Robert Townsend, director of the Humanities Indicators, discusses PhD trends in the U.S.

Citing Academy report, Harry Brighouse shares instructional practices that undergraduates say they have rarely encountered and think should be more widely shared.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded by visionaries who foresaw that the nascent republic would benefit from the expertise of learned citizens to guide its development, health, and integrity through whatever challenges may arise.

Today, the clarity of that vision has never been more evident. We find ourselves in a time of deepening divides across lines of politics, race, religion, income, and opportunity. The institutions we have long turned to for leadership and information are under fire, as trust in the media, government, commercial enterprise, and academia declines. Strong and responsive institutions and a healthy civil society can carry us through crises and are vitally important in their aftermath.

A list of all active Members, arranged by Class and Section, Affiliation, or Year of Election, is available on the
Academy’s website at www.amacad.org/directory. IHM designates an International Honorary Member.

Academy Staff

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.

With the national conversation generated by "The Heart of the Matter" still ongoing, the American Academy's Humanities Indicators has put forth a report card to provide a snapshot of current data illustrating where the humanities are today.

Looking Back at Law's Century, recently published by Cornell University Press, describes the complex interaction of democracy, capitalism, and legal change in the twentieth century. "The last hundred years – what we might in retrospect characterize as 'law's century' – took us from the Progessive Era's optimism about law and social engineering to current concerns about our hyper-legalistic society, from Wilsonian idealism to the worldwide spread of democracy, the rule of law, and the idea of human rights," according to the volume's editors, Austin Sarat, Bryant Garth, and American Academy Fellow Robert A. Kagan.

A new report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences challenges preconceptions about the public face of science.

How do we renew confidence in America’s institutions and strengthen public engagement in civic life? The Spring 2013 issue of Dædalus suggests ways in which government, corporations, nonprofits, the judiciary, and the media can inspire greater confidence in our democratic system and a renewed commitment to civil discourse.

Inspired by the Academy report on "America’s Languages," Congressmen David Price (D-NC) and Don Young (R-AK) announced the establishment of the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on America’s Languages in order to address our nation’s need for more bilingual citizens to help ensure national security, promote economic and job growth, and develop the potential of every U.S. student.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences Paper Assesses How Industry, Regulators Have Applied Lessons Learned

Scientific advances often provoke deep concern on the part of the public, especially when these advances challenge strongly held political or moral perspectives. In “Do Scientists Understand the Public?,” a new paper based on the Academy study, science journalist Chris Mooney reviews the workshop findings and recommendations.

List of Staff at the Academy

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.

The opening program of the 2022 Induction weekend featured a conversation between David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma that explored the meaning and honor of Academy membership, the power and universality of music, and the importance of the arts, culture, and education, among other topics. An edited version of their conversation follows.

Danielle Allen, cochair of Academy project on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, says students need to understand government just as much as math and science.