American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) is an organization dedicated to scholarship and the advancement of learning. It serves as a nationwide honor society for the United States.

Started in 1780, the Academy is an independent policy research center that conducts studies of complex problems. Its members are from the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs. It has a membership of 4,000 American Fellows and 600 Foreign Honorary Members.

Members through history

 * Early members included Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Bulfinch, Alexander Hamilton, and John Quincy Adams.
 * In the 1800's, members included Daniel Webster, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John J. Audubon, Louis Agassiz, Asa Gray, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Alexander Graham Bell.
 * In the 1900's, members included A. A. Michelson, Percival Lowell, Alexander Agassiz, and, later, Charles Steinmetz, Charles Evans Hughes, Samuel Eliot Morison, Albert Einstein, Henry Lee Higginson, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, and Henry Cabot Lodge.
 * Foreign members included Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, William Gladstone, John Singleton Copley, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Neils Bohr, Winston Churchill, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Albert Schweitzer.

Goals
According to its website, its goals are:
 * "Promoting service and study through analysis of critical social and intellectual issues and the development of practical policy alternatives"
 * "Fostering public engagement and the exchange of ideas with meetings, conferences, and symposia bringing diverse perspectives to the examination of issues of common concern"
 * "Mentoring a new generation of scholars and thinkers through the Visiting Scholars Program and Hellman Fellowship Program"
 * "Honoring excellence by electing to membership men and women in a broad range of disciplines and professions"

University affiliates
52 colleges and universities collaborate with the Academy by participating in its studies on higher education and by helping to support its fellowships and outreach programs, for example:
 * Columbia University
 * Duke University
 * Harvard University
 * Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * Ohio State University
 * Yale University

Staff

 * Leslie Berlowitz, Executive Office
 * Mark Robinson, Operations

Not to be confused with

 * National Academy of Sciences
 * American Association for the Advancement of Science

Contact details
136 Irving Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone: 617-576-5000 Fax: 617-576-5050 Email: aaas AT amacad.org Web: http://www.amacad.org

External resources

 * "American Academy of Arts and Sciences", Wikipedia.