volume, in three parts, of manuscript minutes, dating back to the Academy’s first meeting in May 1780. In addition to attendance rolls and descriptions of business trans­acted at these meetings, the volume contains other documents that chronicle the establishment of the organization’s rules, regulations, and practices.

The opening program of the 2022 Induction weekend featured a conversation between David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma that explored the meaning and honor of Academy membership, the power and universality of music, and the importance of the arts, culture, and education, among other topics. An edited version of their conversation follows.

Those of us who teach undergraduates are familiar with the trend revealed in these data. Baccalaureate graduates typically have earned more course credits in the humanities (about 17% as defined here) than in STEM fields (about 13%). STEM majors earn fewer credits in the humanities than do students majoring in other areas; and students majoring in the humanities, business, social sciences, and education apparently earn no more than a required minimum of their credits in STEM courses.

Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy hosted a Civic Scientist Lecture on the Academy's recent report.

William Labov is regarded as the founder of variationist sociolinguistics, a discipline dedicated to understanding and researching language in relation to social factors that include region, class, and gender. Dr. Labov has worked to promote literacy for speakers of nonstandard dialects and to develop reading and teaching materials for these populations.