The Humanities, Arts, and Culture
While the Academy focused most of its early efforts on the natural and physical sciences, in recent years the organization has taken a more active role in studying and promoting humanities, arts, and culture in American society. Through its commissions, publications, and projects, the Academy conducts research and develops policy recommendations to advance the arts and humanities in American life, and seeks opportunities to enrich the nation’s cultural life. The unique convening power of the Academy brings together scholars, artists, and leaders from the public and private sectors to demonstrate their vital role in the life of the nation, and to articulate how the country might better support activities in this area.
Program Advisory Committee
CHAIR
Johanna Drucker
University of California, Los Angeles
MEMBERS
Richard Brodhead
Duke University
Colin Dayan
Vanderbilt University
Thomas Gunning
University of Chicago
Maria Hummer-Tuttle
The J. Paul Getty Trust
Jacqueline Jones
University of Texas at Austin
Mary C. Kelley
University of Michigan
Jane Dammen McAuliffe
Library of Congress
Jahan Ramazani
University of Virginia
Oscar Tang
New York, New York
Pauline Yu
American Council of Learned Societies
Project
Commission on the Arts
The Commission on the Arts seeks to reframe the national conversation about the role the arts can play in a diverse twenty-first-century democracy. The national focus of the project is reflected in the composition of its membership, which spans the cultural field and the geography of the United States; its members represent over a dozen states and more than forty organizations and disciplines.
This group of artists, scholars, institutional leaders, and community advocates is guided by the common belief that the arts are essential to well-being. With this variety of perspectives, the Commission has been examining the funding mechanisms, policies, and narratives that currently govern the vast creative field.
Arts and culture are essential for their ability to bridge divides and foster community. The Commission seeks both to strengthen the impact and reach of creative work and encourage better support mechanisms for the artists and creatives whose labor and vision make that work possible.
Through reports, recommendations, and public engagement initiatives the Commission is offering a framework for how the arts can be better integrated and appreciated in public life. The first report, Art for Life’s Sake: The Case for Arts Education, examines existing inequities and presents recommendations to make arts a core part of every student’s education. A second report on the creative workforce will identify the needs of artists as workers and outline a series of recommendations for federal and state policies that can provide long-term workforce development and job opportunities for cultural workers. In addition to these policy-oriented reports, the Commission is developing public engagement activities that include a crowd-sourced poem curated by Commission cochair Natasha Trethewey called “Remix: For My People,” which was co-produced as part of PBS’s American Portrait initiative. Each element of the Commission seeks, within its given topic area, to uplift the necessity of art in daily life, both personally and collectively.
Commission Chairs
John Lithgow
Actor and Author
Deborah F. Rutter
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Natasha Trethewey
Northwestern University
Commission Members
Diane Ackerman
Author, Poet, and Naturalist
Elizabeth Alexander
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Maribel Alvarez
The University of Arizona
Rod Bigelow
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Terence Blanchard
Jazz Trumpeter and Composer
Mary Bordeaux
First Peoples Fund
Pam Breaux
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Jeffrey Brown
PBS NewsHour
Louise H. Bryson
The J. Paul Getty Trust
Francis Collins
National Institutes of Health
James Cuno
The J. Paul Getty Trust
Paul DiMaggio
New York University
Oskar Eustis
The Public Theater
Katherine Farley
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Theaster Gates Jr.
Rebuild Foundation
Paula Giddings
Smith College
Olivia Gude
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Vijay Gupta
Street Symphony
Nora Halpern
Americans for the Arts
Vicky Holt Takamine
Pua Ali‘i ‘Ilim
Maria Hummer-Tuttle
Hummer-Tuttle Foundation
Gish Jen
Novelist
Brian Kisida
University of Missouri
Angela La Porte
University of Arkansas
Tania León
Composer and Conductor
Sonia Manzano
Actress and Author
Michael O’Bryan
The Village of Arts and Humanities
Felix Padrón
Arts Management Professional and Artist
Annise Parker
LGBTQ Victory Fund
Mwalim (Morgan James Peters)
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Victoria Rogers
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Jacqueline Stewart
The University of Chicago
Yancey Strickler
Kickstarter
Steven Tepper
Arizona State University
Roberta Uno
Arts in a Changing America
Zannie Voss
Southern Methodist University National Center for Arts Research
Carrie Mae Weems
Photographer
Damian Woetzel
The Juilliard School
Jay Xu
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
Kevin Young
The National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution
Laura Zabel
Springboard for the Arts
Project Staff
Susy Bielak
Consultant
Mary Lyons
Program Coordinator
Allentza Michel
Program Officer
Tania Munz
Chief Program Officer
Jessica Taylor
Louis W. Cabot Fellow
Robert B. Townsend
Program Director
Funders
The Barr Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Getty Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The Kresge Foundation
Roger W. and Victoria P.† Sant
†Deceased
Commission Publications
Art for Life’s Sake: The Case for Arts Education (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2021)
Art Is Work: Policies to Support Creative Workers (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2021)
Commission Meetings
Arts Education Listening Sessions
June 25 and September 23, 2020
Virtual Meetings
Two listening sessions that convened educators, artists, administrators, parents, and students were central elements of the information gathering stage of the Commission’s report on arts education. In each of these sessions, participants spoke in small groups about the impact of arts education and the various challenges that prevent schools and communities from delivering equitable, quality arts opportunities to students across the U.S. public school system.
Meeting Chairs
Olivia Gude
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Brian Kisida
University of Missouri
Angela La Porte
University of Arkansas
Arts in Community and Economic Development Listening Session
August 12, 2020
Virtual Meeting
To gather insights into pressing challenges related to the arts’ role in community and economic development, the Commission convened experts and practitioners involved in relevant efforts. Participants spoke about the long-standing challenges affecting artists and the ways in which the pandemic has exacerbated those issues and unveiled systemic inequities in the cultural sector. In each of the small groups that comprised this meeting, a need to focus on sustainable models for the creative workforce emerged as a clear priority for the Commission.
Meeting Chairs
Michael O’Bryan
The Village of Arts and Humanities
Allentza Michel
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Meeting of the Commission
December 3, 2020
Virtual Meeting
The fourth meeting of the Commission on the Arts convened its members to discuss the development of the Commission’s reports and public engagement activities. During the meeting, Commission members shared updates and strategies for moving the project into its final stage in 2021. Much of the discussion focused on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on artists and the arts and culture sector more broadly, as well as how the Commission can address the needs unveiled by the crisis through its reports, policy recommendations, and other activities.
Meeting Chairs
John Lithgow
Actor and Author
Deborah F. Rutter
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Natasha Trethewey
Northwestern University
Arts Education Report Roundtables
February 2–3, 2021
Virtual Meeting
To ensure the relevance of the Arts Commission’s report on arts education, experts in the field came together to discuss a draft of the report and strategies for advancing its priorities. The participants included scholars, advocacy and policy experts, philanthropic leaders, educators, and other organizational and community leaders.
Creative Workforce Development Report Roundtables
April 19–20, 2021
Virtual Meeting
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated deep vulnerabilities for artists and creative workers. Individuals and groups around the country are discussing potential policies and strategies to build a better support system for the creative workforce. This meeting built on the Arts Commission’s long-standing efforts to uplift the value of artists’ and creatives’ work by bringing together these experts and practitioners to discuss the Commission’s forthcoming report and policy recommendations on creative workforce development.
Project
The Humanities Indicators
The Humanities Indicators provide nonpartisan statistical information about all aspects of the humanities: ranging from early childhood reading, through undergraduate and graduate education in the humanities, and on to employment and humanities experiences in daily life, such as book reading and visits to museums. Now in its twelfth year as a publicly available website, the project tracks the condition of the humanities enterprise via its own rigorous survey research and analyses of data gathered by the federal government.
Recent work has included a survey of five thousand Americans about their engagement with and attitudes toward the humanities, as well as updates to the project’s widely cited analyses on the employment status, earnings, and occupations of humanities majors. The Humanities Indicators are accessible at https://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
Project Staff
Carolyn Fuqua
Senior Research Associate
John Garnett
Research Assistant
Tania Munz
Chief Program Officer
Advisory Committee
Edward Ayers
University of Richmond
Jack Buckley
Research at the College Board
Jonathan R. Cole
Columbia University
Joy Connolly
American Council of Learned Societies
John Dichtl
American Association of State and Local History
Michael Hout
New York University
Felice J. Levine
American Educational Research Association
Phoebe Stein
Federation of State Humanities Councils
Judith Tanur
Stony Brook University
Funders
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The project 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
The Indicators staff publishes regular online updates to the content. Over the past year, these updates included new findings on the occupations and earnings of college graduates, charitable giving to the humanities, and public libraries. The project also produced the following research reports:
The Humanities in American Life: Insights from a 2019 Survey of the Public’s Attitudes & Engagement (2020)
The Humanities in American Life: At a Glance: Insights from a Survey of the Public’s Attitudes & Engagement (2020)
Home with the Humanities: American Engagement During the Pandemic (2020)
The State of the Humanities in Four-Year Colleges and Universities: A Summary of Findings (2020)
Project Meetings and Presentations
Reflections on the State of the Humanities in Colleges and Universities
July 16, 2020
Academy members joined Jonathan Holloway, incoming President of Rutgers University, and Melissa Nobles, MIT’s Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, for a discussion of current trends in the humanities and how they might change as a result of our current crisis. The discussion began with a brief overview of findings from a recent national survey of humanities departments in the United States by Robert Townsend, Co-Director of the Humanities Indicators, followed by remarks by Holloway and Nobles and Q&A moderated by Academy President David Oxtoby.
Humanities Research Institute at University of Illinois
October 6, 2020
Project Co-Director Robert Townsend shared recent findings on the health of the humanities.
National Humanities Conference
November 11, 2020
Project Co-Director Robert Townsend presented on the Indicators recent survey of the general public and hosted a “virtual exhibit booth” at the conference.
Exploring the Humanities in American Life
November 18, 2020
Marking the publication of the Indicators study on the public’s engagement with the humanities, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns joined in conversation with Brenda Thomson (Arizona Humanities) and Kevin Young (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture) to discuss the publication’s findings. The event included opening remarks from Academy President David Oxtoby and Jon Parrish Peede, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Q&A about the Humanities in American Life
November 23, 2020
Humanities Indicators Principal Investigator Norman Bradburn, along with staff members Carolyn Fuqua and Robert Townsend, answered questions and heard feedback and suggestions for future rounds of a national survey of the public.
Advisory Committee Meeting
January 21, 2021
At the annual meeting of the Humanities Indicators Advisory Committee, the participants reviewed the results of the two national surveys conducted by the project in the prior year and assessed plans for future publications and research.
Participants
Norman M. Bradburn
NORC at the University of Chicago
Edward Ayers
University of Richmond
Jack Buckley
Research at the College Board
Jonathan R. Cole
Columbia University
Joy Connolly
American Council of Learned Societies
John Dichtl
American Association of State and Local History
Michael Hout
New York University
Felice J. Levine
American Educational Research Association
Phoebe Stein
Federation of State Humanities Councils
Judith Tanur
Stony Brook University
Carolyn Fuqua
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Robert B. Townsend
American Academy of Arts and Sciences