The humanities, arts, and culture are woven through virtually every Academy program, where artists and humanists add interdisciplinary breadth to projects in science, democracy, and security. However, the Academy also undertakes projects that put humanities, arts, and culture at the forefront, strengthening their practice and highlighting their importance to all aspects of the nation’s thriving intellectual life. These projects call attention to the role the arts and humanities play in enriching the growth and vitality of individuals, communities, and the nation.
Advisory Committee
Johanna Drucker, Chair
University of California, Los Angeles
Louise Henry Bryson
Public Media Group of Southern California
Joy Connolly
American Council of Learned Societies
Oskar Eustis
Public Theater
Rubén Gallo
Princeton University
Margaret Jacobs
University of Nebraska
Marie-Josée Kravis
Museum of Modern Art
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
Harvard University
Sarah Maza
Northwestern University
Pedro Noguera
University of Southern California
Oscar Tang
New York, NY
Ayanna Thompson
Arizona State University
Sherry Turkle
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Advisory Committee Meeting
May 13, 2024 (virtual)
Members of the Advisory Committee reviewed recent work and discussed future project priorities.
STAFF PRESENTATIONS
GradFutures Forum
April 10, 2024
Princeton, NJ
Program Director Robert Townsend participated in a panel discussion on “Public Humanities: What For?”
Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Lab Symposium
June 6, 2024
Virtual
Program Director Robert Townsend chaired a panel about “Arts Engagement in an AI World.”
Oakland University
October 17, 2024
Rochester, MI
Program Director Robert Townsend delivered an address about “The State of the Liberal Arts and General Education.”
Catholic University of America
October 19, 2024
Washington, D.C.
Program Director Robert Townsend delivered a keynote address at a symposium on “Bridging the Humanities & Technology Gap.”
Project
The Humanities Indicators
The Humanities Indicators provide nonpartisan statistical information about all aspects of the humanities: from early childhood reading, through undergraduate and graduate education in the humanities, to employment and humanities experiences in daily life, such as reading and visits to museums. Now in its fourteenth year as a publicly available website, the project tracks the condition of the humanities enterprise via analyses of data gathered by the federal government as well as through its own rigorous survey research. The project is one of the most cited activities of the Academy, and journalists, advocates, government agencies, and academics regularly call on the project staff for information and their expertise.
Recent work has focused on outcomes for and trends in students earning degrees in the humanities at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The project released state-level reports on career outcomes for humanities majors. From late 2023 to early 2024, the Indicators administered a survey to departments in thirteen humanities and humanities-adjacent disciplines, asking about the condition of their faculty, students, and programs as well as external pressures on their work. The results will be published in Spring 2025. Alongside that work, the project also entered into a cooperative agreement with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts to develop a national inventory of nonprofit cultural organizations. The project continues to develop additional areas of original research. The Humanities Indicators are accessible at www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators.
Project Directors
Norman M. Bradburn
NORC at the University of Chicago
Robert B. Townsend
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Advisory Committee
Edward Ayers
University of Richmond
Jack Buckley
American Institutes for Research
Jonathan R. Cole
Columbia University
John Dichtl
American Association for State and Local History
Michael Hout
New York University
Felice J. Levine
American Educational Research Association
James Shulman
American Council of Learned Societies
Phoebe Stein
Federation of State Humanities Councils
Judith Tanur
Stony Brook University
Project Staff
Carolyn Fuqua
Program Officer for the Humanities Indicators
Maysan Haydar
Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Humanities Policy Fellow
Sara Mohr
Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Humanities Policy Fellow
Funders
Mellon Foundation
National Endowment for the Humanities
Carl H. Pforzheimer III
National Endowment for the Arts
The Humanities Indicators was developed with generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Elihu Rose and the Madison Charitable Fund, John P. Birkelund, Peck Stackpoole Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Sara Lee Foundation, Teagle Foundation, Walter B. Hewlett and the William R. Hewlett Trust, and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Project Publications
Tracking the Health of the Humanities at HBCUs (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, October 2024)
From Matriculation to Completion: How Do Humanities Majors Compare? (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, November 2024)
PROJECT MEETINGS
Humanities Indicators Advisory Committee Meeting
April 12, 2024
Virtual
Members of the Advisory Committee reviewed recent work by the Indicators staff and proposals for future research projects.
Humanities Department Survey Stakeholders Meeting
October 28, 2024
Washington, D.C.
The Humanities Indicators staff hosted a meeting with scholarly society leaders, humanities advocates, and funders to discuss the results from a recent survey of humanities and humanities-adjacent departments.
STAFF PRESENTATIONS
NextGen Humanities Conference
March 8, 2024
Little Rock, AR
Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Humanities Policy Fellow Maysan Haydar and Humanities Indictors Codirector Robert Townsend organized and presented at a session on “Humanities Degrees for Career Success.”
National Humanities Alliance Annual Meeting
March 11, 2024
Washington, D.C.
The Indicators staff shared materials and recent publications at an exhibit booth and participated in conversations and sessions at the annual meeting of the National Humanities Alliance.
American Council of Learned Societies Annual Meeting
May 2–3, 2024
Philadelphia, PA
Members of the Indicators team participated in conversations and sessions at the annual meeting of the ACLS.
Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting
May 30, 2024
Boston, MA
Humanities Indicators Codirector Robert Townsend spoke on a panel about “The Humanities Crisis, What to Know (and Maybe What to Do).”
Society for History of the Early American Republic
July 18, 2024
Philadelphia, PA
Robert Townsend spoke on the opening plenary panel “The Thrill of the Old; or, Reframing Research on Early America.”
AP Council for Humanities Education
October 8, 2024
New York, NY
Robert Townsend presented on “The Health of the Humanities.”
University of Illinois, Humanities Research Institute
October 22, 2024
Virtual
Robert Townsend presented on recent findings from the Humanities Indicators, as part of the Institute’s “Think Again . . .” series.
National Humanities Conference
November 14–15, 2024
Providence, RI
The Indicators staff shared materials and recent publications at an exhibit booth and Robert Townsend organized and presented data on the panel “Make the Case: Humanities Degrees for Career Success.”
Modern Languages Association Strategic Partnership Network
November 21, 2024
Virtual
Robert Townsend presented findings from recent survey research about the state of modern languages in higher education.
Project
The History of the Academy Book Project
Looking ahead to its 250th anniversary in 2030, the Academy selected award-winning historian Jacqueline Jones (University of Texas at Austin) to write a one-volume account of the Academy’s past. The anniversary history will provide a full and honest assessment of the Academy’s activities and membership since its establishment in 1780, and place the Academy within the larger history of the nation it was created to serve.
Jacqueline (Jackie) Jones is a rare academic historian who writes for both the public and a peer scholarly audience. Her work has been recognized with the Bancroft Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, membership in the American Academy, and most recently the presidency of the American Historical Association. Her publications include Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present; Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War; A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America; and No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era.
Advisory Committee
Catherine Allgor
Massachusetts Historical Society
Craig Calhoun
Arizona State University
Daniel J. Cohen
Northwestern University
Paula J. Giddings
Smith College
David A. Hollinger
University of California, Berkeley
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt
University of Minnesota
David W. Oxtoby
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
David M. Rubenstein
The Carlyle Group
Ben Vinson III
Howard University
Funder
Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Foundation
Exploratory Meeting
Center for Humanities Communication
September 6, 2024
House of the Academy, Cambridge, MA
At a March 2023 Academy meeting to mark the tenth anniversary of the Commission on the Humanities, two of the participants (Christine Henseler, Union College, and Alan Liu, University of California, Santa Barbara) proposed the formation of a Center for Humanities Communication, intended to help recognize, train, and support humanities communicators (similar to “science communicators”) placed across a broad spectrum of organizations and media, and also to serve as a clearinghouse for information, training, and resources. This idea was discussed further during an Advisory Committee meeting for the Humanities, Arts, and Culture program area.
On September 6, 2024, the Academy hosted a follow-up meeting to foster dialogue between leaders in the humanities and experts in science communication and related fields. Humanities scholars, science communicators, media professionals, and philanthropists participated in a roundtable discussion that focused on practical strategies and priorities. The participants addressed two key issues: how best to help the public understand and recognize that what they value is connected to the humanities, and how to improve the sharing of information between humanities organizations about ongoing research and public initiatives. The meeting concluded with a plan to continue developing the project in the future.
Project Staff
Maysan Haydar
Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Humanities Policy Fellow
Robert B. Townsend
Director, Humanities, Arts, and Culture Programs
Organizers and Session Leaders
Kath Burton
Routledge, Taylor & Francis
Anke Finger
University of Connecticut, Storrs
Christine Henseler
Union College
Alan Liu
University of California, Santa Barbara
Funders
Academy Exploratory Fund
National Endowment for the Humanities
