Projects in the Education program area examine the vital role that education plays in our nation and the world. Work in this area seeks to inform policy and practice in support of high-quality educational opportunities for all Americans. From advancing equitable educational outcomes to leveraging new developments in the learning sciences and digital technologies to understanding the vital role that public universities play as engines of economic growth, innovation, social mobility, and citizenship, projects in this area draw on scholars and practitioners from diverse fields to provide guidance and actionable solutions to policymakers, higher education leaders, and philanthropists.

Governance & Committees, 2021–2022

The last remaining bilateral nuclear arms treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation is set to expire in 2021. Then what happens? Discussions and essays explore the new nuclear territory.

In this interview with Danielle Allen, NPR's On Point focuses on the Academy's new bipartisan recommendations for reimagining American democracy for the 21st century: What are the signs democracy needs fixing? How participatory was the process? Who was consulted in the process? Where do we go from here?

How might social research contribute to a retreat from mass incarceration, make the world fairer, and promote alternatives to punishment that help communities become safer and healthier? In a presentation at the Academy, Bruce Western explored this topic and the implications of mass incarceration for racial and economic inequality.

While U.S. colleges struggle against broad disinvestment, institutions of higher education in many parts of the world have imagined ambitious new models of twenty-first-century education. From world-class public research universities to online and binational start-ups, the landscape of global higher education is shaped by ongoing experimentation and change. What have these approaches taught us? And what lessons can we apply to institutions in the United States?

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

Ellen T. Harris spoke at the Academy about Handel’s life and his inner circle of friends.

Recent Member Events

Judith Resnik, Jonathan Lippman, Carol S. Steiker, Susan S. Silbey, Jamal Greene, and Linda Greenhouse participated in a conversation on the function of courts in the United States.

Recent Dædalus Issues Explore the Future of Free Speech and the Global Quest for Educational Equity

The events of Induction Weekend 2019 feature artists, scholars, activists, and leaders in business, philanthropy, and public service.

In September 1786, John Gardiner (1737–1793) of Boston sent Academy President James Bowdoin a drawing and description of a ferry in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, designed by Nicholas Garrison, a member of the Moravian Brethren. The ferry used a rope or cable and the river’s current to move the boat back and forth, and the design could be upscaled for larger crossings through a series of blocks and pulleys.

Academy Publications

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir made history in October 2019 when she participated in the first all-female spacewalk. After 205 days in the isolation of space, she returned to a planet experiencing its own form of isolation: the global COVID-19 pandemic. As an astronaut and a marine biologist, Dr. Meir’s research into the impact of extreme environments has brought her to the depths of the Antarctic and the heights of space. At a virtual program, hosted by the Academy’s San Diego Program Committee, Dr. Meir described her research and her experiences in space and participated in a conversation with Brian Keating (University of California San Diego) about the perspectives that her work provides about our world.

Francis Amory Prize Symposium: Advances in Reproductive Biology and Medicine

In a forum essay, the HULA team (Danielle Allen, Maggie Schein, Christopher Pupik Dean, and David Kidd) describes its work, which start in the education sector but are now being extended to public humanities projects.

The Academy presented its Emerson-Thoreau Medal to Maxine Hong Kingston for her distinguished achievement in the field of literature. The award, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, was first given to Robert Frost in 1958 and has since been presented to several notable authors, including T.S. Eliot, Hannah Arendt, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, and Margaret Atwood.

Since 2007, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences reports, four-year universities have reduced their number of departments offering art history, English, languages, history, linguistics, literature and religion. The proportion of students who major in the humanities in the United States has fallen from a high of nearly one in five in the late 1960s to one in 20 in 2015.