William G. Thomas III, Anne Cong-Huyen, Angel David Nieves, and Jessica Marie Johnson engaged in a panel discussion on pedagogy in undergraduate digital humanities classrooms. The discussion, which was presented in collaboration with Emory University, was moderated by Erika Farr. Stephen G. Nichols and G. Wayne Clough provided national perspectives as respondents to the panel.

With nearly every nation in Southeast Asia exploring the possibility of developing a civilian nuclear power program, the Academy’s Global Nuclear Future (GNF) Initiative is working to create a culture of safety and security in the operation and oversight of nuclear facilities in the region.

A new publication from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences is released. Its purpose is to inform policymakers who will shape the relative safety or danger of the future international nuclear environment.

On June 15, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled by a 6-to-3 majority that “An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.” This ruling is a historic victory for gay and transgender rights, extending employment protections to millions of LGBT+ workers, and will force many employers to revisit and change discriminatory policies and practices. But what this means for faith-based employers, including religious schools and religious health care providers, will be decided in future cases. Are faith-based employers legally entitled to religious exemptions to the law? Should they be?

Influential political scientist Robert D. Putnam is awarded the Academy's Talcott Parsons Prize for distinguished and original contributions to the social sciences.

Roger Ferguson, cochair of the Academy’s Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education, addresses how recent crises have exacerbated enduring challenges in higher education and how we collectively address those headwinds will shape outcomes for generations to come.

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 to 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.

In August 2020, the Public Face of Science initiative published its final report, The Public Face of Science in America: Priorities for the Future, which outlines recommendations for strengthening the relationship between science and society. The first two reports released by the project, Perceptions of Science in America (2018) and Encountering Science in America (2019), show the heterogeneity of current attitudes toward science and the great breadth of experiences that can influence those attitudes. The final report takes a multifaceted approach and identifies three high-level areas for change that can, over the long term, shape attitudes toward science and people’s experiences with it.

Federico Capasso and Alfred Cho recognized for invention, application of laser technology

Jeanne Gang, founding principal and partner of Studio Gang, is known for her forward-looking approach to design. She creates spaces that connect people with each other, their communities, and the environment. Her projects range from cultural centers to public projects that connect citizens with ecology to high-rise towers that foster community. At a virtual Stated Meeting, Jeanne Gang discussed how the design of physical spaces supports social, civic, and democratic infrastructure – a recommendation offered in Our Common Purpose, the final report of the Academy’s Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship.

Frances McCall Rosenbluth, one of the Academy’s most dedicated members, died in New Haven on November 20, 2021, at age 63. Rosenbluth, the Damon Wells Professor of Political Science at Yale University, had been dealing admirably with glioblastoma for the past year.

The American Academy introduced a fully revised Humanities Indicators website (http://HumanitiesIndicators.org), a new report showing contraction across a number of funding streams for the field, and a new data forum designed to spur further dialogue about the state of the humanities.

A new report from the Commission on the Arts - Art for Life’s Sake: The Case for Arts Education - sets forth recommendations to reverse the persistent decline in access to arts education in America. The report offers local, state, and national elected leaders recommendations in six areas, including elevating the arts, ensuring equitable access, and supporting educators.

Academy projects in Science, Engineering, and Technology seek to strengthen the capacity of science and engineering to improve the human condition. This goal has never been more important for the nation or for the world than it is today. Global challenges increasingly require collaboration across disciplinary, professional, and national boundaries. Likewise, rapid advances in information processing and transmission raise new issues for the management of scientific knowledge and for action on new discoveries.

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.

On December 4, 2015, at the Georgetown University Law Center, the Academy hosted a panel discussion on “The Crisis in Legal Education” with Louis Michael Seidman, Robert A. Katzmann, Philip G. Schrag, Robin L. West, and Patricia D. White.

The nation’s public research universities serve approximately 3.8 million students each year and perform much of the country’s groundbreaking research.