On November 13, 2013, David F. Levi, Jack Fuller, Virginia A. Seitz, Harold Hongju Koh, and Mark L. Wolf discussed the legacy of Attorney General Edward H. Levi.

College graduates – regardless of their major – earn considerably more than those without college degrees, and they are highly likely to be satisfied with their jobs and their lives. These are among the key takeaways from a new report, State of the Humanities 2021: Workforce & Beyond, from the Academy’s Humanities Indicators project. The report gathered and analyzed data on a variety of outcome measures, including perceived well-being, earnings, and financial and occupational satisfaction.

May R. Berenbaum presented at the fall Stated Meeting of the Midwest Center of the American Academy. The talk was a condensed and popularized version of her paper titled "Animal-Plant Warfare: Molecular Basis for Cytochrome P450-Mediated Natural Adaptation."

Two days after the election of Donald Trump as the forty-fifth president of the United States, Charles Stewart III, Lawrence D. Bobo, and Jennifer L. Hochschild discussed “Populism and the Future of American Politics.”

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After issuing a final report and recommendations, members of the Commission on Accelerating Climate Action are attending events across the country to discuss the report with business leaders, professors, researchers, activists, and policy makers.

This fall the Academy Archives embarks on a new project to clean, repair, rehouse, and digitize many important documents from the Academy's early years, as well as a unique collection of records to related to the family of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.

The Academy's Commission on Language Learning makes the case for increasing foreign language learning capacity in a political climate that's increasingly anti-global.

The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of policy-makers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and inform innovative and more substantial policies that address crucial issues affecting the global community. Projects underway in this area engage with pressing strategic, development, and moral questions that underpin relations among people, communities, and states worldwide. Each initiative embraces a broad conception of security as the interaction among human, national, and global security imperatives. Project recommendations move beyond the idea of security as the absence of war toward higher aspirations of collective peace, development, and justice.

On October 1, 2011, the American Academy inducted its 231st class of Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members at a ceremony held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ceremony included presentations by five new members: Frances Hamilton Arnold, David Conrad Page, Sir Adam Roberts, Annette Gordon-Reed, and William I. Miller.

Academy member Denis Feeney has spent the last few years trying to understand why the Romans developed a literature in their Latin language, when the balance of historical probability was against this happening.

Creating a “new normal” of multiliteracy and multiculturalism is key to the future of the United States as a leader on the world stage.

Throughout the period of social distancing, the Academy has worked to stay connected with members and continue the tradition of convening experts from across disciplines and professions to discuss important issues. As much of the world moved temporarily online, the Academy has leveraged video conferencing technology to hold a series of member events.

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The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) provided excellent opportunities to highlight the Academy's interdisciplinary and bipartisan work on accelerating climate action with diverse attendees, from high school students to doctoral candidates, policymakers, science communicators, and science fans of all kinds.

In a new release today, the American Academy reports on the first broad national survey on the humanities, which asked Americans about their engagement in a variety of humanistic activities, as well as their beliefs about the personal, societal, and economic benefits of the humanities.

At the 3rd Meeting of the Academy held on August 30, 1780, Academy members voted to appoint “a Committee to confer with the Reverend and Honorable Corporation of the University of Cambridge upon pursuing measures to procure an accurate observation of the Solar eclipse...”

In December 2002, three months before the U.S. invasion, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences published a report speculating on the political, military, and economic consequences of a possible war with Iraq.

By Maggie Boyd, Associate Archivist at the Academy