American Academy of Arts and Sciences美国艺术与科学学院
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
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Coordinates : 42°22′51″N 71°06′37″W42.380755°N 71.110256°W
The House of the Academy, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (American Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research in the United States. Election to the Academy is considered one of the nation’s highest honors since its founding during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin and other scholar-patriots who contributed prominently to the establishment of the new nation, its government, and its Constitution.[1]
Today the Academy is with a dual function: to elect to membership finest minds and most influential leaders, drawn from science, scholarship, business, public affairs, and the arts, from each generation, and to conduct policy studies in response to the needs of society. Major Academy projects now have focused on higher education and research, humanities and cultural studies, scientific and technological advances, politics, population and the environment, and the welfare of children. D?dalus, the Academy’s quar terly journal, is widely regarded as one of the world's leading intellectual journals.[2]
The Academy is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Contents
[hide]
? 1 Overview
? 2 Membership
o 2.1 Founding members
o 2.2 Members
o 2.3 Classes and sections
? 3 Presidents, 1791-present
? 4 Activities
o 4.1 Projects
o 4.2 Research fellowship programs
o 4.3 Awards
o 4.4 National Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences ? 5 See also
? 6 External links
?7 References
[edit] Overview
The Academy was established by Massachusetts legislature on 4 May 1780. Its purpose, as described in its Charter of Incorporation, is "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people."[3] The sixty-two incorporating fellows represented varying interests and high standing in the political, professional, and commercial sectors of the state. The first class of new members, chosen by the Academy in 1781, included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington as well as several foreign honorary members. The initial volume of Academy Memoirs appeared in 1785, and the Proceedings followed in 1846. In the 1950s the Academy launched its journal Daedalus, reflecting its commitment to a broader intellectual and socially-oriented program.[4]
The Academy has sponsored a number of awards throughout its history. Its first award, established in 1796 by Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford), honored distinguished work on "heat and light" and provided support for research activities. Additional prizes recognized important contributions in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. In 2000, a scholar-patriot award was inaugurated to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to the work of the Academy and whose lives exemplify the founders' vision of service to society.
Since the second half of the twentieth century, policy research has become a central focus of the Academy. In the late 1950s, arms control emerged as a signature concern of the Academy. The Academy also served as the catalyst in establishing the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. In the late 1990s, the Academy developed a new strategic plan, focusing on four major areas: science, technology, and global security; social policy and education; humanities and culture; and education. In 2002, the Academy established a visiting scholars program in association with Harvard University. Now a group of 54 academic institutions from across
the country have become university affiliates of the Academy to support this program.[5]
[edit] Membership
[edit] Founding members
Charter members of the Academy are Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Bacon, James Bowdoin, Charles Chauncy, John Clark, David Cobb, Samuel Cooper, Thomas Cushing, Nathan Cushing, William Cushing, Tristram Dalton, Francis Dana, Samuel Deane, Perez Fobes, Caleb Gannett, Henry Gardner, Benjamin Guild, John Hancock, Joseph Hawley, Edward Augustus Holyoke, Ebenezer Hunt, Jonathan Jackson, Charles Jarvis, Samuel Langdon, Levi Lincoln, Daniel Little, Elijah Lothrup, John Lowell, Samuel Mather, Samuel Moody, Andrew Oliver, Joseph Orne, Theodore Parsons, George Partridge, Robert Treat Paine, Phillips Payson, Samuel Phillips, Jr., John Pickering, Oliver Prescott, Zedekiah Sanger, Nathaniel Peaslee Sargeant, Micajah Sawyer, Theodore Sedgwick, William Sever, Stephen Sewall, David Sewall, John Sprague, Ebenezer Storer, Caleb Strong, James Sullivan, John Bernard Sweat, Nathaniel Tracy, Cotton Tufts, James Warren, Samuel West, Edward Wigglesworth, Joseph Willard, Samuel Williams, Abraham Williams, Nehemiah Williams, and James Winthrop.
[edit] Members
From the beginning, the membership, nominated and elected by peers, has included not only scientists and scholars but also writers and artists as well as representatives from the full range of professions and public life. Throughout the Academy’s history, 10,000 fellows have been elected, including such notables as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John James Audubon, Joseph Henry, Washington Irving, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Willa Cather, T. S. Eliot, Edward R. Murrow, Jonas Salk, Eudora Welty, and Duke Ellington. Foreign honorary members have included Leonhard Euler, Marquis de Lafayette, Alexander von Humboldt, Leopold von Ranke, Charles Darwin, Jawaharlal Nehru, Werner Heisenberg, and Alec Guinness. Astronomer Maria Mitchell was the first woman to be elected to the Academy, in 1848. The current membership encompasses over 4,000 fellows and foreign honorary members on the roster, including more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.[6]
[edit] Classes and sections
The current membership is divided into five classes and twenty-four sections.[7]
Class I – Mathematical and Physical Sciences
?Section 1. Mathematics
?Section 2. Physics
?Section 3. Chemistry
?Section 4. Astronomy (including Astrophysics) and Earth Science ?Section 5. Engineering Sciences and Technologies
?Section 6. Computer Sciences (including Artificial Intelligence and Information Technologies)
Class II – Biological Sciences
?Section 1. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
?Section 2. Cellular and Developmental Biology, Microbiology and Immunology (including Genetics)
?Section 3. Neurosciences, Cognitive Sciences, and Behavioral Biology
?Section 4. Evolutionary and Population Biology and Ecology
?Section 5. Medical Sciences (including Physiology and Pharmacology), Clinical Medicine, and Public Health
Class III – Social Sciences
?Section 1. Social and Developmental Psychology and Education ?Section 2. Economics
?Section 3. Political Science, International Relations, and Public Policy
?Section 4. Law (including the Practice of Law)
?Section 5. Archaeology, Anthropology, Sociology, Geography and Demography
Class IV – Arts and Humanities
?Section 1. Philosophy and Religious Studies
?Section 2. History
?Section 3. Literary Criticism (including Philology)
?Section 4. Literature (Fiction, Poetry, Short Stories, Nonfiction, Playwriting, Screenwriting)
?Section 5. Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Class V – Public affairs, business, and administration ?Section 1. Public Affairs, Journalism, and Communications
?Section 2. Business, Corporate and Philanthropic Leadership ?Section 3. Educational, Scientific, Cultural and Philanthropic Administration
[edit] Presidents, 1791-present
?1791–1814 John Adams
?1814–1820 Edward Augustus Holyoke
?1820–1829 John Quincy Adams
?1829–1838 Nathaniel Bowditch
?1838–1839 James Jackson[disambiguation needed]
?1839–1846 John Pickering[disambiguation needed]
?1846–1863 Jacob Bigelow
?1863–1873 Asa Gray
?1873–1880 Charles Francis Adams
?1880–1892 Joseph Lovering
?1892–1894 Josiah Parsons Cooke
?1894–1903 Alexander Agassiz
?1903–1908 William Watson Goodwin
?1908–1915 John Trowbridge
?1915–1917 Henry Pickering Walcott
?1917–1919 Charles Pickering Bowditch
?1919–1921 Theodore William Richards
?1921–1924 George Foot Moore
?1924–1927 Theodore Lyman
?1927–1931 Edwin Bidwell Wilson
?1931–1933 Jeremiah D. M. Ford
?1933–1935 George Howard Parker
?1935–1937 Roscoe Pound
?1937–1939 Dugald C. Jackson
?1939–1944 Harlow Shapley
?1944–1951 Howard Mumford Jones
?1951–1954 Edwin Herbert Land
?1954–1957 John Ely Burchard
?1957–1961 Kirtley Fletcher Mather
?1961–1964 Hudson Hoagland
?1964–1967 Paul A. Freund
?1967–1971 Talcott Parsons
?1971–1976 Harvey Brooks
?1976–1979 Victor Frederick Weisskopf
?1979–1982 Milton Katz
?1982–1986 Herman Feshbach
?1986–1989 Edward Hirsch Levi
?1989–1994 Leo Leroy Beranek
?1994–1997 Jaroslav Pelikan
?1997–2000 Daniel C. Tosteson
?2000–2001 James O. Freedman
?2001–2006 Patricia Meyer Spacks
?2006–2009 Emilio Bizzi
?2010–present Leslie C. Berlowitz
[edit] Activities
The Academy carries out nonpartisan policy research by bringing together scientists, scholars, artists, policymakers, business leaders, and other experts to make multidisciplinary analyses of complex social, political, and intellectual topics. The Committee on Studies is responsible for reviewing and approving all studies undertaken in the name of the Academy and helping to identify proposed studies that will make optimum use of Academy expertise and resources. The Committee on Studies works closely with the Committee on Publications to ensure that Academy project reports and publications enhance the stature of the institution and the visibility of its intellectual contributions to the scholarly and policy communities and to the public at large.
[edit] Projects
The Academy's four major program areas are:
?Science, Technology, and Global Security: Explore how the international community can devise new cooperative structures to improve global security, analyzes the impact of rapid developments in science and technology, and develops policies to govern these transformations.
?Social Policy and American Institutions: Carry out studies that focus on American institutions at the crossroads, particularly the government and the corporation.
?Humanities and Culture: Enhance public understanding of the value and role of the humanities in American life and create new resources to inform coherent policy analyses relative to the humanities.
?Education: Deal with education at all levels—from primary and secondary education to teaching and research at the university
level.
[edit] Research fellowship programs
Visiting Scholars Program: An interdisciplinary research fellowship housed at the headquarter of the Academy in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a purpose is to stimulate and support scholarly work by promising scholars and practitioners in the early stages of their careers and to foster exchange between an emerging generation of scholars and Academy members with shared interests.
Hellman Fellowship in Science and Technology Policy: A research fellowship for early-career professional with training in science or engineering who is interested in transitioning to a career in public policy and administration. While in residence at the headquarter of the Academy, the Hellman Fellow will work with senior scientists and policy experts on critical national and international policy issues related to science, engineering, and technology.
[edit] Awards
?Scholar-Patriot Award
This award, founded in 2000, recognizes the extraordinary contributions of individuals who share the commitment of the Academy's founders, a group of patriots who devoted their lives to promoting the arts and sciences in service to the nation.
?Founders Award
Established in the 225th anniversary year of the Academy, this award honors men, women and institutions that have advanced the ideals of the founders of the Academy. Recipients embody the spirit of the founders - a commitment to intellectual inquiry, leadership and active engagement.
?Amory Prize
Given since 1940, this prize recognizes major contributions to reproductive biology. It is supported by an endowment fund established by Mr. Francis Amory.
?Emerson-Thoreau Medal
The Emerson-Thoreau Medal was established in 1958 to give special recognition to distinguished achievement in the broad field of literature. Given at the discretion of the Council of the Academy on the recommendation of a nominating committee, the prize is awarded to a person for his or her total literary achievement rather than for a specific work.
?Award for Humanistic Studies
The American Academy Award for Humanistic Studies was established in 1975 by the Council of the Academy in an attempt to ensure that superior humanistic scholarship, despite its lower visibility to the general reading public, receives appropriate recognition. The Humanities Award complements the Emerson-Thoreau Medal for achievement in literature. Both awards are administered by a single committee of seven members of the Academy.
?Rumford Prize
Established in 1839, this is one of the oldest scientific prizes in the United States. This prize recognizes contributions to the fields of heat and light, broadly interpreted. The award now consists of a
silver-and-gold medal. The endowment was created by a bequest to the Academy from Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, in 1796.
?Talcott Parsons Prize
First awarded in 1974, this prize was established to honor the noted sociologist and former president of the Academy and is awarded for contributions to the social sciences (broadly defined). An effort is made to rotate the prize among the various social science disciplines, including law, history, and linguistics.
?Poetry Prize in Honor of May Sarton
Presented for the first time in 2008, this prize recognizes emerging poets of exceptional promise and distinguished achievement. It was established to honor the memory of longtime Academy Fellow May Sarton, a poet, novelist, and teacher who during her career encouraged the work of young poets.
[edit] National Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences
In 2011, a bipartisan group of Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives called on the Academy to organize a national committee, prepare a report, and recommend concrete, actionable steps to ensure the nation’s excellence in the humanities and the social sciences.
At the request of the Congress, the Academy has created the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences to claim a space in the national dialogue for the humanities and the social sciences and to recommend specific steps that government, schools and universities, cultural institutions, businesses, and philanthropies can take to support and strengthen these areas of knowledge.[8]