Announcing the six universities awarded $250,000 as part of the inaugural Modernizing Academic Appointment & Advancement (MA3) Challenge. This new cohort of university awardees will implement bold institutional reforms to faculty hiring, evaluation, promotion, and tenure systems. 

A new study from the American Academy finds the United States trailing other developed nations throughout the world in the number of citizens with fluency in multiple languages. Of the 20% of American citizens who can speak at least two languages, only half can speak both at advanced levels, and more than 50% of those speakers are foreign-born.

Academy Publications

The Academy holds virtual events as well as in-person events around the country and the world that bring members, representatives of the Affiliates, and others together to explore topics of national and global concern.

One of the recommendations for strengthening American democracy proposed in Our Common Purpose - the report of a bipartisan Academy commission - is to enact ranked-choice voting (RCV) for presidential, congressional, and state elections. This article examines legislative progress at the federal, state, and local levels concerning ranked-choice voting.

List of Staff at the Academy

The U.S. must make competence in foreign languages an urgent economic, national security, and educational priority. Glenn Altschuler and David Wippman argue for increased language instruction, citing the Academy report on America’s Languages.

Members Elected in 2024, by Class & Section

What if, by simplifying the courts — and expecting low-income people without representation to make productive use of the do-it-yourself tools available to them — the courts are inadvertently hindering access to justice? Lawyers Colleen Shanahan and Anna Carpenter make the argument in their Daedalus essay on why "Simplified Courts Can’t Solve Inequality."

At a program hosted by the Academy’s New Haven Program Committee, Linda Greenhouse (New York Times columnist and Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School) discussed the United States Supreme Court’s transformational year and the challenges to Roe v. Wade.

As the United States approaches the 2024 presidential election, several journalists and commentators have been puzzled by one question: “Why do Americans seem so unhappy with an economy that appears to be doing so well?” Polls are influenced by many factors, but recent results show how pessimistic many Americans feel about the economy. And yet, judged by traditional economic metrics like the GDP or the Dow Jones, the economy is doing well. How do we explain this paradox?

Members Elected in 2021, by Class & Section

Google Senior Fellow Jeffrey Dean; Installation artist Theaster Gates; Irish author Eavan Boland; philanthropist Edythe Broad; Aspen Institute's Walter Isaacson among new members

"Science & the Legal System," the Fall 2018 issue of Dædalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, features thirteen essays on topics including the state of the forensic sciences, expert testimony in court, the role of science in abortion law, neuroscience and law, and reforms to the U.S. adversarial system.

Three of the country’s leading philanthropic organizations are supporting the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in its goal to ensure safety and security amid the anticipated expansion of nuclear energy around the world.

This issue of the Bulletin highlights the remarkable breadth of the Academy’s work, describing recent activities in the areas of education, science, international affairs, and the arts. The work detailed in these pages also demonstrates our commitment to core values: elevating the use of evidence and knowledge, embracing diversity and inclusion, and advancing the common good.

The University of West Georgia College of Arts and Humanities is serving as the statewide host site for discussion on a national report titled “The Heart of the Matter: the Humanities and Social Sciences” conducted by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Nicholas Lemann, member of the Academy's Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education, discusses the bigger issue of college completion rates.

The American Academy's Humanities Indicators project provides new indicators on Americans' dwindling engagement with books, the types of texts they are reading, changing attitudes about censorship, and student reading proficiency.

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