Explanation for the estimates included in the state profiles, which were generated from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Public Use Microdata Sample.

Arthur Gelb, a prominent member of the American Academy since 2000, died on November 8, 2023. He served as the Chairman of the Academy’s Investment Committee and as a member of the Academy Trust. For many Academy Induction ceremonies his role was to introduce the Class I speaker (in the mathematical and physical sciences).

In a daylong symposium, the American Academy's Commission on the Arts explored the integration of arts, humanities, and STEM in higher education.

On November 11 and 12, 2015, over 50 Judges and Justices, Chief Justices, legal scholars, and lawyers gathered at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Brought together by John Levi, Chairman of the Legal Services Corporation; Martha Minow, Dean of the Harvard Law School; and Lance Liebman, former Dean of the Columbia Law School, the group discussed the nation’s failure to provide legal services for low-income Americans.

In light of the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and v. University of North Carolina, which bans the consideration of applicants’ racial status in admissions decision-making, the Academy’s Education program area engaged senior leaders of Affiliate institutions with the goal of supporting these leaders’ commitments to equity in higher education.

Recent surveys administered by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Alliance for Museums, Americans for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts show that U.S. cultural institutions enjoy strong public approval. However, despite that high regard, studies reveal a decline in engagement with many of these institutions, particularly since the pandemic.

Miranda Restovic and Sarah DeBacher of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities describes their organization’s efforts to bring rich, humanities-focused educational experiences to preschoolers, thereby expanding the traditional understanding of what a humanities organization does—and for whom.

The U.S. must bolster the competitiveness of its commercial space industry, expand international cooperation, and refocus on basic science in order to hold on to its traditional leadership position in space, according to the authors of a new paper from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Militaries, like civilian industries, have a profound capacity to pollute the air, land, and water. What are the estimates of military impact on the environment? And what are some ways to reduce it? The Academy convened a range of experts to consider impacts and options.

Andrea Ghez – a Nobel laureate and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA – is receiving the Rumford Prize, a storied science award given by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is being honored pioneering research on the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy that has revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos.

The Spring 2023 issue of Dædalus on “Delivering Humanitarian Health Services in Violent Conflicts” features essays, poetry, fiction, and visual art to illuminate the dilemmas facing humanitarian health actors and the potential for innovation in humanitarian health delivery.

The Academy has launched a cross-sector Commission on Opportunities After High School. The multi-year project will bring together educators, economists, and employers to envision a new system that would help foster informed decision-making among students, enable effective planning by colleges and universities, and promote business growth.

Limiting the effects of climate change will require a substantial transformation of the energy infrastructure. The Winter 2013 issue of Dædalus explores an equally important but less appreciated requirement for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions: the societal transition that must accompany these technological changes.

The Academy’s founders understood well the dangers of concentrated power and authoritarian rule. They recognized that a representative government needs checks and balances, the separation of powers, individual rights, and an independent judiciary–“a government of laws, not of men,” in the words of John Adams, one of the Academy’s founders. They also grasped the essential role of free inquiry in sustaining democracy, as well as the importance of liberty as a precondition for the pursuit of knowledge. That vision is captured in the Academy’s seal and motto, Sub Libertate Florent: the arts and sciences “flourish under freedom.”

The humanities face a variety of challenges in higher education, as reflected both in declining numbers of college majors and in openings for new faculty, according to recent findings from the Humanities Indicators.

Martha Nussbaum Will Receive Randel Award and Deliver Remarks at April Event

John G. Levi discusses access to justice, and how many low-income Americans have significant difficulty navigating our country’s legal system on their own.

In 1980, I began my fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. My mentor was Dr. Stanley Plotkin: the inventor of the RA27/3 strain of rubella vaccine – the one that by 2005 had eliminated the disease from the United States.

Alexander Graham Bell’s paper “Researches in Telephony” was presented at a Stated Meeting of the Academy on May 10, 1876. In it, he considers the “three varieties of currents”–intermittent, pulsatory, and undulatory–that produce telephonic effects, and he also describes one of his experiments.