Rob Townsend of the American Academy speaks about the puzzling decline of more than 30 percent in English and history majors, citing the latest Humanities Indicators report on The State of the Humanities 2021: Workforce & Beyond.

NPR's Michel Martin discusses a new report, "Our Common Purpose: Reinventing America for the 21st Century," with two people who worked on it: professor Danielle Allen and Justice Wallace Jefferson.

The Academy’s New Haven Program Committee, in partnership with Yale University’s MacMillan Center, hosted a conversation on national and international policies for slowing global warming that featured William Nordhaus (Yale University), recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The program included remarks from Pinelopi Goldberg (Yale University; formerly, The World Bank Group) and Scott Barrett (Columbia University) as well as introductions from Steven Wilkinson (Yale University) and David Oxtoby (American Academy of Arts & Sciences).

Immigration is not only where the people come from, and why they come, and whether they are forced to come; it's also how and, in the long run, whether they are received.

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.

An examination of the financial advantage earning a bachelor’s degree, in any major, provides over not attaining the degree.

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

On October 24, 2024, the Academy’s San Diego Committee hosted a program on “Health and Our Oceans,” which featured atmospheric chemist and Academy member Kimberly A. Prather. Professor Prather discussed newly identified critical connections between rising pollution levels in coastal oceans and rivers and their far-reaching impacts on air quality and human health. She also described a recent study on local air and water quality issues in southern San Diego. The program included introductory remarks from Susan Taylor, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, Chemistry & Biochemistry at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and Margaret S. Leinen, Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences, and Dean of the School of Marine Sciences at UC San Diego. An edited version of Professor Prather’s presentation follows.

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

Since 2007, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences reports, four-year universities have reduced their number of departments offering art history, English, languages, history, linguistics, literature and religion. The proportion of students who major in the humanities in the United States has fallen from a high of nearly one in five in the late 1960s to one in 20 in 2015.

A protracted debate within the Academy over Darwin’s Origin of Species began with a paper on Japanese flora presented by Asa Gray in 1858, leading to an exchange between Louis Agassiz and William Barton Rogers...

The humanities are anomalous in their focus on academe as being “the one true career path” for students, Robert Townsend said, which is why he feels he has to defend the importance of career diversity.

Financial Statements

The crafters of the Constitution expected the size of the House to grow as the U.S. population increased. Citing the American Academy report on “The Case for Expanding the House of Representatives,” Kevin Kosar calls for Capitol Hill to consider the proposition.

A timely Academy briefing about Iran for congressional staff. Topics discussed included Iran's nuclear program, regime protests, and regional instability.

On February 4, 2015, Andrea Roth and Franklin Zimring participated in a conversation at the University of California, Berkeley, on police use of lethal force against civilians.

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.

Temple Grandin discussed the education of students who have different kinds of minds, as well as her own upbringing and work experience as a woman with autism.

William Julius Wilson discusses racial discrimination, bias, and black employment problems in the American economy.

A big boost to college completion would pay off for students and the economy, a new paper finds, but would substantially increase the federal deficit. Academy report cited in coverage.