The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1780, during the American Revolution, to provide guidance to a young nation. Throughout its 241-year history, the Academy’s leadership has seldom issued organizational statements, preferring to have its projects, studies, publications, and convenings present the best available thinking about the topics in question. However, when a situation arises – like climate change – that profoundly threatens the world, a call to action from the Academy’s Board of Directors is appropriate.

Despite evidence that points unmistakably to the workplace advantages of a well-rounded education, disciplines in the arts and humanities still lose ground in the national battle for curricular relevance.

The American Academy’s Board of Directors issued a statement about climate change to stand explicitly with the scientific community and others to recognize the urgent need for a long-term commitment by every segment of our society to address this global issue.

The Academy’s record of distinction in Science, Engineering, and Technology dates to its founding mission “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Rather than generate new scientific research, the role of the Academy has been uniquely interdisciplinary, bridging the social sciences and arts with the physical sciences to support a national understanding, belief, and trust in science and discovery. Perhaps no better example of this can be found than in the mid-1800s when the Academy hosted hotly contested debates about a new scientific theory–the theory of evolution.

The Supreme Court’s written code of ethics is a start, writes Danielle Allen, who argues that the next step is term limits for Supreme Court justices -- citing a recent Academy publication.

The United States is spending tens of billions of dollars annually – far more than all other countries combined – to acquire advanced military space capabilities. However, for technical and economic reasons, that investment is unlikely to yield the government’s stated military goals.

First national study of language learning in 30 years was requested from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences by a bipartisan group of members of U.S. Senate & House of Representatives

Induction weekend is always a highlight for the Academy, and this year’s ceremony did not disappoint. It was the second consecutive “double” Induction, to make up for canceled ceremonies during the pandemic, and we enthusiastically welcomed several hundred new members from the classes of 2022 and 2023 along with their families and friends. From your own Induction, you may remember the bagpipes, the children’s chorus, the class speakers, the signing of the Book of Members. I love the traditions and how they help bind us as a community—past, present, and future.

Danielle Allen, who cochairs the Academy's bipartisan Commission on democratic citizenship, writes "We need a new social compact." In this column, she writes about why it's time and what it might include - with examples drawn from the Commission's report Our Common Purpose.

Academy member James Fallows includes Our Common Purpose as one of three developments that shed light on how the parts of America that still work can be applied to the parts that need help most.

In "The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?" Michael J. Sandel argues that the divide between winners and losers has poisoned our politics and pulled us apart. The problem, he contends, is not only that we have failed to live up to the meritocratic ideals we profess, but that a meritocratic society is a flawed aspiration. It produces hubris among the successful and humiliation among those left behind. In the first virtual Stated Meeting in the history of the Academy, Michael J. Sandel joined T. J. Jackson Lears and Anna Deavere Smith in a conversation about his new book and the destructive consequences of linking socioeconomic status with personal worth.

It’s time to start building online versions of the libraries, parks and other public spaces that make societies and democracies work, write Eli Pariser and Danielle Allen, cochair of the Academy’s Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship.

When President Donald Trump signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in December 2019, the World Language Advancement and Readiness Act became the first piece of federal legislation in a generation that addressed the language needs of the nation.

With the signing of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the World Language Advancement and Readiness Act became the first piece of federal legislation in a generation to address the language needs of the nation. This act is the most high-profile achievement of Academy’s Commission on Language Learning since it released its final report in 2017.

On April 1, 2019, the American Academy and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale presented their first joint public program, which featured a conversation between David Blight and Robert Stepto. The program, which served as the Academy’s Morton L. Mandel Public Lecture, included a welcome from Ian Shapiro. Crystal Feimster moderated the program.

Reflections from Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on Receiving the Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies

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

James Carroll states the case for American support of the International Criminal Court. This editorial was initially published in The Boston Globe.

The American Academy today announced that Jonathan F. Fanton, former President of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and of The New School, has been named its 46th President.