Higher education continues to be one of the most important avenues of opportunity in American society. But the education landscape is changing rapidly: there are more options for how and when Americans receive some form of higher education.

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences has launched the Commission on Reimagining Our Economy, an interdisciplinary and nonpartisan multiyear effort to rethink the principles that drive economic decision making and to recommend policies that enable opportunity for all.

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Arts and sciences faculty sticks with a three-course-sequence foreign language requirement, even as other institutions shrink their language requirements.

2110th Stated Meeting | January 18, 2023 | Virtual Event | Morton L. Mandel Conversation

Free speech makes no distinction about quality; academic freedom does. Are all opinions equally valid in a university classroom? Joan Wallach Scott speaks about academic freedom after accepting the Talcott Parsons Prize.

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.

To celebrate the arts, artists, and the work of the Academy’s Commission on the Arts, Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” talked with Commission Cochairs John Lithgow, Deborah Rutter, and Natasha Trethewey. The program included poetry, music, and a discussion of the recommendations developed by the Commission to elevate the arts, support artists, and promote arts education in America. The event also introduced Mixtape, an online collection of arts experiences that features members of the Commission and members of the Academy.

On April 12, 2012, North Korea unsuccessfully launched a long-range missile that was intended to carry an Earth observation satellite into space. North Korea fired the long-range test rocket in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and an agreement with the United States. On the eve of the launch, the Academy convened leading North Korea experts to discuss the broader geopolitical and nonproliferation implications of North Korea’s nuclear program.

Induction Weekend 2024 began with an Opening Celebration that featured the first Legacy Recognition Honorees and a performance led by new member bassist Rodney Whitaker. The program also included a conversation between David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, and Grant Hill, a new member, basketball hall-of-famer, and philanthropist. An edited version of their conversation follows.

Much of the attention about the humanities in higher education tends to focus on four-year colleges and universities (and more specifically, on the declining number of students who major in the humanities). In recent years, the American Academy’s Humanities Indicators (HI) have been exploring the growing presence of the humanities in the community college sector.

On May 15, 2014, at the Academy’s 2008th Stated Meeting, five experts discussed how institutions protect against the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Artists can help us emerge and heal from the global pandemic — but first we have to create more systems that support them and their work. Laura Zabel, member of the American Academy’s Commission on the Arts, explains how.

On October 6, 2018, the American Academy inducted its 238th class of Members at a ceremony held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ceremony featured readings from the letters of John and Abigail Adams by Katherine Farley and Jerry Speyer, a performance by André Watts, and presentations by Linda T. Elkins-Tanton, Huda Y. Zoghbi, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Robert Gooding-Williams, and David Miliband.

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The Academy hosted a meeting at the University of Chicago on the benefits and risks of nuclear, biological, and information technologies. The speakers included Robert Rosner, James M. Acton, Elisa D. Harris, and Herbert Lin.

Induction is one of our most cherished events of the year. It is a time to honor and celebrate the achievements of our newest members, recognizing their excellence in all fields and disciplines. At this year’s Induction, we welcomed over 200 of the 250 members elected in 2024, marking the largest single class Induction in our history. It was our privilege to participate fully in the weekend’s activities, to meet the new members and their families, and to inspire this new class to be engaged in the work of the Academy.