On March 30, 2025, the Academy’s Chicago Committee hosted an event for members and guests that explored the role of cultural organizations and the communities they serve. The program featured Leah A. Dickerman (The Museum of Modern Art) and Oskar Eustis (The Public Theater) in conversation with Academy President Laurie L. Patton. An edited transcript of the program follows.

As part of the 2013 Induction weekend, Ken Burns (President of Florentine Films) and Ernest J. Moniz (U.S. Secretary of Energy) spoke about the challenges and opportunities for the arts and the sciences.

Prefatory note from Academy President Jonathan Fanton in the Bulletin inviting members to read about the work of the Academy and hoping they discover that members are engaged in the “positive programs” that Howard Mumford Jones imagined.

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.

Academy member Abraham Loeb connects the future of technological innovation to the lessons of the humanities, citing Academy report "The Heart of the Matter."

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).

“Anticorruption: How to Beat Back Political & Corporate Graft” explores the nature of modern global corruption – and how to defeat it. Highlighting examples from the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Nigeria, and Singapore, the authors in this issue – including both academics and law-makers – offer innovative, strategic, and practical recommendations to target public and private corruption.

This summer, the National Academy of Public Administration and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences held panel discussions on Public Governance and Civic Engagement. From these conversations emerged clear recommendations for policymakers to build a stronger civic culture and increase trust in government.

Universal, high-quality primary and secondary education is achievable – and well within the ability of wealthy nations to fund – by the middle of the 21st century.

Responds to Congressional Request

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 June 21, 2018, meteorologist Jeff Berardelli printed an image representing global temperature change onto a tie and wore it on a CBS broadcast. Other meteorologists followed his lead, and on the first day of summer every year since, broadcasters have used these ties and similar pins and necklaces to spark conversations about climate, policy solutions, and local environmental changes.

An Academy event explored the interplay between artificial intelligence and human memory to understand the threats and opportunities that emerge when they interact. How does machine learning shape our perception of history, identity, and truth?

Looking Back at Law's Century, recently published by Cornell University Press, describes the complex interaction of democracy, capitalism, and legal change in the twentieth century. "The last hundred years – what we might in retrospect characterize as 'law's century' – took us from the Progessive Era's optimism about law and social engineering to current concerns about our hyper-legalistic society, from Wilsonian idealism to the worldwide spread of democracy, the rule of law, and the idea of human rights," according to the volume's editors, Austin Sarat, Bryant Garth, and American Academy Fellow Robert A. Kagan.

An article from UC Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science, and Society covers an Academy event featuring experts at Berkeley titled “Generative AI Is Terrific, But Is it Really Legal?” The coverage highlights the legal and economic issues at the intersection of artificial intelligence and creative endeavors.

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

Caregiving is essential to the health and well-being of society. It is also a fundamental human experience: almost all of us will care for others and be cared for during our lives.

As part of its Making Justice Accessible project, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences hosted a summit in March 2024 to bring together a diverse group of participants to address the civil justice gap.