An examination of the financial advantage earning a bachelor’s degree, in any major, provides over not attaining the degree.

Institutions are critical to our personal and societal well-being. They facilitate relationships; they regulate behavior. They develop and disseminate knowledge, enforce the law, keep us healthy, and uphold social and religious norms.

A protracted debate within the Academy over Darwin’s Origin of Species began with a paper on Japanese flora presented by Asa Gray in 1858, leading to an exchange between Louis Agassiz and William Barton Rogers...

Lawrence Goldstein moderated a panel discussion about scientific advances and their impact on society with J. Craig Venter, Lisa Madlensky, and John H. Evans at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla, California.

Elizabeth J. Perry explains the means by which the Chinese Communist party-state maintains campus calm, despite the many unpopular and potentially unsettling higher education reforms.

From the Archives

Financial Statements

Richard Brodhead, president of Duke University, addresses the future of liberal arts education.

How to improve Congress? An opinion feature in the New York Times highlights bold ideas to make Congress better, including a link to the Academy's report, "The Case for Enlarging the House of Representatives.” The opinion piece and the report explain how expanding Congress would make it more representative, better serve voters, and keep the institution in line with the Founders’ vision.

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Public libraries and their grounded, portable and invisible civic infrastructure give us another, better way to relate to ourselves and to each other — not only as consumers, but as citizens.

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

The crafters of the Constitution expected the size of the House to grow as the U.S. population increased. Citing the American Academy report on “The Case for Expanding the House of Representatives,” Kevin Kosar calls for Capitol Hill to consider the proposition.

Sterling Speirn served on the 35-member Academy commission and talks about his life's work and this initiative of "civic, cultural and political reforms that could inspire a democratic renaissance at this crucial moment."

A new study from the American Academy's Humanities Indicators project reveals trends among U.S. residents, and the impact of respondents’ political leanings, socioeconomic status, gender, and race.

Academy member Douglas S. Massey discusses Ferguson and the meaning of race in America for the Bulletin’s new feature, “On the Professions.”

On November 11, 2015, Diane P. Wood, Goodwin Liu, and David S. Tatel discussed issues of access to the justice system. The program, which served as the 2027th Stated Meeting and the Inaugural Distinguished Morton L. Mandel Annual Public Lecture, was streamed to gatherings of members in four cities around the country: New York, Washington, Chicago, and Berkeley. The program concluded the first day of a two-day Academy symposium on the state of legal services for low-income Americans, which brought together federal and state judges, lawyers, legal scholars, and legal aid providers concerned about the state of legal services for Americans.

At an Academy event held in Seattle, Washington, author Annie Proulx described some surprising places her research has led: from accusations of plagiarism against Alfred, Lord Tennyson to obsessive lepidopterists and images of long-lost swamplands. Following her opening remarks, she joined Shawn Wong, professor of English, in conversation.