$5.6 million gift to fund The Morton L. Mandel Program for Civic Discourse and Membership Engagement. Funds designated for fellowships, lecture series, and technical enhancements for communication

Essays offer insight about new developments in the classics that are reshaping our understanding of the ancient world—and its relevance to today.

Academy member Arthur Kleinman discusses his intellectual journey and personal odyssey for the Bulletin’s new feature, “On the Professions.”

Recent business scandals reveal a disturbing breakdown of values in corporate America. A new book from the American Academy examines the failure of “gatekeepers” – corporate directors, auditors, regulators, lawyers, investment bankers, and business journalists – to stand between corporate misconduct and the public interest.

The 236th class of members includes novelist Colm Tóibín, La Opinión Publisher and CEO Monica Lozano, jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter, former Botswanan President Festus Mogae, and autism author and spokesperson Temple Grandin

While the Academy focused most of its early efforts on the natural and physical sciences, in recent years the organization has taken a more active role in studying and promoting humanities, arts, and culture in American society. Through its commissions, publications, and projects, the Academy conducts research and develops policy recommendations to advance the arts and humanities in American life, and seeks opportunities to enrich the nation’s cultural life. The unique convening power of the Academy brings together scholars, artists, and leaders from the public and private sectors to demonstrate their vital role in the life of the nation, and to articulate how the country might better support activities in this area.

An exploratory meeting at the Academy convened international legal experts, policymakers, and global security scholars to examine the effectiveness, limitations, and trajectory of international humanitarian law in the context of the changing character of armed conflict and a weakening commitment to the rule of law.

The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of a broad range of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and promote innovative and evidence-based policies to address crucial issues affecting the international 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 at all levels of society.

There is a surge of outbreaks in vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States. What research is needed to reverse this trend?

The Chicago area is home to more than three hundred Academy members, who represent dozens of institutions across business, law, philanthropy, government, the arts, and education. The Academy’s 2113th Stated Meeting, Chicago and Its Institutions: What is Our Responsibility to the City? held on April 24, 2023, was an opportunity for members from Evanston to Hyde Park to reconnect, celebrate the election of four new classes of Academy colleagues (2020–2023), and consider a city at a crossroads.

Despite the many challenges to higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by every field except the humanities increased through the end of the 2021 academic year.

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.

Laurie L. Patton, the President of Middlebury College, has been named the next president of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Elected to the Academy in 2018, she is a distinguished scholar of religion, an author or editor of ten books, a published poet, and a highly accomplished college and university leader.

Governance & Committees, 2021–2022

Timothy J. Colton and George Breslauer gave a presentation on “Russia Beyond Putin,” the subject of the upcoming Spring 2017 issue of Dædalus.

Noteworthy

Now is the moment to think about the people, places, and practices of democracy, write Hollie Russon Gilman, Darshan Goux, and Elizabeth Youngling in this op-ed.

The election of new Academy members in 2021 provides an opportunity to recognize extraordinary people who help solve the world’s most urgent challenges, create meaning through art, and contribute to the common good from every field, discipline, and profession.

Citing Academy report "America's Languages," Kathleen Stein-Smith explores the increasing scarcity of foreign language classes and teachers.