text:
Report - Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences
mesa.arizona.edu
Humanities,
Academy,
Elected,
Institute,
Programs,
Chairman,
Www.mesa.arizona.edu
of arts & sciences
The Humanities and Social Sciences
for a vibrant, competitive, and secure nation
Who will lead America into a bright future
Citizens who are educated in the broadest possible sense, so that they
can participate in their own governance and engage with the world.
An adaptable and creative workforce. Experts in national security,
equipped with the cultural understanding, knowledge of social dynamics,
and language proficiency to lead our foreign service and military through
complex global conflicts. Elected officials and a broader public who
exercise civil political discourse, founded on an appreciation of the
ways our differences and commonalities have shaped our rich history.
We must prepare the next generation to be these future leaders.
commission on the humanities and social sciences
american academy of arts & sciences
© 2013 by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The views expressed in this volume are those held by the contributors and are not necessarily those of
the Officers and Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The Heart of the Matter is available online at http://www.amacad.org.
Please direct inquiries to:
136 Irving Street
Email: aaas@amacad.org
www.amacad.org
5 Members of the ong>Commissionong> on the Humanities and Social Sciences
6 Acknowledgments
15 Introduction
21 Chapter 1: k-12 Education
29 Chapter 2: Two- and Four-Year Colleges
37 Chapter 3: Research
47 Chapter 4: Cultural Institutions and Lifelong Learning
55 Chapter 5: International Security and Competitiveness
63 Appendix I: Letters of Request from Congress
67 Appendix II: Biographies of ong>Commissionong> Members
78 Appendix III: ong>Commissionong> Subcommittees
80 Appendix IV: ong>Commissionong> Forums
85 Appendix V: Further Information and Resources
Members of the ong>Commissionong> on the
Cochairs
Richard H. Brodhead, President,
John W. Rowe, retired Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer,
Exelon Corporation
Danielle S. Allen, Professor of Political
Science, Institute for Advanced Study
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of
Philosophy, Princeton University
Norman R. Augustine, retired Chairman
Robert M. Berdahl, former President,
Association of American Universities
Leslie C. Berlowitz, President, American
Academy of Arts and Sciences
Robert J. Birgeneau, former Chancellor,
Philip Bredesen, Jr., former Governor
of Tennessee
David Brooks, Journalist,
Louise H. Bryson, Chair Emerita,
J. Paul Getty Trust
Ken Burns, Director and Producer,
Florentine Films
Tom Campbell, Dean, Chapman
University School of Law; former U.S.
Representative from California
Francisco Cigarroa, Chancellor,
G. Wayne Clough, Secretary,
James Cuno, President and Chief
Executive Officer, J. Paul Getty Trust
Gerald Early, Professor of Modern Letters,
Karl W. Eikenberry, former U.S.
Ambassador to Afghanistan; retired
U.S. Army Lieutenant General; Fellow
in International Security, Stanford
Drew Gilpin Faust, President,
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President and
Chief Executive Officer, tiaa-cref
Richard B. Freeman, Professor of
Economics, Harvard University
Dana Gioia, Professor of Poetry and
Public Culture, University of Southern
California; former Chairman, National
Endowment for the Arts
Annette Gordon-Reed, Professor of Law,
Professor of History, and Professor at
the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced
Study, Harvard University
Anthony Grafton, Professor of History,
Amy Gutmann, President,
Emmylou Harris, Musician/Songwriter
Robert M. Hauser, Executive Director,
Division of Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education, National
Research Council, National Academy
of Sciences
F. Warren Hellman†, Cofounder,
Hellman & Friedman llc
John L. Hennessy, President,
Jill A. Hornor, Director,
Sound Postings, llc
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Professor of
Communication; Director, Annenberg
Public Policy Center, University of
Rev. John I. Jenkins, President,
Steven Knapp, President,
John Lithgow, Actor
George Lucas, Producer, Screenwriter,
Director, Skywalker Properties, Ltd.
Yo-Yo Ma, Musician
Carolyn "Biddy" Martin, President,
Anthony W. Marx, President,
James McNerney, Chairman,
President, and Chief Executive Officer,
Eduardo J. Padrón, President,
Carl H. Pforzheimer iii, Manager,
Carl H. Pforzheimer and Co. llc
Earl A. Powell iii, Director, National
Hunter R. Rawlings iii, President,
John Sexton, President,
Donna E. Shalala, President, University of
Miami; former U.S. Secretary of Health
and Human Services
David J. Skorton, President,
David Souter, former Associate Justice,
Eric Sundquist, Professor of English,
Billie Tsien, Architect,
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects
Charles M. Vest, President, National
Academy of Engineering
John E. Warnock, Chairman of the Board,
Adobe Systems, Inc.
Diane P. Wood, Federal Judge, United
States Court of Appeals for the Seventh
Pauline Yu, President, American Council
of Learned Societies
† Deceased
The Heart of the Matter 5
The Heart of the Matter, a ong>Reportong> of the American Academy's ong>Commissionong> on the
Humanities and Social Sciences, is intended to advance a dialogue on the importance
of the humanities and social sciences to the future of our nation.
Following the publication of the influential National Academies report Rising Above
the Gathering Storm (2007), the scientific community has worked to strengthen education
in the stem disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
and to encourage new and expanded funding for scientific research. After a series of
meetings with government, foundation, and academic leaders in Washington, D.C.,
and around the country, members of the American Academy—leaders of universities,
learned societies, government agencies, and cultural institutions—decided to organize
a complementary effort on behalf of the humanities and social sciences.
In 2010, the Academy created the ong>Commissionong> in response to a bipartisan request
from members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives:
What are the top actions that Congress, state governments, universities, foundations,
educators, individual benefactors, and others should take now to
maintain national excellence in humanities and social scientific scholarship
and education, and to achieve long-term national goals for our intellectual
and economic well-being; for a stronger, more vibrant civil society; and for the
success of cultural diplomacy in the 21st century
The Heart of the Matter identifies three overarching goals: 1) to educate Americans in
the knowledge, skills, and understanding they will need to thrive in a twenty-first-century
democracy; 2) to foster a society that is innovative, competitive, and strong; and
3) to equip the nation for leadership in an interconnected world. These goals cannot be
achieved by science alone.
In five interrelated chapters, the report delineates the importance of the humanities
and social sciences in k-12 Education; Two- and Four-Year Colleges; Research; Cultural
Institutions and Lifelong Learning; and International Security and Competitiveness. It
advances arguments for strengthening teaching and research in the humanities and
social sciences. It recommends the expansion of lifelong learning programs. It recognizes
the urgent need to support the next generation of humanists and social scientists.
And it reaffirms the connections between the humanities and social sciences,
and the physical and biological sciences.
Ultimately, this report calls on parents, teachers, scholars, the media, and the public
at-large to join a cohesive and constructive national discussion of these issues. Many
public and private organizations contribute to the vitality of the humanities and social
sciences. Each organization has an important role in advancing the recommendations
of this report. As part of an institutional commitment to support humanistic education
for every American, the Academy plans to continue its work for the advancement
of the humanistic disciplines, providing a venue, voice, and vision for the conversation
inspired by this report.
The Academy would like to express sincere gratitude to the many members of Congress
who understand the importance of these disciplines to the nation's welfare, and especially
Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and
Representatives Tom Petri (R-Wisconsin) and David Price (D-North Carolina). From
the outset, their interest and support signaled the importance of the humanities and
social sciences to an informed and engaged citizenry.
Special thanks to the cochairs of the ong>Commissionong>, Richard H. Brodhead, President of
Duke University; and John W. Rowe, retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
of Exelon Corporation. They provided expert leadership and hands-on involvement
from the ong>Commissionong>'s earliest meetings through the release of this report. And we
thank all of the members of the ong>Commissionong> for their dedication and active participation.
(See page 5 for the complete list of members.)
Thanks as well to the many guest speakers who participated in ong>Commissionong> workshops
and meetings, including Yang Yu-liang (President, Fudan University, China),
Don Michael Randel (past President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), Jim Leach
(former Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities; former Congressman
for Iowa), Richard Laine (Division Director, Education Division, National Governors
Association), Cynthia Schneider (former U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands),
and Norman Bradburn (Senior Fellow at norc at the University of Chicago). We
are indebted as well to Russell A. Berman, past President of the Modern Language
Association, and graduate school deans from eleven research universities, who contributed
to our work. We are grateful to the Academy Fellows and ong>Commissionong> members
who organized forums around the country, and to all the panelists and attendees
at those events. (See Appendix IV for a list of speakers.)
Many organizations work on behalf of the nation's wider education enterprise and
helped to lay the foundation for the ong>Commissionong>'s work. They serve as key partners
in our ongoing efforts to advocate for the importance of the humanities and social
sciences: the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment
for the Arts, the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council, the
Institute of Museum and Library Services, the American Library Association, the
American Council of Learned Societies, the Association of American Universities,
the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the Association of American
Colleges and Universities, the Council of Independent Colleges, the American Council
on Education, the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, the Federation
of State Humanities Councils, the state humanities councils, the National Humanities
Alliance, the Social Science Research Council, and the Consortium of Social Science
Associations, among others.
Many people, including the staff of individual ong>Commissionong> members, have assisted
in the work of the ong>Commissionong> and in the production of this report, notably John
Tessitore, Phyllis Bendell, Carolyn Gerber, and their colleagues. (See page 88.)
Finally, the Academy gratefully acknowledges the National Endowment for the
Humanities for partial support of the Humanities Indicators, cited throughout this
report, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New
York for their support of this ong>Commissionong>.
We dedicate this publication to all Americans—every child, student, young adult,
worker, leader, and senior citizen—who look to the humanities and social sciences for
the skills, information, and sources of creativity that our founders saw as the basis for
a democratic, prosperous, and secure nation.
Leslie C. Berlowitz
President and William T. Golden Chair
As we strive to create a more civil public discourse, a more adaptable and creative
workforce, and a more secure nation, the humanities and social sciences are
the heart of the matter, the keeper of the republic—a source of national memory and
civic vigor, cultural understanding and communication, individual fulfillment and the
ideals we hold in common.
The humanities remind us where we have been and help us envision where we are
going. Emphasizing critical perspective and imaginative response, the humanities—
including the study of languages, literature, history, film, civics, philosophy, religion,
and the arts—foster creativity, appreciation of our commonalities and our differences,
and knowledge of all kinds. The social sciences reveal patterns in our lives, over time
and in the present moment. Employing the observational and experimental methods
of the natural sciences, the social sciences—including anthropology, economics, political
science and government, sociology, and psychology—examine and predict behavioral
and organizational processes. Together, they help us understand what it means to
be human and connect us with our global community.
Scientific advances have been critical to the extraordinary achievements of the past
century, and we must continue to invest in basic and applied research in the biological
and physical sciences. But we also must invest more time, energy, and resources
in research and education in the humanities and social sciences. We must recognize
that all disciplines are essential for the inventiveness, competitiveness, security, and
personal fulfillment of the American public.
Evidence of the particular needs of the humanities and social sciences now reaches us
from every sector. Parents are not reading to their children as frequently as they once
did. Humanities teachers, particularly in k-12 history, are even less well-trained than
teachers of stem subjects. And funding to support international education has been
cut by 41 percent in four years. Each of these pieces of evidence suggests a problem;
together, they suggest a pattern that will have grave, long-term consequences for the
nation.
At the very moment when China and some European nations are seeking to replicate
our model of broad education in the humanities, social sciences, and natural
sciences—as a stimulus to innovation and a source of social cohesion—we are instead
narrowing our focus and abandoning our sense of what education has been and should
continue to be—our sense of what makes America great.
This report advances three goals:
Educate Americans in the knowledge, skills, and understanding they will
need to thrive in a twenty-first-century democracy.
The humanities and social sciences provide an intellectual framework and context for
understanding and thriving in a changing world. When we study these subjects, we
learn not only what but how and why.
• Support full literacy as the foundation for all learning. The nation depends on a
fully literate populace—on citizens whose reading, writing, speaking, and analytical
skills improve over a lifetime. These are among the principal skills that the humanities
and social sciences teach, and they must be nurtured at every level of education.
• Invest in the preparation of citizens. Democratic decision-making is based on a
shared knowledge of history, civics, and social studies. A thorough grounding in
these subjects allows citizens to participate meaningfully in the democratic process—as
voters, informed consumers, and productive workers.
• Increase access to online resources, including teaching materials. Foundations, private
donors, libraries, and museums should partner with federal, state, and local
education leaders—as well as with individual scholars—to help ensure that quality
materials reach all students, especially those in economically disadvantaged k-12
10 Executive Summary
Foster a society that is innovative, competitive, and strong.
The ability to adapt and thrive in a changing world is based not only on instruction for
specific jobs of today but also on the development of professional flexibility and longterm
qualities of mind: inquisitiveness, perceptiveness, the ability to put a received
idea to a new purpose, and the capacity to share and build ideas with others.
• Increase investment in research and discovery. To ensure the vibrancy of humanities
and social science programs at all levels, the federal government should significantly
increase funding designated for these purposes through the National Endowment
for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and other relevant agencies.
Because state and federal budgets are currently stretched to fund more programs
with fewer dollars, a wider community of philanthropic individuals and foundations
should also join the effort.
• Create cohesive curricula to ensure basic competencies. To ensure that graduates of
k-12 education, as well as two-year and four-year colleges, are prepared for a satisfying
and productive adult life, scholars and teachers should begin to reverse the trend
toward an ever-more fragmented curriculum. Educators should focus new attention
on the "qualities of mind"—problem-solving, critical analysis, and communication
skills—that are embedded in all disciplines.
• Strengthen support for teachers. The ong>Commissionong> encourages the creation of a
Humanities Master Teacher Corps to complement the stem Master Teacher Corps
recently proposed by the White House. In addition, enhanced partnerships between
elementary and secondary schools and higher education institutions, including
continuing education opportunities for k-12 teachers and loan-forgiveness programs
to encourage the entry of advanced-degree holders into k-12 classrooms, can help
enrich teaching at every level.
• Encourage all disciplines to address "Grand Challenges." The ong>Commissionong> joins the
National Academies' National Research Council, the National Science Foundation,
and the National Institutes of Health in recommending that foundations, universities,
research centers, and government agencies draw in humanists and social scientists
together with physical and biological scientists to address major global challenges.
Humanists and social scientists are critical in providing cultural, historical,
and ethical expertise and empirical analysis to efforts that address issues such as the
provision of clean air and water, food, health, energy, and universal education.
The Heart of the Matter 11
• Communicate the importance of research to the public. Scholars and the public will
both benefit if scholars project the broader implications of their research and writing,
and if they articulate these implications for a wider audience. Scholars in all
disciplines should embrace the chance to connect with the larger community.
Equip the nation for leadership in an interconnected world.
The humanities and social sciences teach us about ourselves and others. They enable
us to participate in a global economy that requires understanding of diverse cultures
and sensitivity to different perspectives. And they make it possible for people around
the world to work together to address issues such as environmental sustainability and
global health challenges.
• Promote language learning. State and local school districts should establish programs
to increase language learning, including immersion programs for second
languages. Programs might include blended learning technologies to facilitate language
learning in schools that lack funding or infrastructure for additional classes.
Colleges should build on and expand these competencies.
• Expand education in international affairs and transnational studies. The ong>Commissionong>
recommends the creation of a new "National Competitiveness Act"—which,
like the original National Defense Education Act, would include funding for education
in international affairs and transnational studies. In addition to stable support
for existing study-abroad programs, this act would help revive endangered disciplines
and prepare citizens for a global economy.
• Support study abroad and international exchange programs. Every undergraduate
should be encouraged to have a significant international experience. Because
government agencies including the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce
as well as the U.S. military require the kinds of expertise that students can acquire
only through advanced study and immersion in other cultures, the federal government
should increase support for the Fulbright Program and the Department of
Education's Title VI international and language programs, among others.
• Develop a "Culture Corps." Encourage cities and states, libraries, and other organizations
like the Corporation for National & Community Service to develop a
"Culture Corps." The corps would match interested adults (retirees, veterans, artists,
library and museum personnel) with schools, community centers, and other organizations
to transmit humanistic and social scientific expertise from one generation
to the next.
These goals invite all stakeholders, public and private alike, to embrace a new commitment
to collaboration, and a new sense of mutual obligation to the role of the humanities
and social sciences for a vibrant democracy.
We live in a world characterized by change—and therefore a world
dependent on the humanities and social sciences. How do we understand
and manage change if we have no notion of the past How do
we understand ourselves if we have no notion of a society, culture, or
world different from the one in which we live A fully balanced curriculum—including
the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences—provides
opportunities for integrative thinking and imagination,
for creativity and discovery, and for good citizenship. The humanities
and social sciences are not merely elective, nor are they elite or elitist.
They go beyond the immediate and instrumental to help us understand
the past and the future. They are necessary and they require our support
in challenging times as well as in times of prosperity. They are
critical to our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, as described by our
nation's founders. They are The Heart of the Matter.
[The objects of education are] To give to every citizen the information
he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable
him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas,
his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve by reading, his
morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and
country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to
him by either; To know his rights…And, in general, to observe with
intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he
shall be placed.
—Thomas Jefferson, from "ong>Reportong> of the ong>Commissionong>ers for the University of Virginia," August 4, 1818
can participate in their own governance and engage with the world. An
adaptable and creative workforce. Experts in national security, equipped
with the cultural understanding, knowledge of social dynamics, and language
proficiency to lead our foreign service and military through complex
global conflicts. Elected officials and a broader public who exercise
civil political discourse, founded on an appreciation of the ways our differences
and commonalities have shaped our rich history. We must prepare
the next generation to be these future leaders.
The nation's founders understood that their experiment in republican government—a
government bound by law and rooted in the consent of the governed—
depends on citizens who can think critically, understand their own history, and give
voice to their beliefs while respecting the views of others. These qualities are not born,
but taught, beginning with our youngest children. In fact, our first three presidents
emphasized general education as an indispensable component of future prosperity. 1
A general education is just as important today, and it is just as clear that it must include
the humanities and the social sciences. The humanities—including the study of languages,
literature, history, jurisprudence, philosophy, comparative religion, ethics, and
the arts—are disciplines of memory and imagination, telling us where we have been
and helping us envision where we are going. The social sciences—including anthropology,
archaeology, economics, political science, sociology, and psychology—are disciplines
of behavioral, interpersonal, and organizational processes, employing empirical
and scientific methods to reveal patterns in the lives of real people.
Together, they provide an intellectual framework and context for understanding and
thriving in a changing world, and they connect us with our global community. When
we study these subjects, we learn not only what but how and why. The humanities and
social sciences teach us to question, analyze, debate, evaluate, interpret, synthesize,
compare evidence, and communicate—skills that are critically important in shaping
adults who can become independent thinkers.
We live in a nation that has been built—thought by thought, discovery by discovery—on
a foundation of humanistic and social scientific scholarship, from our founding
rooted in Enlightenment philosophy to a future informed by the compilation and
analysis of Big Data. 2 At the very moment when China and some European nations are
seeking to replicate the U.S. model of broad education—as a stimulus to innovation
and a source of social cohesion—we are instead narrowing our focus and abandoning
our sense of what education has been and should continue to be—our sense of what
makes America great. 3 We must ensure that the humanities and social sciences continue
to be an integral part of American education and that their value to our nation,
and to America's place in the world, is recognized and fully supported.
Our distinguished tradition of broad education—drawing on the humanities and
social and natural sciences, and promoting connections among them—has stimulated
and nurtured America's extraordinary record of literary, artistic, political, scientific,
industrial, and technological innovation. These achievements were fostered through
a series of strategic decisions stretching over two centuries: from Thomas Jefferson's
insistence that the state-funded University of Virginia should "follow truth wherever
it may lead"; to the Morrill Act of 1862, creating the nation's public university system;
to the federal government's decision to fund peacetime research, following the
publication of the 1945 Endless Frontier report; to the 1965 creation of the National
Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Each of
these decisions broadened access and expanded the community of educated people in
the nation. Each created new partnerships among scholars of the humanities, social
sciences, and natural sciences. And each advanced a research and education agenda
that led to new knowledge and prompted innovation in all fields.
Today, our need for a broadly literate population is more urgent than ever. As citizens,
we need to absorb an ever-growing body of information and to assess the sources of
that information. As workers, we need to adapt to an ever-accelerating rate of technological
change and to reflect on the implications of these changes. As members of a
global community, we need to look beyond our borders to communicate and interact
with individuals from societies and cultures different from our own. As a nation, we
need to provide an educational foundation for our future stability and prosperity—
drawing on all areas of knowledge.
To be sure, the nation must devote the resources necessary to sustain a strong scientific
and technological enterprise. Education, funding, and infrastructure in the physical
and biological sciences have been critical to extraordinary advances of the past
century. But few would suggest that these disciplines constitute a complete education.
The humanities and social sciences are just as essential for the inventiveness, insights,
career flexibility, and personal fulfillment of the American people. But we are confronted
with mounting evidence, from every sector, of a troubling pattern of inattention
that will have grave consequences for the nation:
• For a variety of reasons, parents are not reading to their children as frequently
as they once did. 4
• Humanities teachers, particularly in k-12 history, are less well-trained than
teachers in other subject areas. 5
• And even as we recognize that we live in a shrinking world and participate
in a global economy, federal funding to support international training and
education has been cut by 41 percent in four years. 6
It is time to recommit ourselves to our distinctly American form of education: broad,
comprehensive, and balanced, recognizing the interdependence of all areas of knowledge.
This report seeks to remind Americans of the vital importance of such an education,
and to urge the changes that can make it possible. In an era of diminished
resources, we are mindful that every priority has a price, and the recommendations
of this report enter a political environment already burdened with competing priorities.
For this reason, each recommendation invites all stakeholders, public and private
alike, to embrace a new commitment to collaboration and a new sense of mutual obligation
to the role of the humanities and social sciences for a vibrant democracy.
This report offers recommendations to advance three goals:
1. Educate Americans in the knowledge, skills, and understanding they will
2. Foster a society that is innovative, competitive, and strong.
3. Equip the nation for leadership in an interconnected world.
1 George Washington advocated
the creation of a national university.
Thomas Jefferson founded the
University of Virginia, a public
institution dedicated to free inquiry.
And John Adams created the
American Academy of Arts and
Sciences to support research and
scholarship as "necessary to the
wealth, peace, independence and
happiness of a people" (see http://
www.amacad.org/about/charter
.aspx).
2 See Craig Fisher, ed., "Bringing
People Into Focus: How Social,
Behavioral and Economic Research
Addresses National Challenges"
(Arlington, Va.: National Science
Foundation, April 5, 2013), http://
www.nsf.gov/about/congress/
reports/sbe_research.pdf.
3 Karin Fischer, "Bucking Cultural
Norms, Asia Tries Liberal
Arts," The Chronicle of Higher Education,
February 5, 2012; Brian
P. Coppola and Yong Zhao, "U.S.
Education in Chinese Lock Step
Bad Move," The Chronicle of Higher
Education, February 5, 2012;
Simeon Bennett and Oliver Staley,
"Yale Joins Duke in March to Singapore
as Asia Pours Money into
Education," Bloomberg, December
14, 2010; and Mara Hvistendahl,
"Less Politics, More Poetry: China's
Colleges Eye the Liberal Arts," The
Chronicle of Higher Education,
January 3, 2010. At a ong>Commissionong>
meeting in San Francisco in December
2011, Yang Yu-Liang, the
president of Fudan University in
Shanghai, reiterated China's interest
in enhancing the study of the
humanities. See also Aisha Labi,
"A New Notion in Europe: The
Liberal-Arts College," The Chronicle
of Higher Education, May 8,
2011; and Michael Roth, "Connection
in China–I," Inside Higher Ed,
February 26, 2013.
4 http://www.humanitiesindi
cators.org/content/hrcoVA.aspx
#topV2.
cators.org/content/hrcoIC.aspx
#topI9.
6 http://www.nhalliance.org/
advocacy/funding-priorities/
international-education-pro
grams-fy2013.shtml.
The reason some of us are so committed to liberal education is not
because we want students to wander through obscure and irrelevant
fields of study in a meaningless quest for "breadth" but because from
first-hand experience we know the immense, life-long benefits of
rigorous study of the liberal arts and sciences.
Among other benefits such study strengthens clarity of written and
oral expression, critical and analytic reasoning, and the creativity to
think outside the box—survival skills in a tough and ever-changing
economy.
—From W. Robert Connor (www.wrobertconnor.com), News & Observer, November 12, 2012
Strengthen Literacy
Developing broadly capable citizens requires a thoughtful, coordinated approach,
beginning with the earliest days of school. The first goal should be to establish a
foundation of literacy. Reading and writing are the building blocks of learning, making
possible all the rest of our education and development. From being able to sound out
words on a page, we advance to be able to analyze, interpret, ask questions, make connections,
and express our thoughts in words. In its most capacious definition, literacy
means being able to read the world, as we learn how to understand, compare, draw
inferences, and communicate. These foundational skills come into play whenever we
engage with the world, whether in admiring a painting or poring over a news website.
Even in a digital age, the spoken and written word remains the most basic unit of our
interactions, the very basis of our humanity.
Hence, a report with goals like ours must register, at the very outset, a call for a commitment
to literacy. Overall literacy rates in the United States have remained steady for
decades, although the unacceptably large number of functionally illiterate Americans
is cause for grave concern. 1 In modern-day America, people who cannot read or write
are effectively disenfranchised; it is impossible for them to live up to their potential or
to give society the full measure of what they might have contributed.
As our political, social, and economic strength depends on a fully literate populace,
it therefore depends on robust teaching in the humanities and social sciences, since
these are among the principal skills that these subjects teach. While there should be
support for literacy programs for people of all ages, the most strategic investment will
be at the k-12 level.
In its Common Core State Standards Initiative, the National Governors Association
has outlined "the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college
and careers." We applaud the thinking behind this plan, which defines foundational
skills in communications and in mathematics. Although it is too soon to predict
all the outcomes that will result from nationwide implementation, the proposed Core
makes communication—reading, writing, and speaking—a fundamental element of
education, opening doors for more advanced learning. 2 It emphasizes literacy as a way
of learning about the world: in other words, literacy is not the "end" but the beginning
to a voyage of understanding.
Prepare Citizens
The strength of a republic depends on the ability of its citizens to participate fully in
decision-making processes. Citizens guide the nation by making informed decisions
as voters, jurors, and consumers. Every American sector, from federal to local government,
from the nonprofit to the corporate sector, has an interest in the creation of a
broadly educated, well-informed, articulate citizenry.
Many studies reveal that the American education system does not at present perform
this function adequately. Fewer high school civics courses are now offered than in the
past, and the time devoted to teaching the subject in lower grades has been reduced. 3
On the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (naep) Civics
Assessment, more than two-thirds of all American students scored below "proficient."
In 2010, moreover, only 45 percent of high school students demonstrated at least a
basic understanding of U.S. history. 4
The ong>Commissionong> therefore recommends a new dedication to "participatory readiness"
as an educational goal. We urge a nationwide commitment to preparing k-12 students
for full participation in a democratic society. The ong>Commissionong> commends the
Common Core State Standards Initiative for its inclusion of history and civics in the
basic literacy curriculum. It promotes the competencies necessary for full civic participation
in American society: voting, serving on juries, interpreting current events,
developing respect for and understanding of differences, along with an ability to articulate
one's sense of the common good. State departments of education would perform
a great service to the nation by following the Common Core initiative and revising
their civics standards to provide reasonable and enforceable guidelines for k-12
teachers, including baseline competencies in history, government, and ethics. 5 Many
partners—corporations, news and entertainment media, journalists, professional
In over half the states in the union, civics education is not required. The only reason we have
public school education in America is because in the early days of the country, our leaders
thought we had to teach our young generation about citizenship….If we don't take every
generation of young people and make sure they understand that they are an essential part of
government, we won't survive.
—Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, from an interview in The Washington Post,
24 k-12 Education
organizations, religious and cultural institutions—should work with schools to create
curricular materials that promote the basic literacies and civic skills that sustain a
robust public forum for the exchange of ideas. Public libraries and museums will be
particularly important in this regard as they build free online collections that can be
made available to school districts with limited financial resources. 6
To engage with these disciplines, to understand and absorb their lessons, we need the
help of creative and dedicated teachers. Teachers serve as guides, inspirers, and points
of first contact with the wider world of ideas. As we readjust k-12 curricula to prepare
students for today and tomorrow, we must find new ways to support our educators and
provide them with the resources they need to do their jobs well.
Currently, the different levels and sectors of American education work for the most
part in isolation, with each group segmented from the next, unaware of their commonalities.
In fact, primary and secondary school teachers belong to a wider intellectual
community that also includes higher education faculty and the leaders of cultural
institutions. All produce and transmit knowledge, and all foster the skills that their
students will need to thrive in the twenty-first century. This ong>Commissionong> recommends
a nationwide effort to reconnect our k-12 schools and teachers to the broader scholarly
community, as well as an integrated approach to education reform and teacher
professionalization.
By working in concert, universities, colleges, and k-12 schools will strengthen one
another and share complementary resources. A true teaching network—from kindergarten
through higher education—will collect and share new methodologies, new
discoveries, and new student needs. College and university faculty should reach out
to their teaching colleagues at k-12 schools, and teachers should be encouraged to
participate in the broader intellectual exchange that has been, for decades, the purview
solely of higher education. Such collaborations will permit the development of a
seamless learning continuum, so that students moving from one level to another will
find an extended and deepened learning experience that builds on the previous level. 7
Cultural and community organizations, such as museums and public historic sites,
can be valuable partners in this network as well.
As we work to lift the professional status of teachers, we must also lift the professional
qualifications of teachers. Teachers of subject areas in k-12 education must be proficient
in their subjects as determined either by degree attainment or standardized
examinations. Currently, progress toward this goal has been uneven: fewer than 30
percent of public high school students are taught by a history teacher with a degree
and certification in history. 8 Given the importance of historical knowledge to a functioning
democracy, this fact gives cause for concern. High-level training in the appropriate
subject matter is of critical importance in ensuring the continued strength of
our nation's teaching corps, and current teachers should be provided with resources
for professional development. We should also think creatively about expanding the
pool of qualified teachers. The ong>Commissionong> encourages states and school districts
to facilitate the entry of advanced-degree holders into k-12 teaching through revised
certification procedures and fellowships as well as state and federal loan-forgiveness
programs. 9
In July 2012, President Obama proposed the creation of a stem Master Teacher Corps,
based on a recommendation from the President's Council of Advisors on Science
and Technology (pcast). The purpose of the corps is to "applaud our Nation's stem
History Achievement of 4th, 8th, and 12th Graders as Measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (naep),
Percentage of Students Scoring at naep Achievement Level
* 4th Grade * 8th Grade 12th Grade
1994 2010** 1994 2010** 1994 2010**
Achievement Level: ■ Advanced ■ Proficient ■ Basic ■ Below Basic
* The percentage of students scoring at or above this level was significantly different (p < .05) from the percentage in 1994.
** Accommodations permitted for English language learners and students with disabilities.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress,
The Nation's ong>Reportong> Card: U.S. History 2010, nces 2011-468 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2011), 2 fig. C.
educators, retain talented individuals by incentivizing stem teaching, and encourage
teacher cooperation to improve stem education across the country." 10 This program
would provide an important first step in a broader national effort to reward
good teachers, and to make teaching a more attractive and exciting profession. The
ong>Commissionong> commends this initiative and urges the creation of a similar program
that would inspire and invigorate teachers in the humanities.
Finally, educators at every level and in every subject area need resources, both physical
and online, to stimulate learning, inspire student participation, and provide up-todate
content. Teaching tool kits like those available from the National Endowment
for the Humanities (http://edsitement.neh.gov/), the National Humanities Center, the
National Science Foundation, teachinghistory.org, iCivics, Edutopia, and the Gilder
Lehrman Institute of American History can be invaluable resources, particularly for
educators in grades six through twelve who are primarily responsible for the instruction
of an informed citizenry. Such resources should be supported vigorously and disseminated
widely. Foundations and private donors can be effective partners in these
efforts; by underwriting the proliferation of free, online depositories for teaching
materials, they might alleviate the strain on federal, state, and local education budgets
and help ensure that quality materials reach students in economically disadvantaged
k-12 schools. 11 •
The ong>Commissionong> invites every American to join in the effort to strengthen
the education that prepares future democratic citizens. Parents and
grandparents, teachers and scholars, leaders of business and government:
all have an interest in the outcome of this effort, and each has a
unique role to play in encouraging the development of a sound, basic
education—an education that includes the humanities and social sciences—for
everyone.
1 See the key findings of the 2003
National Assessment of Adult Literacy,
available at http://nces.ed
.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp.
2 http://www.corestandards.org/
ela-Literacy/introduction/
students-who-are-college-andcareer-ready-in-reading-writingspeaking-listening-language.
See also http://www.achieve.org/
achieving-common-core.
3 See Jonathan Gould, ed.,
Guardian of Democracy: The Civic
Mission of Schools (Silver Spring,
Md.: Campaign for the Civic Mission
of Schools, in partnership
with the Leonore Annenberg
Institute for Civics, Annenberg
Pennsylvania; the National Conference
on Citizenship; the Center
for Information and Research on
Civic Learning and Engagement,
Tufts University; and the American
Bar Association Division for Public
Education, October 2011), 27.
4 See http://www.humanities
indicators.org/content/hrcoIA
.aspx#topI3; and National
Center for Education Statistics,
"The Nation's ong>Reportong> Card:
Summary of Major Findings"
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department
of Education, 2010),
http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/
civics_2010/summary.asp.
5 On assessment, see Karen
Shanton, "New ong>Reportong> Shows
Little Testing of Civic Education,"
The Thicket at State Legislatures,
October 17, 2012, http://ncsl
.typepad.com/the_thicket/2012/10/
new-report-on-the-state-of-civic
-education.html.
6 With a caveat: see Jeffrey R.
Young, "'Bandwidth Divide' Could
Bar Some People From Online
Learning," The Chronicle of Higher
Education, March 4, 2013.
7 See Libby A. Nelson, "The
Common Core on Campus," Inside
Higher Ed, May 3, 2013.
8 http://humanitiesindicators
.org/content/hrcoImageFrame
.aspxi=I-9a.jpg&o=hrcoIC.aspx
__topI9.
9 Many holders of advanced
degrees—who often have extensive
teaching experience on college
campuses—struggle to find traditional
academic jobs; see http://
www.humanitiesindicators.org/
content/hrcoIIIC.aspx#topIII6; and
Peter Conn, "We Need to Acknowledge
the Realities of Employment
in the Humanities," The Chronicle
of Higher Education, April 4, 2010.
10 http://www.whitehouse.gov/
blog/2012/07/18/president-obamaannounces-new-plan-create-stemmaster-teaching-corps.
11 The Christian A. Johnson Endeavor
Fund, for example, helps
support the National Humanities
Center's education programs,
which include the TeacherServe
website: http://www.nationalhu
manitiescenter.org/tserve/index
.htm.
Two- and Four-Year
If we aspire to provide a four-year college education that transcends
the acquisition of specific job skills, we need to be able to specify
what the content of such an education would be, and what would
constitute the measure of its assessment. If, for instance, we actually
believe that college students should receive a "liberal" education,
what do we have to do to ensure that they are receiving it
—From Stanley Katz, "The 'Best-Educated' Country," The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2010
Make a Clear and Compelling Case for the Liberal Arts
Throughout the twentieth century, more Americans went to college in each new
generation, as the evolving economy required more highly developed mental skills.
Thanks to the growth of higher education, the United States maintained its leadership
as a center for dynamism, creativity, and invention in fields ranging from consumer
products to biotechnology to film. And as the doors to college opened, more and more
Americans won access to the fuller life that education brings.
Both of these results—the public benefit of an innovative culture and the private benefit
of enriched understanding and enlarged selfhood—draw on a mix of elements in
the educational process. Both are furthered by an education that opens our minds in
multiple directions, engages our natural powers of curiosity and ingenuity in a variety
of ways, and puts us in a position to synthesize separate bits of knowledge to form new
insights. 1
The natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities all feed this mental
empowerment, and American higher education has long developed these powers of
mind together. This has been true, in different ways, of the many and varied institutions
that make up the higher education system. Liberal arts colleges are a practically
unique American institution. America's public and private universities, numbered
among the best in the world, offer variants on a liberal arts model of education, not
the early push to specialize found in most of the developed world. The community colleges
that serve almost half of all students in higher education train men and women
in job skills; but they also offer broader exposures that develop the talent for a lifetime
of career advancement and often a desire for further education.
The ability to provide Americans—every citizen—the opportunity to reach colleges and
universities and postsecondary institutions is crucial. Community colleges have become
the door of opportunity for most people in America today. Half of the undergraduates in
America are in community colleges; they are the great equalizers.…If there is one area where
the social sciences and the humanities are important, more than the Ivy Leagues, more than
the Smithsonian, it is right there, where the masses of Americans have their first chance to
achieve the American dream.
—Eduardo J. Padrón, President, Miami Dade College
Early in the twenty-first century, we are living with a paradox. It is broadly acknowledged
that more and more Americans will need quality higher education to live up to
their full potential: the opportunities and rewards open to those who lack this training
have declined steadily as the knowledge economy has taken hold. But at the same time,
questions about higher education and its worth are mounting. There has been rising
public concern about the cost of college, 2 the debt burden students can incur, 3 and
whether colleges actually provide the skills students need to thrive. 4 These concerns
have caused some to question the liberal arts tradition itself, on the grounds that its
elements do not all contribute visibly and directly to near-term employment. But this
concern misses the ways in which the liberal arts train people to adapt and change
over a lifetime.
It is important for higher education to face these challenges squarely. The affordability
of education is an issue for us all, and the problem is not going to go away in the
economically constrained world we inhabit. So colleges must do their part to control
costs and assure that resources are aligned with their fundamental mission. But even
as they do so, colleges have important work to do in explaining what the value of their
education consists of, and in assuring that they are living up to this promise.
At a time when economic anxiety is driving the public toward a narrow concept of
education focused on short-term payoffs, it is imperative that colleges, universities,
and their supporters make a clear and convincing case for the value of liberal arts education.
5 This case needs to be made to every relevant audience: students, parents, governors
and legislators, and the public at large. 6 These audiences need to be reminded
that the most successful Americans have typically benefited from such broad-based
training, with early experiences often paying off in surprising ways; and that the ability
to adapt and thrive in a world certain to keep changing is based not on instruction
in the specific jobs of today but in the developing of long-term qualities of mind:
inquisitiveness, perceptiveness, the ability to put a received idea to a new purpose, and
the ability to share and build ideas with a diverse world of others. 7
Colleges and universities need to assure themselves and the public that they are actually
providing the broad-based, integrative model of education that they claim to offer.
This will take leadership from administrators, but faculty also have a crucial role in
this proposition. Since college and university faculty often preside over the curriculum,
they must take responsibility for assessing offerings in light of high liberal arts
ideals. Courses narrowly tied to academic and research specializations can be extraordinarily
valuable to students, letting them experience firsthand the living work of discovery.
But college and university curricula must also offer the broad-gauged, integrative
courses on which liberal education can be grounded, and such foundations need
to be offered by compelling teachers.
32 Two- and Four-Year Colleges
Employers endorse the concept
of a liberal education.
Depends:
Three in four would recommend
the concept of a liberal education
to their own child or a young
person they know.
Employers who were surveyed were given the following definition of "liberal education":
"This approach to a college education provides both broad knowledge in
a variety of areas of study and knowledge in a specific major or field of interest. It
also helps students develop a sense of social responsibility, as well as intellectual
and practical skills that span all areas of study, such as communication, analytical,
and problem-solving skills, and a demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and
skills in real-world settings."
For the results presented in the top graph, employers were asked, "How important
is it for today's colleges to provide this type of education" For the results presented
in the bottom graph, employers were asked, "If you were advising your
child or a young person you know about the type of college education they should
seek in order to achieve professional and career success in today's global economy,
would you recommend they pursue an education like the one described [above]"
Source: It Takes More Than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success, an online
survey conducted on behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities by Hart Research
Associates, April 10, 2013.
We are not arguing for a return to the "general education" model of some idealized
past. Arguing over what things students should know and what mental skills they need
to develop are worthy projects for great educators, and the curriculum that emerges
from this debate will allow plenty of room for creativity, both in its design and in its
delivery. The key is defining a vision of education that meets students' needs as broadly
capable people equipped for the lives that await them, not one that simply mirrors the
map of current faculty specializations.
Many colleges and universities have already created strategic planning groups and
reform measures to align the curriculum with their broad goals for undergraduate
education. 8 The ong>Commissionong> applauds such efforts and encourages expanded dialogue
across campuses to share best practices. We also applaud efforts to promote
greater integration across curricular domains. 9 Each institution will have its own challenges
and possible solutions for keeping domains of knowledge in a mutually energizing
balance. Many colleges are experimenting with new interdisciplinary majors.
Other schools, through novel major/minor combinations, are promoting humanities
and social science opportunities for students whose major attention is elsewhere.
Interdisciplinary research centers, which often stand at the crossroads of the arts and
sciences, offer opportunities for undergraduates to take a direct role in exploration,
and to bring the parts of their study into a coherent whole. 10
Business leaders today are looking for a diversity of skills, and not just technical knowledge.
Pivotal right now in financial services—a relationship business—is trust built around empathy,
understanding, listening skills, critical thinking. It's not enough in financial services to
simply be able to work with a spreadsheet. You need to convince your individual or institutional
clients to take the right set of actions. The skills that come out of the humanities, the
softer relationship skills—listening, empathy, an appreciation for context—are incredibly
important.
Of the individuals in my organization who receive the most consistently positive feedback—
who are most valued by our clients—only a sliver ever went to business school. Most of them
learned their financial activities at our firm, but came into the firm with a much broader
range of skills.
—Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer, tiaa-cref
Education and the Digital Age
Information technology, along with new research in human behavior and brain science,
will have a transformative effect on teaching and learning. It is already clear that
online instruction will open the doors of learning for millions of people who come to
it in varied circumstances for thousands of different purposes. As online instruction
becomes a free-standing teaching mode of its own, the social sciences and humanities
should embrace the opportunity to reach new audiences—audiences who in many
cases do not have access to campus-based education or official enrolled-student status.
Since the ong>Commissionong> began tracking online courses, offerings in poetry, history,
philosophy, and classical mythology have joined those offered in computer science and
technology in reaching massive audiences online. 11 These open online courses vividly
demonstrate the appetite for humanistic learning, which the general public and even
colleges themselves can easily underestimate; and they show that this hunger for contact
with the thought and expression of others across time does not end with student
years, but rather is a lifelong passion.
As colleges and universities develop digital media resources to increase access to a
worldwide public, gifted teachers and scholars from all domains of study will experiment
with these methods and explore their new powers. Clearly, we are on the eve
of a new age of teaching and learning, the dimensions of which we can only begin to
envision.
There is no reason liberal arts education cannot flourish in a new environment
using new tools. The future will still need the human skills
that the liberal arts promote, and perhaps will need them more than
ever: skills in communication, interpretation, linking and synthesizing
domains of knowledge, and imbuing facts with meaning and value.
1 Richard H. Brodhead, "Rebuilding
the Public's Confidence in
Higher Ed," Duke Today, March 21,
2 From 1990 to 2012, the net
price of private nonprofit fouryear
institutions increased 30.06
percent. For public institutions, the
net price increased 63.65 percent.
See http://trends.collegeboard.org/
college-pricing/figures-tables/
net-price#Average%20Net%20
Price%20%E2%80%94%20Public%
20Institutions.
3 In "Conservatives and the
Higher Ed 'Bubble,'" Inside Higher
Ed, November 15, 2012, Jonathan
Marks cites "a 2010 New York Times
story about Cortney Munna, an
N.Y.U. graduate who is $100,000 in
debt for her religious and women's
studies degree.…[But] the New
York Fed puts median student
loan debt at $12,800 (the mean is
$23,300). The New York Fed thinks
rising debt and defaults are very
serious problems. But pointing to
an outlier as if she were a representative
example makes those very
serious problems look like a crisis."
See also Peter Coy, "Student Loans:
Debt for Life," Businessweek, September
4 For a discussion of return
on investment, see Kevin Kiley,
"Making the Case," Inside Higher
Ed, November 19, 2012; William
Pannapacker, "A Liberal Arts
Foundation," The New York Times,
March 24, 2013; and "Are Professors
'Selling Students Short'" Inside
Higher Ed, March 21, 2013.
5 See Steve Yoder, "Students
Are Fleeing Liberal Arts–How It
Could Hurt the U.S.," The Fiscal
Times, January 9, 2013; Richard
Morrill, "What Is the Value of Liberal
Education" The Huffington
Post, November 6, 2012; and Hart
Research Associates, It Takes More
Than a Major: Employer Priorities
for College Learning and Student
Success (Washington, D.C.:
Association of American Colleges
and Universities, April 10, 2013),
http://www.aacu.org/leap/docu
ments/2013_EmployerSurvey.pdf.
See also Michael Useem, Liberal
Education and the Corporation:
The Hiring and Advancement of
College Graduates (New York: A.
de Gruyter, 1989).
6 "Students majoring in liberal
arts fields see 'significantly higher
gains in critical thinking, complex
reasoning, and writing skills over
time than students in other fields
of study'"; see Scott Jaschik, "'Academically
Adrift,'" Inside Higher
Ed, January 18, 2011, a report on
Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa,
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning
on College Campuses (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2010).
See also Alexander W. Astin, "In
'Academically Adrift,' Data Don't
Back Up Sweeping Claim," The
7 For the economic benefit of a
college degree, see Anthony P. Carnevale,
Jeff Strohl, Michelle Melton,
What's It Worth The Economic
Value of College Majors (Washington,
D.C.: Center on Education and
the Workplace, Georgetown University,
May 2011); and http://www
.humanitiesindicators.org/content/
hrcoIIIB.aspx#topIII4. See also
Scott Jaschik, "Jobs, Value and Affirmative
Action: A Survey of Parents
About College," Inside Higher
Ed, March 20, 2013; and Meghan
Florian, "Notes From an Employed
Philosopher," The Chronicle of
Higher Education, April 1, 2013.
8 Among many such efforts,
the University of Texas Task Force
on Curricular Reform released its
report in 2005, http://www.utexas
.edu/president/tfcr/; the Massachusetts
released its report in 2006, http://
tech.mit.edu/V126/N46/46girre
port.html; and the Harvard University
Task Force on General Education
released its report in 2007,
http://curriculumreform.org/
harvard-university-task-force-on
-general-education-report/. See
also the University Design Consortium
founded by Arizona State
University and Sichuan University
(China), http://universitydesign
.asu.edu/, as well as the projects
listed on the Association of American
website, http://www.aacu.org/
resources/curriculum/index.cfm.
9 Some examples are described
in Paul Jay and Gerald Graff, "Fear
of Being Useful," Inside Higher Ed,
January 5, 2012; examples include
"Humanities +" at Brigham Young
University and the Master of Arts
Program in the Humanities (maph)
at the University of Chicago. The
University of Pennsylvania's College
of Arts and Sciences has also
instituted a new "Integrated Studies"
program, bringing together
humanists, social scientists, and
scientists to teach a yearlong course
together. See also Richard N. Pitt
and Steven A. Tepper, Double
Majors: Influences, Identities &
Impacts (Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt
University and Teagle Foundation,
September 2012); and Dan
Berrett, "Double Majors Produce
Dynamic Thinkers, Study Finds,"
The Chronicle of Higher Education,
March 15, 2013.
10 Discussed later in the report,
for example, are the Duke Global
Health Institute, the Climate
Impacts Group at the University
of Washington, and the ucla
Institute for Society and Genetics.
11 As of March 15, 2013, classcentral.com,
an aggregator of online
courses, listed 203 courses in
progress or about to start across all
major providers of online instruction,
including Coursera, edX, and
Udacity. Forty-four (22 percent) of
these courses were categorized as
"humanities and social sciences,"
while fifty-one were in computer
If traditional rationales for humanistic study were to be condensed
into a single sentence, that sentence might be the following: The
scholarly study of documents and artifacts produced by human
beings in the past enables us to see the world from different points
of view so that we may better understand ourselves.
—From Geoffrey Harpham, The Humanities and the Dream of America (2011)
The Need for Support
The personal insights and the public utility that flow from humanistic learning rely
on the bedrock of research. Specialized academic study is not the whole of the
humanities and social sciences, but it is essential to their larger success. As we commit
to the broad-based education needed to build well-informed, broadly capable citizens
for the future, we must make a renewed commitment to strengthening this scholarly
core.
Fields of expertise that are sometimes overlooked can suddenly become urgently necessary
to our national life. After the 9/11 attacks, intelligence intercepts from the Arab
world sat unread because we lacked people adequately trained in this suddenly strategic
language, which is not learned in a day. Whatever one's politics, we can agree that
the wars of the past decade have underlined the difficulty of fighting abroad without a
subtle understanding of foreign histories, social constructs, belief systems, languages,
and cultures.
There are various funding sources for humanistic and social scientific research, including
state education and culture budgets, and private donors and philanthropies. All of
these sources are scaling back their investments, but the federal disinvestment may be the
most worrisome indicator. Federal research funding through the National Endowment
for the Humanities, always a small fraction of the federal funding for science and engineering
research, has been reduced disproportionately in recent years. The humanities
and law were the only research fields in which the federal share of academic research
expenditures was appreciably smaller in 2011 than six years earlier. At the same time,
the social sciences have recently become the subjects of ongoing political pressure, as
lawmakers at the state and federal levels have questioned peer-reviewed, curiositydriven
basic research; criticized disciplines as diverse as anthropology and political
science; and threatened to exclude them from funding through the National Science
Foundation. 1
Connect with the Public to Make the Funding Case
This ong>Commissionong> calls for increased support for humanistic and social scientific
research in every field. However, the larger funding problem will not be solved by
making louder requests where there is little inclination to give. If scholars in the
broad humanistic disciplines expect the public to be more financially supportive,
they must make the case for the public value of their work much more effectively
than they have in recent years.
This is not just a matter of sharpened message points to budget appropriators.
Everything scholars do to connect with the broader public advances their case for
support, and everything they neglect to do weakens that case. Top scholars should
embrace the chance to connect with the larger community and help it feel the interest
of their subjects and the power of their analyses.
Not every researcher needs to be a "public intellectual," and instant popular appeal
must not be the touchstone for scholarly value. But one can maintain scholarly integrity
even while engaging a variety of audiences. University faculties and learned societies
need to do more to emphasize that this broader address is essential to the health
and life of our fields. Renewed funding may arise together with renewed effort to
remind Americans of the meaning and value of the humanities and social sciences. It
is unlikely to come without it.
Federally Funded Share of Expenditures for Academic Research and Development in the Humanities and Other Selected Fields,
Fiscal Years 2005–2011 (Percent)
Percentage of Academic R&D Funded by Federal Government
& Physical
■ 2005 ■ 2006 ■ 2007 ■ 2008 ■ 2009 ■ 2010 ■ 2011
Behavioral &
Business &
Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Survey of of Research and Development Expenditures at at
Universities and Colleges/Higher Education Research and Development Survey (data were accessed and analyzed using the the nsf's online data data analysis tool,
tool, Webcaspar, Webcaspar, at at https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/).
40 Research
Strengthening U.S. Research Universities
Our vision for strengthening
these institutions so
that they may remain dynamic
assets over the coming decades
involves both increasing
their productivity and
ensuring their strong support
for education and research.
Therefore, it is essential that
the unique partnership that
has long existed among the
nation's research universities,
the federal government,
the states, and business and
industry be reaffirmed and
strengthened. This will require
• A balanced set of commitments
by each of the partners—federal
state governments, research
universities, and business
and industry—to provide
leadership for the nation in
a knowledge-intensive world
and to develop and implement
enlightened policies,
efficient operating practices,
and necessary investments.
• Use of matching requirements
among these commitments
that provide
strong incentives for participation
at comparable levels
by each partner.
• Sufficient flexibility to
accommodate differences
among research universities
and the diversity of their
various stakeholders. While
merit, impact, and need
should continue to be the
primary criteria for awarding
research grants and contracts
by federal agencies,
investment in infrastructure
should consider additional
criteria such as regional
and/or cross-institutional
partnerships, program
focus, and opportunities for
building significant research
capacity.
• A commitment to a decadelong
effort that seeks to both
address challenges and take
advantage of opportunities
as they emerge.
• A recognition of the
importance of supporting
the comprehensive nature
of the research university,
spanning the full spectrum
of academic and professional
disciplines, including the
physical, life, social, and behavioral
sciences; engineering;
the arts and humanities;
and the professions, that
enable it to provide the
broad research and education
programs required by
a knowledge- and innovation-driven
global economy.
Within this partnership, our
research universities—with
a historical commitment to
excellence, academic freedom,
and service to society—must
pledge themselves to a new
level of partnership with
government and business;
recommit to being the places
where the best minds in the
world want to work, think,
educate, and create new ideas;
and commit to delivering better
outcomes for each dollar
spent.
—Reprinted with permission
from Research
Universities and the
Future of America: Ten
Breakthrough Actions Vital
to Our Nation's Prosperity
and Security (2012) by
the National Academy of
Sciences, courtesy of the
National Academies Press,
Public-Private Partnerships to Sustain Research
Once the case is made, there are many ways to address these declines in research support.
Given the challenges to the U.S. economy and current pressures on the federal
budget, we do not look to federal support alone. This ong>Commissionong> endorses publicprivate
partnerships to ensure the future benefits of humanistic and social scientific
activity and support innovation in all fields.
In its 2012 report Research Universities and the Future of America, the National
Research Council called for the creation of a federal fund, to be matched by private
sources, sufficient to create two thousand endowed chairs in "key research areas." 2
Humanities and social science disciplines should be among the "key research areas"
designated for funding.
Together, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science
Foundation provide critical support for intellectual inquiry across the disciplines. 3
Both organizations support innovative teaching from kindergarten through college;
both support the nation's lifelong learning infrastructure and work to connect academic
research with the wider public; both foster new partnerships between academia
and business; and both provide key funding for innovative research. However, while
the nsf also provides much-needed funding for the nation's top graduate students in
science, budget constraints have kept the neh from offering similar support for the
next generation of humanities scholars. There will be fewer scholars tomorrow if none
Sources of Funding for Academic Research and Development in the Humanities and Other Selected Fields, fy 2011 (Percent)
Humanities Behavioral & Social Sciences Biological Sciences Education
Engineering Mathematical & Physical Sciences Medical Sciences
■ Academic Institution
■ Federal Government
■ Not-for-Profit Organizations
■ State & Local Government
■ Business
■ All Other Sources
Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for for Science and and Engineering Statistics, Survey Survey of of Research and and Development Expenditures at at
Universities and Colleges/Higher Education Research and and Development Survey (data (data were were accessed and and analyzed using using the the nsf's nsf's online online data data analysis analysis tool,
Webcaspar, tool, Webcaspar, at at https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/).
egin their training today. Now more than ever the nation needs expertise in cultures,
languages, and area studies to compete in a global economy and to participate in an
international community. Public-private partnerships could help increase humanities
and social science graduate fellowships modeled on the nsf Graduate Research
Fellowship Program by providing multiyear support for talented doctoral students in
critical fields. The United States should make a concerted effort to maintain its position
as a world leader by supporting training for the next generation of scholars in
every discipline.
Support Scholars for Employment beyond Academia
This advanced training is essential to the renewal of the professoriate, which has been
the principal focus of graduate study in humanistic fields. But doctoral-level training
can also develop skills of enormous potential value to government agencies, nonprofit
organizations, museums and other cultural institutions, libraries and archives, and
diverse segments of the public sector. 4 As we ask for broader public support, universities
should clarify and strengthen the pathways that lead from graduate study to a
range of careers. As historian Anthony Grafton and Jim Grossman, executive director
of the American Historical Association, wrote in their influential essay "No More Plan
B," the academic community must make the case that it offers graduate students and
the wider public an "education we can believe in, not just as reproductions of ourselves,
but also as contributors to public culture and even the private sector." Model programs
like the Public Fellows Program, a collaboration between the American Council of
Learned Societies and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that places recent Ph.D.s
in staff positions at participating institutions, as well as the "alt-ac" initiatives (alternative
careers, especially in information sciences, within academia) of the new Praxis
Network, 5 offer useful examples of how to expand career pathways. But more must
be done to publicize existing routes, create new routes, and support scholars in their
transition to nonacademic employment. 6
Encourage All Disciplines to Address "Grand Challenges"
The public valuation of the humanities will be strengthened by every step that takes
this knowledge out of academic self-enclosure and connects it to the world. As scholars
in these fields seek bigger and more varied audiences, so, too, should they seek a new
range of intellectual partners. Researchers in the natural sciences have long argued that
science alone cannot solve the most urgent challenges of our time. The ong>Commissionong>
therefore joins the National Academies' National Research Council and the National
Science Foundation in recommending that foundations, universities, laboratories,
research centers, and government agencies bring humanists and social scientists
together with physical and biological scientists and engineers to address major global
challenges such as the provision of clean air and water, food, health, energy, universal
education, human rights, and the assurance of physical safety. Humanists and social
scientists are particularly well suited to address such considerations as:
• The ethical questions attending the adoption of new technologies;
• The social conditions that provide context for international policy decisions
regarding the environment, global health, and human rights; and
• The cultural differences that aid or hinder global security.
Indeed, policy in these and a host of other areas cannot be formulated intelligently
without contributions from the humanities and social sciences. The Duke Global
Health Institute, the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington, the
ucla Institute for Society and Genetics, the Center for Medical Humanities and
Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, and the National Human
Genome Research Institute's Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Research Program
all provide useful models for such work. But given the size and scope of the "Grand
Challenges" 7 before us, more needs to be done—and more humanistic and social
scientific research should be open access, like federally funded scientific research, to
ensure cross-disciplinary availability.
All the scientific and technological skills of which we can conceive will not solve our world
problems if we do not build and adapt a base of human and cultural understanding; ethical
and moral underpinnings; sensible rules of law for the 21st century; and integration with the
insights, inspirations, and communications of the arts.
—Charles M. Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering
Researchers in the humanities and social sciences should be encouraged
to apply their work to the great challenges of the era as well as pursuing
basic, curiosity-driven research. Enhanced funding for applied
and basic research in the humanities and social sciences, alongside that
for the physical and biological sciences, will ensure that these intellectual
domains continue to enrich and inspire one another while collectively
charting the vast map of human knowledge.
1 Statement by the Social Science
Research Council, "Protecting
Independent Social Science: nsf
Funding Restrictions," http://www
.ssrc.org/pages/Protecting-Indepen
dent-Social-Science-nsf-Funding
-Restrictions/.
2 National Academy of Sciences,
National Academy of Engineering,
Institute of Medicine, and National
Research Council, Research Universities
and the Future of America:
Ten Breakthrough Actions Vital to
Our Nation's Prosperity and Security
(Washington, D.C.: National Academies
Press, June 2012), 112.
3 The National Endowment for
the Arts also has a Federal Interagency
Task Force on the Arts and
Human Development to support
research on how the arts can help
people reach their full potential at
all stages of life.
4 On evaluation of the training
that students receive in graduate
school, see, for example, the American
Historical Association's "Tuning"
project, funded by the Lumina
Foundation: http://www.historians
.org/projects/tuning/.
5 http://www.acls.org/programs/
publicfellows/; and http://praxisnetwork.org/.
See also Carl
Straumsheim, "Humanities Ph.D.
Plus," Inside Higher Ed, March 21,
2013; Bethany Nowviskie, "two &
a half cheers for the lunaticks,"
January 8, 2012, http://nowviskie
.org/2012/lunaticks/#more-1427
(accessed July 5, 2012); William
Pannapacker, "Pannapacker at
mla: Alt-Ac Is the Future of the
Academy," The Chronicle of Higher
Education, January 8, 2012; and
"#alt-ac in Context," http://media
commons.futureofthebook.org/
alt-ac/alt-ac-context (accessed
July 5, 2012).
6 See Anthony T. Grafton and
Jim Grossman, "No More Plan B: A
Very Modest Proposal for Graduate
Programs in History," aha Perspectives
on History, October 2011; and
Russell A. Berman, "Reforming
Doctoral Programs: The Sooner,
the Better," mla Newsletter, Winter
7 http://www.grandchallenges
.org/Pages/Default.aspx; and http://
www.engineeringchallenges.org/.
and Lifelong Learning
Public humanities programs in the areas of k-12 and lifelong
learning are more important than ever because education, more
than ever, involves not just schools, but their communities and the
larger social context. If society doesn't honor learning, encourage
curiosity, it's hard for schools to succeed. If learning stops when
formal school stops, then the knowledge and understanding of
America's workforce and citizenry will be inadequate by any
measure.
—Peter Gilbert, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities Council
Cultural Institutions in American Life
The humanities and social sciences are lifelong pursuits, and they are all around us:
in schools, museums, libraries, the media, and on the Internet. While the words
humanities and social sciences may sound like purely academic categories, millions
depend on these disciplines in their daily lives as a perpetual source of pleasure
and enrichment. Reading, conversing, interpreting current events, savoring a welldesigned
image, object, or song: our everyday pastimes reveal a fundamental need to
be imaginatively transported, carried out of ourselves into an enriched experience we
could not generate on our own.
Such experiences are not merely pleasurable. Public humanities programs and cultural
institutions sustain strong communities and fulfill many functions in American
life, for people of all ages and from all backgrounds. Reading programs offer paths
to greater literacy, self-expression, and improved communications skills. Projects
documenting the history and stories of immigrant and ethnic communities build
up a positive sense of identity and provide vital links between peoples and cultures.
Arts programs supply opportunities for young people to develop their creativity and
Percentage of Americans 18 Years and Older Who Visited an Art Museum or Gallery in the Previous 12 Months,
by Age, 1982–2008
■ 1982 ■ 1992 ■ 2002 ■ 2008
All Ages 18+
Source: National Endowment for for the the Arts, Survey of of Public Participation in in the the Arts (1982, 1992, 2002, 2008). Estimates generated using the Cultural
Policy and and the the Arts Data Archive's (cpanda) online data analysis system at at http://www.cpanda.org/stage/studies/a00260.
collaborative skills. Museums and other cultural institutions serve as multipurpose
community-gathering places. And public art, architecture projects, and discussion
groups strengthen communities and enhance local economies. By offering invaluable
opportunities for continuing, lifelong education, the humanities and social sciences
fulfill the needs of people in their daily lives and further the democratic ideal of an
inclusive, national culture.
A recent Gallup poll assessing the "future livability" of nine U.S. regions revealed that
"learning something new and interesting daily is an important psychological need
and one of the most prevalent attributes that people in communities with high wellbeing
have in common." 1 As the foundation of the nation's lifelong learning infrastructure,
as enrichment for k-12 curricula, and as primary sources of community
cohesion, the public humanities and social sciences require systematic attention and
support as vital elements of our national well-being. The ong>Commissionong> encourages the
creation of an even greater range of partnerships to introduce even larger audiences to
such life-changing public programs.
Increase Funding for the neh, including the State
Humanities Councils
Acknowledging the real benefits of such programs, Congress created the National
Endowment for the Humanities in 1965 to promote "excellence in the humanities and
conveying the lessons of history to all Americans." 2 The neh supports research that
has resulted in thousands of books (dozens of which have won Pulitzer, Bancroft, and
other prestigious scholarly prizes), a robust program in the digital humanities, and a
vast array of public projects and programming, including Chronicling America (http://
chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/), the Library of America, and a compelling series of documentary
films. Through a network of fifty-five state and territorial humanities councils,
the neh also supports more than 50,000 lectures, discussions, and exhibitions
By educating low-income people in the full range of humanities disciplines, by bringing new
immigrants into the fabric of their American communities, by forging partnerships with state
and local governments to strengthen the cultural and educational infrastructure of their
states, the humanities councils are making real the idea that a wise and visionary citizenry is
the underpinning of a healthy civic life and a thriving democracy.
—Esther Mackintosh, President, Federation of State Humanities Councils
50 Cultural Institutions and Lifelong Learning
annually, as well as important community-based programs like the Clemente Course
in the Humanities and the People and Stories project. 3 Even small cuts to its annual
budget eliminate vital resources for people across the nation.
Civic events like the Chicago and St. Louis Humanities Festivals offer a different, but
equally powerful, model for humanities and social sciences programming. The largest
of these events, the Chicago Humanities Festival, invites academics and artists to
share their passions and expertise with new audiences.
Each year, foundations and philanthropies contribute to humanities projects an
amount that translates to about $1 per citizen. 4 Distributed across the entire nation,
this funding is substantial but not sufficient. The ong>Commissionong> urges private sources, as
well as state and local governments, to reinvest in their libraries, museums, and state
humanities councils. By bringing the humanities and social sciences to the students,
faculty, and general public, these institutions provide a critical public service, and the
return on small investments is enormous.
The ong>Commissionong> therefore recommends that, in order to sustain the neh and the state
humanities councils, the federal government should continue to provide increases in
neh funding, and should challenge other donors and foundations to find new ways to
support lifelong learning across the nation.
Develop a "Culture Corps"
These programs conducted by humanities councils, cultural institutions, and local
civic organizations serve both individual and civic ends. But the public humanities
and social sciences can encompass an even broader range of participants and activities,
drawing on the resources of the local community and reaching out to new audiences
who are eager for knowledge and connection. The ong>Commissionong> therefore suggests the
creation of new partnerships. One example would be a "culture corps" of interested and
qualified adults, including retirees and veterans, to aid learning and enrich curricula
at all levels of education. Like such existing organizations as AmeriCorps, City Year,
and the Senior Corps, a culture corps would strengthen civic life by offering instruction
and guidance for deep, lasting commitments to community service. 5 By matching
interested adults with schools, community centers, and other organizations, the program
would provide a venue for the transmission of humanistic and social scientific
expertise from one generation to the next. Volunteer-led activities like reading groups,
lectures, and classes, as well as trips to theaters, museums, and historic sites, would
both promote cultural literacy and build new relationships across existing socioeconomic
and generational divides. Journalists could teach writing. Bankers could teach
the fundamentals of financial literacy. Veterans might speak knowledgeably about
foreign cultures. With private support, in addition to support provided by the neh,
the Corporation for National & Community Service, and the state humanities councils,
everyday citizens could play an even greater role in promoting after-school and
adult education programs.
Greater Accessibility to Online Resources
To complement these programs, the ong>Commissionong> recommends expanding the number
of high-quality digital resources available to the general public. Online resources offer
unprecedented opportunities for scholars to frame topics of public interest, to participate
in a wider community of public intellectuals, and to reach general audiences. The
digital world offers vast new possibilities, not only for delivering instruction, but also
for facilitating research and for making the past and future possibilities come alive to
students of all ages: historic buildings are reconstructed; family trees can be traced;
classic texts and manuscripts are made accessible. The websites of the Academy of
American Poets (www.poets.org) and the Museum of Modern Art (www.moma.org)
have been exemplary resources for the collection of art and literature for a general public.
The Perseus Digital Library (www.perseus.tufts.edu), the Online Library of Liberty
(http://oll.libertyfund.org), the acls Humanities E-Book (www.humanitiesebook.
org), and artstor (www.artstor.org) have been equally influential in the dissemination
of scholarship. All of these resources and others can be accessed by the general
public, though, for logistical and financial reasons, some are available only through
libraries, which provide free Internet access to communities all over the nation. 6 The
ong>Commissionong> applauds all ongoing efforts to widen the range of humanities and social
science inquiry, including several exemplary programs supported by the Institute of
Museum and Library Services, and it encourages ever-greater accessibility. 7
The principal obstacle to the open access of humanities and social science materials,
at the moment, is the important, ongoing debate about the laws of Fair Use. The
ong>Commissionong> recommends that all stakeholders join Congress in seeking a copyright
solution that would aid in the development of a large-scale public digital library. 8 The
science community has been moving rapidly toward new agreements on publication
rights and the electronic dissemination of journal articles across all scientific fields;
humanists and social scientists might join the National Science Foundation and the
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in developing a new approach
to copyright for scholars and researchers. Such an approach might include, for example,
the creation of a new category of license, which would grant digital libraries the
right to provide public access to all copyrighted works that are no longer commercially
available. A general set of criteria for the presumption of fair use would drastically
simplify the work—and lower the cost—of expanding the collections of public digital
libraries. 9
In presenting a case for the establishment of the neh and its partner
agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, Glenn Seaborg, then
head of the Atomic Energy ong>Commissionong> and a member of the 1964
ong>Commissionong> on the Humanities, told a Senate committee:
We cannot afford to drift physically, morally, or esthetically in a
world in which the current moves so rapidly perhaps toward an
abyss. Science and technology are providing us with the means
to travel swiftly. But what course do we take This is the question
that no computer can answer. 10
The humanities and social sciences involve every American in the question
that Seaborg described. No single person, no single institution, no
single intellectual approach offers an answer—it can be discovered only
through cooperation. Public programs and cultural institutions, connecting
people of all ages and backgrounds, provide opportunities for
contact, growth, and collaboration—the very essence of a civil society.
They should be included among our highest educational priorities.
1 http://www.gallup.com/
poll/155372/Learning-Workplaces
-Health-Habits-Set-Best-Regions
-Apart.aspx.
2 http://www.neh.gov/about.
3 "The Clemente Course in
the Humanities provides free humanities
education to motivated
students who might not otherwise
have the opportunity for higher education.
Begun as a pilot project on
the Lower East Side of Manhattan,
the Clemente Course is currently in
its 17th year of operation, with approximately
400 students matriculated.
Bard College oversees 10
courses. There are a number of other
courses in the U.S. and abroad
that are operated in conjunction
with other institutions." See http://
clemente.bard.edu/about/; and Earl
Shorris, Riches for the Poor: The
Clemente Course in the Humanities
(New York: W.W. Norton, 2000).
Also see http://www.peopleandsto
ries.net/.
4 See http://humanitiesindicators
.org/content/hrcoIVC.aspx#topIV8
and its accompanying chart, http://
humanitiesindicators.org/content/
hrcoImageFrame.aspxi=IV-8a
.jpg&o=hrcoIVC.aspx__topIV8.
5 http://www.americorps.gov/;
and http://www.cityyear.org/
default_ektid22283.aspx.
6 American Library Association,
Library Fact Sheet #6, http://
www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/
alalibraryfactsheet06.
7 http://www.imls.gov/about/
national_initiatives.aspx.
8 See Robert Darnton, "The
National Digital Public Library Is
Launched!" The New York Review
of Books, April 25, 2013.
9 See Derek S. Khanna, "Three
Myths about Copyright Law and
Where to Start to Fix It," a policy
brief from the Republican Study
Committee, November 16, 2012
(mentioned in David Brooks, "The
Conservative Future," The New
York Times, November 19, 2012).
10 http://www.neh.gov/about/
and Competitiveness
Anybody who wants to be an area specialist wants to know a lot
about a certain part of the world: its customs, culture, and language.
They then hope to use this knowledge to serve as a transnational
bridge. But, continuing with the bridge metaphor, if you're going
to be well grounded on the far side of the river—which you have
to be as a regional specialist—you also have to be grounded on the
near side. And the near side of the river is us. So the study of the
humanities and the social sciences is absolutely critical, not only as
it applies to foreign studies, but also to knowing something about
—Karl Eikenberry, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (2009–2011) and retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General
A Global Imperative
Participation in a global economy requires understanding of diverse cultures and
awareness of different perspectives. The humanities and social sciences teach us
how to understand, interpret, and respect our commonalities and our differences.
That mutual respect makes it possible for people around the world to work together to
address issues such as environmental sustainability and global health challenges. Now
more than ever, the spirit of international cooperation, the promotion of trade and foreign
investment, the requirements of international diplomacy, and even the enhancement
of national security depend in some measure on an American citizenry trained
in humanistic and social scientific disciplines, including languages, transnational studies,
1 moral and political philosophy, global ethics, and international relations.
These themes were central to American intellectual life during the middle decades
of the twentieth century, and formed the basis of large-scale government investment
in education. The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (the G.I. Bill) and, more
explicitly, the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (ndea) were among the largest,
but by no means the only, government-sponsored programs that encouraged greater
diffusion of knowledge about the United States, its culture, and its place in the world.
When President Eisenhower signed the ndea, he called the act an "emergency undertaking"
designed to help the nation "meet the broad and increasing demands imposed
upon it by considerations of basic national security." 2 As the "emergency" of the Cold
War and its ideological imperatives become a distant memory, these programs and
the intellectual aspirations they supported have receded. In light of new economic and
security challenges, the nation needs to reinvest in international education.
Develop Critical Intercultural Skills
A 2012 report from the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Education Reform and
National Security, makes clear that new challenges at home and abroad require us to
develop a new sense of urgency about our education system. 3 We need to build global
perspectives into all educational curricula and provide all Americans with opportunities
to investigate other cultures as well as their own. The ong>Commissionong> therefore calls
for a national commitment to building critical intercultural skills at every stage of the
education system.
This commitment should begin at the federal level, to signal the importance of a
global education to the life of every American as well as to the security and competitiveness
of the nation. We recommended earlier in this report that k-12 education
should prepare students to be capable citizens of this nation; but in the twenty-first
Benefits of
Language learning correlates
with higher academic
achievement on standardized
tests such as the sat
and act.
Language learning is
beneficial in the development
of students' reading
abilities.
There is a correlation
• language learning and
students' ability to hypothesize
in science; and
• high school foreign language
study and higher
at the college level.
There is a correlation between
bilingualism and:
• increased cognitive development
and abilities;
• the offset of age-related
cognitive losses;
• attentional control on
cognitive tasks;
• intelligence;
• metalinguistic skills;
• memory skills;
• problem solving ability;
• improved verbal and
spatial abilities.
Source: American Council
on the Teaching of Foreign
Languages, http://www.actfl
.org/advocacy/discover-lan
guages/what-the-research
-showspageid=4524.
century, such preparation would be insufficient if we were not simultaneously creating
capable citizens of the world. The time is right for a new national competitiveness act
to secure funding for urgently needed education in international affairs and transnational
studies. Following the recommendations of the National Academies' 2007
report Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Congress passed the America competes
Act in 2007 (reauthorized in 2011). 4 America competes provided important support
for stem education and scientific research as well as for "critical foreign languages,"
all of which are elements of a larger economic and security strategy for the nation.
However, that legislation did not address the additional need for enhanced education
in international affairs and transnational studies, subjects of real concern for our business
at home and abroad, for our troops stationed around the globe, and for everyday
Americans who live in an increasingly interconnected world. It is time for the nation
to pay renewed attention to these subject areas and to prepare its citizens for a new era,
either by addressing international studies in an America competes reauthorization
or through a new "national competitiveness" effort, a public-private partnership, to
support education in international affairs and transnational studies.
Promote Language Learning
The first and best way to open our eyes to another culture and a different way of
thinking is to learn a second language. Language study should begin as early as possible
in a child's life. According to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign
Languages, the benefits of early language learning include higher academic achievement
on standardized tests such as the sat and act, enhanced reading skills, and
improved ability to hypothesize in science. Moreover, second-language study—in any
language—improves the capacity to learn a third language in later life. 5 State and local
school districts should therefore establish k-12 programs to increase exposure to languages,
including immersion programs for second languages. The ong>Commissionong> also
recommends drawing on blended learning technologies to facilitate language learning
and international cultural exchanges for schools that lack funding or infrastructure
for such programs.
Deepen Knowledge of Other Cultures
While foreign language study is a crucial step toward a more productive, reciprocal
engagement with other cultures and governments, language study alone cannot
provide the cultural and historical context in which such exchanges take place.
Elementary and secondary school curricula should introduce students to the histories
and cultures of all peoples, from recently arriving immigrants to strangers who live
half a world away. Transnational studies, study abroad, and international exchange
58 International Security and Competitiveness
programs should be expanded as a part of undergraduate education. In 2009, a little
over 2 percent of all postsecondary students, including graduate students (about
250,000 students in all), participated in study abroad programs. (Nearly three times
that number of international students are now studying in the United States.) 6 Every
undergraduate should be encouraged to have a significant international experience to
ease movement among different cultures.
The creation of innovative programs for teaching languages and cultures as well as
the expansion of study abroad programs (including improved access for students of
limited financial means) will require new sources of funding. Such programs, which
serve the interests of both the public and private sectors, could be attractive options
for public-private partnerships. Also, because government agencies, including the
Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce as well as the U.S. military, require the
kinds of expertise that students can acquire only through advanced study and immersion
in other cultures, the federal government should continue and expand support
for graduate students and scholars by increasing funding for the Fulbright Program
and the Department of Education's Title VI international and language programs. 7
A citizenry and a workforce knowledgeable about the international community and
conversant with other cultures provide advantages for the nation's business enterprise
as well as for its government. In the interest of national security and competitiveness,
government, foundations, and businesses should enter into new consortia to support
the education of Americans for a global society.
Nations such as China and Singapore, which previously ignored the humanities, are now
aggressively promoting them, because they have concluded that the cultivation of the imagination
through the study of literature, film, and the other arts is essential to fostering creativity
and innovation….We in the U.S. are moving away from the humanities just at the time
that our rivals are discovering their worth. But a healthy business culture is not all that life
in America is about. We also pride ourselves on our open democracy, and on the freedoms of
speech and the press that make our political life one in which the people rule. To keep democracy
vital, we urgently need the abilities that the humanities foster.
—From Martha C. Nussbaum, author of Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (2011);
see also "Cultivating the Imagination," The New York Times, October 17, 2010
As Senator J. William Fulbright wrote in his 1989 book The Price of
Empire, "The essence of intercultural education is the acquisition of
empathy—the ability to see the world as others see it, and to allow for
the possibility that others may see something we have failed to see, or
may see it more accurately." 8 Such empathy is critical for our national
security, our domestic stability, and our economic competitiveness.
It is also critical for individuals in their daily lives as they encounter
difference and negotiate the diversity that makes the United States a
unique experiment in political and social cohesion, and that makes the
world a rich, exciting, and complex place. The humanities and social
sciences provide the information and the training that make empathy
possible. We cannot ensure that people educated in these disciplines
will be empathetic; but we can ensure that they have the knowledge and
experience they need to be able to see the world as others see it.
1 On transnational studies, see
William G. Moseley, "Area Studies
in a Global Context," The Chronicle
of Higher Education, November 29,
2 Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Statement
by the President upon Signing
the National Defense Education
Act," September 2, 1958; available
online at Gerhard Peters and John
T. Woolley, The American Presidency
Project, http://www.presidency
.ucsb.edu/ws/pid=11211.
3 http://www.cfr.org/united
-states/us-education-reform
-national-security/p27618.
4 Rising Above the Gathering
Storm: Energizing and Employing
America for a Brighter Economic
Future (Washington, D.C.: National
Academies Press, 2007), 169,
494ff. H.R. 1815, National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2006, became H.R. 2272, America
Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully
Promote Excellence in
Technology, Education, and Science
[competes] Act.
5 Catherine Porter, "Presidential
Address 2009: English Is Not
Enough," pmla 125 (3) (May 2010):
546–555. On foreign language
instruction and native language
competency, see David Bartholomae,
"Literacy and Departments
of Language and Literature,"
pmla 117 (5) (October 2002): 1278;
Richard Kern, "Reconciling the
Language-Literature Split through
Literacy," adfl Bulletin 33 (3)
(2002): 20–24; and Russell Berman,
"Through Languages to Literacy,"
mla Newsletter, Spring 2011. As
stated by the American Council on
the Teaching of Foreign Languages,
"In this age of accountability
in education, policymakers and
administrators, as well as parents,
are increasingly demanding to
know what research studies show
regarding the benefits of language
learning"; see http://www.actfl.org/
i4a/pages/index.cfmpageid=4524
for links to the relevant literature.
See also http://www.mla.org/
map_main.
6 See Elizabeth Redden, "International
Exchange Increasing,"
Inside Higher Ed, November 12,
2012; and http://humanitiesindica
tors.org/content/hrcoImageFrame
.aspxi=II-22f.jpg&o=hrcoIID.aspx
__topII22. See also Madeleine F.
Green, "Rethinking the Bottom
Line for Internationalization:
What Are Students Learning"
7 Ian Wilhelm, "International-
Education Programs Face
Challenges in President's Budget,"
8 http://fulbright.state.gov/
history/sen-fulbright/quotations.
Many public and private organizations contribute to the scholarly
and public vitality of the humanities, social sciences, and natural
sciences. All enhance the pursuit of knowledge, improve policy-making,
and demonstrate in real and tangible ways the essential benefit of these
disciplines to the nation. Each organization has a role in advancing
the recommendations of this report, and all should work together to
provide a much-needed, vigorous voice to champion humanistic and
social scientific work for every level of American society.
How do we understand and manage change if we have no notion of the
past How do we understand ourselves if we have no notion of a society,
culture, or world different from the one in which we live A fully
balanced curriculum—including the humanities, social sciences, and
natural sciences—provides opportunities for integrative thinking and
imagination, for creativity and discovery, and for good citizenship. The
humanities and social sciences are not merely elective, nor are they elite
or elitist. They go beyond the immediate and instrumental to help us
understand the past and the future. They are necessary and they require
our support in challenging times as well as in times of prosperity. They
are critical to our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, as described by
our nation's founders. They are The Heart of the Matter.
The Humanities promote that kind of tolerance, that degree of healthy self-doubt, which
Learned Hand used to remind us of by quoting Oliver Cromwell in his statement to the Scots:
Consider that "you may be mistaken." That, after all, was what Learned Hand called the
spirit of liberty. And it's the spirit of liberty that the humanities are here to promote.
—David Souter, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States (1990–2009)
Letters of Request from Congress
64 Letters of Request
Biographies of ong>Commissionong> Members
Richard H. Brodhead is President of Duke University and the William Preston Few
Professor of English. At Duke, he has focused on undergraduate education, civic
engagement, financial aid, and global expansion. Before coming to Duke in 2004,
he had a 32-year career at Yale University, where he was the A. Bartlett Giamatti
Professor of English and served as Dean of Yale College for 11 years. A scholar of
nineteenth-century American literature, he served as a trustee of Carnegie Corporation
of New York from 2004 to 2012. In 2013, he was named a trustee of the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences in 2004.
John W. Rowe is Chairman Emeritus of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation. Chairman
of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the Field Museum, he is a member of
the boards of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the Morgridge Institute for Research.
Chairman of New Schools for Chicago, a nonprofit organization formed to fund charter
schools, he cofounded the Rowe-Clark Math and Science Academy and the Rowe
Elementary School. He is President of the Board of Trustees of the Wisconsin Alumni
Research Foundation. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Danielle S. Allen is ups Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science at the
Institute for Advanced Study. An expert on justice and citizenship in both ancient
Athens and modern America, she is the author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics
of Punishing in Democratic Athens, Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since
Brown v. Board of Education, and Why Plato Wrote. A MacArthur Fellow, she was
elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.
Kwame Anthony Appiah is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of
Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.
Among his books are In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, Color
Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (with Amy Gutmann), Cosmopolitanism:
Ethics in a World of Strangers, and The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen.
He has been Chair of the American Council of Learned Societies and of the Board of
Officers of the American Philosophical Association. He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995.
Norman R. Augustine is retired Chairman and ceo of Lockheed Martin Corporation.
A former Under Secretary of the Army and Chair of the Review of United States Human
Space Flight Plans Committee, he also served as Chair of the National Academies
Committee that produced the report Rising above the Gathering Storm. He was elected
a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992, and he is also a member
of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. He
is a former Chairman of the National Academy of Engineering. He has authored or
coauthored several books, including Shakespeare in Charge.
Robert M. Berdahl most recently served as Interim President of the University of
Oregon. Past President of the Association of American Universities, former President
of the University of Texas at Austin, and past Chancellor of the University of California,
Berkeley, he has authored or coauthored two books and numerous articles dealing
with German history. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Leslie C. Berlowitz is President and the William T. Golden Chair at the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. She founded the Humanities Council at New York
University and has served on advisory boards of the National Endowment for the
Humanities, the Corporation of Yaddo, the National Humanities Alliance, and the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Among her publications are America in Theory;
Restoring Trust in American Business; and Reflecting on the Humanities, a special issue
of Dædalus. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Robert J. Birgeneau recently stepped down as Chancellor of the University of
California, Berkeley. He is an internationally distinguished physicist and a leader in
higher education, well known for his commitment to diversity and equity in the academic
community. Previously, he served as President of the University of Toronto and
Dean of the School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he
spent 25 years on the faculty. A Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the
Royal Society of London, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences in 1987.
Philip Bredesen, Jr., served as Tennessee's Governor from 2003 until 2011. He was
best known for his bipartisan approach to governance, his fiscal management, and his
education reforms at both the public school and postsecondary levels. These reforms
included raising academic standards and establishing the use of objective student
achievement data in the public schools. He previously served as Mayor of Nashville
(1991–1999), and he founded and was Chief Executive Officer of a successful public
68 Biographies of ong>Commissionong> Members
health care company. He is originally from Shortsville, New York, and has a degree in
physics from Harvard University. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
David Brooks began his op-ed column in The New York Times in 2003. He has been a
Senior Editor at The Weekly Standard and a Contributing Editor at Newsweek and the
Atlantic Monthly. He is currently a commentator on pbs NewsHour. His most recent
book is The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.
He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010.
Louise H. Bryson, writer and producer of documentaries, has served as President of
Distribution for Lifetime Entertainment Services and General Manager of the Lifetime
Movie Network. She recently stepped down as Chair of the J. Paul Getty Trust. She has
served on the boards of Pomona College and Southern California Public Radio (kpcc)
and was Chairman of kcet, the local pbs station in Los Angeles. A former member
of the pbs National Board, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences in 2010 and serves as a member of the Academy's Trust.
Ken Burns, cofounder of Florentine Films, is a director and producer of documentary
films that include The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007),
and The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009). His films have won thirteen
Emmy Awards and earned two Oscar nominations, and in 2008, he was honored by
the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He
was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011.
Tom Campbell is Dean of the Chapman University School of Law. He has also been
a Professor at Stanford Law School as well as Dean of the Haas School of Business
and Professor of Business Administration at the University of California, Berkeley.
He served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White before beginning
a long career as a public servant, including five terms as a U.S. Congressman for
California's 12th and 15th Districts in Silicon Valley.
Francisco G. Cigarroa, Chancellor of the University of Texas System, is a nationally
renowned pediatric and transplant surgeon who served as President of the UT
Health Science Center at San Antonio from 2000 until his appointment as chancellor
in 2009. President Obama recently appointed him a commissioner for the White
House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. A member of the
Institute of Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Surgery, he was elected
a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011.
Wayne Clough is Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and past President of
the Georgia Institute of Technology. He chaired the National Research Council
Committee on New Orleans Regional Hurricane Protection Projects and serves on
the National Science Board. A civil engineer, he has also served on the President's
Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and as University Vice Chair of the
U.S. Council on Competitiveness. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy
James Cuno, President and Chief Executive Officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust, was
President and Director of the Art Institute of Chicago until August 2011. Former
Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University and Director of
the Harvard Art Museums, he has written on the history of French caricature and on
the role of art museums in contemporary American cultural policy. His most recent
book, Museums Matter: In Praise of the Encyclopedic Art Museum, was published in
2011. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.
Gerald Early is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University
in St. Louis. A consultant for Ken Burns's films, he has written several books, including
The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American
Culture; One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture; This is Where
I Came In: Black America in the 1960s; and A Level Playing Field: African American
Athletes and the Republic of Sports. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences in 1997 and serves as Chair of the Academy's Council.
Karl W. Eikenberry, past U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and retired U.S. Army
Lieutenant General, is the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security in the
Center for International Security and Cooperation, as well as a Distinguished Fellow
with the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, at Stanford University. Honored
with the Defense Distinguished and Superior Service Medals, Legion of Merit, and
the Bronze Star, the Department of State Distinguished, Superior, and Meritorious
Honor Awards, and the nato Meritorious Service Medal, he was elected a Fellow of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
Drew Gilpin Faust is President of Harvard University. A historian of the Civil War and
the American South, she was founding Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced
Study at Harvard. She has authored six books, including Mothers of Invention: Women
of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War and This Republic of Suffering:
Death and the American Civil War, which was the basis for a 2012 episode of the
pbs documentary series American Experience, titled "Death and the Civil War" and
directed by Ric Burns. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the U.S.
Federal Reserve System, is President and Chief Executive Officer of tiaa-cref. He is a
member of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and, before that,
served on the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He is Cochair of the Committee on
Economic Development and Chairman of the Economic Club of New York. He serves
on the boards of the Institute for Advanced Study and Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center and is Cochair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on
the Long-Run Macro-Economic Effects of the Aging U.S. Population. He was elected
Richard B. Freeman is the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard
University. He directs the Science and Engineering Workforce Project at the National
Bureau of Economic Research. His books include Science and Engineering Careers
in the United States, What Workers Want, America Works, and Shared Capitalism at
Work. He received the Mincer Lifetime Achievement Prize from the Society of Labor
Economics in 2006 and the iza Prize in Labor Economics in 2007. He was elected a
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996.
Dana Gioia is a poet, critic, and arts leader. Now the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry
and Public Culture at the University of Southern California, he served as Chairman of
the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 to 2009, helping create the Big Read,
Shakespeare in American Communities, and Poetry Out Loud programs. Past Vice
President of Marketing for Kraft-General Foods, he has authored numerous books,
including Interrogations at Noon, which received the American Book Award in poetry,
and Can Poetry Matter
Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute
for Advanced Study, the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at
Harvard Law School, and a Professor of History at Harvard University. Her book
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family received the Pulitzer Prize and the
National Book Award; she is also the author of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An
American Controversy and other studies in American history and law. A MacArthur
Fellow, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in
Anthony Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton
University. He founded the Program of Freshman Seminars, directed the Program
in European Cultural Studies and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical
Research, and chaired the Council of the Humanities. Author of ten books and the
coauthor, editor, coeditor, or translator of nine others, he specializes in the cultural
history of Renaissance Europe, among other topics. He was elected a Fellow of the
Amy Gutmann, a political philosopher, is President of the University of Pennsylvania,
Chair of the Presidential ong>Commissionong> for the Study of Bioethical Issues, and founding
Director of Princeton University's Center for Human Values. Among her publications
are Democratic Education, Identity in Democracy, Ethics and Politics, Democracy
and Disagreement, Why Deliberative Democracy, and, most recently, The Spirit of
Compromise (the last three coauthored with Harvard's Dennis Thompson). She is the
W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and
Emmylou Harris is a 12-time Grammy Award-winning musician and songwriter who
has worked with Gram Parsons, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, Mark Knopfler, Guy
Clark, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Rodney Crowell, and Neil Young. A supporter of
new artists, she was influential in the development of country rock and Americana
music and the revival of bluegrass. She organized a benefit tour called Concerts for
a Landmine Free World and has been an avid supporter of animal rights. She was
Robert M. Hauser is Executive Director of the Division of Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education at the National Research Council and the Vilas Research
Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Author of
five books and numerous studies of the life course, education, social stratification, and
social statistics, he is leader of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. A member of the
National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, he was elected
F. Warren Hellman† was Cofounder of Hellman & Friedman, llc, a private equity
investment firm. He was a board member of the San Francisco Committee on Jobs, a
trustee emeritus of the San Francisco Foundation, and a member of the University of
California's Walter A. Haas School of Business Advisory Board. Founder of the Hardly
Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco, he was elected a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005 and served as a member of the Academy's Trust.
John L. Hennessy is President of Stanford University. A pioneer in computer architecture,
he drew together researchers in 1981 to focus on risc (Reduced Instruction Set
Computer), a technology that revolutionized the computer industry. Coauthor of two
internationally used textbooks on computer architecture design, he is a member of
the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences. He was
Jill A. Hornor has dedicated her energies, since her marriage to Yo-Yo Ma, to a broad
range of initiatives in education and the arts. In addition to her work as a board member
for the Silk Road Project, she has served on a variety of independent school, arts,
and museum boards. Her participation in their work reflects her deep commitment
to the arts as a vital component of both child development and adult life. After graduating
from Mt. Holyoke College, she attended Cornell University, where she received
a master's in German literature. She has taught German at both Cornell and Harvard
Universities.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is Professor of Communication in the Annenberg School for
Communication and Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University
of Pennsylvania. Her numerous books include unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of
Disinformation; Everything You Think You Know About Politics…and Why You're
Wrong; and The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Messages Shaped the 2008
Election. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in
Rev. John I. Jenkins, a Holy Cross priest and Professor of Philosophy, is President
of the University of Notre Dame, where he has articulated a vision of a Catholic
research university that engages in scholarship of the first rank while maintaining
its distinctive Catholic character and excellence in undergraduate education. Author
of Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas and articles in The Journal of Philosophy,
Medieval Philosophy and Theology, and The Journal of Religious Ethics, he was elected
Steven Knapp is President of The George Washington University, where his priorities
include enhancing the university's partnerships with neighboring institutions,
expanding the scope of its research, enlarging its students' opportunities for public
service, and leading its transformation into a model of urban sustainability. A specialist
in Romanticism, literary theory, and the relation of literature to philosophy and
religion, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, before serving as Dean
of Arts and Sciences and then Provost of Johns Hopkins University. He was elected a
John Lithgow is a 40-year veteran of film, television, and theater. Two-time Academy
Award nominee, four-time Grammy Award nominee, and recipient of multiple Tony,
Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Awards, he is the author of six New York Times
best-selling children's books and has recorded several albums of children's music. A
graduate of Harvard College, where he created Arts First, he is an advocate for improving
youth literacy through increasing family participation in reading and the arts. He
George Lucas is a filmmaker—storyteller, visionary, and innovator. Creator of the
Star Wars saga and Indiana Jones series, he also directed American Graffiti and thx
1138 and worked with, among others, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and
Akira Kurosawa to produce numerous independent films. The founder and former
Chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd., which includes Industrial Light & Magic, Skywalker
Sound, and LucasArts, he is Chairman of the George Lucas Educational Foundation.
Yo-Yo Ma, a cellist, serves as Artistic Director of the Silk Road Project. Inspired by the
cultural traditions of the historic trade routes, the Silk Road Project is a catalytic organization
that promotes innovation and learning through the arts. He also serves as
Creative Consultant for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, advising on how an orchestra
and community engage one another in the twenty-first century. He is a member of
the President's Committee on the Arts & Humanities and a un Messenger of Peace.
Carolyn "Biddy" Martin is President of Amherst College, after serving as Chancellor
of the University of Wisconsin-Madison until August 2011. Past Provost at Cornell
University for eight years, she received her Ph.D. in German literature from uw-
Madison in 1985. A distinguished scholar of German studies, she has authored books
on gender theory and on Lou Andreas-Salome. Her tenure at uw-Madison was
marked by several successful initiatives in support of the humanities, including a
common book program, the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates, and the receipt
of a $10 million matching grant from the Mellon Foundation for the Humanities. She
Anthony W. Marx is President of The New York Public Library, having served as
President of Amherst College until August 2011. At Amherst, he encouraged curricular
renewal and worked to connect the curriculum to research and internship or service
experiences. He also sought to ensure access for the most talented students of any
economic background. He is the author of Lessons of Struggle: South African Internal
Opposition, 1960–1990; Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of the United States,
South Africa and Brazil; and Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism. He
W. James McNerney, Jr., is Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the
Boeing Company. Appointed by President Obama, he chairs the President's Export
Council. He also chairs Business Roundtable; is a member of the ceo Fiscal Leadership
Council; serves on the boards of trustees of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, the Field Museum, and Northwestern University; and is a member of the
Northwestern Memorial HealthCare Board. He was elected a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.
Eduardo J. Padrón, President of Miami Dade College, is an economist by training;
he came to the United States from Cuba as a refugee. During his career, he has been
selected to serve on posts of national prominence by six American presidents. Most
recently, President Obama appointed him Chairman of the White House Initiative
on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. He serves on the boards of the
Council on Foreign Relations, the Business/Higher Education Forum, the League for
Innovation (former chair), rc-2020, the College Board Advocacy and Policy Center,
the White House Fellows Selection Panel (chair), the International Association of
University Presidents, and others.
Carl H. Pforzheimer iii is Manager of chipco Asset Management, llc, and of Carl
H. Pforzheimer & Co. llc. He has chaired the boards of the National Humanities
Center, Pace University, and the Horace Mann-Barnard School, and was president of
the Scarsdale public schools. A board member at The New York Public Library and the
Corning Museum of Glass and past President of the Harvard Alumni Association, he
was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002 and serves
as a member of the Academy's Trust.
Earl A. Powell iii, an expert in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and
American art, is the Director of the National Gallery of Art. He is Chairman of the
U.S. ong>Commissionong> of Fine Arts and serves as a trustee of the American Federation
of the Arts, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Morris and Gwendolyn
Cafritz Foundation, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National
Trust for Historic Preservation, the Norton Simon Museum, and the White House
Historical Association, among others. In addition to journal articles and exhibition
catalogue essays, he has authored a monograph on the nineteenth-century American
artist Thomas Cole. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Hunter R. Rawlings iii is President of the Association of American Universities. A
classicist who served as President of Cornell University and President of the University
of Iowa, he is the author of The Structure of Thucydides' History. He chaired both the
Association of American Universities and the Ivy Council of Presidents and serves on
the boards of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and the National
Academy Foundation. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
John Sexton became President of New York University in 2001. He is also nyu's
Benjamin Butler Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus of the Law School. He is a member
of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Board of the Institute of
International Education. He is past Chair of the American Council on Education and
the New York Academy of Sciences, and has served as Chairman of the Board of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy
Donna E. Shalala is Professor of Political Science and President of the University of
Miami. One of the first Peace Corps volunteers, she eventually became President of
Hunter College of the City University of New York and Chancellor of the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. She served as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services
under President Clinton. She recently chaired the Committee on the Future of Nursing
at the Institute of Medicine. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences in 1992.
David J. Skorton, a board-certified cardiologist, professor of medicine and of biomedical
engineering, musician, and advocate for the arts and humanities, is President of
Cornell University. A former Chair of the Business-Higher Education Forum, he is a
member of the Board of Directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges.
He was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2010 and to the American Academy of
David Souter is former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. A Rhodes
Scholar, he was an associate at Orr and Reno in Concord, New Hampshire, when
he became an Assistant Attorney General and eventually Attorney General of New
Hampshire. Appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire,
he became a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in 1990.
Eric J. Sundquist is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Johns
Hopkins University. His books include King's Dream; Strangers in the Land: Blacks,
Jews, Post-Holocaust America; and To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of
American Literature. He has served on the Executive Council of the Modern Language
Association and the National Council of the American Studies Association. He was
elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997 and serves as
a member of the Academy's Council.
Billie Tsien founded Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects with Tod Williams in 1986.
Their work includes the American Folk Art Museum in New York, the Neurosciences
Institute in La Jolla, California, the Cranbrook Natatorium in Michigan, and the new
home for the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. With Williams, she has received the
Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture, among many other honors.
She serves on the board of the Public Art Fund, the Architectural League, and the
American Academy in Rome. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and
Letters. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in
Charles M. Vest is President of the National Academy of Engineering and President
Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Expert in holographic interferometry
and a writer on higher education, he has served on the President's Committee
of Advisors on Science and Technology, the ong>Commissionong> on the Intelligence Capabilities
of the United States, and the Secretary of Education's ong>Commissionong> on the Future
of Higher Education. Honored with the 2006 National Medal of Technology and the
2011 Vannevar Bush Award, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts
John E. Warnock is Co-Chairman of the board and former President and Chief
Executive Officer of Adobe Systems. Before cofounding Adobe, he was a principal scientist
at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Chairman of the board of the Salon Media
Group, he has served on the boards of the Sundance Institute, the American Film
Institute, ebrary, Knight-Ridder, and Netscape Communications. A member of the
National Academy of Engineering, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy
Diane P. Wood, who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, is a
Federal Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a
Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. She serves on the board of
the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago, an organization devoted to teaching
k-12 students about the U.S. legal system, and sits on the Council for the American
Law Institute. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 2004 and serves as a member of the Academy's Trust and Council.
Pauline Yu, Dean Emerita of Humanities and Professor of East Asian Languages and
Cultures at ucla, is President of the American Council of Learned Societies. Her
publications have focused on classical Chinese poetry and issues in the humanities.
A past Overseer at Harvard University, she serves as a board member at the National
Humanities Center, the Teagle Foundation, the Scholars' Council of the Library of
Congress, the Asian Cultural Council, the American Academy in Berlin, and the
Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. She was elected
ong>Commissionong> Subcommittees
Advanced Expertise
Richard B. Freeman, Professor of Economics,
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences
and Education, National Research Council,
National Academy of Sciences
Steven C. Wheatley, Vice President, American
Council of Learned Societies
Pauline Yu, President, American Council of
Learned Societies
American Competitiveness, Flexibility,
and Leadership
Tom Campbell, Dean, Chapman University
School of Law; former U.S. Representative
from California
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President and Chief
Executive Officer, tiaa-cref
John L. Hennessy, President, Stanford
W. James McNerney, Jr., Chairman, President,
and Chief Executive Officer, Boeing
Carl H. Pforzheimer iii, Manager, Carl H.
Pforzheimer and Co., llc
John W. Rowe, retired Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer, Exelon Corporation;
ong>Commissionong> Cochair
Amy Gutmann, President, University of
Anthony W. Marx, President, The New York
Cultural Institutions, Technology,
Louise H. Bryson, Chair Emerita, J. Paul Getty
G. Wayne Clough, Secretary, Smithsonian
James Cuno, President and Chief Executive
Officer, J. Paul Getty Trust
Billie Tsien, Architect, Tod Williams Billie
Tsien Architects
k-12 Preparation for Life and Work
Professor of History, Professor at the
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,
Donna Shalala, President, University of
Miami; former U.S. Secretary of Health and
Diane P. Wood, Federal Judge, United States
Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
78 ong>Commissionong> Subcommittees
Norman R. Augustine, retired Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer, Lockheed Martin
Drew Gilpin Faust, President, Harvard
Rev. John I. Jenkins, President, University of
Carolyn "Biddy" Martin, President, Amherst
Eric J. Sundquist, Professor of English, Johns
Hopkins University
Charles M. Vest, President, National Academy
of Engineering
Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics,
Stephen M. Kosslyn, Founding Dean, The
Minerva Project
James M. Poterba, President and Chief
Executive Officer, National Bureau of
Economic Research; Mitsui Professor of
Economics, Massachusetts Institute of
Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public
Affairs; Vice President for Global Centers,
Claude M. Steele, I. James Quillen Dean,
Stanford University School of Education
Philip Bredesen, Jr., former Governor of
David J. Skorton, President, Cornell
ong>Commissionong> Forums
In partnership with institutions and individuals around the country, the American
Academy organized a series of regional forums as part of the ongoing work of the
ong>Commissionong> on the Humanities and Social Sciences. The forums have engaged a wide
range of voices and have provided ong>Commissionong> members with an on-the-ground view
of the importance of the humanities to local, national, and international communities.
New England Forum
The Humanities and Civil Society
House of the Academy,
ong>Commissionong> Members in Attendance
Professor of History, and Professor at the
Tikaram Acharya, Founder and Executive
Director, Bhutanese Community of New
Kip Bergstrom, Deputy ong>Commissionong>er,
Connecticut Department of Economic
Martin Blatt, Chief of Cultural Resources/
Historian, Boston National Historical Park
Jack Cheng, Academic Director, Boston
Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello, Associate Professor
of Interdisciplinary Studies, Salem State
Peter Gilbert, Executive Director, Vermont
Loretta Grikis, Reference and Information
Services Librarian, Baystate Health
Gary S. Katzmann, Associate Justice,
Massachusetts Appeals Court
Max Latona, Associate Professor of
Philosophy, Saint Anselm College
Esther Mackintosh, President, Federation of
State Humanities Councils
Courtney Marshall, Assistant Professor of
English & Women's Studies, University of
Barry O'Connell, James E. Ostendarp
Professor of English, Amherst College
Stuart Parnes, Executive Director,
Connecticut Humanities Council
S. Paul Reville, former Massachusetts
David Richards, Director, Margaret Chase
Smith Library
Alexandra Rollins, Interim Executive
Director, Rhode Island Council for the
Lizz Sinclair, Program Director, Maine
David Tebaldi, Executive Director,
Massachusetts Foundation for the
Deborah Watrous, Executive Director, New
Hampshire Humanities Council
David Watters, New Hampshire State
Representative; Professor of English,
Sally Whipple, Executive Director,
Connecticut's Old State House Museum
80 ong>Commissionong> Forums
Palo Alto Forum
International Relations, National
Security, and Global Competitiveness
Karl Eikenberry, former U.S. Ambassador to
Afghanistan; retired U.S. Army Lieutenant
General; William J. Perry Fellow in
International Security, Stanford University
Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr., Chairman Retired
and Director, Bechtel Group, Inc.;
Chairman Emeritus and Director,
Fremont Group
Russell Berman, Walter A. Haas Professor
in the Humanities; Senior Fellow, Hoover
Institution, Stanford University
John Bryson, former U.S. Secretary of
Louis W. Cabot, Chairman,
Cabot-Wellington, llc
Anthony Cascardi, Dean of Arts and
Humanities; Sidney and Margaret Ancker
Professor of Comparative Literature,
Rhetoric, and Spanish, University of
California, Berkeley
Matthew Colford, undergraduate student at
Alan M. Dachs, President and Chief Executive
Officer, Fremont Group
Steven A. Denning, Chair, Stanford University
Board of Trustees; Chairman, General
Atlantic llc
Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Senior
Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for
International Studies, Stanford University
Robert D. Haas, Chairman Emeritus and
former President and Chief Executive
Officer, Levi Strauss & Co.
Walter B. Hewlett, Chairman, William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation
David M. Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan
Professor of History, Emeritus; Codirector,
Bill Lane Center for the American West;
Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the
Environment, Stanford University
Ralph Lewin, Executive Director, Cal
Bob Peck, Managing Director, fpr Partners
William J. Perry, former U.S. Secretary of
Defense; Michael and Barbara Berberian
Professor Emeritus, Stanford University
Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of
State; Denning Professor in Global Business
and the Economy in the Graduate School of
Business; Thomas and Barbara Stephenson
Senior Fellow on Public Policy in the
Hoover Institution; Professor of Political
Science, Stanford University
Scott D. Sagan, Caroline S.G. Munro Professor
of Political Science, Stanford University;
Codirector, Global Nuclear Future Initiative
of the American Academy
Richard Saller, Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren
Anderson Dean, School of Humanities and
Sciences, Stanford University
Debra Satz, Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of
Ethics in Society; Senior Associate Dean
for the Humanities and Arts, Stanford
James Sheehan, Dickason Professor in the
Humanities, Stanford University
George P. Shultz, former U.S. Secretary
of State; Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford
Distinguished Fellow in the Hoover
William Treseder, U.S. Marine Corps
Sergeant; Stanford University graduate
Joel B. Vowell, U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel
Wen-hsin Yeh, Walter and Elise Haas Chair
Professor in Asian Studies; Richard H.
and Laurie C. Morrison Chair in History,
St. Louis Forum
The Importance of the Humanities and
Social Sciences in Local Communities
Lesley Barker, Director, The Bolduc House
Priscilla Block, Executive Director, St. Louis
Gene Dobbs Bradford, Executive Director,
Jazz St. Louis
Lois Conley, Executive Director and Founder,
The Griot Museum of Black History
Anna Crosslin, President and Chief Executive
Officer, International Institute
Geoff Giglierano, Executive Director,
Missouri Humanities Council
Jessica Hentoff, Artistic and Executive
Director, Circus Harmony
Marilu Knode, Executive Director, Laumeier
Sculpture Park; Aronson Endowed
Professor of Modern and Contemporary
Art, University of Missouri, St. Louis
Waller McGuire, Executive Director, St. Louis
Boo McLoughlin, Executive Director, Craft
Timothy O'Leary, General Director, Opera
Theatre of Saint Louis
Aldemaro Romero, Jr., Dean, College of Arts
and Sciences, Southern Illinois University
Diane Touliatos, Director, Center for the
Humanities, University of Missouri, St.
David Carl Wilson, Dean, College of Arts and
Sciences, Webster University
Glenna Wallace, Chief, Eastern Shawnee Tribe
of Oklahoma
Miami Forum
The Humanities and
Multicultural America
Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus
Eduardo Padrón, President, Miami Dade
Gloria Estefan, Singer, Songwriter, Actress,
and Entrepreneur
Matt Haggman, Miami Program Director,
Ann Henderson, President and Chief
Executive Officer, Collins Center for Public
Mitchell Kaplan, Founder and Owner, Books
& Books
Cathy Leff, Director, Wolfsonian–Florida
Faith Mesnekoff, Chairman of the Board
of Trustees, HistoryMiami (formerly the
Historical Museum of Southern Florida)
Arva Moore Parks, Acting Director and Chief
Curator, Coral Gables Museum
Raul Rodriguez, Founding Principal,
Rodriguez and Quiroga Architects
Javier Alberto Soto, President and Chief
Executive Officer, The Miami Foundation
Michael Spring, Director, Miami-Dade
County Department of Cultural Affairs
Mihoko Suzuki, Professor of English; Director,
Center for the Humanities, University of
Durham Forum
The Humanities and the
Education Continuum
Doris Duke Center, Duke University
ong>Commissionong> Member in Attendance
Richard H. Brodhead, President, Duke
University; ong>Commissionong> Cochair
Shana Adams, Manager for Creative Arts in
the Public/Private Schools, Durham Arts
William L. Andrews, E. Maynard Adams
Professor of English, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill
Joseph Bathanti, Professor of Creative
Writing, Appalachian State University; Poet
Laureate of North Carolina
Ian Baucom, Professor of English; Director,
Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke
Charles L. Becton, Interim Chancellor, North
Carolina Central University
Jeffrey Braden, Dean, College of Humanities
and Social Sciences; Professor of
Psychology, North Carolina State University
Cynthia Brodhead, Chair of the Board of
Trustees, North Carolina Humanities
Cathy Davidson, John Hope Franklin
Humanities Institute Professor of
Interdisciplinary Studies; Ruth F. Devarney
Professor of English, Duke University
Eve Duffy, Director, Program in the
Humanities; Adjunct Assistant Professor,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
William R. Ferris, Senior Associate Director,
Center for the Study of the American
South; Joel Williamson Eminent Professor
of History, University of North Carolina,
Benjamin Filene, Director of Public History,
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Deirdre Haj, Executive Director, Full Frame
Documentary Film Festival
Geoffrey Harpham, President and Director,
National Humanities Center
James B. Hunt, Jr., former Governor of
Julie Joslin, Team Lead, k-12 English Language
Arts, North Carolina Department of Public
Jason Jowers, Assistant Principal, Hillside
High School, Durham
Tracy Mancini, Assistant Dean, Associate in
Arts Program, Durham Technical College
Christie Hinson Norris, Director of k-12
Outreach, North Carolina Civic Education
Consortium, University of North Carolina,
Judith Rizzo, Executive Director and Chief
Executive Officer, James B. Hunt Jr. Institute
for Educational Leadership and Policy
Todd Roberts, Chancellor, North Carolina
School of Science and Mathematics
Sandra C. Rusak, Director of Education,
North Carolina Museum of Art
Richard Schramm, Vice President for
Education Programs, National Humanities
Lawrence J. Wheeler, Director, North Carolina
Erin White, Social Studies Teacher, Smith
Middle School, Chapel Hill
Lynn Wright-Kernodle, Director of the
Teachers Institute, North Carolina
New York Forum
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building,
Anthony Marx, President, The New York
Pforzheimer and Co. llc
David Auburn, Playwright
David Blight, Class of 1954 Professor of
American History, Yale University; Director,
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of
Slavery, Resistance and Abolition
Jonathan Galassi, President and Publisher,
Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
Oscar Hijuelos, Novelist
Matthew Knutzen, Assistant Chief, Map
Division, The New York Public Library
Philip E. Lewis, Vice President, The Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation
Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Director,
Schomburg Center for Research in Black
Culture, The New York Public Library
Sara Ogger, Executive Director, The New York
Council for the Humanities
Lauren Redniss, Artist and Author
Annabelle Selldorf, Architect
Jean Strouse, Biographer; Director, Cullman
Center for Scholars and Writers, The New
York Public Library
Colm Tóibín, Novelist, Essayist, and Poet;
Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of
the Humanities, Columbia University
Mariët Westermann, Vice President, The
Further Information and Resources
Definitions of the Humanities
and Social Sciences
• National Endowment for the Humanities,
http://www.neh.gov/about
• American Council of Learned Societies,
http://www.acls.org/info/default.aspxid=198
• National Science Foundation, Directorate
for Social, Behavioral and Economic
Sciences (SBE), http://www.nsf.gov/dir/
index.jsporg=SBE
Division of Behavioral and Cognitive
Sciences (BCS), http://www.nsf.gov/div/
index.jspdiv=BCS
Division of Social and Economic Sciences
(SES), http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/ses/about
.jsp
• Social Science Research Council,
http://www.ssrc.org/about/
Humanities and Social Sciences Data
• The Humanities Indicators,
http://www.humanitiesindicators.org/
• Humanities Departmental Survey,
resources/survey.aspx
• Measure of America, a Project of the
Social Science Research Council,
http://www.measureofamerica.org/
• National Science Board, Science and
Engineering Indicators, http://www.nsf
.gov/statistics/seind12/
Further Reading on Assessment and Standards
• "The Nation's ong>Reportong> Card: Summary
of Major Findings," National Center for
Education Statistics, 2010, http://www
.nationsreportcard.gov/civics_2010/
summary.asp
• Center for Information and Research on
Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE),
http://www.civicyouth.org/new-circle-factsheet-describes-state-laws-standards-andrequirements-for-k-12-civics/
• The Common Core State Standards
Initiative of the National Governors
Association (NGA) and Council of Chief
State School Officers (CCSSO), http://www
.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduc
tion/students-who-are-college-and-career
-ready-in-reading-writing-speaking
-listening-language
• Achieve, a bipartisan, nonprofit organization
that helps states raise academic standards,
improve assessments, and strengthen
accountability, http://www.achieve.org/
achieving-common-core
Model Programs for K-12 Teachers Led By
Colleges, Universities, Museums, and Public
• U.S. Department of Education List of
Continuing Education Opportunities,
http://www2.ed.gov/teachers/dev/contedu/
edpicks.jhtml
• Harvard University New Professional
Teacher Development Programs,
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/
news-events/press_release.html
• University of Pennsylvania Teachers Institute
of Philadelphia, http://www.tip.sas.upenn
.edu/
• University of Chicago Support for Teachers,
http://www.uchicago.edu/community/
education/support_for_teachers/
• Stanford University Initiative on Improving
K-12 Education, http://ell.stanford.edu/
• University of California California Subject
Matter Project, http://csmp.ucop.edu/
• New York Public Library Cullman Center
Institute for Teachers, http://www.nypl.org/
events/cullman-institute-teachers
• Metropolitan Museum of Art For Educators,
http://www.metmuseum.org/learn/
for-educators
• Art Institute of Chicago Teacher Programs,
http://www.artic.edu/teacher-programs
• National Gallery of Art Teacher Workshops,
http://www.nga.gov/education/
• J. Paul Getty Museum Professional Development,
http://www.getty.edu/education/
teachers/professional_dev/index.html
• Monticello Barringer Research Fellowship
for k-12 Teachers of American History,
http://www.monticello.org/site/
research-and-collections/barringer
Online "Teaching Tool Kits"
EDSITEment! The Best of the Humanities on
the Web, http://edsitement.neh.gov/about
• National Humanities Center: America
in Class, http://americainclass.org/
primary-sources/
• iCivics, http://www.icivics.org/teachers
• Edutopia, http://www.edutopia.org
• Teachinghistory.org, http://teachinghistory
.org/
• Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History: Programs for Educators,
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/
programs-exhibitions/for-educators
Two- and Four-Year Colleges
Innovative Humanities Curricula and Programs
• Brigham Young University "Humanities +"
http://humanities.byu.edu/humanities_plus/
• University of Chicago Master of Arts
Program in the Humanities (MAPH),
https://maph.uchicago.edu/
• University of Pennsylvania College of
Arts and Sciences "Integrated Studies,"
http://www.upenn.edu/spotlights/
integrated-studies-penn
Strategic Planning Groups and Task Forces to
Address Curricular Reforms
• University of Texas Task Force on Curricular
Reform 2005, http://www.utexas.edu/
president/tfcr/
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology Task
Force on the Undergraduate Educational
Commons 2006, http://tech.mit.edu/V126/
N46/46girreport.html
• Harvard University Task Force on General
Education 2007, http://curriculumreform
.org/harvard-university-task-force-on
-general-education-report/
• University Design Consortium, founded
by Arizona State University and Sichuan
University (China), http://universitydesign
.asu.edu/
• Association of American Colleges and
Universities "Curriculum," http://www.aacu
.org/resources/curriculum/index.cfm
Model Programs in which Humanists, Social
Scientists, and STEM Researchers Collaborate to
Address Global Challenges
• Duke Global Health Institute,
https://globalhealth.duke.edu/
• University of Washington Climate Impacts
Group, http://cses.washington.edu/cig/
• UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics,
http://socgen.ucla.edu/
• National Human Genome Research
Institute's Ethical, Legal and Social
Implications Research Program,
http://www.genome.gov/10001618
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Alternative Energy Future Project,
https://www.amacad.org/projects/
alternativeNEW.aspx
Resources on "Alt-Ac" and Nonacademic
• The Public Fellows Program, a collaboration
between the American Council of Learned
Societies and the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation that places recent Ph.D.s in staff
positions at participating institutions,
http://www.acls.org/programs/publicfellows/
• "Engaging the Humanities," at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison Center for the
Humanities funded by the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation, http://www.news.wisc
.edu/21686
• The "alt-ac" (alternative careers, especially
in information sciences, within academia)
of the new Praxis Network, http://praxis
-network.org/
• The #alt-academy mediacommons project,
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/
alt-ac/alt-ac-context
Cultural Institutions and Lifelong
The Nation's Public Humanities Infrastructure
• The State Humanities Councils, represented
by the Federation of State Humanities
Councils, http://www.statehumanities.org/
86 Further Information and Resources
Resources and Programs for Lifelong Learning
• Clemente Course in the Humanities,
http://clementecourse.org/
• The "People and Stories" Project,
http://www.peopleandstories.net/
• Chicago Humanities Festival,
http://www.chicagohumanities.org/
• St. Louis Humanities Festival,
http://www.mohumanities.org/
the-greater-st-louis-humanities-festival/
Online Resources and Archives of Humanities
• Academy of American Poets,
http://www.poets.org/
• Museum of Modern Art,
http://www.moma.org/
• Perseus Digital Library,
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/
• Online Library of Liberty,
http://oll.libertyfund.org/
• acls Humanities E-Book,
http://www.humanitiesebook.org/
• artstor, http://www.artstor.org/index.shtml
• Digital Public Library of America,
http://dp.la/
International Security and
Past Legislation in Support of the Humanities
and Social Sciences, especially International
• America COMPETES Act (reauthorized
in 2011), http://www.whitehouse
.gov/blog/2011/01/06/america-competes
-act-keeps-americas-leadership-target
• National Defense Education Act of 1958
(NDEA), http://federaleducationpolicy
.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/national
-defense-education-act-of-1958-2/
• Federal Programs in Support of
International and Language Education
• Fulbright Program, http://eca.state.gov/
• U.S. Department of Education Title VI
International and Language Programs,
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/
iegps/index.html
Cherishing Knowledge, Shaping the Future
Since its founding in 1780, the American Academy has served the nation as a champion
of scholarship, civil dialogue, and useful knowledge.
As one of the nation's oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers,
the Academy convenes leaders from the academic, business, and government sectors
to address critical challenges facing our global society.
Through studies, publications, and programs on the Humanities, Arts, and Education;
Science, Engineering, and Technology; Global Security and Energy; and American
Institutions and the Public Good, the Academy provides authoritative and nonpartisan
policy advice to decision-makers in government, academia, and the private sector.
With special thanks to the following individuals who contributed to this report:
John Tessitore
Phyllis Bendell
Micah Buis
John C. Crowley
Hilary Dobel
Alison Fox
Carolyn Fuqua
Carolyn Gerber
John Hammer
Phillip Johnson
Peter Kardon
Felicia K. Knight
Joseph Moore
Jill Valley-Orlando
Nathan Wolff
eport of the
www.humanitiescommission.org
american academy of arts & sciences The Heart of the Matter The Humanities and Social Sciences for a vibrant, competitive, and secure nation
Page 2 and 3: Who will lead America into a bright
Page 4 and 5: © 2013 by the American Academy of
Page 7 and 8: Members of the Commission
Page 9 and 10: sciences. Each organization has an
Page 11 and 12: Executive Summary The Humanities an
Page 13 and 14: Goal 2 Foster a society that is inn
Page 15: These goals invite all stakeholders
Page 18 and 19: [The objects of education are] To g
Page 20 and 21: analysis of Big Data. 2 At the very
Page 22 and 23: Notes 1 George Washington advocated
Page 24 and 25: The reason some of us are so commit
Page 26 and 27: Prepare Citizens The strength of a
Page 28 and 29: and certification in history. 8 Giv
Page 30 and 31: Notes 1 See the key findings of the
Page 32 and 33: If we aspire to provide a four-year
Page 34 and 35: Early in the twenty-first century,
Page 36 and 37: We are not arguing for a return to
Page 38 and 39: Notes 1 Richard H. Brodhead, "Reb
Page 40 and 41: If traditional rationales for human
Page 42 and 43: This is not just a matter of sharpe
Page 44 and 45: In its 2012 report Research Univers
Page 46 and 47: together with physical and biologic
Page 48 and 49: Notes 1 Statement by the Social Sci
Page 50 and 51: Public humanities programs in the a
collaborative skills. Museums and o
foreign cultures. With private supp
Notes 1 http://www.gallup.com/ poll
Anybody who wants to be an area spe
Benefits of Language Learning Langu
• As Senator J. William Fulbright
Appendix I Letters of Request from
Appendix II Biographies of
health care company. He is original
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., former Vice
Jill A. Hornor has dedicated her en
Eduardo J. Padrón, President of Mi
She serves on the board of the Publ
Liberal Arts Norman R. Augustine, r
Palo Alto Forum International Relat
Durham Forum The Humanities and the
Appendix V Further Information and
Resources and Programs for Lifelong
Page 92:
eport of the commission on the huma
Magazine: Report - Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences