The humanities, arts, and culture are woven through virtually every Ƶ program, where artists and humanists add interdisciplinary breadth to projects in science, democracy, and security. However, the Ƶ also undertakes projects that put humanities, arts, and culture at the forefront, strengthening their practice and highlighting their importance to all aspects of the nation’s thriving intellectual life. These projects call attention to the role the arts and humanities play in enriching the growth and vitality of individuals, communities, and the nation.
Advisory Committee
Johanna Drucker, Chair
University of California, Los Angeles
Louise Henry Bryson
Public Media Group of Southern California
Joy Connolly
American Council of Learned Societies
Oskar Eustis
Public Theater
Rubén Gallo
Princeton University
Margaret Jacobs
University of Nebraska
Marie-Josée Kravis
Museum of Modern Art
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
Harvard University
Sarah Maza
Northwestern University
Pedro Noguera
University of Southern California
Oscar Tang
New York, NY
Ayanna Thompson
Arizona State University
Sherry Turkle
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Advisory Committee Meetings
April 14, 2023 (virtual);
May 3, 2023 (virtual);
October 11, 2023 (virtual)
At these meetings, members of the newly reconstituted Advisory Committee reviewed ideas for projects and offered recommendations for future priorities.
ʰ
The Humanities Indicators
The Humanities Indicators provide nonpartisan statistical information about all aspects of the humanities: from early childhood reading, through undergraduate and graduate education in the humanities, to employment and humanities experiences in daily life, such as reading and visits to museums. Now in its fourteenth year as a publicly available website, the project tracks the condition of the humanities enterprise via analyses of data gathered by the federal government as well as through its own rigorous survey research. The project is one of the most cited activities of the Ƶ, and journalists, advocates, government agencies, and academics regularly call on the project staff for information and their expertise. Building on the Indicators work, the Summer 2022 issue of æ岹ܲ was dedicated to the humanities and the public, covering topics from the public humanities to the medical and environmental humanities.
Recent work has focused on outcomes for college graduates in the humanities at both the undergraduate and graduate level and the trends in students earning degrees in the humanities. The project is developing additional areas of original research. In fall 2023, the Indicators administered a survey of humanities departments, asking about the condition of their faculty, students, and programs as well as external pressures on their work. State-level reports on career outcomes for humanities majors will supplement the survey. Alongside that work, the project is also developing plans to revise and update a national inventory of humanities organizations. The Humanities Indicators are accessible at www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators.
Project Directors
Norman M. Bradburn
NORC at the University of Chicago
Robert B. Townsend
American Ƶ of Arts and Sciences
Advisory Committee
Edward Ayers
University of Richmond
Jack Buckley
American Institutes for Research
Jonathan R. Cole
Columbia University
John Dichtl
American Association for State and Local History
Michael Hout
New York University
Felice J. Levine
American Educational Research Association
James Shulman
American Council of Learned Societies
Phoebe Stein
Federation of State Humanities Councils
Judith Tanur
Stony Brook University
Project Staff
Carolyn Fuqua
Program Officer for the Humanities Indicators
Maysan Haydar
Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Humanities Policy Fellow
Funders
Mellon Foundation
Carl H. Pforzheimer III
The Humanities Indicators was developed with generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities; Elihu Rose and the Madison Charitable Fund; John P. Birkelund; Peck Stackpoole Foundation; Rockefeller Foundation; Sara Lee Foundation; Teagle Foundation; Walter B. Hewlett and the William R. Hewlett Trust; and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Project Publications
“The Humanities in American Life: Transforming the Relationship with the Public,” æ岹ܲ, edited by Carin Berkowitz, Norman Bradburn & Robert B. Townsend (Summer 2022)
State of the Humanities 2022: From Graduate Education to the Workforce (American Ƶ of Arts and Sciences, 2022)
State of the Humanities 2021: Workforce & Beyond (American Ƶ of Arts and Sciences, 2021)
Project Meeting
Virtual Meeting of the Humanities Indicators Advisory Committee
January 11, 2023
The members of the Advisory Committee reviewed recent work by the Indicators staff as well as proposals for future research projects, and offered advice about future work.
ʰ
The History of the Ƶ Book Project
Looking forward to its 250th anniversary in 2030, the Ƶ selected award-winning historian Jacqueline Jones (University of Texas at Austin) to write a one-volume account of the Ƶ’s past. The anniversary history will provide a full and honest assessment of the Ƶ’s activities and membership since its establishment in 1780, and place the Ƶ within the larger history of the nation it was created to serve.
Jacqueline (Jackie) Jones is a rare academic historian who writes for both the public and a peer scholarly audience. Her work has been recognized with the Bancroft Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, membership in the American Ƶ, and most recently the presidency of the American Historical Association. Her publications include Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present; Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War; A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America; and No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era.
Advisory Committee
Catherine Allgor
Massachusetts Historical Society
Craig Calhoun
Arizona State University
Daniel J. Cohen
Northwestern University
Paula J. Giddings
Smith College
David A. Hollinger
University of California, Berkeley
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt
University of Minnesota
David W. Oxtoby
American Ƶ of Arts and Sciences
David M. Rubenstein
The Carlyle Group
Ben Vinson III
Howard University
Funder
Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Foundation
Exploratory Meeting
The Heart of the Matter + 10 Symposium
On March 30–31, 2023, the Ƶ hosted an exploratory meeting to discuss the health of the humanities. The meeting connected three separate projects: 1) Members had encouraged the Ƶ to look at the growing problems in the field (e.g., reduced majors and shuttered departments), “with the goal of articulating concrete ideas for actions that can be taken at various levels to save the Humanities”; 2) the authors in the Summer 2022 æ岹ܲ issue on the humanities and the public had delayed their in-person discussion due to a resurgence of the pandemic; and 3) a commemoration of the ten-year anniversary of the release of The Heart of the Matter report of the Ƶ’s Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences, published in 2013. The meeting gathered leaders in the field to discuss what has happened over the previous decade, and to think creatively about where the field might be ten years in the future. The symposium included a mix of panel presentations and roundtable discussions so that leaders in the field could discuss these questions and try to formulate some practical solutions. The event included remarks by Richard Brodhead, cochair of the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences.
While most of the conversations occurred behind closed doors, the meeting also included a public-facing event on March 30 on “The Humanities and the Rise of the Terabytes.” Danielle Allen (Harvard University), a member of the original Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences, offered thoughts on the challenges the humanities face as a historical and contemporary practice in an age of digital superabundance. Following her remarks, PBS arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown joined her for a conversation that explored practical applications for the humanities, the effects of technology on the public’s interests and attention spans, and the role of the humanities in contemporary political debates and culture wars.
Project Staff
Maysan Haydar
Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Humanities Policy Fellow
Tania Munz
Chief Program Officer
Alex Parker-Guerrero
Communications Specialist
Robert B. Townsend
Director, Humanities, Arts, and Culture Programs; Codirector, Humanities Indicators
Participants
Nicholas Allen
University of Georgia
Carin Berkowitz
New Jersey Humanities Council
Matthew Booker
National Humanities Center
Richard H. Brodhead
Duke University
Louise Bryson
Public Media Group of Southern California
Kelsey Coates
National Endowment for the Humanities
Joy Connolly
American Council of Learned Societies
Johanna Drucker
University of California, Los Angeles
Alain-Philippe Durand
University of Arizona
Amy Ferrer
American Philosophical Association
Matthew Gibson
Virginia Humanities
Paula J. Giddings
Smith College
James Grossman
American Historical Association
Phillip Brian Harper
Mellon Foundation
Dianne Harris
University of Washington
Christine Henseler
Union College
Sylvester Johnson
Virginia Tech
Jackie Kellish
National Humanities Center
Stephen Kidd
National Humanities Alliance
Paula Krebs
Modern Language Association
Earl Lewis
University of Michigan
Alan Liu
University of California, Santa Barbara
Jodi Magness
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Robert Newman
National Humanities Center
David W. Oxtoby
American Ƶ of Arts and Sciences
Lynn Pasquerella
American Association of Colleges and Universities
Phoebe Stein
Federation of State Humanities Councils
Funders
Mellon Foundation
Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Foundation