2018 Projects, Publications, and Meetings of the Academy

The Humanities, Arts, and Culture

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The American Academy was founded to promote the pursuit of knowledge and the education of citizens in all fields of knowledge. Since 1780, the Academy has advocated for the importance of the humanities, arts, and culture in American society, and has called on both private citizens and the nation’s government to help foster advances in these areas.

Today, the Academy conducts research and develops policy recommendations to advance the humanities in academic scholarship and in the public sector, to dis- play the importance of the arts in society, and to enrich the nation’s cultural life. By bringing together scholars, artists, and leaders from both the public and private sectors, Academy programs in the Humanities, Arts, and Culture put practitioners and scholars in conversation with individuals from other disciplines, ensuring that the arts and humanities are valued in all areas of civic life.

Projects in this area demonstrate the value of the humanities, arts, and culture to the nation’s security and prosperity, and call attention to the role played by work in these fields to enriching the health of communities and the daily lives of its citizens.

 


THE HUMANITIES, ARTS, AND CULTURE
Program Advisory Group

Richard Brodhead
Duke University

Colin Dayan
Vanderbilt University

Johanna Drucker
University of California, Los Angeles

Tom Gunning
University of Chicago 

Gish Jen
Cambridge, MA

Jacqueline Jones
University of Texas at Austin 

Mary Kelley
University of Michigan

Jane McAuliffe
Library of Congress

Jahan Ramazani
University of Virginia 

Oscar Tang
New York, NY

Maria Hummer Tuttle
J. Paul Getty Trust

Pauline Yu
American Council of Learned Societies


 

PROJECT

Commission on Language Learning

In 2014, a bipartisan group of members of Congress asked the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to undertake a new study of the nation’s language education needs. Four members of the United States Senate–Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) – and four members of the House of Representatives – Rush Holt (D-New Jersey), Leonard Lance (R-New Jersey), David Price (D-North Carolina), and Don Young (R-Alaska) – signed two letters requesting that the Academy provide answers to the following questions:

How does language learning influence economic growth, cultural diplomacy, the productivity of future generations, and the fulfillment of all Americans? What actions should the nation take to ensure excellence in all languages as well as international education and research, including how we may more effectively use current resources to advance language attainment?

In response to this request, the Academy created the Commission on Language Learning. The Commission’s final report, America’s Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century, offers concrete recommendations to improve access to as many languages as possible, for people of every age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background.

On February 28, 2017, the day of the public release of America’s Languages, Representative David Price (D-North Carolina) introduced the World Language Advancement and Readiness Act, a bill cosigned by eighteen of his colleagues. The act pro- poses three-year competitive grants to support local and state school districts that want to establish, improve, or expand innovative programs in world language learning. Subsequently, the Commission’s final report has influenced several additional federal bills and has been cited in Congressional “Dear Colleague” letters in defense of federal funding for Title VI education programs and Fulbright-Hays Fellowships. It has inspired curricular reviews on college and university campuses and is providing an intellectual foundation for the Lead with Languages public campaign organized by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Representatives of language and learned societies, education advocacy organizations, government agencies, and international business are now collaborating as the America’s Language Working Group to advance the Commission’s recommendations. The group’s first product, a call-to-action called “Bridging America’s Language Gap,” has been endorsed by nearly two hundred leaders and institutions from a variety of sectors. The call-to-action is posted on the Commission’s website.

Commission Chair

Paul LeClerc
Columbia Global Center-Paris, Columbia University

Commission Members

Martha G. Abbot
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

Mark Aronoff
Stony Brook University

Jessie “little doe” Baird
Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project

David Chu
Institute for Defense Analyses

Dan E. Davidson
American Councils for International Education; Bryn Mawr College

Nicholas B. Dirks
University of California, Berkeley

Brian T. Edwards
Northwestern University

Karl Eikenberry
Stanford University; U.S. Army, ret.

Rosemary G. Feal
Modern Language Association of America

Carol Gluck
Columbia University

Nancy McEldowney
Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State

Philip Rubin
Haskins Laboratories; formerly, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Rubén G. Rumbaut
University of California, Irvine

Marta Tienda
Princeton University

Kenneth L. Wallach
Central National Gottesman Inc.

Diane P. Wood
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit

Pauline Yu
American Council of Learned Societies

Project Staff

John Tessitore

Julian Kronick

Esha Senchaudhuri

Funders

Henry Luce Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

 

PROJECT PUBLICATIONS \\ COMMISSION ON LANGUAGE LEARNING

 

America’s Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2017)

The State of Languages in the U.S.: A Statistical Portrait (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2016)


 

PROJECT

The Humanities Indicators

 

The Humanities Indicators are descriptive statistics that chart trends over time in aspects of the humanities that are of interest to a wide audience and for which there are available data. The Indicators provide data on a diverse array of topics pertaining to the role of the humanities in the contemporary United States. These topics are organized into five major parts:

  • Part I. Primary and Secondary Education in the Humanities: These Indicators cover national measures of achievement at the primary and secondary school levels; high school course-taking; and the characteristics of primary and secondary faculty.
  • Part II. Undergraduate and Graduate Education in the Humanities: The Indicators in this section focus on the types of courses undergraduate and graduate students take and the degrees they receive, and consider both preparedness for graduate school and the conditions of graduate education.
  • Part III. The Humanities Workforce: These Indicators describe employment in humanistic settings and occupations, with emphasis on postsecondary faculty, and also the career paths of those with undergraduate and graduate degrees in the humanities.
  • Part IV. Humanities Funding and Research: These Indicators include data on federal, state, and private funding for the humanities, as well as on support for academic research.
  • Part V. The Humanities in American Life: The topics currently treated in this section include humanistic skills and practices, such as reading and multilingualism; support for and utilization of various humanistic institutions, such as libraries and museums; and public attitudes toward the humanities.

In addition to regular updates to the existing content, the project also develops original research, including a survey of the humanities in community colleges (reported in fall 2018) and a survey of humanities activities in the general public. Over the course of 2017, material from the Indicators was cited more the 70 times in the media, in publications ranging from Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education to The Wall Street Journal and Time.

The Humanities Indicators are accessible at www.humanities indicators.org.

Project Director

Norman M. Bradburn
NORC at the University of Chicago

Advisory Committee

Jack Buckley
American Institutes for Research

Jonathan R. Cole
Columbia University

John Dichtl
American Association for State and Local History

Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Cornell University

Michael Hout
New York University

Felice J. Levine
American Educational Research Association

Esther Mackintosh
Federation of State Humanities Councils

Judith Tanur
Stony Brook University

Steven Wheatley
American Council of Learned Societies

Project Staff

Paul Erickson

Carolyn Fuqua

Robert B. Townsend

Funders

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

National Endowment for the Humanities

Peck Stacpoole Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation

Sara Lee Corporation

The Teagle Foundation

With advice and assistance from:

American Academy of Religion

American Council of Learned Societies

American Historical Association

American Philosophical Association

American Political Science Association

College Art Association

Federation of State Humanities Councils

History of Science Society

Linguistic Society of America

Modern Language Association of America

National Communication Association

National Humanities Alliance

Society for Biblical Literature

 

PROJECT PUBLICATIONS \\ THE HUMANITIES INDICATORS

 

The State of the Humanities 2018: Graduates in the Workforce & Beyond (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2018)

The State of the Humanities: Higher Education 2015 (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2015)

The State of the Humanities: Funding 2014 (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2014)

 

PROJECT MEETINGS \\ THE HUMANITIES INDICATORS

 

Planning a Survey of the Humanities and the Public

December 5, 2017
New York, NY

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation asked the Humanities Indicators project to design a survey of public opinion regarding the humanities. The project convened two meetings with leaders from the humanities communities in New York City and Washington, D.C., to discuss potential topics and questions, which were developed subsequently into a test survey for cognitive interviews.

Participants

Norman Bradburn, Chair
NORC at the University of Chicago

John Paul Christy
American Council of Learned Societies

Paul Erickson
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Carolyn Fuqua
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

John Garnett
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Christine Henseler
4Humanities; Union College

Paula Krebs
Modern Languages Association

David Laurence
Modern Languages Association

Alan Liu
4Humanities; University of California, Santa Barbara

Hunter O’Hanian
College Art Association

Valerie Paley
New York Historical Society

Kathy Rosa
American Library Association

Judy Tanur
Stony Brook University

Robert Townsend
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Steven Wheatley
American Council of Learned Societies

 

Planning a Survey of the Humanities and the Public

December 7, 2017
Washington, D.C.

Participants

Norman Bradburn, Chair
NORC at the University of Chicago

Amy Ferrer
American Philosophical Association

Jim Grossman
American Historical Association

Sunil Iyengar
National Endowment for the Arts

Stephen Kidd
National Humanities Alliance

Elise Lipkowitz
National Science Board

Esther Mackintosh
Federation of State Humanities Councils

Jane McAuliffe
Library of Congress

Lynn Pasquarella
American Association  of Colleges and Universities

William Rivers
Joint National Committee for Languages—National Council for Languages and International Studies

Jeffrey Thomas
National Endowment for the Humanities

Ann Wise
Phi Beta Kappa

 

Advisory Committee Meeting

January 13, 2018
Washington, D.C.

At the annual meeting of the Advisory Committee for the Humanities Indicators project, the participants reviewed the previous year’s updates to the website and the news coverage the project received. The committee also discussed planned revisions to the site for the coming year and made recommendations related to upcoming projects, such as the National Inventory of Humanities Organizations, the survey of the humanities in community colleges, and the upcoming third iteration of the Humanities Department Survey.

Participants

Norman M. Bradburn
NORC at the University of Chicago

Jack Buckley
American Institutes for Research

Jonathan R. Cole
Columbia University

John Dichtl
American Association  for State and Local History

Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Cornell University

Paul Erickson
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Carolyn Fuqua
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Michael Hout
New York University

Felice J. Levine
American Educational Research Association

Esther Mackintosh
Federation of State Humanities Councils

Judith Tanur
Stony Brook University

Jeffrey Thomas
National Endowment for  the Humanities

Robert Townsend
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Steven Wheatley
American Council of Learned Societies


 

PROJECT

Commission on the Arts

 

In February 2016, the Academy began holding a series of conversations on the possibility of forming a national Commission on the Arts. Since then, the Academy has held twelve conversations in eleven cities around the country with groups of arts leaders, funders, and practicing artists. These conversations engaged a range of Academy Members with an interest in the arts.

The consensus among participants in these meetings was that the Academy could play an important role in the national conversation on the arts, as long as the Commission was given a tightly focused mandate and that it made an affirmative case for the importance of the arts in the life of a twenty-first-century democracy.

The most salient recommendation from the sounding meetings was that an Academy commission ought to focus on the role of the arts in American life rather than on the state of the arts. Numerous studies exist that chart attendance at art museums, measure the economic impact of the arts on particular cities (or on the nation), or track changes in school attendance and graduation rates relative to the number of art classes avail- able. But participants in the sounding meetings stressed that there was no national conversation taking place about what the arts can do that other forms of communication cannot, and about why that matters, both for the health of individuals and our communities.

Overall, these sounding conversations made clear that artists and arts institutions play a crucial role in building resilient communities, fostering cultural empathy, overcoming social isolation, and cultivating creativity and innovation. They also play an enormously important role in individual lives. Everyday Americans find solace and meaning through making music, or writing poetry, or painting – indeed, the scope and the significance of individual participation in the arts in the course of daily life are crucial to maintaining cultural traditions and simply creating joy. These factors are more difficult to measure than economic impact or school attendance, but they are areas where the arts play a distinctive role.

The Academy convened a planning committee to evaluate feed- back from the sounding meetings, craft a clear mandate for the Commission, and identify potential outcomes that would inform a proposal for the full Commission. The Academy’s Council and Board approved the proposal in April 2018, and the Commission will be moving forward over the course of the coming year.

Planning Committee

Louise Bryson
J. Paul Getty Trust

Julie Burros
Department of Arts and Culture, City of Boston, MA

Katherine Farley
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

John Lithgow
Actor

Kevin Young
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library

Laura Zabel
Springboard for the Arts

Project Staff

Paul Erickson

Julian Kronick

Natoschia Scruggs

Esha Senchaudhuri

Funders

The Ford Foundation

The Getty Foundation

The John S. and James  L. Knight Foundation

The Kresge Foundation

Roger and Victoria Sant

 

PROJECT MEETINGS \\ COMMISSION ON THE ARTS

 

Planning Committee Meetings

August 3, 2017
American Academy
Cambridge, MA

October 5, 2017
American Academy
Cambridge, MA

March 28, 2018
teleconference meeting

The Planning Committee reviewed feedback from the sounding meetings, discussed areas of focus for the Commission, responded to drafts of the proposal for the Commission, and provided suggestions on the Commission’s leadership, membership, and timeline.

 

Sounding Meeting

January 19, 2018
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Bentonville, AR

Academy staff traveled to Bentonville for a conversation hosted by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Participants discussed the role of the arts in Northwest Arkansas and the particular challenges facing the arts, artists, and arts education in a rural area. This discussion added to the Academy’s understanding of the role of the arts and the place of artists in communities outside of major metropolitan areas, which informed the final proposal for the Commission.

Participants

Rod Bigelow
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Megan Bolinder
NorthWest Arkansas Community College

John Brown III
Windgate Charitable Foundation

Charlotte Buchanan-Yale
Museum of Native American History

Diane Carroll
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Simone Cottrell
Artist’s Laboratory Theatre

Paul Erickson
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Bernice Hembree
Musician, Smokey & The Mirror

Bryan Hembree
Musician, Smokey & The Mirror

Katy Henriksen
“Of Note,” KUAF; “Ozarks at Large”

Matt Herren
Symphony of Northwest Arkansas

Erin Hogue
The Walmart Foundation

Jeannie Hulen
University of Arkansas

Steve Jenkins
NorthWest Arkansas Community College

Debbie Jones
Bentonville Schools

Sharon Killian
Art Ventures NWA

Julian Kronick
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Peter B. Lane
Walton Arts Center and Walmart AMP

Mary Ley
Arkansas Arts Academy

Octavio Logo
Artist

Peter MacKeith
University of Arkansas

Martin Miller
TheatreSquared

Joe Randel
Walton Family Foundation

Michael Riha
University of Arkansas

Paul Savas
Trike Theatre

Eve Smith
Artist; Arts Center of the Ozarks

 

Sounding Meeting

January 22, 2018
New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University
New Orleans, LA

This sounding meeting served as another opportunity to hear from artists, scholars, and arts administrators in smaller communities and those outside of major coastal metropolitan areas. This meeting enriched the final proposal for the Commission by providing perspectives on the complex interplay between commercial pressures and political engagement in artists’ careers, the role of individuals and institutions in the arts, and the importance of arts education.

Participants

Bruce Sunpie Barnes
Musician, Ethnographer

Willie Birch
Artist

Rachel Breunlin
University of New Orleans

Courtney Bryan
Tulane University

Joel Dinerstein
Tulane University

Paul Erickson
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Denise Frazier
New Orleans Center for  the Gulf South at Tulane University

Gia Hamilton
Joan Mitchell Center

Julian Kronick
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Zachary Lazar
Tulane University

Bryan Lee Jr.
Colloqate Design; Arts Council of New Orleans

Deborah Luster
Photographer

Stephanie McKee
Junebug Productions

Elsie B Michie
Louisiana State University

Aurora Nealand
Musician

Mónica Ramirez-Montagut
Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane

Kathy Randels
ArtSpot Productions

Sonya Robinson
Arts Learning Consultant

Ama Rogan
A Studio in the Woods, A Program of Tulane University

Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Author

Nick Slie
Performer, Producer, and Cultural Organizer from Mondo Bizarro

Rebecca Snedeker
New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University

Monique Verdin
Documentarian

 

Sounding Meeting

January 29, 2018
Neubauer Family Foundation
Philadelphia, PA

This sounding meeting focused primarily on the role of K-12 arts education in an urban environment, using as a case study a framework for the presentation of arts content in the Philadelphia Public Schools that was developed in partnership with the Neubauer Family Foundation. The meeting, with its focus on K-12 education, added a valuable dimension to the Com- mission’s proposal and to the program staff’s understanding of the issues surrounding arts education.

Participants

Dan Berkowitz
Neubauer Family Foundation

Sarah Cooper
Pennsylvania Ballet

Becky Cornejo
Neubauer Family Foundation

Paul Erickson
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Carolyn Fuqua
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Naomi Gonzalez
The Philadelphia Orchestra

Liz Grimaldi
Fleisher Art Memorial

Robert Hauser
American Philosophical Society

Pheng Lim
Folk Arts Cultural Treasures

John Lithgow
Actor

Frank Machos
Office of Arts and Academic Enrichment, School District   of Philadelphia

Lisa Murch
Mural Art

Mike O’Bryan
The Village of Arts

John Orr
ArtReach

Jean-Michel Rabate
University of Pennsylvania

Christine Witkowski
ArtistYear

 

Previous Sounding Meetings

February 5, 2016
Los Angeles, CA

March 28, 2016
New York, NY

May 11, 2016
Chicago, IL (two meetings)

September 12, 2016
Washington, D.C.

September 26, 2016
Cambridge, MA

November 17, 2016
San Francisco, CA

January 13, 2017
Miami, FL

February 10, 2017
St. Louis, MO