States across the country took steps to advance and impede recommendations in the Academy's crosspartisan publication, Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century. Learn more about which issues - including civics education, redistricting commissions, and voting regulations - were addressed and where.

In recent months, the media has been filled with reports of colleges and universities nationwide cutting humanities programs, at institutions ranging from large state flagships (such as West Virginia University) to smaller liberal arts colleges (such as Simmons and Lasell Universities). To clarify some of the choices involved in these decisions, the Academy’s Humanities Indicators project is releasing a series of reports on the state of the humanities in each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia. These reports demonstrate the depth of the challenges facing the humanities (with the numbers of humanities degrees declining in all but three states), but they also provide resources to counter some of the prevailing narratives about career outcomes for graduates in the humanities.

One of the recommendations for strengthening American democracy proposed in Our Common Purpose - the report of a bipartisan Academy commission - is to move to a system of proportional representation where elected seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are based on the share of votes each party or candidate receives. This article examines legislative progress at the federal and state levels concerning proportional representation.

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.