From the President

Academy projects and publications address issues critical to our country and the wider world. 

Over a 239-year history, we have earned the public’s trust as an independent, nonpartisan institution dedicated to applying evidence to policy and engaging civil discourse. We honor this trust by ensuring that our work has impact and that it is effective in advancing the public good – by fostering scholarship, offering advice and recommendations about matters of public interest, and providing a neutral forum for the discussion of important and new ideas.

The Academy has increased its efforts to follow up on the recommendations of its commission and project reports. With support from Morton Mandel and the Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel Foundation, we have added a staff position dedicated to tracking the impact and influence of the Academy’s work. You will notice we have given more attention to follow-up activities in this publication. We hope that Members of the Academy will support the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education, the Commission on Language Learning, and forthcoming work on building public trust in science, improving the legal services system, and strengthening the preparation for citizenship in our democracy. The pages that follow document an increasing connection between the substantive work of Academy projects and publications and meetings of Members around the country.

Our Members provide their expertise, write for our publications, participate in project meetings, and connect us to partner organizations and broader audiences. And it is through their efforts that our projects make a difference.

In a 1944 address on “The Future of the Academy,” Academy President Howard Mumford Jones stated: “I believe it to be true that neither the President, nor the Council, nor the whole administrative body of the organization taken together, can work out a destiny worthy of our [ideals] unless the lively and continuing interest of a great majority of the fellows is awakened.”

This volume is a record of the many ways in which the “lively and continuing interest” of our Fellows has been awakened – and put to good use. As always, I welcome your thoughts about the Academy’s projects and publications, and your suggestions for maintaining and improving their reach and impact.

Jonathan F. Fanton