Looking at Earth: an Astronaut's Journey Induction Ceremony 2017

american academy of arts & sciences

winter 2018 www.amacad.org Bulletin vol. lxxi, no. 2

Induction Ceremony 2017 Class Speakers: Jane Mayer, Ursula Burns, James P. Allison, Heather K. Gerken, and Gerald Chan

Annual David M. Rubenstein Lecture Looking at Earth: An Astronaut’s Journey David M. Rubenstein and Kathryn D. Sullivan

ALSO: How Are Humans Different from Other Great Apes?–Ajit Varki, Pascal Gagneux, and Fred H. Gage Advancing Higher Education in America–Monica Lozano, Robert J. Birgeneau, Bob Jacobsen, and Michael S. McPherson Redistricting and Representation–Patti B. Saris, Gary King, Jamal Greene, and Moon Duchin Upcoming Events

MARCH APRIL 1st 12th California Institute of Technology American Academy Pasadena, CA Cambridge, MA Bryson Symposium on Climate and Annual Awards Ceremony: A Celebration of the Energy Policy Arts and Sciences Featuring: Dallas Burtraw (Resources for Featuring: Martha C. Nussbaum (Univer- the Future), Ralph Cavanagh (nrdc), sity of Chicago), recipient of the Don M. Nathan S. Lewis (California Institute of Randel Award for Humanistic Studies; and Technology), Mary Nichols (California Barbara J. Meyer (University of California, Air Resources Board), Ronald O. Nichols Berkeley), recipient of the Francis Amory (Southern California Edison), Thomas F. Prize in Medicine & Physiology Rosenbaum (California Institute of Tech- nology), and Maxine L. Savitz (Honeywell, MAY Inc., ret.; formerly, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) 3rd American Academy 7th Cambridge, MA American Academy Songs of Love and Death: Sonnets by Petrarch Cambridge, MA and Others Set by Cipriano de Rore in “I madri- Building, Exploring, and Using the Tree of Life gali a cinque voci” (Venice, 1542) Featuring: Douglas E. Soltis (University of Featuring: Jessie Ann Owens (University Florida) and Pamela S. Soltis (University of California, Davis) and the vocal ensem- of Florida; Florida Museum of Natural ble Blue Heron History)

22nd American Academy Cambridge, MA Book Talk: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conver- sations About Race Featuring: Beverly Daniel Tatum (Spelman College)

For updates and additions to the calendar, visit www.amacad.org. From the President

n January, I had the opportunity to visit with students and faculty at European Humanities IUniversity (ehu) in Vilnius, Lithuania. As a university-in-exile from an authoritarian re- gime in Belarus, ehu provides a college education in the liberal arts tradition to students from Belarus and the surrounding region. I was moved to meet so many young people inspired by their opportunity for intellectual exchange in a free and democratic environment. My visit prompted new reflections about how fundamental and important the work of the Academy is in strengthening and sustaining democracy in the United States.

The Academy is engaged in a number of projects, studies, and meetings that, when taken together, support the quality education and informed exchange that shape a healthy and inclusive democratic society. Just recently the Academy announced a Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, led by Danielle Allen of Harvard University, Stephen Heintz of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Eric Jonathan F. Fanton Liu of Citizen University. The Commission brings together a diverse group of leading scholars and prac- titioners who will work across disciplines to develop an understanding of how native-born and newly arrived Americans engage with the institutions of their democracy, and how they exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens. The Commission will emphasize new forms of civic engagement and democratic practice made possible through new technologies. This is an important time for the Acad- emy to examine what it means to be a citizen in a twenty-first century democracy. I look forward to learning from the Commission and to sharing its work with you. A healthy and diverse democratic society thrives with the support of a strong educational system. In November 2017, the Academy’s Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education, led by Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. of tiaa and Michael S. McPherson, formerly of the Spencer Foundation, released a report with a national strategy for improving the quality and affordability of students’ educational experiences. The report, The Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America, emphasizes the importance of preparing undergraduates to be informed and engaged citizens who understand the values, skills, and behaviors that contribute to a healthy democracy. To participate fully in society, citizens now need real scientific and technological understanding, sophisticated critical thinking skills, and a working knowledge of history, economics, civics, and the arts. Equally important, citizens need educational institutions that welcome and protect a robust and respectful exchange of ideas–the very essence of a democracy. And in an increasingly diverse population, undergraduate education is a good setting in which the next generation learns empathy and respect for people of different backgrounds. The Academy’s Public Face of Science project, led by Richard A. Meserve, formerly of Carnegie In- stitution for Science, and Geneva Overholser of Democracy Fund, considers how the public develops trust or mistrust in science, and in evidence more broadly. In a media landscape in which fact and fiction are not easily distinguishable, careful analysis of evidence and reasoned debate have become essential to civil dialogue. In February 2018, the Academy released the first of a series of reports from the Public Face of Science project, Perceptions of Science in America. The report explores the degree to which a person’s background and experiences shape his or her interpretation of science. The goal of the project is to help scientists communicate better with citizens who depend on a working knowledge of scientific issues to make informed decisions for themselves and their communities. A healthy democratic society also depends on global security and stability. The Academy has recently launched a three-year initiative on Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age, led by Christopher Chyba of Princeton University and Robert Legvold of Columbia University. The goal of the project is to articulate a new framework for governing relations among the existing nine nuclear weapons states, with particular attention to strengthening strategic stability within the two critical nuclear triangles: from the president

China, the United States, and Russia; and India, Pakistan, and China. The project is deeply rooted in the critically important work the Academy conducted during the Cold War to prevent a nuclear confronta- tion between the United States and the Soviet Union and beyond. It is now more important than ever that the Academy take up the challenge of understanding this new nuclear age. The Academy also holds meetings in Cambridge and around the country on topics of pressing importance to our democracy. In November 2017, the Academy held a Stated Meeting on “Redistricting and Representation” featuring presentations from the Honorable Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Gary King of Harvard University, Jamal Greene of Columbia Law School, and Moon Duchin of Tufts University. I invite you to read their insightful presentations in this issue of the Bulletin. In February 2018, the Academy held a Stated Meeting on “Jefferson, Race, and Democra- cy,” and in March 2018, the Academy looks forward to hosting the Bryson Symposium on Climate and Energy Policy at the California Institute of Technology. The Academy’s local program committees are also developing thoughtful and substantive programs: the New Haven Committee held a luncheon in December 2017 on “Gains from Trade and Inequality”; the San Diego Committee organized a conversation in February 2018 on “Why are America’s Politics Polarized?” and the Princeton Committee in February 2018 hosted a panel on “Research, Truth, and Academic Freedom.” We live in an uncertain time when the public and policy-makers are turning to independent, trusted institutions like the Academy for perspective and evidence. We should be proud that our Members are rising to this challenging moment with studies and publications, which are, in the words of our founders, “necessary to the wealth, peace, independence, and happiness of a people.” Contents

Presentations

4 Induction Ceremony 2017: Presentations by New Members Ursula Burns, James P. Allison, Heather K. Gerken, Jane Mayer, and Gerald Chan 14 Annual David M. Rubenstein Lecture Looking at Earth: An Astronaut’s Journey David M. Rubenstein and Kathryn D. Sullivan 28 Morton L. Mandel Public Lecture How Are Humans Different from Other Great Apes? Ajit Varki, Pascal Gagneux, and Fred H. Gage 36 Priorities for Progress: Advancing Higher Education in America Monica Lozano, Robert J. Birgeneau, Bob Jacobsen, and Michael S. McPherson 47 Redistricting and Representation Patti B. Saris, Gary King, Jamal Greene, and Moon Duchin

Projects and Publications

59 Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education: The Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America 63 Humanities Indicators: College Graduates in the Workforce

Update on Members

66 Noteworthy presentations

Induction Ceremony 2017: Presentations by New Members

n October 7, 2017, the American Academy inducted its 237th class of Members at a ceremony held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ceremony featured historical readings by Kathryn Fuller (Smithsonian Institution’s Nation- Oal Museum of Natural History) and John Lithgow (Actor and Author) as well as a performance by the Boston Children’s Chorus. The ceremony also included presentations by five new Members:Ursula Burns (Xerox Corporation), James P. Allison (University of Texas md Anderson Cancer Center), Heather K. Gerken (Yale Law School), Jane Mayer (The New Yorker), and Gerald Chan (Morningside).

We must do a better job of exploiting our most valuable natural resource – the curious young minds who are churning through our school systems. Exploiting that resource will mean imagining our youth differently.

In fact, that is exactly what I would like to ently. We cannot just sit around and hope. speak to you about today–expectations. We cannot limit access to what it is going to I am different from most of my class- take to develop and participate fully in the mates. I am an engineer, but not a true sci- magnificent opportunities that exist in so- entist. I am not an artist. I cannot sing or ciety. dance, and I cannot even carry a tune. I Our efforts must be focused on prepar- suppose that is part of what interested the ing future generations for the responsibil- Academy in me–that I am different. ities that they have going forward. One of Ursula Burns We are moving to a place in society, in the the most important areas that they must fo- Ursula Burns served as Chairman of the Board United States and globally, where more space cus on is stem: science, technology, engi- of Xerox Corporation from 2010 to 2017 and as is being made for people who are different. neering, and math. We still need–actually, Chief Executive Officer from 2009 to 2016. She As we do so, I would like to lay bare some we require–artists, artisans, creative peo- of the challenges that we face and consider ple, and soft scientists. We need all these was elected a Fellow of the American Academy those challenges in a positive light: a light of types of people. But I think we particularly in 2017. possibilities versus criticism or exclusion. need people who can take all of those assets The “normal”–meaning the status quo and transform them into usable short- and rowing up in public housing on New of the world from the point of view of gover- intermediate-term resources for societies. GYork’s Lower East Side, I did not en- nance, money, power, beauty, grace, etc.–is We are doing a very poor job of develop- vision that one day I would be standing be- comprised of a shrinking set of individuals. ing these people and a particularly poor job fore a group of 228 such distinguished lead- Many of these individuals have been good among women and underrepresented mi- ers. Come on–John Legend, Lynn Nottage, and strong stewards of the world. They cre- norities. I am not referring only to, say, Carol Burnett. This is not exactly the group ated much of the value that we see around black and brown women and men in Amer- I expected to find myself among when I was us, but the future cannot depend on them. ica. Underrepresented minorities can refer a little girl in the Baruch Houses. I am hon- There are not enough of them, and the num- to an Algerian in France or a woman in Sau- ored and humbled that this year’s induct- ber of people who are not like them is grow- di Arabia. There are so many human assets ees, the Academy’s 237th class of Members, ing. In order to get this new class of leaders that we are not using well, and it is hurting selected me to deliver this short address. prepared, we have to do something differ- the world, and specifically our country.

4 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 induction 2017

We will all benefit from the creativity and productivity unleashed when all Americans are called upon to contribute.

The numbers are not pretty. On the most Those people who took a chance on me recent pisa (Program for International Stu- are just like the people in this room. And dent Assessment) test, American fifteen- so I challenge each of you to do the same. year-olds ranked thirty-eighth out of sev- Expose yourselves to people who might be enty-one developed and developing coun- overlooked. Avail yourselves of their tal- tries in math and twenty-fourth in science. ents. Open yourselves to envisioning them Of the thirty-five members of the Organiza- in a future different from the one that seems tion for Economic Cooperation and Devel- preordained by their economic and fami- opment, the United States ranked thirtieth ly circumstances. Build the kinds of insti- in math and nineteenth in science.1 tutions that benefited people like me–like We must do a better job of exploiting our the Henry Street Settlement–and support most valuable natural resource–the curi- these organizations. Not just because it is ous young minds who are churning through kind. Not just because it is the right thing to our school systems. Exploiting that resource do. But because we will all benefit from the will mean imagining our youth differently. I creativity and productivity unleashed when am a good example of how that imagination all Americans are called upon to contribute. might pay off–for all of us. Conventional wisdom might have made © 2018 by Ursula Burns it easy for my teachers and other adults in my life to discard any potential they might have seen in me. I came from a place that had not produced many scientists or ceos. My mother struggled just to keep us together and fed in an environment that was unsafe and desperately poor. I benefited from the belief in me by people who saw something different, who saw some value. Adults who said, “Yeah, just because she lives there is not going to define who she is. The fact that her mother is a single mother who doesn’t have any skills to participate at a high level does not mean that her family has no drive, discipline, and intellect–all the things that make you both a good human being and a success.”

1. Drew DeSilver, “U.S. Students’ Academic Achievement Still Lags that of Their Peers in Many Other Countries,” Pew Research Center, February 15, 2017, http://www.pewresearch .org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students -internationally-math-science/.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 5 presentations

We must continue to support basic science, since it is clear that it can have a major impact on society. We also need to remember that science is based on facts. The current anti-fact movement is very troubling, and we must resist. We owe it to the next generation of scientists and to our own future.

As a last ditch effort, she participated novel ideas and test them, and go through in a clinical trial of a new drug called anti- the process of realizing that they are going ctla-4 therapy. Within three months of to be wrong most of the time. If you are not starting treatment, her tumors shrank in size wrong a lot as a scientist, then you are prob- and then disappeared. When I met her she ably not working on important questions. hugged me and cried. She was alive and her In the beginning of my career in the late James P. Allison doctors had just told her that they did not 1970s, the field of cellular immunology was James P. Allison is Chair of the Department of see any evidence of recurrent cancer on her still in its infancy. There was the concept Immunology, the Vivian L. Smith Distinguished cat scans. I was so moved, I cried with her. of T cells, which were cells that circulated Chair in Immunology, Director of the Park- Sharon and I have become good friends. throughout your body looking to remove When her first child was born a few years foreign antigens related to bacteria and vi- er Institute for Cancer Research, and the Exec- later, she sent me pictures. Then pictures ruses and potential cancer cells. I was in- utive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform of her second child. She is now eleven years trigued. It was a mystery as to how T cells at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer out from her battle with cancer and enjoy- worked. In the early 1980s, my lab identified Center. He was elected a Fellow of the American ing life with a vibrant family. I cannot help and worked out the structure of the receptor Academy in 2017. but cry whenever I tell this story. My meet- that T cells used to identify foreign antigens. ing with Sharon was my first experience of But it was not that simple. A T cell receptor am so glad to be here and very honored to how years of research as a basic scientist may be compared to the ignition switch of a I be selected for membership in the Ameri- could have an impact on patients. car. It is needed to turn the car on and start can Academy of Arts and Sciences. I am also When I was a child, I was fascinated by the process of T cell activation but it is not honored to represent Class II: the Biologi- science and biology and spent a lot of time enough to get it going. It seemed that anoth- cal Sciences. collecting bugs, lizards, and snakes and play- er signal was needed. We showed that an- In 2006, I had the opportunity to meet ing with my Gilbert chemistry set in the ga- other molecule, cd28, was the accelerator a patient by the name of Sharon. She was rage. My father was a local family doctor and that enabled T cells to take off and prolifer- twenty-four-years old and had recently he had high hopes that I would go to medi- ate to generate an army of cells that can then graduated from college and gotten married. cal school. But as I thought about it after en- do their jobs and attack the invaders that are More than a year before I met her, she was tering college as a pre-med major, I realized in your body. told by her doctors that she had only a few that doctors had to have a lot of facts in their But that is not the end of the story. There months to live. Sharon had stage 4 meta- heads and respond to a patient’s presenta- had to be a mechanism to stop the rapid pro- static melanoma, with tumors in her brain, tion with a rational treatment algorithm. liferation of T cells. Many people thought lungs, and liver. With such a diagnosis, her They had to be right all the time in order that T cells just died, but in 1994 we iden- projected survival was less than a year. She to help and not hurt the patient. I was pret- tified another signal, called ctla-4, and had received multiple prior therapies but ty sure that I was not disciplined enough to showed that it acted as a brake to stop T cell her cancer continued to grow and weaken do this. I preferred the idea of being a scien- responses before they could cause any dam- her body. tist. Scientists are supposed to come up with age. I had one of those aha moments. Nu-

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merous attempts had been made to mobi- that there is such a thing as objective reality. lize T cells to treat cancer, but with disap- Science is based on facts. The current anti- pointing results. It occurred to me that if fact movement is very troubling, and we we could block the brakes, we could allow T must resist. We owe it to the next generation cells to keep going for sufficient periods of of scientists and to our own future. time and destroy large tumors. I am truly honored to have been selected We tested this idea in mice with an an- as a member of this august body of individ- tibody we made to ctla-4, and it worked uals committed to making a better society. beautifully to destroy tumors in mice. We Thank you for this wonderful honor. I owe could not believe the results! Many tumors this success to a large number of students just melted away, and the mice were perma- and fellows who worked in my lab, as well nently immune to rechallenge. as to several colleagues. And I owe special We eventually teamed up with a small thanks to my wonderful partner in science, biotech company to move ctla-4 block- and love, my wife Pam Sharma. ade therapy into clinical trials. And, as they say, the rest is history! We now know that © 2018 by James P. Allison the therapy is effective against many types of cancer, and some patients are alive a decade or more after treatment. I have had the privilege of meeting many patients who have benefited from anti- ctla-4 therapy. It is always overwhelming, and my emotions often get the best of me as they tell me their stories. Additional ctla-4-like brakes have been identified and antibodies to these are showing remarkable benefits in patients. These drugs, now known as checkpoint blockade therapy, treat the immune system not the cancer, and as a result they can be effective against many kinds of cancer. Checkpoint blockade agents are now approved for many different cancers, including melanoma, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, Hodgkin’s lym- phoma, lung cancer, and others. Of course, we still have a lot of work to do. We have not been able to treat successfully cancers such as pancreatic cancers and glio- blastoma. We are continuing our efforts and hope to make progress in the near future. But I would like to point out that all of this comes from basic science. It is therefore necessary for us to continue to support basic science, since it is clear that it can have a major impact on society. We also need to remember that science is based on the notion

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 7 presentations

Universities have always been places that strike the balance between arguments and truth. They are one of the few remaining spaces where we can question everything and still believe in something. Now is the time to protect those spaces, to insist on their importance, even if it requires us to take up an unaccustomed role of speaking out.

best social scientists in the world. Law pro- ning quick. We live in a time when exper- fessors are the black sheep of the academ- tise is not just challenged; it has become ic tribe. We are often cloistered in our own grounds for doubt. Meanwhile other parts (more expensive) buildings. We publish in of the political spectrum watch us allow- our own (student-edited) journals. We even ing arguments over core values to occur and Heather K. Gerken speak in our own academic language. We doubt we have any values in the first place. Heather K. Gerken is Dean and Sol & Lillian work in the dreaded “professional” schools, We are being whipsawed by these two ex- Goldman Professor of Law at Yale Law School. not graduate schools. tremes. That is why it is a time for univer- She was elected a Fellow of the American Acad- You might even think that a legal aca- sities to speak to the values that undergird demic is a contradiction in terms. Don’t le- their mission, to talk about the balance be- emy in 2017. gal academics teach the profession damned tween argument and truth, to explain why as “hired guns”? Aren’t we the ones who we both have values and yet question them. t is an honor to be here and to speak on teach our students to advocate for every- Needless to say, speaking out is not what Ibehalf of this class of Members. I know thing while believing nothing? How does universities are used to doing. Taking a po- you all feel as I do at this moment. This is a one reconcile a lawyer’s professional train- sition is uncomfortable for institutions that storied institution, and we all were worried ing with the academic’s highest call–the typically adopt a studied neutrality toward about living up to this honor even before quest for truth? the world. That challenge reproduces at an we walked in here. Now we are following a I recognize that a call for truth, and not institutional level what we all experience as pathbreaker and a man who cured cancer. merely a quest for it, will strike some of you individuals and scholars. At this moment in When you add in David Souter, John Lith- as unduly earnest. It strikes me as undu- time, we are all thrust into an uncomfort- gow, and bagpipes, it gets intimidating. ly earnest, or at least dreadfully retro. Per- able and yet critical position of protecting I also would like to thank Justice Souter. haps it is even outside the bounds of what the right to argue while insisting on the ex- It must now be clear why every one of his a scholar should normally say. Academics istence of truth. clerks would throw themselves in front of are–and should be–cautious about label- When I think about the challenges of a bus for him, whom we have always affec- ing anything as truth. Our job is to be skep- being an academic at this moment–how tionately called “Boss.” He is a man who did tical, to resist labels, to avoid putting ideas hard it is to find the balance between argu- not take a break from his duties for his own and arguments outside the bounds of in- ment and truth, between holding values and induction into the American Academy, but quiry. Labeling something as “truth” risks questioning them–I find deep continuities he came here for me. In all my years, Boss, shutting down the argument that might re- between the work of a lawyer and the work I never imagined a situation in which you veal it as otherwise. of an academic. Because even though law- would be introducing me. But we are at a strange moment in our po- yers are taught to question everything, they I approach this moment with some trep- litical history when facts, evidence, and ex- also believe in something. And they stand idation since I am a law professor speak- pertise are all under attack. The slide from up for their commitments. Just look at what ing on behalf of a gathering of some of the “truthiness” to Fake News has been light- is happening worldwide. When countries

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start to slide into authoritarianism, you will And perhaps now is the moment to take eryone has the right to speak but where we often see lawyers–the people taught to ar- a lesson from the lawyers about striking the reserve the right to condemn something gue for any side–standing up on behalf of balance between argument and truth, be- as wrong. Now is the time to protect those rule of law values. How is it that members tween holding values and questioning them. spaces, to insist on their importance, even of a profession taught to doubt are the ones Perhaps it is time to stand up for truth even if it requires us to take up an unaccustomed who put their bodies on the line for what though our job is to disagree about what role of speaking out. they believe? truth is. Just as my profession, trained not to be- It has to do with our training. The training John Adams–the Bostonian statesman lieve in anything, has long stood up for the of a lawyer is much like the training of an ac- who helped found this academy–once said rule of law, so should we remind the world ademic. From the first moment our students that “facts are stubborn things, and what- that even if we disagree about truth, we still walk into a classroom, lawyers are trained ever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or believe in it. Facts are stubborn things, and not just to understand the weaknesses in the dictates of our passions, they cannot also are we. their own arguments, but to imaginatively ter the state of facts and evidence.” and sympathetically reconstruct the best ar- I will note that Adams uttered that quota- © 2018 by Heather K. Gerken gument on the other side. From the first day tion from a courtroom floor. In 1770, a unit in class, students must defend an argument of British soldiers killed five people in the they do not believe, or pretend to be a judge streets of Boston; it was a massacre. After- whose values they dislike. We try to devel- wards, the city was out for blood. And the op enough distance from our own commit- soldiers were likely to be hung. But Adams ments to recognize what is honorable in the stepped into the breach and volunteered commitments of our opponents. We check to represent the soldiers in court. He was ourselves habitually, almost reflexively. scorned for this decision. He was called a But lawyers are committed to rule-of- traitor. Adams nonetheless insisted that the law values no matter what our party or our dictates of passion and politics cannot and preferences. How is it that faithless lawyers should not trump evidence and truth. have faith in something? It is simple. Our In the end, the soldiers were acquitted profession has argued about values for gen- and the rest, as they say, is history. But Ad- erations. After centuries of laying waste to ams was right. Facts are stubborn things, every argument, we see that some are left and we should stand up for them even if ev- standing. They are the claims for which a ery disciplinary bone in our body pushes profession trained to identify every coun- us to remain silent and above the fray. This terargument cannot find a counter. They are might sound like a call to resistance to some. what remains when there is no argument on But when a call to reason is a call to resis- the other side. tance, that only confirms the sorry state of I won’t belabor the comparison, but it our politics. In usual times, we take care to must be obvious to you by now that what remain inside the bounds of university life, makes for a great lawyer also makes for worried about venturing too far into the a great academic: the ability to develop world lest we lose our critical distance. But enough distance from our own commit- sometimes we need to do more. This con- ments to recognize what is honorable in the versation is happening with or without us. commitments of the other side; the abili- Do not let it happen without us. ty to subject everything we believe to chal- Universities have always been places that lenge. But being a great lawyer and a great strike the balance between arguments and academic also requires the ability to recog- truth. They are one of the few remaining nize when there is no argument on the other spaces where we can question everything side. When a position is indefensible. and still believe in something. Where ev-

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 9 presentations

Falsehoods uttered by politicians are, of course, nothing new. What is new is the amplification of these lies by new forms of social media. Overtly partisan, frequently false, and often viciously personal attacks are now spread virally and unfiltered by countless waves of trolls, bots, phony think-tank bloggers, junk scientists, and even for-hire opposition researchers.

bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Au- methodology that most of you in both the gust 6 and 9, 1945. humanities and the sciences employ in your All these years later, I can no longer re- work every day. It is the methodology that Jane Mayer member what my own inexpert undergrad- we have inherited from the Enlightenment, Jane Mayer has been a staff writer for The New uate assessment was as to whether man- passed down through the generations, and Yorker since 1995. She was elected a Fellow of the kind’s first and hopefully last use of atomic that has contributed to all manner of break- American Academy in 2017. weapons was justified. But what I do remem- through and progress in human history. But ber, and have carried with me throughout unfortunately it is an approach to scholar- the rest of my life, is my introduction to the ship that I fear is under political assault to- am so happy to be able to join you all timeless methodology of scholarship, which day, in both the humanities and the sciences. I here today. I was going to say that I am included approaching the subject with an It may seem a stretch to lump these two honored, but I am more than honored. Af- open mind and searching relentlessly like disciplines in together. In 1959, C. P. Snow ter hearing of the other new Members’ ac- an obsessed amateur sleuth for every avail- famously gave his Rede Lecture about the complishments, I am blown away to be in able scrap of evidence–including reading vast chasm of understanding that divided the company of so many esteemed people. the personal diary of Henry Lewis Stimson, the two cultures of science and the human- So before anything else, I just want to say President Truman’s Secretary of War, de- ities. Today, I would argue that they are less thank you for welcoming me into the Acad- spite his admonition that “Gentlemen do divided than united in their pursuit of fact- emy, and for asking me to speak on behalf not read other each other’s mail”–let alone based truth against a common threat, which of my Class. their diaries! We pored over every relevant for lack of a better phrase was best described My introduction to the Academy’s pres- document we could find, and all manner of by Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to Presi- ident, Dr. Jonathan Fanton, actually began primary and secondary sources, grappled dent Donald Trump, as the production of “al- quite some time ago. Approximately forty with gaps and contradictions, formed hy- ternative facts.” You may remember that at years ago I had the pleasure of being taught potheses, argued and tested them on each the time that Conway uttered this phrase, she in a small, undergraduate seminar at Yale other, synthesized each others’ critical was arguing that despite demonstrable, pho- University by Professor Fanton. The sem- thinking, and finally arrived at what Carl tographic proof, Trump’s inaugural crowd inar was quite specialized and unusual. Its Bernstein, one of the greatest investigative was larger than that of his predecessor, be- focus was to examine, in as rigorous a way journalists of our era, calls “the best obtain- cause the president–and his dutiful press as possible, how and why several momen- able version of the truth.” secretary–had said this was so. Although the tous decisions in American history were This has basically been the same evi- dispute at hand was small and petty, the skir- made and assess whether these decisions dence-based process I have tried to employ mish represented a much bigger and more had been wise. My particular focus was on in pursuit of the truth as a journalist ever prophetic clash. As our fellow Member of the how America decided to drop the atomic since. And it is, I would guess, the same American Academy of Arts and Sciences and

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my longtime friend Jill Abramson succinctly It is apparently apocryphal–an ear- Prize–winning economist and liberal New responded, “Alternative Facts Are Lies.” ly form of fake news evidently–that Mark York Times columnist, put it, “In the Trump The fib about the size of the inaugural Twain ever said that “a lie goes halfway era we are ruled by people who are com- crowd was only the start. There have been around the world before the truth pulls its pletely alienated not just from climate sci- many more, and much worse ones from the boots on,” but whatever the derivation to- ence, but from the scientific idea itself . . . current administration. The New York Times day, a lie can spread not just halfway around the notion that objective assessment of evi- has kept a running tally that lengthens al- the world, but entirely around the globe, in dence is the way to understand the world.” most daily, and fact checking has become a minutes, and often the truth stands almost He has called this “willful ignorance” cottage industry, one of the few growth ar- no chance of completely catching up. “deeply frightening,” and has worried that eas, perhaps, in the journalism field. More- As a result, large swaths of the popula- it may end up undermining our democracy over, it is not just our current crop of politi- tion are being purposefully and constantly and “destroying civilization.” cal leaders at home who are waging this bat- misled. Social media, especially Facebook, At an upbeat occasion such as this one tle. Similar attacks have been launched on can circulate false information to two bil- here today, I do not want to end on such a the truth, and those who tell it, by regimes lion people each day. We now know that vi- pessimistic note. So instead I will leave you around the world. rally spread fake news helped defeat Hillary with a thought, a kind of inchoate action At home, of course, these attacks have in- Clinton in our last presidential election, an plan at this worrisome moment, derived cluded an effort to undermine the credibili- unprecedented infection of our democra- from my own experience in these culture ty of the independent mainstream news me- cy. And any crackpot organization can now wars. In 2010, after The New Yorker published dia as “fake news,” and those who write it as use the same tools to distribute fake infor- my long and carefully researched investiga- “Enemies of the American People.” But the mation to so-called like-minded people. tive report on the outsized political influ- targets range far beyond mere journalists. All The careful research of scholars and scru- ence exerted by two billionaire brothers, manner of independent, fact-based research pulous investigative work of journalists can Charles and David Koch, they were unable has come under attack, ranging from the be overpowered by a handful of keyboard to identify any errors, but nonetheless they economic analyses by the non-partisan Con- clicks. A technology that holds the great hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on gressional Budget Office to research done by promise of connecting people also has great me personally, in hopes of undermining my the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad- destructive power to misinform and divide credibility. It was, in other words, a page out ministration. Among the most worrisome them. Humanity has never before had an in- of the current playbook that we are seeing of these attacks, actually, have been those stant, information distribution technology all too often. If anyone had believed their at- on the scientific community in general, and of such force–it has been compared to the tack, it could have been professionally dev- on the science of climate change in partic- seismic impact of Gutenberg. astating. But instead what happened was ular, which President Trump memorably Our political system is reeling from the that several colleagues of mine jumped into denounced during the 2016 campaign as a blow. Charlie Sykes, the former right-wing the fray, and publicly defended my work and “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese. radio talk show host, has described the fall- my integrity. They did so quickly and gen- Falsehoods uttered by politicians are, of out well: “The cumulative effect of the at- erously, even though this wasn’t their fight. course, nothing new. What is new, howev- tacks” on fact-based media, he has said, has But they did it, I think, partly because they er, is the amplification of these lies by new been “to delegitimize those outlets, and es- sensed that this is all of our fight. So I hope forms of social media. Overtly partisan, fre- sentially destroy much of the Right’s immu- that all of you will keep doing and honoring quently false, and often viciously personal at- nity to false information.” He added, “All each other’s astonishingly fine work, and tacks are now spread virally and unfiltered by administrations lie, but what we are seeing that when honest, evidence-based truth or countless waves of trolls, bots, phony think- here is an attack on credibility itself.” those who tell it are attacked, you too will tank bloggers, junk scientists, and even for- It seems unthinkable, as we are celebrat- jump into the fray, speak up, and have each hire opposition researchers, who literally ing the incredible achievements of this others’ backs, because whether we are in the stalk and “track” opponents with video cam- year’s Nobel laureates in science, that not humanities, the arts, or the sciences, this is eras in search of compromising material that just the news media but whole branches of actually all of our fight. they can then post, as happened this year to science could be under attack, too, but sad- the environmental activist Bill McKibben. ly they are. As Paul Krugman, the Nobel © 2018 by Jane Mayer

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 11 presentations

The answer to reversing the decline in life expectancy is not a further increase in healthcare expenditure. I submit that the answer lies in education, which is one of the strongest positive determinants of life expectancy. It is an investment in the future.

much of what I do in biotechnology can be tion of the data reveals that this phenome- characterized as being in the business of giv- non was most pronounced for the less edu- ing life more time. Sometimes we succeed in cated and that the leading causes of death bringing people back from the verge of ex- were drug overdose, suicide, and cirrhotic piration. Other times, the best we can do is diseases of the liver resulting from alcohol to effect some form of disease modification consumption or viral infection. Geograph- and offer the patient an extended interreg- ically, the phenomenon was particularly Gerald Chan num somewhere between life and death. pronounced in rural America and in for- Gerald Chan is the Co-Founder of Morningside, I remember when my grandmother mer industrial towns now left behind by a a private investment group with venture capital, turned sixty, I thought she was really old. new economy powered by technology and private equity, and property investments. He My childish perception was not too wrong globalization. because statistically, she could expect no These data speak to the grip of social de- was elected a Fellow of the American Academy more than another decade of life. At the terminants on population health and life in 2017. dawn of the twentieth century, the life ex- expectancy. Indeed, the earlier works of Sir pectancy of an American person was for- Michael Marmot and others from the Unit- hereas each of the Academy’s Classes ty-seven years. At the close of the century, ed Kingdom have shown a tight correlation WI through IV consists of individuals that life expectancy had climbed to seven- between income and life expectancy. For ex- in coherent fields of scholarship, ClassV is a ty-seven years. Within the century that saw ample, Marmot followed a train line across diverse collection of people in business, ed- two world wars fought with ever more dead- the city of Glasgow in Scotland and showed ucation, public affairs, philanthropy, jour- ly weapons of mass destruction, humanity that with every stop, income level dropped nalism, and more. As I am to speak on behalf has also made great strides in the direction and life expectancy dropped in lockstep. He of this medley of distinguished women and of beneficence. then repeated the study along a train line men, I can only do justice to the diversity by Recent data, however, have called into from Montgomery County in Maryland to speaking on something that is of sufficient question whether the success of this life Washington, D.C., and saw the same con- generality. I shall begin with life and time. extension project can continue ad infinitum. cordance. For every one and a half miles Axiomatic to all biological life forms is Two years ago, the world was stunned by a along the railroad track, life expectancy de- that life is bounded by time. We celebrate paper published by Anne Case and Angus clined by one year. birthdays year after year to remember the Deaton (I should note that Anne is also be- Such population health data are a glaring beginning of life and to mark the progres- ing inducted into the Academy today) that reflection of social conditions. The study sion of time. For a young person, this pro- showed that since 1999, death rates have by Case and Deaton reveals that in parts gression means growth, but past a certain been climbing among middle age, white of America, people are dying the “death of inflection point, this progression equates to non-Hispanics in this country. This phe- despair” at an alarming rate. In a connect- inching ever closer toward a terminus. The nomenon was not observed for comparable ed society, it is simply not possible that the most primal assessment of a person’s life is cohorts either from other ethnic groups in plight of this dispossessed population will simply how long did he live. I am cognizant this country or from other developed coun- not be felt by all even though they may live of this conjuncture of life and time because tries in the world. More granular examina- in small towns and we live in prosperous

12 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 induction 2017

metropolises like Boston. History shows resources are finite and that debts will have It is with this concern for posterity that that at a certain point, the dispossessed will to be repaid, spending on the past or the we are being called to the Academy today. It radicalize the polity whether it be effect- present cannot but be at the expense of the is a calling to share in the stewardship of this ed through violence or through the ballot future. Between the past, the present, and country’s future. The American Experiment box. Signs of this were clearly evident in the the future, there are hard choices–moral is as yet unfinished even though the Amer- voting pattern of last November’s election. choices–that our society can no longer af- ican Century, in the lifetime of we the Baby What happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, ford to sidestep. Boomers, has come and gone. We press for- this past summer will happen again as long If I am being recognized today for my ward, still affirming that this is a nation con- as the same social conditions persist and ir- philanthropic work, I would like to note ceived in liberty and dedicated to the propo- respective of whether statues of Confeder- that for me, philanthropy is a voluntary de- sition that all men are created equal. n ate leaders remain on public display. When parture from a rights-based rubric of how the present is so unpalatable and offers no one relates to his fellow men to one that © 2018 by Gerald Chan hope for the future, people will engage in a has its source in duty, empathy, communi- rabid pursuit of a vanished past or, worse ty, an exalted view of man, and an abiding yet, an imagined past. commitment to the dignity of all. As much To view or listen to the presentations, The answer to reversing the decline in as we cherish rights, some natural and un- visit https://www.amacad.org/ life expectancy is not a further increase in alienable, over-assertion of rights does induction2017. healthcare expenditure. America already have untoward consequences. For the indi- spends 18 percent of its gdp in healthcare vidual, it leads to narcissism, disregard for and yet the life expectancy of the Ameri- history and posterity, and will produce an can people is inferior to many nations that atomized and alienated person. For society, spend far lower percentages of their gdp on it accentuates differences and risks social healthcare. We have long passed the point fragmentation and eventually the break- of diminishing return. down of society. Such are the perils facing I submit that the answer lies in education, our nation today. which is one of the strongest positive deter- In 1780, this Academy was founded ex- minants of life expectancy. It is baffling to plicitly with the future of the nation in me that year after year, healthcare expen- view. John Adams, one of the Acade- diture grows in this country while the pub- my’s founders, once wrote to his wife Ab- lic-sector budget dedicated to education igail, “Posterity, you will never know how shrinks. Witness the finances of the great much it cost the present generation to pre- state universities in this country. When I serve your freedom.” It is only right that talk to my friends at uc Berkeley, I get the each generation should make sacrifices for sense that the neglect by the politicians in the good of its children. Sacramento has the effect of dismantling I recently attended a concert of Czech that great university brick by brick. music in which I heard these lyrics: Healthcare expenditure is an expendi- Lord God, our Father ture for the benefit of the present generation. Considering that the consumption of Turn your eyes on the multitudes, healthcare is weighted heavily in the lat- Whose hands clasped in prayer ter years of people’s lives, including espe- reached for the weapons cially end-of-life care, it may be said that such expenditures represent an attempt in In order to create bread for their stretching the past. Education, on the other children out of blood. hand, is what we give to the young. It is an investment in the future. If we accept that

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 13 presentations

Annual David M. Rubenstein Lecture Looking at Earth: An Astronaut’s Journey

n October 8, 2017, as part of the Academy’s 2017 Induction weekend, Kathryn D. Sullivan (Ambassador at Large at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum; former nasa astronaut; and former Under OSecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and noaa Administrator) discussed her experiences as a nasa astronaut and participated in a conversation with David M. Rubenstein (Co-Founder and Co-ceo of The Carlyle Group and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian Institution). The program, which served as the Acade- my’s 2059th Stated Meeting, was the inaugural Annual David M. Rubenstein Lecture. An edited version of the presentations and discussion appears below.

In my view, the scientific and technological innovation that most captured the public’s attention was flight and, ultimately, flight around the earth and into the cosmos.

was flight and, ultimately, flight around the you may remember when the first Russian earth and into the cosmos. Sputnik went up in 1957. We were worried If we think about it, the Wright brothers’ that our country was falling behind. In 1958, work in Kitty Hawk received an enormous President Eisenhower signed legislation to amount of attention. People around the create nasa, which was to be our counter world were amazed that a person could fly, to the Russian program. because for most of human history the idea Eventually, we put our own satellites of getting into space was something almost in space, and then we put our first man in nobody had thought was realistic. space: Alan Shepard. His was just a 15-min- Homo sapiens have been around for ute flight, but it received an enormous David M. Rubenstein roughly two hundred thousand years. For amount of attention. And then in 1962 John David M. Rubenstein is Co-Founder and Co- most of that time, people have looked up Glenn circled the globe three times. CEO of The Carlyle Group. He is Chairman and wondered where the stars come from, After that we began the effort to go to of the Boards of Trustees of the John F. Kenne- where the sun comes from, where the moon the moon. President Kennedy set the goal: comes from, and could we ever get closer By the end of the 1960s, a man would go to dy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithso- to any of them. Could we ever get off the the moon and come back safely. Although nian Institution, and the Council on Foreign Re- ground? For 99.9 percent of our history, we Kennedy did not live to see it, in 1969 Neil lations. He was elected a Fellow of the American could not. Armstrong landed on the moon. We then Academy in 2013. Then the Wright brothers proved we could began to see other extraordinary things. get off the ground. And after that, Lindber- We had space shuttles and the internation- t is difficult to identify the single most im- gh flew from the United States to Paris. As al space station, and we started to explore I portant scientific or technological devel- we developed more and better equipment, the cosmos in new ways. We learned so opment of the twentieth century. You could Chuck Yeager and others achieved super- much more about space. The importance say the theory of relativity, or the discovery sonic flight, and interest in getting off the of this great advancement was not just that of dna, or the development of vaccines, ground continued to increase. Then the we could circle the globe but that we could or the creation of the Internet. In my view, Cold War came, and we were in a competi- learn much more about the globe. As a re- the scientific and technological innovation tion with the Russians over who was going sult of our exploration, we now have many that most captured the public’s attention to be the superior party in space. Many of more technological and scientific skills. So

14 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 looking at earth: an astronaut’s journey

President Kennedy set the goal: By the end of the 1960s, a man would go to the moon and come back safely. much of what our life depends on today– Environmental Observation and Predic- such as the National Weather Service, the tion and Deputy Administrator of noaa. global positioning system, cell phones, and In 2014, the president appointed her Under modern computers–came about as a result Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and At- of our efforts to explore space. One of the mosphere and noaa Administrator. heroes of that space exploration is with us Today, she is writing a book about her today: Kathryn Sullivan. experiences helping to deploy the Hubble In 1978, Kathryn was in the first class of Space Telescope on her spaceflight aboard women selected by nasa to become astro- the space shuttle Discovery. She has also nauts. Before then, no women had been al- been involved with the Smithsonian Insti- lowed. Why? Well, an astronaut had to be a tution’s National Air and Space Museum, fighter pilot or a test pilot, and women were holding the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in not allowed to be fighter pilots or test pilots. Aerospace History and now serving as an Kathryn’s fellow classmate, Sally Ride, Ambassador at Large for the museum. was the first American woman in space, but Kathryn has an extensive background in Kathryn was the first American woman to science, an extensive background in public do an extravehicular spacewalk. In all, she affairs, and the terrific experience of serving served on three shuttle missions, once each as an astronaut and helping our country ad- aboard the space shuttles Challenger, Discov- vance greatly in science. It is my honor to in- ery, and Atlantis, spending about 530 hours in troduce Kathryn Sullivan. space–an extraordinary amount of time– but she has done so much more than that. In addition to her time as an astronaut, Kathryn has had an outstanding career as a scientist. She attended college at the Uni- versity of California, Santa Cruz, and received a Ph.D. in geology from Dalhou- sie University in Halifax, Canada. She was then selected as an astronaut by nasa and served as an astronaut from 1978 until 1993. When she left nasa, she became the chief scientist for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (noaa). When that service ended, she went to Ohio, where she headed the Center of Science & Industry, a science museum in Columbus. Later, she went to work at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State Uni- versity. In 2011, President Obama appointed her Assistant Secretary of Commerce for

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 15 presentations

While in space, you go around the earth in 90 minutes. If you are up for long enough, you get to watch the seasons change beneath you, you can watch the planet breathe beneath you and see the vegetation bands move.

This journey is zero to 17,500 miles per me the remote?” or “Please pass me the hour in eight and a half minutes. Every m&ms?” Instead you would say, “Would minute, you are going about 2,000 miles you please send me . . . ,” and you just give per hour faster than you were before. In less the object a little shove and it cruises across than 30 seconds, you are passing the altitude the cabin. It becomes a natural way of do- of every jetliner. Then you pitch the vehi- ing things, and after ten days (that was the cle over and accelerate until you are at that length of my longest flight), it is hard to re- 17,500-miles-per-hour speed. member that when you get back to Earth Kathryn D. Sullivan It is a smooth ride for much of the jour- this isn’t going to work anymore. Kathryn D. Sullivan is an oceanographer and ney. It is like a push on the back of your chair Playing with water is even better. On the astronaut and the first American woman to walk then the engines cut off and you are in this space shuttles, where there is not much in space. She is former Under Secretary of Com- magical environment where you can swim room, a favorite sport was to make a ball at will throughout the cabin. The force of about the size of a golf ball, preferably out merce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA a fingertip will move you or a 300-pound of your orange drink so you could see it, and Administrator. She is currently a Senior Fellow space suit or one of your colleagues any- then play air hockey with it by blowing on it at the Potomac Institute and an Ambassador at where through the environment. until it was drifting toward your opponent. Large for the Smithsonian Institution’s Nation- I made a habit of always eating my dinner The crewmate would have to blow it back al Air and Space Museum. She was elected a Fel- up at what is normally the ceiling, dangling with just the right amount of force. If you low of the American Academy in 2017. downward simply because I could. This is fail to get the vectors exactly right, instead the only place my mother would forgive me of hydrostatic forces winning and keeping would like to share with you a few for playing with my food. the liquid in a nice little ball, surface ten- I glimpses of what the adventure of liv- Up here you are your own clean-up crew, sion will take over, and you are either going ing and working in space is like, and then I of course, so if you lose an m&m, if it wan- to drink or wear the water ball. This makes want to shift gears and consider the remark- ders off somewhere, it is important that you hair washing and hygiene very interesting. able perspective that living in the space age know how the airflow circulates through While in space, you go around the earth in gives us. the vehicle and where the dead spots are, 90 minutes. On two of my flights, our orbit Let’s go for a ride, starting on the launch because the stray m&ms and lost socks and was inclined to the equator 57 degrees, so we pad of the space shuttle Discovery. Water is other things will be right there in about saw a substantial swath of the surface of the spraying out the back end because a bomb half a day, and you can go scavenge them. If earth. If you are up for long enough–which, is about to go off, and we want to suppress you think m&ms are fun, Pepperidge Farm regrettably, I was not–you get to watch the the noise and the vibrations. One-and-a- goldfish will display schooling behavior in seasons change beneath you, you can watch half million pounds of thrust is coming up this environment. the planet breathe beneath you and see the to speed, to be followed by the explosion of Another very fun thing is how quick- vegetation bands move. five million additional pounds of thrust. If ly people change their vocabulary. If you The scenes are stunning. Every time you you didn’t understand before that you were wanted me to give you a hand control or a look out the window, you are seeing about riding a bomb for a living, you understand it remote, in short order you would find you a thousand-mile swath: full continents are vividly at this moment. had ceased saying, “Would you please pass out your office window at every glance;

16 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 looking at earth: an astronaut’s journey

history is just out your window. The caval- Modern-day satellites actually take ad- and the knowledge of the physical processes cade of voices and the kaleidoscope of im- vantage of this to measure the chemistry of our planet that has been gained over de- pressions and recollections that come forth and the properties of the planetary atmo- cades of fundamental research, has made it from your fellow astronauts are stunning. spheres as well as our own atmosphere. In possible for us to foresee what is coming in Yet the first thing said by every astronaut is space you see the fine layering of the atmo- the natural systems of our planet. usually, “Holy cow, look at that. It looks just sphere. You are seeing all the way up to the Satellites are making these measurements like the maps!” tropopause and the stratopause, and far up all the time. On a moment-by-moment, Sometimes, it is just plain modern art– into the ionosphere. You see the intricate day-in-by-day-out basis, they are measur- the center pivot irrigation of the U.S. Great layering that creates the physical envelope ing infrared radiances, microwave radianc- Plains, with a quick seasonal dusting of that retains our atmosphere and water va- es, gps radio occultation–the kinds of fun- snow and a low sun angle popping every- por, which makes this planet a lushly habit- damental physical measurements we know thing into great relief. The images could able little ball. It’s spectacular and endless- how to transform into physical properties of hang in the Museum of Modern Art. No one ly fascinating to see it revealed in this fash- our planet. This is what makes it possible to would know the difference. ion time and time again through the course have a global understanding of our Earth. Sun glint does magical things anywhere of a day. From space we can see the biosphere. We you see it on water. Here, a very low sun The Apollo crews competed to get the see plankton blooms in the ocean. We see right near the terminator view of the mouth best earthrise picture. Frank Borman’s was the land greening and going fallow as the of the Amazon reveals the endless braid- the iconic shot that is cited as the one where seasons change. We see the circulation of ing, the intertwined swamps and lowlands, the scales fell from our eyes, the one that precipitable water, the potential for rain in and the river making its channel and jump- gave us the first sense of ourselves as flying the atmosphere. We see global wind fields ing back and forth however it wishes in the on this little blue dot. all at once, across the whole planet. massively flooded delta. At night, the earth is stunning in altogether different ways. The geophysics re- One of the other magical things about seeing our ally stand out. You can see where the mag- planet in space – going 17,500 miles per hour, a lap netic field lines curve down toward the surface of the earth, and you notice something around the planet every 90 minutes – is that you get that most of us don’t think about routine- 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every 24-hour period. ly. The same physics that make the aurora at the poles are actually happening about 60 to 100 kilometers above the earth, all around Nowadays we live with similar all-at-once The ability to take the pulse of the plan- the earth, and all the time. It just needs to be views of Earth every day of our lives and in et and then propagate that forward based on dark so we can see it. ways we don’t think about because it is the the fundamentals of physics underlies ev- One of the other magical things about space age. This is the vantage point of satel- erything from your daily weather forecast seeing our planet from this perspective– lites, whether they are orbiting our moon or to climate outlooks to the kinds of weath- in space, going 17,500 miles per hour, a lap orbiting closer by. Mankind’s ability to live er and climate signals that are factored into around the planet every 90 minutes–is and operate and observe our planet from or- crop futures and the insurance and rein- that you get 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets ev- bit has made it possible, for the first time in surance markets. It’s what we came to call ery 24-hour period. The sun comes up or human history, to take a snapshot of condi- in my time at noaa as “environmental in- goes down every 45 minutes whether you tions across the entire globe at once. telligence”: actionable, timely information need it to or not. Whether you think it’s With satellites, we have the ability to mea- that is pertinent to decisions that real-world bedtime or not, it’s happening, and at each sure the state of water vapor in the atmo- people are making in their homes, in busi- of those junctures you have these extraordi- sphere of the entire Western Hemisphere or nesses, in governments around the globe. nary opportunities to see the prismatic ef- the surface temperature of the ocean. The We don’t think any more about how ex- fect of our atmosphere edge-on, backlit by ability to take a snapshot at one point in traordinary it is to be the first generation of the sun. time, coupled with modern-day computing human beings with this capability. We are

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 17 presentations

In space, you see the fine layering of the next day to retract that comment, by the way, and to tell me I had her full support be- atmosphere. You see the intricate layering that cause she would want her mother’s full support if she had those kinds of adventures be- creates the physical envelope that retains our fore her. So here’s to you, Mom! atmosphere and water vapor, which makes this David Rubenstein planet a lushly habitable little ball. What type of training do you have to go through to be an astronaut? really still just infants at understanding and Discussion appreciating how to bring this information Kathryn Sullivan into our decision-making, into our public David Rubenstein The qualifications include advanced degrees and private lives, in ways that can help us You have been an administrator in Wash- or proven skills, preferably with some oper- live more wisely and more well on this pre- ington dealing with members of Congress ational bent that lets nasa see how you re- cious little planet of ours. and you have been an astronaut. Which role spond in unforeseen circumstances when About ten days ago, the spacecraft Cassi- has been more taxing, either physically or the stakes are high and decisions are crucial. ni plunged into the atmosphere of Saturn. mentally? Once you are in, there is about a yearlong Its grand finale was to fall between the rings curriculum tailored by nasa. It is essen- and the planet, but one of the other really Kathryn Sullivan tially graduate school for astronauts, and in- remarkable things Cassini did was to flip its Working with Congress is definitely more cludes any technical subject you can imagine telescope around to us and help us appre- taxing. But each role is intriguing in its own that touches spaceflight: physiology, solar ciate place and scale and perspective in the way, like different jigsaw puzzles that need physics, meteorology, spacecraft engineer- solar system. It photographed Saturn from to be solved. ing, guidance and flight control. You end up the other side, backlit by the sun, and we are taking a combined first- and second-year all in that picture on the little blue dot that David Rubenstein graduate course in all of those subjects. is Earth. When you told your parents, “I’m going to I never saw Earth from this far away, but go be an astronaut,” what did they say? David Rubenstein even from the vantage point I had when cir- Three Mercury astronauts were killed in their cling our glorious beach ball several hun- Kathryn Sullivan spacecraft–before they got off the ground– dred times, it is a magical, fascinating, pow- I remember that phone call very well. I had so clearly there is the potential of losing your erful, and also fragile and precious place. just learned from nasa that I had made the life. Did you ever worry about that? My passion, the reason I applied to be an final cut to be interviewed, which meant astronaut, was that I knew, if I magically 8,700 candidates had been cut down to 200. Kathryn Sullivan somehow got in, I would get to see the earth There was about a factor of 10 still to be cut, I worried about it most intensely before I with my own eyes from that vantage point. but I had made the shortlist. I rang my par- even filled out the application. I figured if Earth is what motivated me to go into space. ents and excitedly said, “I’m going to get in- you get into something like this you should What motivated me to leave my space-far- terviewed.” My mother said, “So what does think through for yourself beforehand what ing career and come back to Earth was the this mean?” If nasa didn’t pan out, I had a the risk-reward equation is for you, for the passion and commitment to make the space postdoc in hand that would have me diving country, for mankind, at whatever levels perspective matter, to transform our under- to the bottom of the seafloor in Alvin sub- matter to you. The risk will never be zero. standing into useful knowledge, and put it mersibles to study the geology of mid-ocean It is a human undertaking. People make er- to good practice in the interest of improv- rifts. So I glibly said, “Well, it means I’m ei- rors of omission and commission, so I really ing life on Earth. ther going 200 miles up or 4,000 feet down.” thought that through. There was a pained pause on the phone, and By the way, I was applying in the 1970s then my mom said, “Isn’t there anything ex- when there was a fair bit of controversy. citing on the surface?” She called back the “Why are we throwing all this money at

18 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 looking at earth: an astronaut’s journey

space things? We have problems here on Earth is what motivated me to go into space. Earth.” I thought about those criticisms, too, to decide if I was aligned with them or if What motivated me to leave my space-faring I thought this was something worth doing. career and come back to Earth was the passion David Rubenstein and commitment to make the space perspective Your astronaut class had six women? matter, to transform our understanding into useful Kathryn Sullivan knowledge, and put it to good practice in the interest Six women, three African American men, and an Asian American man. We called our- of improving life on Earth. selves–and the white guys came up with this–10 interesting people. need you to be ready to deal with the unex- Kathryn Sullivan David Rubenstein pected. If you never want to talk to each oth- Yes. In eight and a half minutes, it’s going to When you are in training, do you have to er again when you get back, we don’t mind. get really busy, so you catch what final naps pretend that you think the men are better If you become best friends when you’re you can. than the women, or did you really know the back, more the better.” women were better than the men? The International Space Station is differ- David Rubenstein ent. You can’t run people on a six-month At what point do you realize the launch is Kathryn Sullivan timeline at that kind of cadence, so more going to be successful? When you are one I knew we each had to hold our own. I need care is taken with profiling, to getting some minute into it, two minutes into it? each of my crewmates–male, female, black, understanding of personality matches, and green, or otherwise–to know their stuff, to to talking things through in advance. Kathryn Sullivan be completely competent and hold their You realize it is successful when you have ground when things get crazy or squirrely David Rubenstein landed and stepped off the spacecraft in one or scary. And they need to be able to trust So, you are sitting there in Cape Canaveral, piece. For everything in between, you are me as well. in the Challenger, ready to be launched. How paying very close attention. many people were on that flight? David Rubenstein David Rubenstein As you know, sometimes people don’t get Kathryn Sullivan Let me ask you the question most children along with each other, and sometimes There were seven on that flight. must ask you right away: How do you go to they don’t talk to each other or don’t want the bathroom? to meet with each other. When you are in David Rubenstein space, you can’t really do that, right? So As you are sitting there and the countdown Kathryn Sullivan how do you deal with human problems? is approaching, do you think about whether Ah, yes. The grownups are always really the shuttle is going to blow up? Does your grateful when children ask about this be- Kathryn Sullivan heart rate go up? cause they have all been wondering but Shuttle missions are sprints. They are five- are too sheepish to ask. The cute answer is, to ten-day missions, and nasa at that time Kathryn Sullivan “Just like you do here but much more care- paid scant attention to those factors. They You sit there for a couple of hours while a fully and with a checklist, because your mis- put a particular five on a crew because they thousand and one checks are being done. I takes will follow you around.” needed their skills, and they didn’t particu- actually took naps through that time. We all know what happens on Earth, larly care if the five loved each other. They where gravity helps. But in zero gravity how just needed their combined skills to get cer- David Rubenstein do I make the waste coming out of my body tain things done. The message was, “We You napped? go where I want it to go? The answer is air-

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 19 presentations

In my judgment, there is worth in this pursuit of the Kathryn Sullivan On the short flights I was on, there certainly frontier – both direct human exploration and robotic wasn’t. What may happen on the space sta- exploration. tion, I don’t know. David Rubenstein flow. A space toilet pulls some of the cabin Kathryn Sullivan On your first spaceflight you did aneva , air through the gap between the toilet seat You get a fair bit of personal choice over an extravehicular spacewalk. You were out and your rear end, and that entrains both what is in the pantry and what is on your there for about four hours, tethered. What the liquid and the solid. menu, and there is astronaut lore about fa- were you doing? vorite items. David Rubenstein Kathryn Sullivan When you have men and women in the David Rubenstein We had an engineering test to do. nasa shuttle, is there any privacy, or do you for- What about sleeping? Where are the beds? and the Air Force were interested in proving get about that in space? How do you sleep? whether satellites could be refueled in orbit. That sounds like a trivial thing, but the loss Kathryn Sullivan Kathryn Sullivan of fuel in a satellite is often what ends the There is not a lot of privacy. Each crew would On two of my flights we all slept during the life of the satellite. Unlike your car, where handle it a little differently. I was one of two same cycle and just turned everything over access to the gas tank is a simple screw top, a women on my first crew and the only wom- to the ground for monitoring. Some folks satellite’s fuel system usually has three caps an on my other two flights. An ethos just de- would zip up in a little sleeping bag, which and four sets of safety wire and a few other veloped between us, that worked male or could be tied off on a wall or just dangle on things on the valve to make extra sure noth- female. Someone would say, “I’m going to a string. I tended to sleep on the upper deck ing gets out. In addition, the propellant is change my skivvies” or “I’m going to change and almost float free. I would take an eye- both highly explosive and very toxic, so we my shirt,” and the rest of the group would glass tether about the size of a microphone had a specially designed set of tools to pro- respect this sort of courteous blind zone. cord and loop it through my watch and tie tect us from the toxic propellant once we re- it through a little eyelet on the instrument moved all of the caps and seals. David Rubenstein panel and just be floating off the end of that. What about the food? Do astronauts real- David Rubenstein ly drink Tang? I always drank it because I David Rubenstein So, when you are putting on your space suit thought the astronauts did. You can sleep six hours like that? to go outside, how long does it take to get that space suit on? Kathryn Sullivan Kathryn Sullivan Well Tang had really good marketing. The Yes. You look like you are in a dead man’s Kathryn Sullivan current version of Tang is astronaut ice float. Your body goes to this neutral pos- To get outside, the total process, assuming cream, which I promise you has never been ture. More than one astronaut has woken you set everything up and staged it the day in a spaceship. The food is okay. I can have up in the middle of the night and seen a pair before, takes four hours. great food when I am back home for most of hands up there and thought someone was of the rest of my life. So, if you are going coming at them until they realized, “Oh, David Rubenstein to serve me mountaineers’ food or camp- those would be my hands.” By the way, no- Four hours to put the space suit on? ing food for ten days or even a couple of body snores in zero gravity. months, I can handle that. Kathryn Sullivan David Rubenstein No, four hours to get ready to go outside. An David Rubenstein Oh, really? Wow. What about flirtation? In hour of that is physiology: sealing yourself What about special treats? Do they give you zero gravity, is there any flirtation between in the suit, which is pure oxygen at low pres- anything special to make you feel better? the men and the women? sure and letting the nitrogen in your blood-

20 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 looking at earth: an astronaut’s journey

stream slowly wash out. You face the same David Rubenstein Kathryn Sullivan risk as a scuba diver. You are going from a Can you explain the physics of this? You are My spacewalk was on October 11, and we 10.2 psi cabin, which is about the pressure going 17,500 miles per hour. When you are deorbited on October 13, so we had a day to of, say, Copper Mountain, Colorado, to 4 psi untethered, why are you going at that same button everything up and get ready to return. pure O2. Because of the decrease in pressure speed? Since you are not a spaceship, why and the pure oxygen environment, all the ni- doesn’t the spaceship just move away and David Rubenstein trogen in your bloodstream wants to get out, leave you hanging there? When you land, is there any fear that you are and that can give you the bends. going to burn up coming back in? Kathryn Sullivan David Rubenstein If we apply the basic principles of physics to Kathryn Sullivan When you go outside, are you tethered? this situation, I am in the same energy state Yes. That is what happened with Colum- as the spaceship, coasting through space at bia. If you come in at too shallow an angle, Kathryn Sullivan 17,500 miles per hour. All I did was physical- you can bounce off the atmosphere. Then Yes. ly uncouple from the spaceship, but noth- you might not have enough propellant ing else has been done to change my ener- to do another slowdown, and you will be David Rubenstein gy state. I didn’t slow myself down or speed trapped in orbit. If you come in too steeply, Suppose you were untethered. What hap- myself up, and the spaceship isn’t firing its and the heating rate is too high, the vehi- pens then? engines. So, I am still right there at the same cle burns up. You have to thread a fine cone energy state as the spacecraft. And there is on reentry. Kathryn Sullivan no drag. If I undo my tether and let go of the hand- hold, nothing happens. I am still in for- Hubble was designed to be maintainable in orbit, mation. I am flying in formation with the spacecraft because I am doing 17,500 miles and one of the tasks we had as the deployment per hour just like the spaceship. If I let go of the spaceship, there is no air that suddenly crew was to make sure it had all the tools and all the blows on me and slows me down. procedures it needed, and we checked them on the If I was clumsy when I let go and brushed against the spaceship, then I would be doing telescope. We had to guarantee they worked. 17,500 miles per hour but in a slightly different direction from the spaceship. As soon as Think about when you hold a candy wrap- David Rubenstein that handrail got just past my fingertip, I am per out the window of your car: it is doing About a year and a half after your mission on never grabbing it again unless I have some the same speed you are. When you let it go, Challenger, it exploded on liftoff. You knew the propulsion to push me back or the spaceship the reason it falls behind you is that gravity people who were on that flight pretty well. maneuvers toward me. pulls it down. The force of gravity acts on it, and the drag of the air acts on it even if you Kathryn Sullivan David Rubenstein are at a constant speed going forward. But Four of my classmates were on it. Have there been untethered spacewalks? neither of those forces is active when I let go of the spaceship. David Rubenstein Kathryn Sullivan Did that make you think maybe you Yes, in a handful of spacewalks the astro- David Rubenstein shouldn’t go back a second time? nauts were wearing jet packs that let them So you finish your walk. You go back in. At maneuver. that point, how much longer are you on the Kathryn Sullivan space shuttle before you land? Actually, it gave me greater resolve that we should go back. Before I ever joined the program, I had thought deeply about why hu-

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 21 presentations

the orbiter are just a little bit apart, both do- If the goal was bold and included humans, it would ing 17,500 miles per hour. So we back the push more science and technological advances space shuttle away from the telescope and leave it there on its own. across a wider front than any other kind of goal you could set. And the cascade of benefits that would David Rubenstein Explain what went wrong with the Hubble flow from that over time into all walks of life would be Telescope. Was the problem with how it was extremely rich, comparable to what followed Apollo. put together? Kathryn Sullivan mankind does this, why the country does David Rubenstein The telescope has an eight-foot-diameter this, why I want to do this. In my judgment, How big is the Hubble Telescope? mirror that needs a precise mathematical there is worth in this pursuit of the fron- shape so all the rays of light can be brought tier–both direct human exploration and ro- Kathryn Sullivan to a focus. The Hubble mirror was made too botic exploration. If one tragic accident had The Hubble is about the size of a school flat at the margins by about one-fifth of a led my country to say, “Eh, never mind,” I bus, about 54 feet long and just inches shy human hair, which sounds super tiny but would have felt betrayed. of 15 feet. the shape needed to be exact. Basically, they made a mistake. They had two ways of mea- David Rubenstein David Rubenstein suring to check that the shape was correct: Surely your parents called you up after Chal- And it fit in the shuttle? an old-fashioned way and a newfangled lenger and asked, “Are you sure you want to way using a laser altimeter. The old-fash- do this again?” Kathryn Sullivan ioned way said, “No, no, you are wrong. It It is set lying down in the shuttle and then is not shaped correctly,” but the newfangled Kathryn Sullivan bolted in on the sides. method said, “No, it is okay.” I am sure my parents had that conversation The team was behind schedule. They were between themselves, but one of the things David Rubenstein being pressured to stay on budget. And in- they were really generous about was never So, how do you get it ready? Do you just stead of stepping back and re-measuring making their fears my problem. open the doors? with fresh teams on each side, they con- vinced themselves that the new tool was cor- David Rubenstein Kathryn Sullivan rect and the mirror was shaped correctly. But Your second mission was on Discovery. And First we take the manipulator arm, the crane the new tool had been assembled incorrect- that time you were preparing the Hubble on the space shuttle, and use it to grab a spe- ly, and a shim that should have been in one Telescope. cial fixture on the telescope. Then, we undo place was in another, and the error correlates all the clamps that hold it down. Next we pull precisely to the dimension of that shim. Kathryn Sullivan the power cord out and lift it up above the or- The bad news is that they made a mistake. Right. We took the Hubble Telescope up and biter and hold it there for a fair period of time The good news is that the mistake was very put it into orbit. while folks on the ground run through com- precise, which means, like an optician, we mands for the antennas and solar arrays to can calculate a very precise correction and David Rubenstein unfold, get it all ready to be on its own in or- restore sight. How do you actually put it in orbit? Do you bit, and make sure everything is working well. just open the shuttle bay and put it out there? If something wasn’t working well, we could David Rubenstein button it back up and bring it home and fix it. When it became apparent that the Hubble Kathryn Sullivan Once the basic checkout is squared away, wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, You actually could do that. we open the clamp on the arm and pull the did the Hubble scientists say, “Well, it was arm a little bit away. Now the telescope and the astronauts who didn’t do it right?”

22 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 looking at earth: an astronaut’s journey

Kathryn Sullivan repairs and our confidence in what we were with the turbulence of the atmosphere, you When we uncradled the telescope, we were doing, over time we have gone from what fire a laser toward the target you want to doing something we had practiced in com- you might classify as doing auto mechanics look at. You then measure the scattering the puter-driven simulations over and over at 17,500 miles per hour to performing mi- laser beam experiences along that path and again, but now we were doing it in the real crosurgery in space. calculate how that waveform was affected world. And the real mechanical arm had When we put Hubble in orbit in 1990, it by the atmosphere. Then you can command some lag in it and some hysteresis to it, and had really 1970s technology, and it was ex- the actuators on the mirrors to compensate the motors were driving just a little different- pected to have a fifteen-year lifespan. Ev- for that “atmospheric seeing” and thus take ly than what the computer modeling showed. ery instrument has been upgraded with out a lot of the disturbance. Steve Hawley was the person running the 1990s and early-twenty-first-century detec- arm. He started slowly lifting the telescope tor technology, so it is now three times more David Rubenstein up, this billion-dollar-plus, very fragile sensitive. It has vastly higher data rates, When you came back from your second mis- thing with only so much clearance to get it much faster data rates with the ground, and sion, did you want to go for a third? How do out. It started wobbling and moving in ways much higher onboard storage capacity. Oth- you get permission to go for a third time? we had never seen in the simulator. So, we er than the mirror and basic skeleton that went very slowly, got it out, and then went holds the mirror, Hubble is in every respect Kathryn Sullivan home. And unfortunately then the problem an altogether new telescope. Come 2020 it How crews are assigned and who gets picked showed up. will mark its thirtieth anniversary. and why is one of the great black-box secrets Charlie Bolden and Steve Hawley, in particular, spent a couple of weeks really worried that maybe they had bumped the tele- Mankind’s ability to live and operate and observe scope and not realized that as they were our planet from orbit has made it possible, for the inching it out. But none of the repercussions came at the Astronaut Corps, because it was first time in human history, to take a snapshot of clear the fault was in the shape of the mirror, conditions across the entire globe at once. and that had been set years before any astronauts had been involved. David Rubenstein of the Astronaut Corps. You clearly have to David Rubenstein The Hubble telescope today is in many show your stuff and be seen as competent Ultimately, it was repaired, and the Hubble ways better than any telescope on Earth. and deliver on assignments, but beyond that Telescope today is three times as powerful Why is that? it is anybody’s crystal ball. as when you put it up there. How did that We had a very mysterious, Machiavellian happen? Kathryn Sullivan senior leader running things when I was It still has an edge on optical telescopes. there, not an astronaut but a senior admin- Kathryn Sullivan Hubble sees, basically, in the visible wave- istrator. One school of thought was that you Hubble was designed to be maintainable in lengths plus or minus tiny bits–just as our needed to be one of George’s kids and hang orbit, and one of the tasks we had as the de- eyes do. Hubble’s advantage is being above out at the bar with George, and since George ployment crew was to make sure it had all the clouds and out of all the turbulence and liked softball, you should go play softball. the tools and all the procedures it needed, scattering that the atmosphere imposes A cohort of people turned their life and we checked them on the telescope. We when you are looking at visible light. around to be George’s kids, but then you had to guarantee they worked. Ground-based telescopic technology has could look at the flight pattern and say, “I Since then, five repair crews have visit- narrowed the gap with Hubble over the don’t know that any of those guys really got ed the telescope. The first one restored the years, though, by using thinner mirrors or anything from being George’s kids.” I think sight, put the corrective lenses in, changed mirrors made out of an assemblage of small- the criteria for getting flight assignments– solar arrays, and did a number of other er mirrors, with mechanical systems on the other than performing well–were always things. In terms of the sophistication of the back that can warp and push them. To deal mysterious by design.

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David Rubenstein Kathryn Sullivan For me personally, a lot would depend At this point several hundred Americans If I ruled the universe, I would go Kenne- on who was asking and what was the stated have been in space. Looking back dispas- dyesque again. I would set a bold goal that purpose. If Elon Musk is selling tickets and sionately, is there any reason we had to send sparked imagination, that was deliberately it is some sort of “golly gee whiz” commer- humans into space? Could we not have ac- chosen to be beyond current technical and cial venture, I don’t know that I would risk complished everything just by sending ma- risk-management capabilities. The trick that. It would be risking my life for some- chines into space? then is, “Don’t blink.” Just go for it. body I am not sure I trust on the risk factor. The array of sciences, technologies, and If it was a national commitment for stated Kathryn Sullivan capabilities that such a goal would advance, purposes along the lines of what we aimed If all you want is data, machines can gath- the hurdles and unknowns we would be for as a country in Kennedy’s era, something er data–assuming you know with certain- compelled to push beyond, would be nu- worth committing your life to with a risk but ty what it is you want and what qualities the merous and varied. If the goal was bold and also a purpose, that kind of equation could data must have. If that is uncertain, if you included humans, it would push more sci- make some sense to me. And then it would be who are the people doing it. I think about the team of people that made up nasa and We are only on this planet temporarily. I have great my flight crews, and none of us were per- respect for cultures that have an ethos of thinking of fect. We knew we were going to make mis- takes and that no one can guarantee that ev- the seventh generation and counting it as genuinely erything is going to go right. But if I am con- fident that everyone’s commitment to the being on their watch to take account of that seventh purpose, to the mission, to its success, and generation. to our collective safety is as strong as mine, I’ll take that risk with those kinds of people. are trying to figure something out for the ence and technological advances across David Rubenstein first time, then having broader human fac- a wider front than any other kind of goal As an astronaut and somebody who cares ulties present on the scene still has, in my you could set. And the cascade of benefits about the space program, is it embarrassing opinion, tremendous value. that would flow from that over time into all that we cannot launch humans into space Secondly, there has never been a tick- walks of life would be extremely rich, com- anymore and have to depend on the Rus- er tape parade for a robot. There is some- parable to what followed Apollo. sians to do that? thing about the human experience. Being in your own wedding is different than look- David Rubenstein Kathryn Sullivan ing at someone else’s wedding pictures. Be- Apparently, several thousand people have To be honest, I was disappointed when we ing at the rim of the Grand Canyon is differ- said they would be willing to go to Mars and discontinued our missions. It was purely a ent than getting a postcard from someone or not return. If there was a mission to Mars, financial decision of the Bush presidency. If seeing someone’s picture. Your sense of un- would you be willing to go on it? you have a new idea for a spacecraft, you are derstanding of what that place is, your sense going to get to the point in which you have of connection to what it means or what it in- Kathryn Sullivan to bend metal and do more expensive things spires in humankind, happens by the direct Part of me instantly says, “Yes!” Part of me than drawings and analyses. You have to cut human experience and by the direct per- thinks about the people who set off for the something out so that your budget stays flat. son-to-person sharing of that experience, colonies hundreds of years ago or embarked I would have preferred for our national sov- not by ones and zeroes. down the Oregon Trail. They didn’t know ereignty and national strength that we had they were going to get there, but they were retained launch capability while we built a David Rubenstein going to give it a go, hoping that something new spacecraft instead of just seeing how Would you be in favor of our space program better was on the other side. long it might take for the private sector to going back to the moon? step into the breach.

24 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 looking at earth: an astronaut’s journey

David Rubenstein If I ruled the universe, I would go Kennedyesque When you are on a shuttle mission, if you have an appendicitis attack, a kidney stone again. I would set a bold goal that sparked attack, or a heart attack, what do you do? imagination, that was deliberately chosen to be Kathryn Sullivan beyond current technical and risk-management We always had two folks on each crew who had mini-emt training. Contaminants capabilities. in your eyes are a common issue because things are floating in the air that would nor- then the eloquence of the Christmas Eve greenhouse planet. The predominant green- mally end up on the floor. We had a very broadcast. house gas in our atmosphere is water vapor. good medical kit and we had a consulta- They read from the beginning of Gene- That is why we are all here. tion line open with a flight surgeon on the sis. Even now, I feel a little chill down my There are several drivers of the natural ground if we needed it. We could stabilize spine and can almost see the picture again variability, but we have a very good handle urgent things, even do a tracheotomy. in my mind’s eye. At that moment it did not on what magnitude each of those other driv- Then, depending on the urgency, you fire a passion that I must save the earth, but ers can produce. Changes in the sunspot cy- could deorbit and be back on the earth in I think it did play a strong role in awaken- cle, variations in the inclination, variations under an hour for something extreme. But ing an environmental consciousness. All in the aerosol content: they happen. They if you needed to choose the landing site and the icons of literature and art across our so- have an influence, but they are very small in make sure you had the necessary emergen- ciety and around the world were drawn to scale compared to the change since the In- cy support on the ground, you might have to that picture. dustrial Age in the concentration of co2. delay for a few hours. There are people who have argued with me David Rubenstein that going from 300 parts per million to 400 David Rubenstein When you were at noaa, you sparred with parts per million on an atmosphere our size The Apollo 8 mission was the first time hu- members of Congress over climate change. seems trivial. But we are talking about an ex- mans came around the backside of the quisitely balanced system, and we know that moon, saw the dark side of the moon, and Kathryn Sullivan some of the active gases–co2, methane, then saw the earth rising. Some people say A little bit. bromine–while they have a similar effect to that led to the beginning of the environmen- water vapor, have higher amplitude effects. tal movement, because in the images the as- David Rubenstein Think of the 250-pound man who has a tronauts took you saw this blue speck. Can Is there a credible scientific argument that bite of shellfish or eats a peanut and in mo- you talk about how it inspired you to think the earth’s climate is not changing? ments is in anaphylactic shock. Or the tiny about the importance of the oceans and the bee that stings a 300-pound person, who in importance of the earth as a place where you Kathryn Sullivan short order is in potentially fatal shock. Pre- want to preserve the environment? There is none. We know that weather is the cise, finely balanced systems often have fine variations of temperature and precipita- sensitivities that defy our intuition, and key Kathryn Sullivan tion through a 24-hour cycle. The dynam- radiative gases like methane, bromine, and Earth and geography, using the broadest ics of the atmosphere and the ocean system co2 have that kind of amplifying effect in sense of the word, have fascinated me from at timescales longer than two weeks is what our atmosphere. a very young age: people, cultures, land- we call climate. And, of course, it changes. scapes. At the time of the Apollo 8 mission, I There is very strong evidence in the geo- David Rubenstein was intending to pursue a language and lin- logic and plant record of massive changes As a scientist, therefore, you think there guistics career and figuring out how to par- over time. The earth has tremendous natu- is no doubt that there is climate change. lay that knowledge into exploring the world. ral variability. But the people you dealt with in Congress But like every other person, I was mesmer- The earth is also a greenhouse planet. or elsewhere who say there is no climate ized and just stunned by that first view and None of us would live here if it was not a change, what is their best argument?

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 25 presentations

Kathryn Sullivan healthy yet. I don’t think the high blood So that opens a front where people are I recall a particular sparring match I had sugar is that much of a problem yet. I don’t looking for actionable data. They are look- with one member of the House of Repre- think it is quite that dire yet. That is a big ing to better understand their risks. They are sentatives, Lamar Smith, who accused ca- change to make, and I don’t want to accept looking to try to understand how to adapt reer noaa scientists of manipulating tem- that I need to make that change.” or prepare for changes that are already hap- perature records under coercion to fit the pening and changes that are coming. I think Obama administration’s climate action David Rubenstein that opens up a potentially productive front plan and desires leading up to the Paris con- Today, when you deal with people who on deciding how we act and live together. ference in 2015. think there is no climate change problem or The causal issue is a real one. At some There was zero truth to the claim: for ex- that it is not caused by humans, do you try point, it has to be dealt with. John Holdren ample, the fact that the data were taken over to convince them otherwise, or do you just would say, “Manage the avoidable and avoid X number of years, that the noaa scientists say, “I am going to deal with other issues?” the unmanageable.” But how do you work on both of those fronts when it is still so politically toxic to talk about avoiding the un- My sense is that at root this battle about climate manageable through some action to miti- change is really about not wanting to acknowledge gate or control carbon? noaa played a key role in the scrubbing that a collective issue of human activity on the and removal of sulfur and nitrogen oxides from our atmosphere back in the 1990s, planet affects us all, because something that affects when the problem was acid rain. Market all of us tends to require some collective response. mechanisms played a tremendous role in making that happen. Emissions of those species today are in the 2–5 percent range of didn’t collect the data, that it was indepen Kathryn Sullivan what they were in the early 1990s, and the dent data, that we were accused of being se- I will engage in the debate. I think it is a de- reductions had an actual, substantive eco- cretive about methods despite the fact that bate we need to be willing to have with each nomic upside. Why we can’t see around that the entire methodology and all the data had other. I am glad the debate has opened a sec- corner when the chemistry involved is co2 been published in the open literature before ond front, which took about a decade or so still baffles me. the spat ever began. to do, because whatever your views may be The other arguments they make vary. of causality, the patterns we have been ac- David Rubenstein People will throw out the sunspots or oth- customed to for decades and centuries are How do you respond to somebody who er natural factors. My sense is that at root changing. The data and the patterns are says, “Yes, I think there is climate change, this battle is really about not wanting to ac- shifting. The statistics are not stationary and I even think humans cause it. But noth- knowledge that a collective issue of human anymore. ing I can do as a human is going to change activity on the planet affects us all, because The average temperature in April at a cer- the amount of carbon in the atmosphere in something that affects all of us tends to retain place is no longer the same as it always my lifetime or in my children’s lifetimes, so quire some collective response. It asks me to was. Your gardening magazine will show why should I do anything that is going to af- give up autonomy. It asks me to give up sov- you that. The plant hardiness zones have fect people a century from now if I am not ereignty. It asks me to change my lifestyle or been marching northward. Fish will show going to see the benefit of it?” put at jeopardy a business plan that is cur- you that. They are leaving to follow the iso- rently working for me. therms. Farmers will tell you that. Ranch- Kathryn Sullivan Their best pushback is to say, “You don’t ers, some of the most politically conserva- Well that is the classic human trap. “It have certain enough evidence yet.” But that tive members of the agriculture sector, will doesn’t affect me now, and my linear think- is like telling your medical provider, “You tell you that this isn’t working the way it al- ing can’t begin to contemplate that it could just told me you want me to give up smok- ways used to work. affect me in my lifetime, so I don’t care.” ing and donuts. I don’t think I am that un- There is a moral dimension here. We are

26 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 looking at earth: an astronaut’s journey

People are looking for actionable data. They are looking to better understand their risks. They are looking to try to understand how to adapt or prepare for changes that are already happening and changes that are coming. I think that opens up a potentially productive front on deciding how we act and live together. stewards of this planet. We are only on this David Rubenstein planet temporarily. I have great respect for Today, as you look back on your career– cultures that have an ethos of thinking of which encompasses going into space, run- the seventh generation and counting it as ning noaa, being an educator, talking el- genuinely being on their watch to take ac- oquently about these challenges–what are count of that seventh generation. you most proud of?

David Rubenstein Kathryn Sullivan There are roughly 10 million species on the I have been blessed to have been able to face of the earth now. Ninety-nine percent touch or inspire or give a boost of confi- of all the species are extinct, and now we dence to people at a point that mattered to have 10 million left. An average species lasts them, people who have then done me the about 500,000 years. A mammal lasts about grand favor of circling back around and re- a million years. We are between 200,000 and flecting on where that let them get to and 300,000 years old. Do you think we will make what that meant to them. I don’t have any it to a million years at the rate we are going? kids of my own, but I have fingerprints on a number of young and not-so-young folks. Kathryn Sullivan The greatest gift you can give or receive is The planet will be fine a million years from to have the opportunity to make a meaning- now, but what the species mix will be is an ful contribution that is sincerely received in open question. another person’s life. So, I feel tremendous- ly fortunate to have been able to do that, David Rubenstein and I am proud of several of the people who If humans disappeared, who would rule the have come back and shown me all the great earth? things they have done. n

David Rubenstein Oh, really? It wouldn’t be the cockroaches? To view or listen to the presentations, visit https://www.amacad.org/ Kathryn Sullivan induction2017. Well, the insects might give them a go.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 27 presentations

Morton L. Mandel Public Lecture How Are Humans Different from Other Great Apes?

n October 23, 2017, at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in San Diego, California, the Acad- emy, in collaboration with the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (carta), host- O ed the Morton L. Mandel Public Lecture on “How Are Humans Different from Other Great Apes?” The program, which served as the 2060th Stated Meeting of the Academy, included a welcome from Gordon N. Gill (Univer- sity of California, San Diego School of Medicine; Chair of the Academy’s San Diego Program Committee) and featured remarks from Pascal Gagneux (University of California, San Diego; carta) on Genomics, Life History and Reproduc- tion; Fred H. Gage (The Salk Institute; carta) on Genetics and Brain Development; Margaret J. Schoeninger (Uni- versity of California, San Diego; carta) on Anatomy and Behavior; and Ajit Varki (University of California, San Diego; carta) on Common Disease Profiles. The following is an edited transcript of some of the presentations.

Introduction

t is a privilege and honor for an organiza- ancestor with Old World monkeys, then Ition that is less than ten years old (name- with Gibbons and other lesser apes, then ly, carta) to partner with one that orig- with orangutans, followed by the gorilla and inated before the U.S. Constitution was eventually with the common ancestor of the written (the American Academy of Arts and chimpanzee and bonobo, the so-called pyg- Sciences). A common theme supported by my chimpanzee. Based on anatomical, phys- both organizations is the discovery and dis- ical, and behavioral features, we humans semination of factual knowledge. Time does classified our closest evolutionary relatives not allow me to provide a description of the as “the Great Apes.” In reality we are more origins and goals of carta, so I will simply similar at the genomic level to chimpanzees read our mission statement: and bonobos than these two species are to “To use all rational and ethical approaches to gorillas. Moreover, at the genomic level, we seek all verifiable facts from all relevant disciplines are more similar to chimpanzees than mice to explore and explain the origins of the human and rats are to each other. phenomenon, while minimizing complex organi- Thus, from a genomic perspective, hu- Ajit Varki zational structures and hierarchies, and avoiding mans are nothing more than one kind of Ajit Varki is Distinguished Professor of Med- unnecessary procedural complexities. In the pro- “Great Ape”; the correct term encompass- icine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine and cess, train a new generation of scholars in anthro- ing all these groups is “Hominid.” Asking Co-Director of the Glycobiology Research and pogeny [understanding the origin of humans], how we are different from the other Homi- nids is one way to understand our own evo- Training Center at the University of California, and also raise awareness and understanding of the study of human origins within the academic lutionary origins, an approach that we call San Diego; Executive Co-Director of UCSD/ community and the public at large.” “Comparative Anthropogeny.” Salk Center for Academic Research and Train- The overall question at hand today is: How Carrying out this comparison requires at- ing in Anthropogeny; and Adjunct Professor at Are Humans Different from Other Great tention to a very large body of knowledge. the Salk Institute. He was elected a Fellow of the Apes? At first glance, the last three One of the currently incomplete efforts of American Academy in 2005. words–“Other Great Apes”–may appear carta is to try to collate this knowledge on a bit strange. Let me explain. Humans are, our website under the rubric of The Matrix of course, primates, who shared a common of Comparative Anthropogeny (moca),

28 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 how are humans different from other great apes?

One of the striking differences between humans and their closest living relatives is the schedule of life. In several aspects, humans have slowed down.

ist in at least two different species, but there is only a single species of humans today that has colonized the entire planet. Each of us, as long as we live, is a unique mosaic of a genome that consists of 46 piec- which is a collection of comparative infor- Pascal Gagneux es of chromatin, reshuffled from our par- mation regarding humans and our closest Pascal Gagneux is Associate Professor of Pathol- ents. Each of your haploid genomes is about evolutionary cousins, with an emphasis on ogy and Anthropology at the University of Cal- a meter long. So you have about two me- uniquely human features. ifornia, San Diego, and Associate Director of ters of dna in each one of your cells. That is still very incomplete, but it sounds mighty short, but each meter con- moca UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research and is organized by Domains (each with de- tains three billion base pairs, and therefore Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA). fined Topics) arranged by areas of inter- we have two times three billion base pairs. est and scientific discipline. Some exam- One of the ongoing research projects in ples of moca Domains are: Anatomy and On Genomics, Life History, many labs around the world is to identify Biomechanics, Behavior, Cell Biology and and Reproduction differences in the genomes of hundreds of Biochemistry, Cognition, Communication, different apes and thousands of different Culture, Dental Biology and Disease, Devel- would like to start with a little bit of humans, which are now available for study opment, and Ecology. In the time available I geography. Humans are the only peri- because the entire genome, each of the three today, we cannot possibly cover even a small planetary ape. In contrast to us, our closest billion base pairs, has been sequenced. portion of these Domains of knowledge. In- living relatives are restricted to the tropical The results are showing some very sur- stead, our panelists will explore some spe- forests of Africa and Asia. As Ajit has just prising findings. There are huge differenc- cific examples of distinctly human features, mentioned, we are more closely related to es in copies. For example, there are copies ranging from genetic to cognitive to ana- two species of these Great Apes. Some peo- of segments that can range from a couple tomical to behavioral to biomedical, while ple have started debating whether we should of base pairs to millions of base pairs that also considering implications for explaining be in the genus Pan or whether the two spe- have expanded in only one species of ape, human origins. cies of Pan should be in the genus Homo. or in chimpanzees and gorillas, but not in Paradoxically, the living apes, even though humans. In the reverse, we have copies of their populations are under very intense chunks of dna that have only expanded in threat from deforestation and direct hunt- humans but not in the other apes. ing, still contain more genetic variability And there are completely novel genes than all seven billion humans on the planet that pop up in different species. There are today. The other striking contrast you might pseudogenes that are still recognizable notice is that all the other apes, except us, ex- based on their dna sequence, but have

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 29 presentations

Human minds are effective copying ma- One of the ongoing research projects in many chines. Somebody comes up with a good labs around the world is to identify differences in idea, and then everybody in the group maintains that idea. We develop a ratch- the genomes of hundreds of different apes and eting culture, in which we build upon each thousands of different humans, which are now other’s ideas. One very interesting idea is that this de- available for study because the entire genome, each layed development is actually a biological assimilation of the cultural input. Humans of the three billion base pairs, has been sequenced. in hunter-gatherer societies have a shorter inter-birth interval than apes. Humans can stopped encoding proteins. You can mine grandmotherhood, and sometimes grand- give birth about every three years, chim- the genomic data to find evidence for re- parenthood for relatively long periods–up to panzees only every five or more years. Even cent positive selection, in which natural se- 30 percent of the total lifespan is comprised though our babies are costly, we can produce lection has forced more changes to the proof the post-reproductive survival phase. more of them than our living Great Ape rel- tein-coding dna than you would expect. Some have proposed that this might have atives. And when humans are done making Humans are made of trillions of cells, and been an adaptation to cultural opportuni- babies, they actually survive for a long time. different cell types play a different subrou- ties, given the importance of cultural trans- Our societies, long before medicine, the In- tine off the mostly clonal genome that is in fer in our species. Or perhaps it was due to dustrial Age, or the farming age, allowed for all your cells. So by tweaking where you ex- nutritional opportunities, in which mothers grandmothers and grandfathers. press which combinations of genes, you can with better access to high density-rich foods Interestingly, in evolutionary biology it is actually change how the organism looks. can actually do novel things in utero. It may pretty much accepted that toward the end of I thought I would say a few things about also have been facilitated by stronger pair the reproductive period, there is a minimal the complex nature of the genomic land- bonds between parents or by allomother- force of selection. But if you allow for cul- scape. In these three billion base pairs, we have about twenty thousand protein coding genes, which corresponds roughly to Humans are made of trillions of cells, and different the number of undergraduate students at cell types play a different subroutine off the mostly ucsd. There are hundreds of thousands of enhancers–chunks of dna with a func- clonal genome that is in all your cells. So by tweaking tion, even though they never make proteins–that influence the activity of other where you express which combinations of genes, genes. And many of these are transcribed. you can actually change how the organism looks. We don’t know what that transcription really does. So, we have a vast genomic landscape, and we are only beginning to discover ing, which is when other individuals in the tural transmission, post-reproductive indi- new functions for pieces of dna that, until group help you take care of your kids. viduals can actually facilitate the survival of recently, were thought of as mere junk. Now, what does this delay in growth al- related, younger individuals, which opens One of the striking differences between low? The delay allows increased transmis- up later stages in life to the action of natu- humans and their closest living relatives is sion of behavior and concepts. Humans are ral selection. the schedule of life. In several aspects, hu- eminent copiers. We hyper-imitate. In com- With regard to forming the next gener- mans have slowed down. Our gestation time parative studies of the transmission of tool ation, what is striking is that to find strict is only slightly longer than that of the chim- use, chimpanzees are very good at imitat- monogamy in nonhuman primates, you panzees, for example, but we have invented a ing to achieve a goal. Humans, on the oth- need to look at the lesser apes, the Gibbons. couple of key things. Humans seem to have er hand, focus at least as much on how it is They live only in the forests in Southeast invented childhood, adolescence, certainly done and show normative tendencies. Asia. The other Great Ape close relatives

30 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 how are humans different from other great apes?

have completely different mating systems: for example, the gorilla’s harem-like soci- We have established a eties, with the big Silverbacks that have ex- bank of cellular tissues clusive access; the dispersed systems of the orangutans, with two types of males: the big from many of our closest males that are chosen by the females and the younger males that bypass female choice relatives that allows us and force the females to mate with them; to look at distinctions and chimpanzees and bonobos, with multi- male/multi-female societies, in which each between ourselves and ovulating female will mate with every male our closest relatives. in the group. For humans, what is striking is that even though humans live in groups, pair bond- more unique to the complexity in behav- ing is a major phenomenon. This allows hu- ior that humans can exhibit. For example, mans to participate in reciprocal exogamy, when we think about what are the measures which essentially means exchanging mates that allow us to examine how we may have across social groups. It allows for linking Fred H. Gage evolved, we can use genetic information. multiple kin lineages. Now, if you combine Fred H. Gage is Professor in the Laboratory of Svante Pääbo has been able to extract dna the cognitive capacity of our slowly matur- Genetics and the Vi and John Adler Chair for from ancient bones and make a hypothe- ing children, the allomothering, and the in- Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative sis about how that dna may differ through put of the group into each child, a striking evolution, particularly from our closest an- Disease at the Salk Institute, and Co-Director array of things becomes possible. It essen- cestral relatives. of UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research tially allows for our social-cultural niche. Sometimes we obtain postmortem brain and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA). He We share symbols. We have personal names. tissue from our closest ancestral relatives. was elected a Fellow of the American Academy We have kinship terms, which allows for the We can measure the magnitude of gyra- formation of tribes. We have shared rituals, in 2005. tions in the cortex and explore specific ideas dance and music, sacred spaces, and group or hypotheses about how they may be im- identity markers, and we can increase the On Genetics and Brain portant. In addition, we have fossil crania to capacity to cooperate with and compete Development study and, from those skulls, we can build against other groups. casts or make ct scans to get an idea of how would like to provide you with an exam- the brain size was changing, again building I ple or two of how a process may have led our theories based on these measurements to the differentiation of humans from our and the correlations that exist. closest relatives, and then talk about a cellu- Furthermore, we have cultural icons as lar system that allows us to look at potential well that give us an idea of how far a species molecular and cellular differences that might had emerged, given its ability to build, plan, have led to dissimilarities in who we are. and generate art. What we know is that the brain has in- In each case, we have material that we can creased in size across species during evolu- work with: genetic material, tissues, organs, tion along the branch that leads to humans. and cultural artifacts. What has been miss- And we have come to the hypothesis that ing, however, is living tissue from some of the growth of the brain is causally linked our lost ancestors and from our closest rela- to what it is to be human. The correlation tives, like chimps and bonobos. is placed there because as the brain became So the “missing link” is the ability to in- larger, we acquired features that seemed terrogate the activity and function of live

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 31 presentations

Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest relatives, ular parasites of the genome). So what are mobile elements? They are elements that with 95 percent of our genomes being similar; yet, exist in specific locations in the genome and, through unique mechanisms, they can there are vast differences in phenotype. How can make copies of themselves and jump from we begin to understand the cellular and molecular one part of the genome to another. Barba- ra McClintock discovered these elements mechanisms responsible for these differences? through her work on maize. Some of us study a specific form of mo- cells and the phenotypes of the cells. We But we can ask the question: are there dif- bile elements called a line-1 retrotrans- have established a bank of cellular tissues ferences that are detectable at a cellular and poson. They exist in thousands of copies in from many of our closest relatives that al- molecular level that help us understand the the genome, as a dna that makes a strand lows us to look at distinctions between our- origin of humans? We have begun building of rna and then makes proteins that binds selves and our closest relatives. a library with other collaborators around back onto the rna, helping the element As Pascal mentioned, chimpanzees and the world, and have reprogrammed somat- copy itself. This combination of mrna and bonobos are our closest relatives, with 95 ic cells from many of these species into ips proteins then moves back into the nucleus percent of our genomes being similar; yet, cells. They retain common features of em- where the dna resides and pastes itself into there are vast differences in phenotype. bryonic stem cells at the cellular level and the genome at a new location. How can we begin to understand the cellu- they have the same genetic makeup as pre- These line elements continue to be active lar and molecular mechanisms responsible dicted based on the species. in our genome, and they are particularly ac- for these differences? In our first attempt to see if we could tive in neural progenitor cells. Thus, the rea- One of the things we can do is take so- identify differences in these primitive cells, son for our interest in piwil2 and apobec3b matic cells, such as blood cells or skin cells, we did what is called a complete transcrip- is because it has been demonstrated that from all of our closest relatives. Through a tional (mrna) analysis. If we compare the both of these proteins can suppress the ac- process called reprogramming–by overex- transcriptional genomes of chimpanzees tivity of line-1. pression of certain genes in these cells–we can turn the skin or somatic cell into a prim- Are there differences that are detectable at a cellular itive cell, called an induced pluripotent stem (ips) cell. These primitive cells are in a pro- and molecular level that help us understand the liferating, living state that can be differenti- ated to form, in a dish, any cell of the body, origin of humans? allowing us, for the first time, to form living neurons or living heart cells from all of and bonobos, there are very few differenc- Not only do humans make more of these our closest relatives and then compare them es. So we pooled all our animals together proteins, but as an apparent consequence, across species. and compared that combined nonhuman the lower levels of these L1 suppressors in These ips cells represent a primitive state primate group to the human group. chimpanzees and bonobos means the L1 el- of development prior to the germ cell. So In analyzing these genomes, we detect- ements are much more active in chimpan- any change detected in these ips cells will ed two very interesting genes. One is called zees and bonobos than in humans. be passed along to their progeny through piwil2 and the other is called apobec3b. When searching the dna libraries (ge- the germ cell and into their living progeny. Why are we interested in these two pro- nomes) that have been sequenced for Now a little bit of a disclaimer for those teins? These two proteins are active sup- chimps, bonobos, and humans, there are of us who work in this field: these cells have pressors of the activity of what we call mo- many more L1 dna elements in the genomes limitations. They are cells in culture. We bile elements, which are genetic elements of chimps and bonobos relative to humans. cannot really look at social experience, and that exist in all of our genomes. In fact, 50 This greater number of L1 elements in their relevance to a living organism is often- percent of the dna in human genomes is non-human primate genomes leads to an times questionable. made up of these mobile elements (molec- increase in dna diversity and, thus, in the

32 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 how are humans different from other great apes?

diversity of their offspring and potential- Why do humans not often ly in their behavior. This led us to speculate that this decrease in genetic diversity that suffer from the fibrotic occurs in humans leads to a greater depen- dence on cultural adaptive changes to sur- heart disease that is so vive as a species rather than genetic adaptive common in our closest changes. For example, if a virus were to in- fect a chimp or a bonobo population, in or- evolutionary cousins? der for that species to survive it would require a member of the species with the ge- chimpanzees, the number one killer was netic mutation that provided protection in heart disease, heart attacks, and heart fail- some form from the virus. Humans do not ure. Again, I thought, well, they are just like wait for the mutation from a member of humans. But then when I started going over the species that would provide protection the textbook with the veterinarian, I noticed from the virus. We build hospitals, we de- that not all the diseases were the same. sign antibodies, we transmit our knowledge So the question arises: are there hu- through cultural information (cultural evo- man-specific diseases? There are a few cri- lution) rather than relying on genetics (ge- teria for human-specific diseases: they are netic evolution) for the spread and the sur- Ajit Varki very common in humans but rarely report- vival of the species. Ajit Varki is Distinguished Professor of Medicine ed in great apes, even in captivity; and they and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Co-Direc- cannot be experimentally reproduced in tor of the Glycobiology Research and Training apes (in the days when such studies were allowed). The caveat, of course, is that reli- Center, Executive Co-Director of UCSD/Salk able information is limited to data on a few Center for Academic Research and Training in thousand Great Apes in captivity. But these Anthropogeny, and Adjunct Professor at the Salk apes were cared for in nih-funded facilities Institute. He was elected a Fellow of the Ameri- with full veterinary care–probably better can Academy in 2005. medical care than most Americans get–and there were thorough necropsies. On Common Disease Profiles As it turned out, I was even wrong about heart disease. It was not until my spouse n the 1990s, my research group happened and collaborator Nissi Varki looked at the Ito discover the first known genetic differ- pathology that she realized that while heart ence between humans and chimpanzees. disease is common in both humans and Because I didn’t know very much about our chimpanzees, it is caused by different patho- close evolutionary relatives, I took a sabbat- logical processes. While a human heart can ical and went to the Yerkes National Primate show coronary blockage that reduces blood Research Center to learn more about apes flow to the heart and results in myocardial and chimpanzees. Given my medical back- infarction, heart attacks, and heart failure, ground, I paid special attention to diseases, chimpanzees that died of “heart attacks” and I found that the Center was using Harri- and “heart failure” had a completely differ- son’s textbook of Internal Medicine, which ent pathology. They developed massive scar is the same textbook I had used for humans. tissue replacing their heart muscle, which is And so I thought, well, they must be just called interstitial myocardial fibrosis. like us. And, indeed, when I first looked at It turned out that the veterinarians were the major causes of death in adult captive well aware of this, but had not reported

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 33 presentations

We can draw several conclusions: The disease various other animals . . . but we were never able to arrive at anything in animals similar profiles of humans and chimpanzees are rather to the cholera process.” So, Vibrio cholerae does not induce diar- different. Chimpanzees are actually poor models of rhea in adult animals other than in humans many human diseases. Humans are likely to be poor and many people are trying to figure out why. models of many chimpanzee diseases. There are many other candidates for human-specific diseases. There is another set it because they thought it wouldn’t be in- ciparum arose from P. reichenowi by a single of diseases in which various bacteria car- teresting because it was not like humans! transfer from a Great Ape. Pascal Gagneux ry out molecular mimicry, in which bacte- There is now a special project called The and I wrote an article that explains what rial capsular polysaccharides mimic com- Great Ape Heart Project, which is providing might have happened. There are multiple mon motifs on sialoglycans of mammalian clinical, pathologic, and research strategies forms of ape malaria that are mild through- cells–like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. to aid in the understanding and treatment of out Africa. At some point, we escaped be- Another difference is in carcinomas, can- cardiac disease in all of the ape species. cause of a change in the surface sialic acid cers of epithelial origin. To date, no captive There are actually two mysteries to be molecule. One of them finally “figured out” Great Apes have reported carcinomas of the solved: why do humans not often suffer how to bind to the sialic prominent in us, esophagus, lung, stomach, pancreas, colon, from the fibrotic heart disease that is so and that is now P. falciparum malaria. uterus, ovary, or prostate. They do devel- common in our closest evolutionary cous- Another candidate for human-specif- op cancer in the hematopoietic system and ins? They all can get it–the orangutans, ic diseases is typhoid fever. More horrible elsewhere. gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos–and we studies were done in the 1960s that showed There are a few thousand Great Apes liv- don’t. Conversely, why do the Great Apes that large doses of Salmonella typhi did not ing in captivity, and living well into their fif- not often have the kind of heart disease that result in severe cases of typhoid fever in ties and sometimes into their sixties. So you is common in humans? chimpanzees. Working with Jorge Galán would expect a few carcinomas based on the Nissi and I then worked with Kurt Be- and others we found that, in fact, what hap- incidence in humans. Nissi and I wrote an nirschke and with others and wrote an article on the “Biomedical Differences Between Humans and Nonhuman Hominids: Poten- Why do the Great Apes not often have the kind of tial Role for Uniquely Human Aspects of Si- heart disease that is common in humans? alic Acid Biology,” which focused somewhat on our own research on sialic acid biology. We put together a list of candidates of pened is that the typhoid toxin, which is the article that reviewed the subject, and con- human-specific diseases that meet the cri- soluble molecule that really mediates the cluded that while relative carcinoma risk teria I mentioned earlier, and myocardial severe symptoms of typhoid fever, cannot is a likely difference between humans and infarction is number one. Malignant malar- bind to the chimpanzee cell surface. It can chimpanzees (and possibly other Great ia is number two. In studies done from the only bind to the human cell surface (again, Apes), a more systematic survey of available 1920s to the 1940s, people actually did hor- because of the sialic acid difference between data is required for validation of this claim. rible two-way cross-transfusions between the species). Time does not permit me to talk about chimpanzees and humans infected or not Another candidate is cholera, which is a Alzheimer’s Disease, hiv, hepatitis B com- infected with malaria, and there was no ev- major killer in humans. Robert Koch com- plications, muscular dystrophy, preeclamp- idence of cross-infection. In fact, the para- plained in 1884 that “. . . although these ex- sia, frequency of early fetal wastage, fre- sites looked the same, but they were actually periments were constantly repeated with quency of premature labor and birth, and completely different. material from fresh cholera cases, our mice frequency of chronic female iron deficiency. More modern work done by Francisco remained healthy. We then made experi- But bronchial asthma is interesting. Great Ayala and others showed that, in fact, P. fal- ments on monkeys, cats, poultry, dogs and Apes don’t seem to get bronchial asthma,

34 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 how are humans different from other great apes?

an extremely common disease in all human populations. I found this claim a little hard to believe until I came across a paper enti- tled “Eosinophilic Airway Inflammation in a Monkey.” The article concluded that the present case that was studied was “remarkable because there is a paucity of reports of naturally occurring allergic airway disor- ders in nonhuman primates.” So we can draw several conclusions: 1) The disease profiles of humans and chimpanzees are rather different. 2) Chimpan- zees are actually poor models of many human diseases. We should pay more attention to that. 3) Humans are likely to be poor models of many chimpanzee diseases. The ethics of research on Great Apes has shifted and changed for good reasons. Pascal and I wrote an article with Jim Moore in 2005 that suggested we should conduct research on Great Apes that follows principles as similar as possible to those accepted for human research. We also suggested that researchers should volunteer to be subjects in the same experiments! But like all things human, there are always two extremes and the people in the middle do not necessarily get a say. And so the question is whether the current ban on chimpanzee research will do more harm than good. I personally think it will do more harm because chimpanzees would also benefit from more ethical studies of their own diseases. But that is where we stand right now. n

To view or listen to the presentations, visit https://www.amacad.org/ great-apes.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 35 presentations

Priorities for Progress: Advancing Higher Education in America

n October 26, 2017, the American Academy hosted a conversation at the University of California, Berkeley, on Priorities for Progress: Advancing Higher Education in America. The program, which served as the Academy’s O 2061st Stated Meeting, highlighted two Academy projects–The Lincoln Project: Excellence and Access in Public Higher Education and the Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education. The following is an edited transcript of the presentations.

Among the many issues concerning student success that we identified, we found that for too many students there is sometimes no clear path to completion.

interruptions and challenges any student (around 23 percent). California residents may encounter along the way, but when they have consistently valued, been proud of, and are compounded by academic preparation (arguably) invested in public higher educa- (the high school you went to), enrollment tion. If we look closely at today’s students status (full or part time, working or not), and how the system works for them, howev- demographic and socioeconomic status, er, a more nuanced story emerges–one that race, gender, and ethnicity–all of these con- poses plenty of challenges. tribute to the uneven outcomes among stu- Who are today’s students? Low-income dents in terms of completion. In the Acad- and first-generation college students–most emy’s forthcoming report on The Future of of whom come from racial or ethnic groups Monica Lozano Undergraduate Education, The Future of Amer- that have historically been underrepresent- Monica Lozano is President and CEO of Col- ica, we elevate promising practices, included in higher education–are the face of Cali- lege Futures Foundation and a member of the ing one here at the California State Univer- fornia’s future. Today, almost two-thirds of University of California Board of Regents. She sity (csu) and Long Beach Community Col- California’s public school students are from lege. But the overarching conclusion is that low-income families or underrepresented was elected a Fellow of the American Academy we need integrated strategies with a clear student groups, and they are the majority of in 2016 and serves on the Academy’s Commis- and transparent map to completion. Let me California’s high school graduates. sion on the Future of Undergraduate Education. address this in the context of California. How is our system of higher education Under the 1960 Master Plan, California working for them? As you might imagine, was asked to provide a brief overview organized its three-segment system of pub- outcomes differ dramatically based on race, I of the California public higher educa- lic higher education to fulfill the promise ethnicity, and income. Although low-in- tion landscape as it relates to college access that all qualified students who wished to come and first-generation college students and college success, thinking about it in enroll would be provided with access to the are the majority of our high school grad- the context of the work that we have done state’s public colleges and universities. To uates, their bachelor’s degree completion at the Academy for the Commission on the support access for students from all back- rates are only one-third of that of white and Future of Undergraduate Education. Among grounds, generous financial aid is available Asian students. Underrepresented students the many issues concerning student success that covers the full cost of tuition at a uc represent about one-half of high school that we identified, we found that for too school or at csu for low-income students. graduates but only 28 percent of the total many students there is sometimes no clear California’s bachelor-degree-attainment bachelor’s degree graduates. Students from path to completion. There are the obvious rate is consistent with the national average low-income families (in the bottom income

36 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 advancing higher education in america

quartile) earn bachelor’s degrees at about How well does the system function, with ifornia students who enroll in a public high- a quarter of the rate of those from high-in- all segments working in tandem toward the er education institution, nearly 70 percent come families (in the top quartile).1 Cali- shared goal of student success? enroll in a ccc.2 fornia has the dubious distinction of having Unfortunately, each segment, from K-12 For its part, the csu is the largest univer- the highest college completion gap between through higher education, has its own sity system in the country and educates the whites and Latinos, at 34 percent. In short, goals, its own incentives and disincentives, most ethnically, economically, and academ- here in California chances of finishing a col- its own policies, its own funding streams, ically diverse student body in the nation. lege degree are dramatically lower if you are its own data, and its own governance. For The csu six-year graduation rates of 57 per- born into a low-income family, if you are students–particularly low-income and cent, although steadily increasing, are not born African American or Latino, or if you underrepresented students–completing a what they could or indeed need to be, and grow up in a certain region of the state. degree requires navigating a complicated outcomes differ substantially depending on We all know that the benefits of a col- and sometimes unwelcoming maze. What a student’s race, gender, or campus location. lege education, and particularly of a four- should be an open pipeline with strong For example, systemwide graduation rates year degree, are many. College completion joints is not always so, and the structural are 64 percent for white students, 52 per- contributes to the economic vitality of our misalignment is where we see many of the cent for Hispanic students, and 42 percent communities, state, and nation by prepar- most obvious gaps in college completion. for Black students. Hispanic students grad- ing an educated and skilled workforce for Of course, there are many other challeng- uate at rates 5 percentage points lower than the knowledge economy of the twenty-first es, such as lack of readiness; limited access the overall average and 12 percentage points century. A college education provides so- to resources, supports, and guidance; access lower than white students. Black students cial mobility and increased earning pow- to financial aid; clear guided pathways; im- graduate at rates 15 percentage points lower for individuals and their families. And it pacted campuses; remediation; and time to er than the overall average and a full 22 per- contributes to a more robust democracy by degree, among others. centage points lower than white students. equipping individuals with the skills not just to observe society but to participate in it. College graduates are more likely to earn Low-income and first-generation college students more, vote more, volunteer more, hold onto – most of whom come from racial or ethnic groups their jobs, be wealthier, and use public assistance less than people without a college de- that have historically been underrepresented in gree. A four-year college might not be for higher education – are the face of California’s future. everyone, and many Americans live meaningful lives without a college degree, but the reality is that a college degree offers greater Here in California, the entry point for Depending on the campus, the gradua- freedom: freedom to choose a career and to low-income and underrepresented stu- tion rate changes drastically. The highest choose one’s path in life. dents is the California Community Colleges six-year graduation rate is 76 percent at csu When fewer than half of students who be- (ccc). Getting the transitions right and San Luis Obispo, while the lowest rate is 35 gin college earn a two- or four-year degree clearing the pathway to a degree is especial- percent at csu Dominguez Hills–more within six years, a focus on access and en- ly critical for these students. The California than 40 percentage points lower. rollment is important but not enough. Community Colleges are the nation’s larg- In 2016, csu Chancellor Tim White an- Given the importance of degree comple- est higher education system. California’s nounced Graduation Initiative 2025: an am- tion, how does our higher education sys- high school graduates are more likely to at- bitious plan that aims to increase graduation tem provide opportunity for all students tend community colleges than high school rates for all csu students while eliminating who would benefit from earning a degree? graduates in other states. California ranks opportunity and achievement gaps for un- fifth nationwide in the share of recent high derserved students. The initiative focuses school graduates who enroll in community 1. Helping Students Cross the Finish Line (San Fran- cisco, Calif.: College Futures Foundation, 2017) colleges compared to forty-seventh in the 2. U.S. Department of Education and Public Pol- and underlying sources. share who start at four-year schools. Of Cal- icy Institute of California.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 37 presentations

on encouraging innovation, removing bar- go into two-year or four-year colleges. But proportion of high school graduates meet- riers that impede student success, and being we are not prepared on the higher education ing A-G requirements grew from 34 percent more strategic in how they serve students. side to provide room and opportunities for in 2003–2004 to 45 percent in 2015–2016. The uc schools educate hundreds of these students, although we as a state have However, these successes in the K-12 sys- thousands of students, provide a signifi- essentially promised them that opportunity. tem have created a capacity problem, such cant impact on the state economy, have a Meanwhile, California faces a shortfall that qualified California students are being laudable overall six-year graduation rate of over one million baccalaureate degrees turned away from the state’s public four- of 84 percent, and graduate low-income by 2025 because of changes in the economy year colleges: Between 2005 and 2015, near- and transfer students at rates comparable and the retirement of baby boomers now in ly one million California residents who ap- to their peers. By comparison, the system- the workforce. And we have a system of fi- plied for freshman or transfer admission to wide Pell-eligible student graduation rate is nancing our public universities–how we the California State University or to the Uni- 83 percent. plan and pay for student access and success versity of California were turned away. Freshman graduation rates have increased at the csu and uc schools–that is not func- In the csu system, seventeen of the twen- for all racial and ethnic groups, although tional, and not serving students, the institu- ty-three campuses are unable to enroll all graduation gaps remain between underrep- tions, or the state well. qualified applicants in the majors to which they apply because of capacity limitations. In the 2015–2016 academic year, csu When fewer than half of students who begin college campuses rejected more than seventeen earn a two- or four-year degree within six years, thousand qualified freshman applicants. Between fall 2010 and fall 2014, more than a focus on access and enrollment is important but fifty-one thousand qualified freshman uc not enough. applicants were redirected from their preferred campuses to uc Merced (fewer than a thousand of those students enrolled). resented student groups (African American, The Master Plan has been the touchstone Additionally, as this administration’s re- American Indian, and Hispanic/Latino) and for higher education policy in California for forms take hold in the California Communi- white and Asian undergraduates. Six-year more than half a century. The promise of the ty Colleges system, leaders expect as much graduation rates are 74 percent for African Master Plan is at risk, however, as opportu- as a 35 percent increase in students seeking American students, 78 percent for Latino nities for access and degree completion are transfer to a four-year school.3 students, and 86 percent for white students. eroding in the face of continued fiscal crises, Education is a public good. Our colleges Depending on the makeup of the student resulting in rising prices and fewer oppor- and universities are incredible assets; so body and the academic and support condi- tunities for California’s resident students. too are our young people. Higher education tions available to students, there are vast dif- The public university systems that worked should continue to be the pathway to op- ferences in college completion. so well for previous generations of Califor- portunity and a stronger, healthier, inclu- The data that I have shared are just a snap- nians need a fiscal re-boot to meet the needs sive, and functional society–not the driver shot of where we are as a state, but there is of current and future generations. of inequity. The key to increasing degree at- a bigger context for all of this and a set of So what will we do to ensure opportuni- tainment among Californians will lie in edu- challenges that require visionary and prag- ty, close the gaps, and plan for our state’s fu- cational practices that reduce and ultimate- matic leadership. ture? We must meet the growing demand ly eliminate racial and ethnic gaps in degree Some may refer to this as Tidal Wave III. for college: California students are now attainment. If California policy-makers and Our cohort of prospective students is the better prepared for college. However, there higher education leaders are not able to in- most racially and ethnically diverse ever. is no room for them. Thanks to the adminis- crease access and degree attainment among The K-12 system is making progress in terms tration’s successful policies and increases in of the academic preparation of our children funding for the K-12 system, the state’s high 3. Securing the Public Trust (San Francisco, Calif.: so that more students are graduating from school graduation rates have been steadi- College Futures Foundation, 2017), Public Policy high school having met the requirements to ly increasing over the past eight years. The Institute of California, and underlying sources.

38 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 advancing higher education in america

low-income and first-generation groups, the state will face a future of growing econom- An inevitable consequence ic stratification and inequality, with the di- of the fact that state viding line between the haves and the have- nots increasingly dictated by educational funding of public higher achievement. education is not going to Let me end with a closing note to our audience and my fellow panelists. Califor- return to the halcyon days nia has often led the nation when it comes to important issues of the day. Just consid- of yore is that our country er where we are today in terms of climate must have a new compact change and emissions standards. This is a time for us to articulate a Bold Goal for Cal- to support public higher ifornia College Success. education. For California to be the global leader in providing not just broad but equitable access to quality public higher education, we of about 4.5 percent per year. I was told that must recommit and reinvest in a system that Robert J. Birgeneau there was every expectation that this would expands access, ensures a sustainable finan- Robert J. Birgeneau is Chancellor Emeritus and hold true. Fortunately, I was not that naïve. cial model that is also affordable for fami- the Arnold and Barbara Silverman Distin- But even given my wariness, I could not have lies, and, most importantly, ensures student guished Professor of Physics, Materials Science anticipated that state funding would fall so success to and throughout college. dramatically. At Berkeley, if the compact and Engineering, and Public Policy at the Uni- Can we challenge ourselves and others to with Governor Schwarzenegger had held versity of California, Berkeley. He was elect- take a systems-wide approach to thinking true, in 2008 we would have had $590 mil- ed a Fellow of the American Academy in 1987 about this as a pre-through-16 continuum lion in state funding. Instead, we received and served as Cochair of the Academy’s Lincoln with shared responsibility for student suc- $240 million: we were short $350 million in cess among all educational institutions? Project: Excellence and Access in Public Higher our operating budget. Everybody in this au- It is time for us to set overarching, long- Education. dience knows the sorts of challenges that we term goals for our education ecosystem, faced in this time period as a result of this working together with the state’s K-12 sys- would like to review briefly some of the budget shortfall. tem, and paying special attention to transi- I data that led up to the Academy’s Lin- One of the most dramatic aspects of tion points between high school and post- coln Project and then focus on more recent this massive state disinvestment was that secondary education, and between two-year data from a project led by Charlie Eaton and we had a complete inversion in the sourc- and four-year institutions. Henry Brady that is looking at the specific es of our funding. In 2003, the year before I challenges of need-based financial aid at a came to Berkeley, student tuition was a rel- national level. atively small part of our total budget while So, just a little background about The Lin- state support had by far the largest share. coln Project. In the early 1980s, the state of In 2003, Berkeley was truly a state-funded California provided the University of Cali- institution. However, as a result of the dis- fornia with about 52 percent of its budget. investment by the state, our budget simply In 2011, that number dropped to 10 percent. inverted itself so that we found ourselves When I was recruited to be the Chancellor in the situation in which state support now of Berkeley, Bob Dynes, the President of the constituted only a minor share (10 percent) uc system at that time, had made a compact of our total budget. This meant that facul- with Governor Schwarzenegger that fund- ty and staff salaries were basically paid for ing from the state would increase at a rate by student tuition. We were no longer em-

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 39 presentations

We have a dire need for increased state-funded, An inevitable consequence of the fact that state funding of public higher education is need-based financial aid because that controls both not going to return to the halcyon days of yore is that our country must have a new graduation rates and student debt. compact to support public higher education. That compact must involve the feder- ployees of the state. In essence, we became from a variety of directions will not reverse al government, state and local governments, employees of the students. Approximate- themselves. This means that the challeng- the business community, foundations, ly two-thirds of faculty and administrative es currently facing public higher education philanthropists, the colleges and universi- staff salaries are now paid by the students. will not be reversed simply by having stu- ties, students and their parents. There is no This situation, which turned out to be a dents protest at our state capitols or having silver bullet. This is discussed in detail in the national phenomenon, led to the establish- the business community lobby state legisla- final publication of The Lincoln Project. ment of the American Academy’s Lincoln tors on behalf of higher education. After completing The Lincoln Project, we Project: Excellence and Access in Public So what are the major components of the realized that we needed more information Higher Education, which documented the discretionary part of state budgets? The on need-based financial aid at the national role in American society of public research largest amount is spent on K-12 education. level. Such aid is critical to both accessibil- universities, analyzed economic trends af- Next, there is Medicaid, then higher edu- ity and to college completion rates. Accord- fecting their operations, and recommend- cation, and finally corrections. One of the ingly, Henry Brady, Mary Sue Coleman (who ed new strategies to sustain and strength- most dramatic changes in state-govern- directed The Lincoln Project with me), Mike en these critical institutions. The project ment funding concerns corrections. Over Hout, and I decided that we needed to ini- produced five publications, and in our fifth the last three decades, funding for higher tiate a project on need-based financial aid and final publication, we proposed various education with all the ups and downs has across all public universities–not just re- strategies for moving forward. These strat- remained relatively constant (not includ- search universities, which is what The Lin- egies implicitly assumed a different out- coln Project focused on. We did not include come in the November 2016 election, and community colleges that have their own so unfortunately our efforts to implement Student debt is low, unique challenges, and so the data that I will the recommendations of the Lincoln Proj- generally speaking, much share with you include all four-year public ect have been curtailed for now. However, institutions, but not community colleges. I am an eternal optimist so I believe that lower than what you read Several people were involved in collecting we will be able to return to those strategies in the newspapers. and analyzing the data: Charlie Eaton, who once we have leadership at the federal lev- is an assistant professor at uc Merced; Shei- el that is more committed to higher educa- sha Kulkarni, a graduate student in econom- tion and a business community that under- ing the recent draconian cuts), but spend- ics at Berkeley; Henry Brady; John Stiles; stands fully the necessity of having a robust ing on corrections has increased by 141 per- Mike Hout; and myself. Our first report ap- system of public higher education in the cent. In many states we spend more money peared on the website of the Center for Stud- United States. on incarcerating people than we do on giv- ies in Higher Education this past February. Our strategy called for “a new compact” ing them a higher education and unfortu- It turns out that obtaining reliable and for the support of public higher education. nately this trend does not appear to be re- consistent data on low-income students One of our conclusions, which I initial- versible. In California, over the last several and their financial support over all four-year ly was very reluctant to accept, is that the years, the prison population has decreased public colleges and universities is extreme- state disinvestment in higher education is by 30 percent, but the costs have barely ly difficult. Every state has its own conven- irreversible. This disinvestment did not just moved. It turns out that the marginal costs tions for collecting and reporting the rele- happen in California. It happened in Ten- are such that even decreasing significantly vant data. Thus, comparing apples to apples nessee; it happened in Michigan; it hap- the prison population by letting people with is quite challenging. As a surrogate for the pened in Virginia. It happened because the low-level drug offenses out does not solve numbers of low-income students we use the forces that operate on state governments the problem. number of federal Pell Grant recipients at an

40 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 advancing higher education in america

institution. The first question that we asked debts of $100,000 to $200,000 are just not is what colleges and universities do low-in- true. They may make good press, but they come students typically attend. The data are gross misrepresentations. show that they are mostly not at research in- If we ask how much debt do students tensive public universities. Across the coun- have, we find out that the amount of debt try, approximately 20 percent of the students varies inversely with how much financial at high research universities are on feder- aid they get. The more financial aid they get, al Pell grants. This contrasts with universi- the lower the debt at graduation. This is not ties that have little or no research or only a surprising. small amount, where typically 50 percent of Now if we look at students defaulting on their students come from low-income fami- their student loans, at non-research univer- lies. Thus, the reality is that low-income stu- sities we find that 35 percent of students default on their student loans. Many of these defaulters are students Low-income students are who failed to graduate so they do twice as likely to attend public not benefit from the increased income that comes from graduation. universities that have little or At research universities like Berke- no research. ley with very high graduation rates and high incomes of its graduates, the default rate is 10 percent. dents state-by-state are underrepresented at Thus, based on these data our conclusions the flagships and are much more likely to be are as follows: 1) We have a dire need for in- attending four-year colleges that do not have creased state-funded, need-based financial Ph.D. graduate programs. aid because that controls both graduation What about need-based financial aid rates and student debt. 2) Student debt is, across the country? In my opinion, it is a na- in fact, low, generally speaking–much low- tional disgrace that the absolute majority of er than what you read in the newspapers. 3) states have little or no need-based financial Low-income students are twice as likely to aid. This is the reason for the very low grad- attend public universities that have little or uation rates and the high dropout of low-inno research. 4) Loan default rates are 10 per- come students from universities in these cent at top public research universities and states. By contrast, three states stand out– 35 percent at non-research universities. California, Wyoming, and New Jersey–in This is where we stand right now with providing funding for low-income students this project on low-income students at pub- that matches that from federal Pell grants. lic universities and need-based financial aid. What about student debt? We often hear We are currently refining these data to ob- numbers that have no basis in reality. If we tain as complete and reliable information as look at only public research universities, possible. We will not solve the problem of only about half of the undergraduate stu- income inequality in the United States if we dents have debt when they graduate, and if do not simultaneously reduce the education they do, it is typically less than $30,000. For gap between the privileged and the under- example, here at Berkeley, the average debt privileged; need-based financial aid is a crit- on graduation for the 50 percent of students ical component of this reduction. who have debt is about $19,000. The apocryphal stories of countless students with

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 41 presentations

To continue to engage thousands of students, we have to figure out a way to actually resource that activity. We all know that the last ten years have been incredibly hard, but we have managed to succeed with a high-tuition, high-aid approach to what we do.

actually resource that activity. We all know at home, or the money came from home, that the last ten years have been incredibly or Dad got me a job that paid lots of mon- hard, but we have managed to succeed with ey and I didn’t have to show up.” Do you see a high-tuition, high-aid approach to what a pattern here? we do. If you are a first-generation student from Now our tuition, at just over roughly Compton, none of those options are avail- $13,000 when you roll in some fees, is not able to you. We are trying to reach out to Bob Jacobsen high on the scale of Princeton or mit. But students who don’t have dads that can get Bob Jacobsen is Dean of Undergraduate Studies it is high for a lot of the families that are them you-don’t-have-to-show-up jobs and in the College of Letters & Science and Professor of sending their children to our schools. So who are unlikely to have parents who can Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. although this model has succeeded in al- send them money. lowing us to bring in tens of thousands of We have deliberately set out to do this. Fi- students who have no financial resources nancial aid will always be necessary to help y role here is to comment as a practi- at all and are able to study at a great place those students who need assistance pay- Mtioner and to give you an on-the-job like Berkeley, this is not the time to be at all ing for their living expenses in a place like view from Berkeley. Let me stress that these complacent about the model because it is al- Berkeley, where you need $20,000 a year or are my own thoughts, and I suspect the ready starting to show significant cracks. I more just to survive as a student. higher up you go in the hierarchy, the more believe it is time for us to find another ap- Let me come back to this idea that money the perspective might differ. proach because what we have is not going to from home doesn’t work anymore. You have I think we all agree on the need for more work in another five or ten years. to know a little bit about how the financial support for public education and for our Don’t get me wrong; we will always pro- aid system works. And as an aside, actual- flagship institutions. I think we all agree on vide financial aid to our students. Let me ly understanding financial aid should be an the mission to grow at each generation the share a story to help you see why. Last week- academic discipline. It is that complicated. leaders, achievers, and creators that society end was Parents Weekend, which is an op- I have helped multiple foster children navi- needs, and to provide access and opportuni- portunity for alumni parents to come back gate the system. I have studied the system. I ty across all of society. The points that were to campus and complain about how the old have worked in the system, and I still do not raised about how today’s student popula- days are gone. They have earned that right. understand it well enough to help a student tion represents a wider range of students, I am perfectly okay with it because I have fill out the forms. Let me also mention that and that over the last thirty years, Berkeley a strategy for dealing with it. When some- Professor Judith Scott-Clayton of Columbia has come to embrace more first-generation one comes up to me and says, “I was in the University wrote an excellent paper for the students and more students from low-in- class of 1975, and we only paid $240,” I smile Academy that provides a rough overview of come families with low social capital are all and reply, “Yes, that is true. But how did you financial aid in only 14 pages with 42 explan- very important because this is changing the pay for your rent?” You get into some very atory footnotes. experience of Berkeley from the 1960s. interesting conversations about this ques- The basic calculation that you need to un- To continue to engage those thousands tion. Five of the people who I had this con- derstand goes like this. A student starts by of students, we have to figure out a way to versation with last Saturday said, “I lived filling out a form called the fafsa. Some of

42 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 advancing higher education in america

the questions, such as their name, are rela- tracts quite a bit. A family earning less than where between 1,000 and 2,000 are having tively simple; others are very esoteric. There $230,000 is expected to pay for everything a problem with their financial aid. is literally a question that says, and I quote, that they can for the student. And it is only This is not a criticism of our financial aid “Be sure that the agi calculation has in- when you reach the income that gives you office. They are skilled people who work ex- cluded calculations of past insurance carry- something left over after this calculation tremely hard. They are very committed to overs.” I finally figured out what that means, that you could possibly send money to the making this work, but they have to admin- but none of my foster children could under- student. Another way to say it is that with- ister an extraordinary number of different stand it. There are also other forms that out state support, we have to extract every forms of aid and scholarship. They are try- parents have to fill out, which can be diffi- dollar we can from middle-class parents. ing to get every dollar in the students’ hands cult to do in complicated, modern families. Then there is a federal government calculation that determines the maximum that the Each school determines how much students need family can be reasonably expected to con- to come up with on their own via work-study, or a tribute, which in most cases becomes what the family must contribute. summer job, or loans. . . . The difference is the need Each school determines how much stu- that is met by various kinds of financial aid. dents need to come up with on their own via work-study, or a summer job, or loans. At Berkeley, this amount has risen recently to Since the campus needs to raise more and they succeed, but that operation alone almost $9,000. And realistically, if you take funds, the stress gets more intense. We costs millions of dollars. And if we contin- a few thousand dollars’ worth of loans, you end up with our students feeling like they ue to move in a direction of more and more will have less than $30,000 in debt after four are living on a knife edge, which is very far funky scholarships, more and more little years. A summer job can help to generate a from the 1970s experience of show up, learn programs that do this and the other, we have few thousand dollars so the system can work. something cool, maybe get a job, ask Mom a scaling issue that we just don’t know how The difference is the need that is met by and Dad for enough money to pay for the to deal with. various kinds of financial aid. So, roughly rent, and it is going to be okay. The knife- I absolutely agree with the number that speaking, if you add on living expenses to edge example is used a lot by our students 80 percent of our students do quite well because–although they wouldn’t with respect to loans. It is actually a little bit Financial aid will always say it this way–they feel that they better than that at Berkeley. But 4 percent can fall off, get cut, and be hurt of our students graduate with over $50,000 be necessary to help those because they are balancing this worth of loans. Now, no system can work very large bill and this very large perfectly and I understand that, but that students who need assistance. financial aid in ways that they 4 percent represents quite a few people. don’t fully understand. And they tend to come from places that fall $13,000 worth of tuition, you have to figure Yesterday, I spent some time with a stu- through the cracks in the system. An acri- out where to get that $35,000 or $36,000. dent who has not received her financial aid monious divorce, for example, can lead to For low-income students that source will check for this semester because she was se- paperwork not being submitted for finan- be Pell Grants and state grants, and it lected for an audit by the irs two years ago. cial aid. It happens a lot. works. For middle-income students, it is The paperwork got lost somewhere, and Legal troubles are another issue. We have also something like that. But now we begin that has now delayed her financial aid for a student who received an award for being to see why the money-from-home option this semester. We will fix this problem, but the best student in her department and she doesn’t work for middle-class families. We it is an extremely stressful thing to get her had to drop out for a semester because she have already assessed everything that these temporary money to tide her over. had used all of her financial aid to pay the families can give and we have taken it from Thousands of our students are having this legal fees to keep herself from being de- them. The federal government’s calculation problem on any given day. Out of the 18,000 ported. And now she is in trouble because is not in the slightest bit generous, and it ex- students that I am responsible for, some- those legal fees were not part of her bud-

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 43 presentations

get. It is a very hard thing to think about how Berkeley works as a social agency to We need really good deal with the problems of its students. We higher education that have to think about that and consider how far our commitment goes. This particu- helps people to think lar student went on to excel in her studies, better, to solve problems, and we are going to be very proud of her at some point. We just have to figure out how to communicate across to make this work. difference, and to be Less visible in the numbers is student workload, and I don’t mean from your flexible in dealing with a classes. I mean from commitments outside of your classes. Thirteen percent of our stu- changing world. dents filed paperwork to say that they were working more than 15 hours a week last se- native futures.What if our future leans to- mester. I would rather have them working in ward greater social division? What if em- your labs, working with you in your offices, ployment changes radically and we move working in your libraries. Michael S. McPherson to a “gig economy” in which people are Nevertheless, we are succeeding in some Michael S. McPherson is President Emeritus of hired on a task-by-task basis and work on- ways, and so the question is what is the new the Spencer Foundation. He was elected a Fellow demand instead of as full-time employees? model going to be? We cannot keep going of the American Academy in 2014 and serves as What if the technologies that deliver high- this way. My bottom line is that Berkeley er education change dramatically? What if Cochair of the Academy’s Commission on the will never have $35,000-a-year tuition and environmental disasters or other natural or Future of Undergraduate Education. $35,000 worth of financial aid because we human-made disasters impinge on us? cannot make that system work. We will not One thing that all those scenarios have be able to serve all of these people who come would like to make a few broad points in common is that in every case we need re- from the various parts of our community. I that emerged from the deliberations of ally good higher education that helps peo- But somehow we have to find a way to make our Commission on the Future of Under- ple to think better, to solve problems, to this work, and I am actually pretty optimis- graduate Education. We are building on suc- communicate across difference, and to be tic that there is such a way to do it. cess in this country when we think about the flexible in dealing with a changing world. future of higher education. It is easy to wor- Those are the things that higher education ry and there are plenty of reasons to wor- can provide. ry, but we are at a place that very few coun- We have huge problems. We have to get tries have ever reached. The fraction of our the money to where it will do the most good. overall population that has a college degree Bob Birgeneau, Bob Jacobsen, and Monica is, I believe, the highest in the world. Nine- Lozano have made this point very clear. But ty percent of our high school graduates have it is not an easy thing to do. It means recog- some experience of college before they are nizing that some priorities are higher than thirty years old. That number is impressive. others, but in every state and in every col- We are trying to do something we have lege, we think putting the focus on the best never done, which is to give everybody a use of those resources makes sense. shot at a higher education, and we should We have a long way to go. We think our be proud of that. We need to recognize how Commission has some useful ideas as well vital this is to our country’s future. as some important challenges and criticisms One of the things our Commission con- for people to consider. But I don’t want us sidered was four scenarios of possible alter- ever to lose sight of the fact that we are build-

44 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 advancing higher education in america

ing on success, and that the work we need to tablish a tuition policy that is predictable, fields? We need to move in this direction and do is urgent for the future of this country. moderate, and by which families can plan, use new tools so families can take advantage and then fill the gap with private dollars, pri- of the financial resources that are available. marily through philanthropy. Bob Jacobsen Michael McPherson As a practicing advisor, let me say that the I agree with everything that was said about best way you can help navigate the system Discussion philanthropy, but I think another impor is to stop having systems. Every time we fix tant dimension here is the need for better a problem by adding a new scholarship for Audience Question advising and guidance for students, which left-handed people from odd-numbered zip The problem is overwhelming, and we all can, on the one hand, help people to get into codes, we make things harder and harder for understand and accept that. But what I have places that will really work for them, and, on the students we are actually trying to help. not heard addressed this evening, but which the other hand, can help people make finan- And that is one of the reasons why there is I know you are all aware of and concerned cial choices that don’t get them into a deep financial aid for low-income students. about, is the role of philanthropy. What are hole. Nationally, it is really clear that those the problems when philanthropic dona- who default on their student loans are the Audience Question tions do not cover the most vulnerable stu- people who didn’t finish, and they didn’t I have no doubt that the California legisla- dents and families? finish in many cases because they made a ture values our diversity efforts and would poor choice about where to start. If you are like us to be even more diverse. But how do Robert Birgeneau a first-generation family, you cannot rely we convince the legislature that diversity Philanthropy certainly plays an important on the networks that many of us have. So is not a question of pure admission. It is a role at the Berkeleys of this country. What spending money to get solid advice can ac- question of support: financial aid, academic the data that have emerged from the work tually be money well spent. support, and so on? Henry Brady and the rest of us have revealed is that the major challenges are not at the We need a financial model whereby the state invests public flagship research universities, but at the non-research universities, in which appropriately in higher education, establish a tuition philanthropy does not represent a realistic solution for them. They have very little policy that is predictable, moderate, and by which philanthropic support and this is unlikely to families can plan, and then fill the gap with private change in the near-future. dollars, primarily through philanthropy. Monica Lozano Given my role as a member of the Universi- Monica Lozano Monica Lozano ty of California Board of Regents, and rec- This question of navigating the maze is so im- We know that it is not just about having ac- ognizing this funding transformation that portant. When you come from a background cess. Completing college is absolutely criti- occurred in which we went from being that isn’t familiar with the process, there are cal, and I think the legislature is starting to heavily supported by the state to relying on dollars available that go unused. There are re- recognize this. And it is not about offering tuition, we know that we cannot sustain this sources for many hundreds of thousands of more dollars, but spending those dollars for much longer. The Regents are working eligible families but because of the complex- wisely. There is clearly a focus on the best with the chancellors across the system, and ity of the system, they don’t apply for this aid. use of resources. So how do we convince the we are very focused on how to bring new So how do you remove the complexity? How state legislature that, in fact, we are doing philanthropic dollars into the ucs as a way do you make it something in which you need everything we can to provide the resourc- of minimizing the impact on students. We to opt out, instead of opt in? How do you use es where they can have the greatest impact. need a financial model whereby the state in- technology to provide the kinds of data gath- There was a bill that was passed last year vests appropriately in higher education, es- ering that will automatically populate the that now very specifically provides for more

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 45 presentations

ifornia is turning away lots of qualified stu- Our Commission certainly believes that if we dents, and I would put the word qualified in acknowledge that what matters is not simply getting quotes. In addition to financial need and providing guidance and advice to our stu- people in the door but having them succeed, then dents, they have to be prepared when they investing money in more success actually pays off. enter higher education. So I am wondering how much pressure can come from the Regents or other institutions of higher ed- support services at uc. It identifies students lic higher education in this country are the ucation to ensure that the students in the by socioeconomic and racial data, and al- federal government and the business sec- pipeline are, in fact, prepared to come here. lows us to determine the interventions that tor. We are the only country, of the coun- And I am thinking especially of the students they will need along the way to be success- tries that we compete with economically, from economically disadvantaged back- ful. These predictive analytics are allowing in which the federal government does not grounds in which education has not been a us to identify those students that need sup- support the operations of its great public re- high priority. How we can support the im- port to get through. search universities. One way or another, the provement in their preparation? federal government–in partnership with Michael McPherson the states, philanthropists, and private en- Bob Jacobsen Our Commission certainly believes that if terprise–has to participate. In addition, it is Let me offer a Berkeley specific example and we acknowledge that what matters is not my view that Corporate America is not pay- then make a larger comment about this. For simply getting people in the door but having its fair share of the costs of public high- a long time, the ucs were not part of the ing them succeed, then investing money in er education. I have had many conversations ecology of developing teachers in Califor- more success actually pays off. Fewer peo- with the leaders of Silicon Valley firms who nia. Then roughly a dozen years ago, a gov- ple would be wasting time and their own re- were complaining that we were not pro- ernor’s initiative broke that block. We have sources in something that they are not go- ducing enough chemical engineers, enough a program at Berkeley called CalTeach and ing to complete successfully. This does not electrical engineers, and other skilled re- its explicit goal as stated in its tagline is “a mean that we don’t want those people to try. searchers. My response was, “Well, you thousand grads for a million minds.” Think We are willing to take risks, but we should know, you can help solve that problem by about the student-to-faculty ratio implic- have them try and then support their efforts providing direct support.” I proposed a it in that statement. But the ucs are real- to succeed. straightforward model in which every time ly a drop in the bucket, unless we decide to a Silicon Valley company hires one of our get serious about producing the next gen- Audience Question graduates, they give a scholarship to support eration of teachers. Unfortunately, this is a One of the things that you have all demon- the next student coming along. Individual very hard thing to take on in a resource-con- strated today is that the past is not our fu- corporate leaders would say that this sounds strained environment. And so my larger is- ture, and that the future holds the need for like a very promising idea but they also said sue about the social impact of our programs new revenue sources. So, what are these that in the end they were unlikely to fund a depends on being able to create and nurture new revenue sources? Continuing educa- student who could well end up working for new programs. n tion, concurrent enrollment, more summer one of their competitors. However, one way programs? At Berkeley my sense is that we or another, major corporations need to con- © 2018 by Monica Lozano, Robert J. Birgene- may have the capacity and elasticity in our tribute directly to the cost of the education au, Bob Jacobsen, and Michael S. McPher- faculty to offer these programs with the re- of the students that they are hiring. This is son, respectively sources that are available, but other univer- not specific to public universities. It applies sities may not. to the privates just as well.

Robert Birgeneau Audience Question Two of the non-participants in the sup- I would like to return to the issue of the port of the educational operations of pub- pipeline. One of the panelists said that Cal-

46 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 presentations

Redistricting and Representation

n November 8, 2017, in collaboration with the Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innova- tion at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Academy hosted a meeting on “Redistricting and Representation.” The O program, which served as the Academy’s 2062nd Stated Meeting, included presentations by Gary King (Harvard University), Jamal Greene (Columbia Law School), and Moon Duchin (Tufts University). Chief Judge Patti Saris (U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts) moderated the program, which included introductory remarks from Jonathan Fanton (American Academy of Arts and Sciences). The speakers’ remarks appear below.

The Constitution requires that states must make a good faith effort to achieve precise mathematical population equality in Congressional districting, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the same in drawing lines for seats in the state legislature.

after our own Elbridge Gerry, Governor of achieve precise mathematical population Massachusetts, who signed an 1812 law that equality in Congressional districting, and included a voting district shaped like a sala- the Equal Protection Clause of the Four- mander to help his party. Tonight’s program teenth Amendment requires the same in is not about an esoteric topic, but one that is drawing lines for seats in the state legisla- on the front burner of the Supreme Court in ture. Most of you know that legal principle the landmark case of Gill v. Whitford, which as one person, one vote. In addition, both Patti B. Saris was just argued before the Court on Octo- the Constitution and the Voting Rights Patti B. Saris is Chief Judge of the U.S. District ber 3, 2017. A split three-judge federal court Act prohibit racial gerrymandering. What Court for the District of Massachusetts. She in Wisconsin had invalidated a redistricting makes the Gill v. Whitford case so unusual is was elected a Fellow of the American Academy act passed by the Wisconsin legislature on that it involves partisan gerrymandering, the grounds that partisan gerrymandering which means–loosely speaking–the com- in 2014. violated the Equal Protection Clause. The mon practice of the party in power to choose Court found that the act was intended to the redistricting plan that gives it an advan- want to welcome you all to this fascinat- burden the representative rights of Demo- tage in the polls.1 The Supreme Court has I ing symposium hosted by the American crats by impeding their ability to translate tackled this issue before in fractured deci- Academy of Arts and Sciences on the topic their votes into seats, that it had its intended sions and rejected the challenges, but some of Redistricting and Representation. Let me effect, and that the plan was not explained justices left open the possibility that such begin by thanking the Academy for spon- by the political geography of Wisconsin and challenges were justiciable and manageable. soring so many different programs ranging was not justified by a legitimate state inter- The debate before the Supreme Court was from philosophy to science to law to nuclear est. There was a four-day trial with eight robust. Was this an equal protection prob- war to education. Name a cutting-edge top- witnesses. This was the first decision in de- lem? Was it a First Amendment question ic and the Academy is addressing it. cades to reject a voting map as an unconsti- involving freedom of speech and associa- Today’s topic on partisan gerrymander- tutional partisan gerrymander. tion? Are there metrics like the so-called ing spans issues of law, mathematics, and As background, the Constitution requires policy. The term “gerrymander” was coined that states must make a good faith effort to 1. Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109, 164 (1986).

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 47 presentations

efficiency gap that make it feasible for fed- school buddy Robert Browning.2 In that ar- eral courts to decide? At the oral argument, ticle, we proposed a mathematical standard Chief Justice Roberts worried that the Su- for partisan fairness and a statistical meth- preme Court would have to decide in every od to determine whether a redistricting plan case whether the Democrats or the Republi- meets that standard. We called the standard cans would win, and “that is going to cause partisan symmetry. very serious harm to the status and integrity As it has turned out, I am proud to say of the decisions of this Court in the eyes of that since our article and my job talk, vir- the country.” tually all academics writing about the sub- I do not have answers to these three ques- ject have adopted partisan symmetry as the tions but hopefully our wonderful panelists right standard for partisan fairness in legis- will address the issues. lative redistricting. Then, a little more than a decade ago, the Supreme Court actually said in an opinion (roughly!), hey you academics out there, if there were some standard that you all agreed on, we would love to hear about it. This led Gary King me to think, job talk time again! Gary King is Director of the Institute for Quan- So in the next redistricting case that titative Social Science and the Albert J. Weath- reached the Court, my friend Bernie Grofman erhead III University Professor at Harvard Uni- and I, along with a few others, filed an ami cus brief telling the Court all about partisan versity. He was elected a Fellow of the American symmetry.3 By that time, partisan symmetry Academy in 1998. was not merely the near universally agreed upon standard among academics; it had also n 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court declared become the standard used by most expert Ipolitical gerrymandering justiciable, which witnesses in litigation about partisan gerry- means that a plaintiff can ask the courts to mandering. In fact, in many cases, including throw out a legislative redistricting plan if the the one for which we filed the brief with the plan treats one of the parties unfairly. Since Supreme Court, experts on both sides of the then, however, political gerrymandering has same cases appealed to partisan symmetry. never been justished (ok, that’s my word!), The Supreme Court explicitly discussed our meaning that no plan has ever in fact been brief in three of its opinions, including the plu- thrown out, nor has the Court established the rality opinion. All of the justices’ discussions standard that redistricting plans must meet. in their opinions of our brief, and the parti- So that was 1986. What was happening in 1987? Well, the most important thing going on then, from my point of view, was that I 2. Gary King and Robert X. Browning, “Demo- cratic Representation and Partisan Bias in Con- really wanted a job. The university down the gressional Elections,” American Political Science road gave me an interview and the chance Review 81 (1987): 1252–1273, copy at http://j.mp/ to give a job talk.1 I discussed an article that 2n5Y11v. was to be published that year in the Ameri- 3. Gary King, Bernard Grofman, Andrew Gel- can Political Science Review with my graduate man, and Jonathan Katz, “Brief of Amici Curiae Professors Gary King, Bernard Grofman, An- drew Gelman, and Jonathan Katz in Support of 1. Thanks to the members of the search commit- Neither Party,” U.S. Supreme Court in Jackson v. tee: Jim Alt, Mo Fiorina, and Bob Putnam! Perry, 2005, copy at http://j.mp/2gw1W1R.

48 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 redistricting and representation

san symmetry standard, were positive. It ap- Now along comes a new Supreme Court votes and a majority of the seats, but strange peared that, if a redistricting plan were ever case, Gill v. Whitford. With a few colleagues, does not make it unfair. What makes it viv- overturned, the standard adopted by the Court I filed a new brief in that case, reminding the idly unfair is the next election in Wisconsin: would have to involve partisan symmetry. But justices about partisan symmetry and clari- In 2014, the Democrats happened to have a the justices in that case did not go so far as to fying some other issues.6 The case has not turn at receiving about 48 percent of the overturn the redistricting plan before it, or to yet been decided, but judging from the oral votes. Yet, in that perfectly symmetric vot- explicitly adopt a standard for future cases.4 arguments last month, partisan symmetry ing situation, the Democrats only received Since 1987, data on voters have gotten is again a central focus. By the way, I highly 36 percent of the seats. Moreover, we know better. The science has advanced. Statis- recommend listening to the oral arguments; from considerable scholarship in political tical methods used to determine whether a plan meets the standard have improved. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court declared political With high accuracy, we can now determine whether an electoral system meets the par- gerrymandering justiciable – which means that a tisan symmetry standard after a set of elections, after just one election, or, without plaintiff can ask the courts to throw out a legislative much loss of accuracy, before any elections redistricting plan if the plan treats one of the parties have been held at all. These methods have been rigorously tested in thousands of elec- unfairly. tions all over the world. The standards are clear and the empirical methods are ready.5 they were remarkably sophisticated and in- science that this is not going to change. In all tense, quite like a high-level seminar at a likelihood, no matter how many elections 4. Bernard Grofman and Gary King, “The Fu- leading university. (Although beware, and are held in which the Democrats happen to ture of Partisan Symmetry as a Judicial Test for much to my chagrin, all references to “Pro- receive about 48 percent of the votes, they Partisan Gerrymandering after LULAC v. Perry,” Election Law Journal 6 (1) (2008): 2–35, copy at fessor King’s brief” in the oral arguments are not going to come close to having 60 per- http://j.mp/2ow4pQ8. were to the brief I filed a decade ago, with cent of the seats–for as long as the districts 5. Gary King, “Representation Through Legisla- no mention of the one I filed in this case!) remain the same. That’s unfair. And the rea- tive Redistricting: A Stochastic Model,” Ameri- But let me say something about partisan son it is unfair is because it is asymmetric. can Journal of Political Science 33 (1989): 787–824, symmetry: how it is really simple, and why This is a dramatic Republican gerryman- copy at http://j.mp/2o46Gkk; Andrew Gelman and Gary King, “Estimating the Electoral Con- you should support it too. A good example der. But remember we have analyzed thou- sequences of Legislative Redistricting,” Journal comes from the case presently before the sands of elections and know that the Dem- of the American Statistical Association 85 (1990): Court. At issue is a redistricting plan passed ocrats have done just as much damage when 274–282, copy at http://j.mp/2nRBBOO; An- by the state of Wisconsin in 2011. they are able to control the redistricting drew Gelman and Gary King, “A Unified Method of Evaluating Electoral Systems and Redistrict- In the 2012 election, Republicans received process. ing Plans,” American Journal of Political Science 38 48 percent of the votes statewide and, be- To be clear, any translation of votes to (1994): 514–554, copy at http://j.mp/2oT1ZqA; cause of the way in which the districts were seats is fair–as long as it is symmetric. For Stephen Ansolabehere and Gary King, “Mea- drawn, more than 60 percent of the seats in example, some states require redistricters to suring the Consequences of Delegate Selection Rules in Presidential Nominations,” Journal of the state assembly. It may seem strange that draw plans that make competitive elections Politics 52 (1990): 609–621; Gary King, “Elector- the Republicans received a minority of the likely–so 52 percent of the votes might pro- al Responsiveness and Partisan Bias in Multipar- duce 75 percent of the seats rather than say ty Democracies,” Legislative Studies Quarterly xv 55 percent, which is fair so long as the other (1990): 159–181, copy at http://j.mp/2o4k5Jc; 6. Heather K. Gerken, Jonathan N. Katz, Gary Andrew Gelman, Jonathan Katz, and Gary King, King, Larry J. Sabato, and Samuel S.-H. Wang, party would also get 75 percent of the seats if “Empirically Evaluating the Electoral College,” “Brief of Heather K. Gerken, Jonathan N. Katz, they also got 52 percent of the votes. in Rethinking the Vote: The Politics and Prospects Gary King, Larry J. Sabato, and Samuel S.-H. Other states require redistricters to draw of American Electoral Reform, ed. Ann N. Crigler, Wang as Amici Curiae in Support of Appellees,” plans that favor incumbents, perhaps so Marion R. Just, and Edward J. McCaffery (New Filed with the Supreme Court of the United York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 75–88, States in Beverly R. Gill et al. v. William Whitford et that members of Congress from their state copy at http://j.mp/2ovY86M. al., 2017, 16–1161, copy at http://j.mp/2iJAMZl. will have more seniority and thus influence,

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 49 presentations

which will yield a result closer to propor- states but the standard does not absolutely So I said, “Yes, but you are going to be re- tional representation, with seat proportions constrain any one of these criteria. elected. What do you want, 85 percent of closer to vote proportions. In fact, a huge number of other factors are the vote? What is the big deal?” He then In fact, I think I can convince you that you also chosen by redistricters, most of which explained, “Look at this line,” pointing to have already invented a symmetric elector- no court, constitution, or legislature has one of the boundaries of his district. “Do al system when you go out to dinner with a ever tried to regulate, and few of which have you see where it excludes this little area and group and need to choose a restaurant. The even been written about. Moreover, these then continues? That’s my kids’ school. decision rule most people choose is called other factors could not be more important And this? That’s where my wife works. And the Unit Veto system whereby any one per- to those responsible for redistricting. None this? That’s my mom’s house!” He then son can veto the outcome. This decision rule are constrained by partisan symmetry. pointed to the map on the wall of the en- is fair because it is symmetric–it is not only Bob or Sally who can veto the choice; any Partisan symmetry is a widely accepted member of the group can. This is an extreme system, one we probably would not choose mathematical standard for partisan fairness for electing members of a legislature, but it is one of the numerous possible symmetric in legislative redistricting. Statistical methods and thus fair electoral systems. have been invented to easily determine whether The point is not only that partisan symmetry is the obvious standard for a fair redistricting plans meet this standard. electoral system. It is also that, if the Court adopts partisan symmetry, it will still be Here is an example. To learn about redis- tire state and said, “Previously I had a nice leaving considerable discretion to the polit- tricting and to obtain access to data, I occa- compact district where I could drive to see ical branches in each state, something that sionally sign on as a statistical consultant. I any constituent. Now the district is splayed the Court sees as essential. estimate the deviation from partisan sym- halfway across the state, and it will take me Partisan symmetry leaves redistricters metry for every proposed redistricting plan, all day flying to get anywhere! They are just lots of other types of discretion in drawing determine the degree of racial bias, and trying to annoy me. They are trying to get districts as well. One is compactness, which compute compactness, among other things. me to resign!” many states and federal law require. The pa- During this process, one of the legisla- And they were trying to get him to resign. per I wrote with my graduate students Aar- tors was raging mad about the proposed So we looked into it–systematically, across on Kaufman and Mayya Komisarchik, and plan, just fuming. Well, one of the things I many elections and many redistricting distributed at this event, provides a single do whenever I am near partisans and have plans.8 It turns out that, during redistrict- measure of compactness that predicts with access to data is to compute the probability ing, incumbents are much more likely to re- high accuracy the level of compactness any that they will win the next election. It turns sign, and that causes the partisan division of judge, justice, or legislator sees in any dis- out these predictions are straightforward seats in the legislature to be more responsive trict.7 There are also criteria based on main- and highly accurate. Knowing these predic- to changes in voter preferences, at least com- taining local communities of interest, not tions helps reveal the motives, interests, and pared to no redistricting. Redistricting is a splitting local political subdivisions, having desires of most everyone. (And don’t judge: nasty process, probably the most conflict- equal population, not racially gerryman- no matter how noble the goals of politicians, ual form of regular politics this country ever dering, and many others. Partisan symme- if they don’t first attend to their own reelec- sees, with a good number of fist fights, exam- try may be related to some of these in some tion, they won’t be able to do anything else.) ples of hardball politics, and many really un- So I looked up my forecasts for this apo- happy bedfellows. Imagine if some guy you plectic legislator and said, “what are you up- 7. Aaron Kaufman, Gary King, and Mayya Ko- set about? You are going to win this election misarchik, “How to Measure Legislative Dis- with about 75 percent of the vote.” At that 8. Andrew Gelman and Gary King, “Enhancing trict Compactness If You Only Know it When Democracy Through Legislative Redistricting,” You See it,” working paper, 2017, copy at http:// point, he was pacing and insisting, “Look at American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 541– j.mp/2u9OWrG. the plan, look at my district!” 559, copy at http://j.mp/2ow4XoP.

50 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 redistricting and representation

don’t know in a basement playing with maps ness of American democracy. The problem once a decade could get you fired! As a result, here is not some foreign power meddling in legislators often prefer to retire over the risk our election system; the problem is on us as of getting drawn into a district with anoth- Americans. And the institution in American er incumbent, perhaps having to run against politics to fix the problem is the Supreme your friend, or ending a successful career be- Court; it is the only institution capable of ing humiliated at the polls in a new district fixing this problem. We certainly know from dominated by opposition party voters. two hundred years of partisan redistricting In fact, lack of redistricting does not battles that no legislature will save the day. mean no change. Voters move, die, come of So as I wait with the rest of the country age, immigrate, emigrate, and come to the for this Court decision, I feel a little like I am polls in different numbers. Over time, within the same position I was thirty years ago– out redistricting, nothing constrains the hoping someone will like my job talk. electoral system from moving far from partisan symmetry. Some states become hor- ribly biased on their own, without moving district lines. In contrast, if you control a state’s redistricting, you are likely to restrain yourself to some degree. Why? Well, you can gerrymander in your favor, moving your state far from symmetry, but if you go too far and wake the sleeping judicial giant, you might have the entire process taken away from you. If that happens, you lose not only the opportunity to win a few more seats for your party, but also the opportunity to have completely free reign over everything that may otherwise make your life, and that of your party members, miserable. So redistricting increases responsiveness and reduces partisan bias relative to no redistricting at all. In that sense, aspects of messy partisan redistricting battles can be good for democracy. But it also means that the Supreme Court can play a fundamental role and reign in much of the excesses of gerrymandering without much trouble. All they need to do is to eliminate the worst cases by adopting the partisan symmetry standard, and to out- law the worst excesses. If the Court takes this minimal action, redistricters–jealous of their prerogatives–will stay well away from the line. Any line, even one that is not bright white, will greatly increase the fair-

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 51 presentations

vote dilution cases. You could show that a Interestingly, it appeared that every mem- minority group’s right to vote was diluted if ber of the Court in Vieth conceded that par- you could demonstrate intentional effort to tisan gerrymandering was inconsistent with do so and success at doing so. democracy. So if there is so much agreement In some sense, with partisan gerryman- as to the undemocratic nature of partisan dering the intent prong is easier than with gerrymandering, why has the Court not race, but the effect prong is vastly more dif- played a meaningful role to date? ficult. A racial minority group is often nu- I am going to list six obstacles and dis- merically smaller than voters from one of cuss each very briefly. In sum, they are: (1) the major political parties, and so it is eas- constitutional design; (2) one person, one ier to frustrate a racial minority group’s vote; (3) race; (4) what I will call the base- ability to influence the political process in line problem; (5) geography; and (6) reme- a sustained way. Maybe more important- dial concerns. ly, whether someone is a racial minority First, on constitutional design, the Con- is a fixed characteristic in a way that is not stitution does not specify any particular true of whether someone is a Democrat or democratic arrangement, nor does it by its a Republican. Whether Democrats or Re- terms exclude political influence over the Jamal Greene publicans have been denied effective partic- structure of the electoral process. The man- Jamal Greene is Dwight Professor of Law at Co- ipation in the political process interacts in ner of conducting elections for Congress, lumbia Law School. complex ways with the substantive issues for example, is granted to state legislatures, they tend to support or not support. with no explicit constitutional guidance The Supreme Court has never held that over how to do that. There are a great many want to spend my time talking about par- the Davis v. Bandemer standard was satisfied. choices that need to be made, including I tisan gerrymandering in legal rather than Indeed, in a 2004 case involving Pennsylva- whether to have districts at all, whether to social scientific terms, and why it is such a nia redistricting, Vieth v. Jubelirer, four mem- represent individuals or groups or interests, vexing issue, more vexing than it might ap- bers of the Court were willing to say there is how to count votes and declare winners, pear on its face. I will begin by offering some remarks on the case law of the Supreme If there is so much agreement as to the undemocratic Court before discussing some of the obstacles to clear thinking in the area of partisan nature of partisan gerrymandering, why has the gerrymandering. The Supreme Court first addressed the Court not played a meaningful role to date? constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering in a 1986 case called Davis v. Bande- no judicially manageable standard. Justice whether to have secret ballots or voice vot- mer. That was a case involving redistricting Kennedy in that case agreed that there was ing, and whether and how to structure po- of the state legislature in Indiana after the no clear standard for declaring a violation in litical primaries and ballot access. And this 1980 census. There, Justice White said that Pennsylvania, but he refused to say a stan- is left largely to statutory law structured for a party could prevail on the claim by show- dard might not develop in the future. The the benefit of particular political interests. ing “intentional discrimination against an Wisconsin case argued last month, Gill v. The constitutional text does not get us far in identifiable political group” and “an actu- Whitford, is an effort to revisit this question. this area. al effect on that group.” Effect meant “ev- The three-judge district court held that Wis- Second, one person, one vote does not idence of continued frustration of the will consin Republicans had created an uncon- prevent gerrymandering and in many ways of a majority of the voters or effective deni- stitutional partisan gerrymander, relying in it facilitates it. Because of one person, one al to a minority of voters of a fair chance to part on a measure of wasted votes called the vote, state legislatures are required to redis- influence the political process.” This stan- efficiency gap that I expect others to get into trict every ten years, and modern technolo- dard was borrowed essentially from racial more deeply. gy enables partisan gerrymandering simply

52 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 redistricting and representation

The manner of conducting elections for Congress is granted to state legislatures, with no explicit constitutional guidance over how to do that. There are a great many choices that need to be made . . . and this is left largely to statutory law structured for the benefit of particular political interests. to plug the equipopulation constraint into to have a theory that tells you whether this the algorithm. result is acceptable or not. Third, there is an interdependent relation- Finally, the only way to remove politics ship between race-based and partisan redis- from the process is to remove politicians tricting. Under the Voting Rights Act, states from the process. And so the Court needs to in certain circumstances are required to cre- tolerate a certain degree of political control ate majority-minority districts. Many mi- unless it is prepared to say that, contrary to norities, especially African Americans, vote all of American history, independent redis- overwhelmingly in favor of one party. Stuff- tricting is required. Once you say some po- ing all of the supporters of the minority par- litical control is allowed, the nature of the ty into a single district is an effective means problem becomes a difference of degree of partisan gerrymandering. And so there is rather than a difference in kind. Courts get a degree to which the Voting Rights Act ac- very nervous about weighing in on ques- tually requires a partisan imbalanced map. tions of degree. Fourth, there is what you might call a In sum, policing partisan gerrymander- baseline problem. Should an ideal map be ing through the courts is going to be an up- based on creating competitive districts? hill climb, regardless of what the Supreme Should its overriding goal be to treat the Court says in Gill v. Whitford. parties the same? Should it be focused on creating a degree of political stability, which might be in tension with competition and with treating parties the same? Should it aim at proportional representation? Note that a perfectly competitive election would make proportional representation quite difficult, since a wave election would cause a small change in support to lead to a large change in the number of seats. Fifth, voters are not distributed randomly across a polity. Democrats tend to cluster in cities. If you were to use “neutral criteria,” such as maintaining county or other munic- ipal boundaries, the natural tendency might be to pack Democrats and put them at a dis- advantage on a statewide map. So you need

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 53 presentations

For instance, Figure 1 shows a map of specified by states, such as guidance about Wisconsin, and with it I have drawn a graph shapes of districts or about how much to al- of its 1,409 Census tracts. You certainly can’t low the splitting of counties and cities. Part see all the ones in Milwaukee by looking at of what makes redistricting so hard is that this picture because the graph is too dense many of these rules are vague, and they of- there, which illustrates that plotting the ten represent conflicting priorities. graph in this way (with the vertices at the The rest of this note will be devoted to centers of the tracts) also shows you where outlining three intellectually distinct but the population is clustered. not mutually exclusive strategies for mea- Armed with this, we can say that a (con- suring partisan gerrymandering. The first tiguous) districting plan is a partition of the two are only suited for partisan gerryman- vertices in the graph of a state’s population dering, but the third is more flexible and can into some number of subsets called districts, be used for other kinds of measurements of such that each district induces a connected a plan, like racial bias or competitiveness. subgraph.2 For instance, Wisconsin current- For each approach, we should track the ly has eight congressional districts and nine- norm and the baseline: how does the met- ty-nine state assembly districts, so if they ric correspond to a notion of fairness? What Moon Duchin were made from Census-tract units, then is the basis of comparison against which a Moon Duchin is Associate Professor of Mathe- the former districts would have between plan is assessed? matics and Director of the Science, Technology one hundred and two hundred nodes each Partisan symmetry is a principle for dis- and Society Program at Tufts University. while the latter would have only ten to twen- tricting plans that has been articulated and ty nodes.3 championed by Gary King, Bernie Grofman, Our goal when we redistrict is to find a Andrew Gelman, and several other promi- or the purposes of this brief discussion, I partition that meets a list of criteria. Some nent scholars.4 At its heart is a certain nor- Fneed to begin by specifying redistricting of those are universal and apply to the whole mative principle (or statement of how fair as a math problem in some way; that is, by country, like having nearly equal popula- plans should behave): how one party per- formalizing a districting plan as an appropri- tions in the districts and complying with forms with a certain vote share should be ate kind of mathematical object. I will pro- the federal Voting Rights Act, and some are handled symmetrically if the other party re- pose a way to do this that is completely un- controversial: start with the smallest units of population that are to be the building blocks of a plan–these might be units given by the Census, like blocks, block groups, or tracts, or they might be units given by the state, like precincts or wards.1 We can represent those population units as nodes or vertices in a graph, and connect two of them if the units are geographically adjacent.

Figure 1. Wisconsin with the Census-tract graph overlaid, and with the graph shown separately. 1. A districting plan normally will not go below the Census block level, because then the population needs to be estimated. The units in which the election outcomes are recorded are called vtds, 2. It is generally reasonable also to require that no 4. See Bernard Grofman and Gary King, “The or voting tabulation districts, which typically cor- district is wholly surrounded by another district. Future of Partisan Symmetry as a Judicial Test respond to precincts or wards. These are natural 3. That is, if the districts were made out of for Partisan Gerrymandering after LULAC v. Per- units to build a plan from if you want to study its whole tracts. In fact, typically they are made out ry,” Election Law Journal 6 (1) (2007), and its ref- partisan properties. of finer pieces, like precincts. erences.

54 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 redistricting and representation

ment, on reasoning that any truly symmet- MN 2016 OH 2016 ric plan must award each party half the seats 1.0 1.0 if the vote is split exactly evenly. Or compare one party’s outcome with a given vote 0.8 0.8 share to that for the other party if it had the same share.5

0.6 0.6 In the (substantial) literature on partisan symmetry scores, you will sometimes

0.4 0.4 see the vertical displacement called partisan bias6 and the horizontal displacement called the mean/median score. 0.2 0.2 Efficiency gap is a quite different idea about measuring partisan skew, both in its 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 conceptual framing and in which plans it picks out as gerrymanders. However, it does Figure 2. Seats-votes curves generated by uniform partisan swing from the Minnesota and have a whiff of symmetry about it: it begins Ohio congressional elections in 2016, both presented from the Republican point of view. The with the normative principle that a plan is actual election outcomes from which the curves were derived are (0.48, 0.38) for Minnesota fair if the two parties “waste” an equal num- and (0.58, 0.75) for Ohio. ber of votes. In order to parlay a certain given number ceived the same vote share. That is, if Dem- toward B. Thus this method creates a curve of party A voters into the maximum possi- ocrats received 60 percent of the vote and, that is step-shaped, showing a monotonic ble number of seats for A, an extreme gerry- with that, won 65 percent of the seats in the increase in the proportion of seats for A as manderer would want to distribute A voters election, then if Republicans had earned 60 the proportion of votes for A rises. efficiently through the districts: you would percent of the vote, they too should have re- In Figure 2, we see that the Minnesota win as many districts as you can by narrow ceived 65 percent of the seats. election has a seats-votes curve that is very margins, and you would not put any of your To visualize this, let’s build a seats-votes nearly symmetric about the center point voters at all in the districts won by the other plot. On the x-axis we will record V, the pro- (0.5, 0.5). On the other hand, Ohio’s curve side, because they are not contributing to- portion of votes won by party A. On the is very far from symmetric. Rather, it looks ward your representation there. By this log- y-axis will be S, the proportion of seats in the like Ohio Republicans can secure 75 percent ic, there are two ways for a party to waste electoral body won by A. So a single state- of the Congressional representation from votes. On one hand, votes are wasted when wide election is represented by one point on just 50 percent of the vote, and that just 42 there is an unnecessarily high winning mar- this grid; for instance (V, S) = (0.6, 0.65). percent of the vote is enough for them to gin–for this model, say every vote over 50 The problem is that a single data point take a majority of the Congressional seats. percent is wasted. On the other hand, all los- does not tell you enough to understand the A partisan symmetry standard would ing votes are wasted votes. Efficiency gap is properties of the districting plan as a plan. judge a plan to be more gerrymandered for the quantity given by the following simple A standard way to extend this point to a producing a more asymmetrical seats-votes expression: just add up the statewide wasted curve is to use the model called uniform par- curve, flagging a plan if the asymmetry is tisan swing: look at the results district by dis- sufficiently severe. There are many ways 5. If the seats-votes curve is denoted f(V), then trict, and add/subtract the same number of that a mathematician could imagine using this comparison amounts to P(V) = | f(V)– percentage points to party A’s vote share in a bit of functional analysis to quantify the [1–f(1–V)] |. It is natural, for instance, to evalu- each district. As you keep adding to A’s vote failure of symmetry, but there are also a few ate this at V = V0, the actual vote share in a given election, but most authors don’t commit to this. share, you eventually push the share past 50 elementary and easy-to-visualize scores: for percent in some districts, causing those dis- instance, look at how far the curve is from 6. For example, Nick Stephanopoulos and Eric McGhee, “Partisan Gerrymandering and the Ef- tricts to flip their winner fromB to A. And as the center point (0.5, 0.5), either in verti- ficiency Gap,” University of Chicago Law Review 82 you subtract, you eventually push districts cal displacement or in horizontal displace- (2) (2015): 831–900.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 55 presentations

crystallize only in the last five or so years. S (seats) |EG| ≤ .08 It draws on a very well-established random walk sampling theory whose growth has ac- celerated continuously since its early development in the 1940s.10 The scientific de- (.65, .65) tails for the application to gerrymandering EG = .15 are still coalescing, but the idea is incredibly promising and has profound conceptual advantages that should cause it to fare well in the courts. This idea is to use algorithmic sampling to understand the space of all possible districting plans for a given state. V (votes) Remember our goal: we seek to split up a large, finite graph into some number of dis- Figure 3. The region containing (S, V) outcomes that pass the EG test is shown in blue. The tricts. What you see in Figure 4 is a very small dashed line is direct proportionality (S = V). graph being split up into four districts, represented by the different colors. First, we con- votes for party A by summing over districts, produces an outcome falling outside this strain the search space with requirements for subtract the statewide wasted votes for par- zone is flagged as a gerrymander. That the valid plans, such as contiguity of the pieces, ty B, and divide by the total number of votes slope is two means that a certain “seat bo- compactness of their shapes, keeping popu- in the state. Let’s call this number EG. Note nus” is effectively prescribed for the win- lation deviation under 1 percent, maintain- that it is a signed score, and that -0.5 ≤ EG ≤ ning side: as the authors of the standard put ing the current number of majority-minori- 0.5 by construction.7 By the logic of the defi- it, “To produce partisan fairness, in the sense ty districts, and so on. (This will depend on nition, a totally fair plan would have EG = 0. of equal wasted votes for each party, the bo- the laws in place in the state we are study- This score was first devised by political sci- nus should be a precisely twofold increase in ing.11) A sampling algorithm takes a random entist Eric McGhee and was made into the seat share for a given increase in vote share.” walk around the space of all valid partitions: centerpiece of a multi-pronged legal test by This has the funny property that elections starting with a particular districting plan, McGhee and law professor Nick Stepha- that produce directly proportional out- flip units from district to district, thousands, nopoulos in their influential 2015 paper. For comes are often flagged as problematic.9 For millions, billions, or trillions of times. legislative races, they propose |EG|= .08 as instance, the point (.65, .65), marked in the Searching in this way, such as with a lead- the threshold, past which a plan would be figure, where a party has earned 65 percent ing method called Markov Chain Mon- presumptively unconstitutional. of the vote and converted it to 65 percent of te Carlo, or mcmc, you can sample many Happily, this test is very easily represent- the seats, is seen as a gerrymander in favor thousands of maps from the chains pro- ed on a seats-votes plot, such as we intro- of the other side! Quantitatively, that is be- duced by random flips. Each one is a possi- duced previously.8 The permissibility zone cause this case has EG = .15, far larger than ble way that you could have drawn the dis- (derived from the EG formula and shown in the threshold. Conceptually, it is because the Figure 3) turns out to be a strip of slope two party has received an inadequate seat bonus in the seats-votes space; any election that by the lights of the efficiency gap. 10. Persi Diaconis’s excellent survey, “The Mar- kov Chain Monte Carlo Revolution,” Bulletin of Finally, I want to sketch a new approach the American Mathematical Society 46 (2) (April 7. This is true because the total wasted votes in to redistricting analysis that has started to 2009): 179–205, reviews successful applications of the state, and indeed in each district, add up to mcmc in chemistry, physics, biology, statistics, half of the votes cast. 9. As mentioned above, EG is proposed as one group theory, and theoretical computer science. 8. Note that throughout this section we are part of a multi-pronged legal test, so high EG 11. The process of interpreting and operational- leaning on the simplifying assumptions that all alone wouldn’t doom a plan. But it is obviously izing rules to create scores certainly bears scru- districts have equal turnout, there are only two still relevant to understand the systematic fea- tiny. A successful implementation will have to parties, and all races are contested by both sides. tures of the score and the norms behind its con- demonstrate robustness of outcomes across These are varyingly realistic assumptions. struction. choices made when scoring.

56 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 redistricting and representation

symmetry, or to aim at equal vote wastage, B when populations themselves are clustered in highly asymmetrical ways? For instance, C imagine a state in which every household has three Republicans and two Democrats. (Of course, this is highly unrealistic, but it is an extreme case of a state with a very uni- A form distribution of partisan preferences.) Then no matter where you draw the lines, every single district will be 60 percent Re- publican, which means Republicans win 100 percent of the seats, corresponding to the point (.6, 1) on the seats-votes plot. One can easily verify that there is literally no plan at all that does not have a sky-high partisan E bias12 or that gets the efficiency gap below 0.3. On the other hand, the sampling method will reveal an ensemble in which all plans are made up of 60–40 districts, and thus will show a particular plan with that compo- sition to be completely typical and therefore permissible along partisan lines. It seems in- tuitively unreasonable for 60 percent of the Figure 4. This figure shows a tiny section of a search space of districting plans. Two plans are ad- votes to earn all of the seats, but this method jacent here if a simple flip of a node from one district to another takes you from one plan to the reveals that the political geography of this other. For instance, toggling one node between light blue and black flips between planB to plan C. state demands it. As mentioned earlier, these three ap- trict lines. Call this big collection of maps en some time to stabilize numerically in re- proaches can be used in concert. For in- your ensemble of districting plans. sponse to the corresponding legal frame- stance, one can use any evaluation axis with What can you do with a large and diverse work of one person, one vote. a sampling ensemble, say efficiency gap (or ensemble of plans? This finally gives us a The great strength of this method is that mean-median score) instead of partisan good way to address the baseline problem it is sensitive to the particularities, legal and outcome. So you can mix and match these that always looms over attempts to adju- demographic, of each state that it is used approaches. Nonetheless, each has a differ- dicate gerrymandering. That is, it gives us to analyze. If a state has specific rules in its ent normative principle at its core and they a tool we can use to decide whether plans constitution or in state law–examples in- would produce quite different redistricting are skewed relative to other possible plans clude North Carolina’s “whole county pro- outcomes if they were to be adopted at the with the same raw materials. The norm un- vision,” Wisconsin’s quirky rules for dis- center of a new legal framework. Let’s re- dergirding the sampling standard is that trict contiguity, Arizona’s preference for view some pros and cons. districting plans should be constructed as competitive races, incumbent protection in though just by the stated principles. Kansas, and Colorado’s guidance to mini- 12. In the simple model, the seats-votes curve is The computer sampling methods could mize the sum of the district perimeters–the a step function with a big jump at V = 1/2. For even be used to craft a new legal framework: sampling can be carried out subject to those more granularity, you could instead imagine a Extreme outliers are impermissible (see Figure constraints or priorities. And just as impor- map in which one district has 39 percent Dem- 5). How extreme? That would require some tantly, it addresses a major critique that can ocrats and all others have percentages clustered around 41 percent, also producing a high parti- time and experience to determine, just as be leveled at both of the previous approach- san bias score for no very damning reason. Com- population deviation standards have takes: why is it reasonable to prefer seats-votes pare mn-2016 from Figure 2.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 57 presentations

For partisan symmetry, it is really easy to 50 55 60 65 70 75 make the case for fairness: it sounds em- inently reasonable that the two parties WSA12 should be treated the same by the system. Partisan symmetry uses up-to-date statistics and political science and has a lot of pro- 0.2 fessional consensus behind it. On the other hand, it has been critiqued by the Court as too reliant on speculation and counter- factuals, mainly because of how it arrives at 0.1 conclusions on how a plan would have per- Fraction of result formed at different vote levels.13 And it does WI not center on the question of how much advantage the line drawers have squeezed 0 from their power, because it lacks a baseline Figure 5. On this plot, the x-axis is the number of seats won by Republicans out of 99 in the of how much symmetry a politically neutral Wisconsin State Assembly, and the y-axis shows how often each outcome occurred in the agent could reasonably be expected to pro- ensemble of 19,184 districting plans generated by the MCMC algorithm from Gregory Her- duce, or even an agent who took symmetry schlag, Jonathan Mattingly, and Robert Ravier, Evaluating Partisan Gerrymandering in Wis- as a goal. Crucially, it is not at all clear that consin, ArXiv. Given the actual vote pattern in the 2012 election, the plans could have pro- it is easy or even feasible to draw a map that duced a number of Republican seats anywhere from 49 to 61, with 55 seats being the most frequent outcome. The legislature’s plan (“Act 43”) in fact produced 60 seats for Republicans, will maintain partisan symmetry across sev- making it more extreme than 99.5 percent of the alternatives. eral elections in a Census cycle. An interesting and attractive feature of efficiency gap is that it seems to derive, rather gerrymandering. It is just important not to of the space of districting plans, and on un- than prescribe, a permissible range in that elevate EG as a stand-alone metric, since it derstanding the sampling distributions pro- seats/votes plot. It offers a single score and is trying to address a fundamentally multi- duced by our algorithms. a standard threshold, and it is relatively easy dimensional problem. Note: Many thanks to the American Acad- to run.14 The creators of the EG standard did Finally, I have described the sampling ap- emy of Arts and Sciences; the other panelists: about the best possible job of creating what proach and outlier analysis, and I have argued Gary King and Jamal Greene; and the modera- the courts seemed to be demanding: a single that the strength of this approach is that it is tor, Chief Judge Patti Saris. Thanks also to As- judicially manageable indicator of partisan sensitive to not only the law, as we have seen, saf Bar-Natan, Mira Bernstein, Rebecca Willett, but also to the political geography of each and the research team of Jonathan Mattingly, state–for instance, Wisconsin Democrats whose images are reproduced here with permis- 13. As Justice Kennedy wrote, “The existence or are densely arranged in Milwaukee proper, sion. I am grateful to Mira Bernstein, Justin Lev- degree of asymmetry may in large part depend on conjecture about where possible vote-switch- ringed by heavily Republican suburbs, but itt, and Laurie Paul for feedback. n ers will reside. Even assuming a court could in Alaska Democrats are spread throughout choose reliably among different models of shift- the rural parts of the state–which might © 2018 by Patti B. Saris, Gary King, Jamal ing voter preferences, we are wary of adopting have hard-to-measure effects on just how Greene, and Moon Duchin, respectively a constitutional standard that invalidates a map based on unfair results that would occur in a hy- possible it is to split up the votes symmet- pothetical state of affairs.” LULAC v. Perry 126 rically or efficiently. Outlier analysis does S. Ct. 2594 (2006). not measure a districting plan against an To view or listen to the presentations, 14. The small print for efficiency gap: you have all-purpose ideal, but against actual split- visit https://www.amacad.org/ to worry about which election data to use, and tings of the state, holding the distribution redistricting. how to impute outcomes in uncontested races, of votes constant. In the next ten years, I ex- which leaves a little bit of room for the possibility of dueling experts, but by and large it is a very pect to see explosive scientific progress on manageable standard. characterizing the geometry and topology

58 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 projects and publications

Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education The Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America

ollowing two years of sustained deliberations grounded in reviews of innovative practices, policies, and studies and Finformed by meetings with state and federal policy-makers, students and faculty members, and experts from around the country, the Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education released its final report–The Future of Undergradu- ate Education, The Future of America–in late November 2017. In the report, the Commission offers a comprehensive national strategy to improve undergraduate education that encompasses three broad recommendations:

1. Ensure that all students have high-quality educational expe- cans: eleven from the Senate and ten from the House of Rep- riences; resentatives. 2. Increase overall completion rates and reduce inequities zzA working lunch with leaders from major Washington, D.C., among different student populations at every level of under- based higher education associations, including the Associa- graduate education; tion of American Universities, the National Association of 3. Manage college costs and improve the affordability of under- Independent Colleges and Universities, the American Asso- graduate education. ciation of State Colleges and Universities, the American As- sociation of Community Colleges, the Association of Public In the final section of the report, the Commission takes a more and Land-grant Universities, the Council of Independent Col- speculative approach, looking to the future through the lens of sev- leges, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, eral factors, including the country’s level of social cohesion; the and the Aspen Institute. characteristics of the workforce; the lev- zzAn Academy Stated Meeting and panel el of access to information and educational discussion in New York, featuring Var- technologies; and unforeseen natural or hu- tan Gregorian (Carnegie Corporation of man-generated global challenges. New York) and Commissioners Michael The Academy hosted a series of events in McPherson, Gail Mellow (LaGuardia New York and Washington, D.C., to announce Community College), and Nicholas Le- the release of The Future of Undergraduate Edu- mann (Columbia University). cation, The Future of America and to gain Con- zzA dinner for Academy members hosted gressional and national attention and sup- by Steven Knapp (George Washington port. Over the course of the rollout week, the University) and the Academy’s Local Academy convened Commissioners, mem- Program Committee in Washington, bers, project contributors, policy-makers, D.C. The program featured remarks by and partners at events that included: Commissioners Rebecca Blank (Uni- versity of Wisconsin-Madison) and zzA well-attended official report release Nicholas Lemann. and public symposium at the Nation- al Press Club in Washington, D.C. The Coverage of the release of the final report in- panelists included Academy President cluded articles in The Chronicle of Higher Educa- Jonathan Fanton, Commission Co- tion, Inside Higher Education, and other media; chairs Roger Ferguson (tiaa) and Mi- radio interviews on WAMU and WGBH News; chael McPherson (formerly, Spencer and an event sponsored by The Wall Street Jour- Foundation), and Commissioners Mitchell Daniels (Purdue nal that featured Cochair Roger Ferguson, who spoke about the future University), Deborah Ball (University of Michigan), and John of higher education. To read these articles and listen to or watch the DeGioia (Georgetown University). interviews, please visit the Commission’s website at www.amacad zzMeetings with federal policy-makers, including Under Sec- .org/cfue. An electronic version of the final report and supporting retary of Education James Manning and twenty-one Mem- publications are also available on the website. bers of Congress and/or their key legislative advisors. The The Academy will continue to engage in a variety of outreach Commission met with twelve Democrats and nine Republi- activities throughout 2018 to advance the recommendations in the

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 59 projects and publications

Mitchell Daniels (Purdue University), Roger Ferguson, Jr. (TIAA), Michael McPherson (formerly, Spencer Foundation), Deborah Ball (Univer- sity of Michigan), and John DeGioia (Georgetown University) final report around quality, completion, and affordability. Plans are improvement in the productivity of the American economy and a currently underway for statewide meetings in Wisconsin and Ken- resultant gain in the nation’s standard of living. tucky, involving leaders from private and public colleges and uni- Additional outreach activities are being planned, such as con- versities and from business and industry, as well as state legislators. vening members of the Academy’s Affiliates Program, which in- Statewide events in Minnesota, Nevada, and California, among cludes sixty-five colleges and universities from around the country, other states, are in development. to explore the themes and recommendations in the report; hold- To extend the dialogue and advance the report’s recommenda- ing small meetings with business leaders who have a strong inter- tions, several Commissioners will be speaking at upcoming con- est in strengthening undergraduate education; and working with ferences. Commission Cochair Michael McPherson will give a talk the Academy’s Local Program Committees to feature the work of at the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ annual the Commission at their meetings. The Commission will be devel- meeting; Commissioner J. Michael Locke (formerly, Rasmussen oping additional content and publications to further the national Inc.) will moderate a discussion about the report at the Arizona dialogue, including report briefs for state policy-makers and high- State University + Global Silicon Valley Summit; and the final reer education institutions that feature top recommendations and a port will be a major focus at tiaa’s annual client forum in April, forthcoming issue of Dædalus on higher education, which will be which attracts hundreds of higher education leaders from around published in fall 2019. the country To evaluate the extent to which these outreach efforts are suc- In addition, Mark Zandi (Moody’s Analytics) spoke at the Brook- cessful in advancing the report’s recommendations, Academy staff ings Institution’s Forum on the Future of Higher Education about and Commission members are discussing indicators that could be an occasional paper his team authored for the Commission on The monitored over the next five years as a way of understanding the Economic Impact of Increasing College Completion. Their analysis in- country’s success in improving undergraduate education. Such in- dicates that an ambitious yet achievable improvement in college dicators include the adoption of new teacher training initiatives in completion rates would require substantial investments over a de- graduate programs; new institutional efforts to improve student cade and more, but the longer-term effect would be a significant completion rates; and, at the federal level, the adoption of a single,

60 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 commission on the future of undergraduate education

The Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America reflects the Commission’s highest ideals: that every person, from every background, can succeed in America when given the proper training and preparation; that the country’s existing institutions of undergraduate education can and will evolve to meet the needs of today’s students; and that the free exchange of ideas is the basis of a creative, productive, and democratic society. income-driven repayment plan that automatically enrolls students and collects loan payments through the income tax system. More broadly, the Commission will monitor national completion rates and student loan repayment rates. The Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America reflects the Commission’s highest ideals: that every person, from every background, can succeed in America when given the proper training and preparation; that the country’s existing institutions of undergraduate education can and will evolve to meet the needs of today’s students; and that the free exchange of ideas is the basis of a creative, productive, and democratic society. The first set of recommendations included in the report focuses on ensuring that all students–whatever their program of study– have high-quality educational experiences that prepare them for success in the twenty-first century. The report notes that much of the current public discourse about higher education focuses on two systemic challenges: the affordability of a degree and the importance of program completion. But what kind of education is worth students’ commitment of time and their investment of scarce resources? Too little attention has been devot- Hilary Pennington (Ford Foundation), Senator Tammy Baldwin, and ed to this question and to the rigors of the learning experience itself. Rebecca Blank (University of Wisconsin-Madison) The Commission believes that some important general characteristics distinguish a quality college education, including the quality of ommendations that strengthen the student educational experience the teaching students encounter. Completion and affordability are and student learning. All college graduates–regardless of their ma- critical challenges, but completion and affordability for what? jor or the credential they will earn–need their programs of study The Commission recommends that there should be a greater em- to impart a forward-looking combination of academic knowledge phasis in undergraduate education on the educational experience and practical skills so they are prepared for both economic success itself and, in particular, on the challenge of ensuring that the sev- and civic engagement. The long-standing debate today over the val- enteen million diverse college students, enrolled in many types of ue of a liberal arts education versus a more applied postsecondary programs, are learning and mastering knowledge, skills, and dis- program presents a false choice. College educators need to adjust positions that will help them succeed in the twenty-first-centu- their program curricula and learning expectations accordingly. And ry United States. Today’s students face the growing challenges of students need to see that the ability to work and learn with others, a changing and more competitive global economy in which they and to disagree and debate respectfully, is a skill essential for a high are competing against highly motivated and trained students from quality of life, a future of economic success, and effective demo- around the world. The final report, therefore, focuses first on rec- cratic citizenship.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 61 projects and publications

The Commission recognizes that advancing the broad learning agenda advocated here–and encouraging more attention be paid to the teaching enterprise itself–will remain difficult until more sophisticated and useful ways of measuring what students actually learn are developed. Redressing the lack of good data is a high priority. The Commission calls for far greater attention to and support for the quality of college teaching and the teaching workforce. Students learn in many different settings, including through peer interactions, co- and extracurricular activities, and self-motivated exploration. Ultimately, though, making undergraduate learning stronger and more rigorous will depend upon how undergraduate education invests in the teaching skills of its faculty and the kinds of institutional and systemic commitments that are made. The Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America con- cludes with the following observations: There is a long-standing debate about whether undergraduate education is a private good, serving the needs of individuals, or a public good, meeting larger civic and community needs. The answer, the Commission is con- vinced, is that undergraduate education is both a public and a private good. Those who invest in an education are consistently re- Jonathan Fanton (American Academy) and Steven Knapp (George warded with higher earnings and more stable employment–both Washington University) important private benefits. In recent decades, the earnings advantage for college graduates has been higher, on average, than ever tionships and further mutual understanding. This is, in the Com- before. The Commission’s primary goal in writing the report has mission’s view, a core component of education and a crucial ele- been to help guide the next stage in the evolution of American un- ment for the nation’s civic and political future. dergraduate education, in which all students can afford, complete, We face huge challenges. Yet the reasons for optimism are real. and enjoy the benefits of the education they seek when they enroll, The country’s colleges and universities have a greater reach across an education that truly prepares them for life in the twenty-first the population than ever before. For all the challenges and tensions century. But beyond the benefits to individuals, there are real pub- evident on many of today’s campuses, we must remember that the lic benefits of undergraduate education. long-run trend on campuses has been toward more diversity and The Commission has identified a profound role that undergradu- inclusion. We harbor no doubts about the value and benefits of a ate education can and indeed must play for the sake of the nation’s quality college education–it delivers on its promises of greater in- future. America is polarized by race, class, and political and reli- dividual and social prosperity. We are hopeful because more and gious convictions, among other ways. And yet as we acknowledge more colleges are learning how to help students succeed in mov- and respect difference, we must find opportunities to knit people ing to complete their programs and are developing effective prac- and communities together in terms of equality and mutual respect. tices that other colleges can emulate. We are hopeful because there Although this is not a problem that undergraduate education can are real financial changes and technological opportunities that, if “solve,” colleges and universities are among the few American in- enacted smartly, can further facilitate student success. Progress is stitutions in which significant numbers of people from different not guaranteed, and good things will happen only with sustained backgrounds and communities come together for a shared pur- effort, but if we combine patience with urgency, we can, through pose. Although divisions may sometimes produce painful and risky undergraduate education, make great advances as individuals and confrontations, they can also create opportunities to build rela- as a nation. n

62 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 projects and publications

Not by Earnings Alone: A New Academy Report on College Graduates in the Workforce

hile much of the conversation about the value of a college degree tends to focus on graduates’ earnings, a new re- Wport from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators offers a more expansive view. Draw- ing largely on original research using federal data sets and the Gallup-Purdue Index survey of college alumni, the new report–Graduates in the Workforce & Beyond–finds that college graduates with degrees from fields with below-average earnings (such as education and the humanities) are quite similar to graduates from other fields with respect to theirperceived well-being.

Often the value of a college degree is assessed in economic terms. compared to 43 percent of graduates from all fields (see Figure 1). The Humanities Indicators newest report details the median earn- Among those aged 55 and older, the share was 65 percent for both ings for those with undergraduate degrees in each of the major humanities and non-humanities graduates. The shares of college fields of study, with comparative data on the income differences graduates with more than $10,000 in debt were similarly close in for women and for those who earn advanced degrees. As the report each age cohort. notes, in 2015 graduates with engineering degrees had the highest The report also examines how graduates from the humanities, median earnings ($82,000), while those with undergraduate de- professional, and scientific fields feel about their jobs and their grees in education had the lowest ($44,000). Humanities majors, lives more generally. On these measures, the new data tend to find the principal subject of the report, had median earnings of $52,000. similarities rather than differences (though it is notable that even The report also notes substantial differences among college though they have the lowest median earnings, college graduates degree recipients related to factors other than the field of degree. For instance, obtaining an advanced degree makes a clear difference in the earnings of college Amount Borrowed to Finance Undergraduate Degree(s), graduates: the median earnings of those by Age Category and Field of Bachelor’s Degree, 2015 who went on to earn an advanced degree

(in any field) were 38 percent higher than 100 those without an advanced degree. Unfor- tunately, gender also appears to make a 90 Humanities All Fields substantial difference in graduates’ sub- 80 sequent earnings. Across all fields, women with college degrees earned an average 70 of 28 percent less than their male counter- 60 t parts if they had only a bachelor’s degree, n e

c 50 and an average of 31 percent less if they r e P held an advanced degree. 40 The differences in average earnings are often cited in association with rising con- 30 cerns about growing levels of student debt, 20 with many assuming that majors with lower average earnings suffer more acutely 10 from the problem. A new analysis of debt 0 levels among college graduates as of 2015, Under 35 35-54 55 and older Under 35 35-54 55 and older however, shows only negligible differenc- No Debt Over $10,000 in Debt es between humanities and non-human- Age Cohort and ebt ities graduates across all age cohorts. For example, 45 percent of humanities gradu- Figure 1 Source and details at http://humanitiesindicators.org. ates aged 35 to 54 carried no college debt, as

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 63 projects and publications

Bachelor’s Degree Holders’ Financial Satisfaction, by Field of Bachelor’s Degree, 2014

100

90 I have enough money to do everything I want to do. t n

e 80 In the last seven days, I have worried about money. m e t

a 70 t S

t 60 i w

g 50 n i e e

r 40 g A

t 30 n e c r

e 20 P 10

0 Engineering Natural Humanities Education Business Social Arts Sciences Sciences Field of Bachelors egree

Figure 2 Source and details at http://humanitiesindicators.org. with education degrees generally report the highest levels of satis- Beyond perceptions, the report also highlights similarities be- faction with their jobs on a wide variety of metrics). tween the majors in the kinds of work performed at their jobs. The Almost 87 percent of workers with a bachelor’s degree reported analysis finds that more than a million graduates with bachelor’s they were satisfied with their jobs in 2015, with only a modest dif- degrees in the humanities were employed as managers in 2015, and ference between the fields. On another measure of job satisfaction, almost 60 percent of humanities graduates report managing or su- around 80 percent of graduates who had majored in either educa- pervising employees as part of their job (which was equal to the tion or the natural sciences reported “I am deeply interested in the percentage for all graduates). work I do” and that “I have the opportunity to do what I do best The report looks beyond the workforce, to graduates’ feelings about every day.” In comparison, engineering and humanities graduates their lives in general. Given the wide disparities in earnings between were closer to 70 percent on the same measures. engineers and graduates from other fields, one might expect a wide When asked about their satisfaction with a range of intangible gap in their relative sense of financial comfort. Here again, the gap was aspects of their jobs, more than 80 percent of college graduates re- relatively narrow. As of 2014, only 51 percent of engineering graduates ported they were satisfied with the intellectual challenge of their reported that “I have enough money to do everything I want to do.” jobs and their contribution to society, and almost 90 percent re- (see Figure 2) Among humanities and education graduates, the share ported satisfaction with their level of responsibility and the degree was 42 percent. Despite substantial differences in median earnings, of independence in their jobs. Graduates from education and the the share of humanities graduates who had recently worried about health and medical sciences typically had the highest levels of sat- money was close to the shares of graduates from the natural scienc- isfaction with these aspects of their jobs. es, education, and business who had experienced the same anxiety.

64 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 humanities indicators

Perceived Relationship between Job and Degree, by Field of Bachelor’s Degree, 2015

. 100

s a

e 90 Closely Related e r Somewhat Related g

e 80

Not Related

s ’

r 70 o l e h

c 60 a B

d 50 n a

b 40 o

n 30 i b i r

c 20 s e

t 10 n e c

r 0 e Behavioral Humanities Arts Physical All Fields Business Life Engineering Education Health or P & Social Sciences Sciences Medical Sciences Sciences Field of Bachelors egree

Figure 3 Source and details at http://humanitiesindicators.org.

A new tabulation of the 2014 Gallup-Purdue Index survey of col- in business, education, and the health sciences were much more lege alumni found only modest differences among majors with re- likely to view their degree and work as closely related (see Figure 3). spect to the share who believed that they had or soon would realize Graduates in the Workforce & Beyond reflects a set of updates to items their “best possible” life. At the time of the survey, over three-quar- about undergraduate earnings and employment outcomes recently ters of humanities graduates saw themselves as at least 70 percent published on the Humanities Indicators site, which provide more of the way to this goal, which was similar to the shares of engineer- detailed analyses of differences between the fields. ing and natural science graduates who believed the same thing. Ed- For more information about the Humanities Indicators, in- ucation majors were the most likely to feel they were close to attain- cluding analyses of data for non-humanities fields, please visit ing such a life. In every field, an even larger share of respondents www.humanitiesindicators.org or contact the Indicators staff at expected to be well on their way to their best life or to have attained [email protected]. n that life in five years. Ninety percent of graduates from every other field reported similar levels of optimism about their prospects in the future. The report notes a substantial difference between scholarly disciplines and professional fields on one metric: less than 30 percent of graduates with bachelor’s degrees in the humanities and social sciences felt that their job was closely related to their degree, while more than a third saw no relationship. Graduates who had majored

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 65 noteworthy

Select Prizes and Andrea Bertozzi (University of James R. Downing (St. Jude Chil- Barbara Grosz (Harvard Univer- California, Los Angeles) was se- dren’s Research Hospital) was sity) is the recipient of the Life- Awards to Members lected as a 2017 Simons Investi- awarded the 2017 E. Donnall time Achievement Award of the gator by the Simons Foundation. Thomas Lecture and Prize by the Association for Computational American Society of Hematology. Linguistics. Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Clara D. Bloomfield (Ohio State 2017 University) is the recipient of the Carol Dweck (Stanford Univer- Christopher Hacon (University 2017 Robert A. Kyle Award for sity) was awarded the inaugural of Utah) was awarded the Break- Joachim Frank (Columbia Univer- Outstanding Clinician-Scientist, Yidan Prize. through Prize in Mathematics. sity) presented by the Mayo Clinic Di- vision of Hematology. Felton Earls (Harvard Univer- Naomi Halas (Rice University) sity) is the recipient of the 2018 was awarded the 2018 Julius Ed- Nobel Prize in Economic Emmanuel J. Candès (Stanford Sarah Gund Prize for Research gar Lillienfeld Prize by the Amer- University) was named a 2017 Fel- and Mentoring in Child Men- ican Physical Society. Sciences, 2017 low of the John D. and Catherine tal Health, awarded by the Child T. MacArthur Foundation. Mind Institute. He also received John L. Hennessy (Stanford Uni- Richard H. Thaler (University of versity) was elected an Interna- Chicago) the 2017 Professor Emeriti Award Joanne Chory (Salk Institute for from the Harvard T. H. Chan tional Fellow of the Royal Acad- Biological Studies) was award- School of Public Health. emy of Engineering. ed the Breakthrough Prize in Life Nobel Prize in Literature, Sciences. Elazer Edelman (Massachusetts Wayne Hu (University of Chica- 2017 Institute of Technology) received go) was selected as a 2017 Simons Don W. Cleveland (University of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Investigator by the Simons Foun- Kazuo Ishiguro (London, United California, San Diego) was award- Therapeutics 2017 Career Achieve- dation. Kingdom) ed the Breakthrough Prize in Life ment Award. Sciences. John Jeffries (University of Vir- Jonathan A. Epstein (Univer- ginia School of Law) received the Nobel Prize in Physics, Max D. Cooper (Emory Univer- sity of Pennsylvania Perelman Thomas Jefferson Award from sity) was awarded the 2018 Japan the University of Virginia. 2017 School of Medicine) received an Prize in Medical Science and Me- Outstanding Investigator Award dicinal Science. Marc Kamionkowski (Johns Hop- Barry C. Barish (California Insti- from the National Heart, Lung, kins University) was elected a Fel- tute of Technology) France Cordova (National Sci- and Blood Institute. low of the American Association ence Foundation) was inducted for the Advancement of Science. Kip S. Thorne (California Insti- Paul Farmer (Harvard Medical into the U.S. News stem Lead- School; Brigham and Women’s tute of Technology) ership Hall of Fame. Robert Keohane (Princeton Uni- Hospital; Partners in Health) was versity) was awarded the 2016 Rainer Weiss (Massachusetts In- Thibault Damour (Institut des awarded the 2018 Public Welfare Balzan Prize for International Re- stitute of Technology) Hautes Études Scientifiques) was Medal from the National Acade- lations, History, and Theory. awarded a Gold Medal by the Na- my of Sciences. Maria Klawe (Harvey Mudd Col- Nobel Prize in Physiology tional Center for Scientific Re- Robert Full (University of Cal- search (cnrs) in France. lege) is the recipient of a 2017 Ac- or Medicine, 2017 ifornia, Berkeley) was named a ademic Leadership Award, given John J. DeGioia (Georgetown Howard Hughes Medical Insti- by Carnegie Corporation of New Jeffrey C. Hall (Cambridge, University) is the recipient of a tute Professor. York. Maine; Brandeis University) 2017 Academic Leadership Award, Shafi Goldwasser (Massachu- Lynne Maquat (University of given by Carnegie Corporation of setts Institute of Technology) Michael Rosbash (Brandeis Uni- New York. Rochester) is the recipient of the versity) was named a Fellow of the Asso- 2018 faseb Excellence in Sci- Titia de Lange (Rockefeller Uni- ciation for Computer Machinery. ence Award, given by the Fed- versity) received the 47th Lewis eration of American Societies of Other Awards Jeffrey I. Gordon (Washington S. Rosenstiel Award for Distin- University School of Medicine Experimental Biology. She was guished Work in Basic Medical in St. Louis) received the Sano- also awarded the 2017 Vanderbilt James Roger Angel (University of Research, given by Brandeis Uni- Prize in Biomedical Science, given Arizona) has been named a Fel- fi-Institut Pasteur International versity. Award. by Vanderbilt University School low of the National Academy of of Medicine. Inventors. Joseph DeSimone (University of Jorie Graham (Harvard Universi- North Carolina at Chapel Hill; ty) was awarded the Wallace Ste- Margaret McFall-Ngai (Univer- Joseph E. Aoun (Northeastern North Carolina State University) sity of Hawai’i at Manoa) was University) is the recipient of a vens Award, given by the Acade- received the 22nd Heinz Award my of American Poets. named a Howard Hughes Medi- 2017 Academic Leadership Award, in Technology, the Economy, and cal Institute Professor. given by Carnegie Corporation of Employment. Peter Grant (Princeton Universi- New York. ty) and Rosemary Grant (Prince- Barbara J. McNeil (Harvard Med- Michael Dine (University of Cal- ton University) are the recipients ical School) received the Walsh Charles L. Bennett (Johns Hop- ifornia, Santa Cruz) was awarded McDermott Medal from the Na- kins University) was awarded of the bbva Foundation Fron- the J.J. Sakurai Prize for Theoreti- tiers of Knowledge Award in the tional Academy of Medicine. the Breakthrough Prize in Funda- cal Physics by the American Phys- mental Physics. Ecology and Conservation Biolo- ical Society. gy category.

66 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 noteworthy

Daniel Mendelsohn (New York, Helmut Schwarz (Technische Graeme I. Bell (University of Chi- Sherry Lansing (Sherry Lansing New York) was awarded Prince- Universität Berlin) was elected a cago) has been appointed to the Foundation) has been elected a ton University’s James Madison Foreign Member of the Russian Board of Directors of Pascal Bio- member of the Board of the Broad Medal. Academy of Natural Sciences. sciences, Inc. Museum in Los Angeles. Silvio Micali (Massachusetts In- Michelle Simmons (University Philip Bucksbaum (Stanford Uni- Ann L. Lee (Genentech; Roche) stitute of Technology) was named of New South Wales) was named versity) has been elected Vice has been appointed Executive a Fellow of the Association for the 2018 Australian of the Year. President of the American Phys- Vice President of Technical Oper- Computer Machinery. ical Society. ations of Juno Therapeutics, Inc. Michael Sipser (Massachusetts Paul Milgrom (Stanford Univer- Institute of Technology) was Thomas P. Campbell (Metropol- Judy Lewent (Merck & Company) sity) is the recipient of the 2017 named a Fellow of the Associa- itan Museum of Art) has been has been appointed to the Busi- cme Group-msri Prize in Inno- tion for Computer Machinery. elected a member of the Board of ness Advisory Board of twoxar, vative Quantitative Applications. the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. Inc. David N. Spergel (Princeton Uni- Toshiko Mori (Toshiko Mori Ar- versity) was awarded the Break- Kenneth I. Chenault (American Monica Lozano (University of chitect; Harvard University Grad- through Prize in Fundamental Express) has been named Chair- California Board of Regents) has uate School of Design) is the recip- Physics. man and Managing Director of been named President and ceo ient of the 2018 Maine in America General Catalyst Partners. of College Futures Foundation. Award, given by the Farnsworth Raymond Stata (Analog Devices, Art Museum. Inc.) is the recipient of the 2017 Steven Chu (Stanford Univer- Robert Malenka (Stanford Uni- Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary sity) has been selected as Presi- versity) has joined Cerevance as Paul Muldoon (Princeton Univer- Leadership Award, given by the dent-Elect of the American Asso- a Senior-Level Scientific Advisor. sity) was awarded The Queen’s Global Semiconductor Alliance. ciation for the Advancement of Gold Medal for Poetry for 2017. Science. Barbara J. McNeil (Harvard Med- Natasha Trethewey (Northwest- ical School) was elected Chair Kim Nasmyth (University of Ox- ern University) is the recipient of Johnnetta B. Cole (Smithsonian of the Grants Committee of the ford) was awarded the Break- the 22nd Heinz Award in the Arts Institution) has been named a Warren Alpert Foundation. through Prize in Life Sciences. and Humanities. Senior Consulting Fellow of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Michael S. McPherson (former- Eric J. Nestler (Icahn School of Andrew J. Viterbi (Viterbi Group) ly, Spencer Foundation) has been Medicine at Mount Sinai) was has been named a Fellow of the Michael V. Drake (Ohio State named a Senior Fellow of The An- awarded the American College of National Academy of Inventors. University) was elected Chair of drew W. Mellon Foundation. Neuropsychopharmacology Paul the Board of Directors of the As- Hoch Distinguished Service Award Darren Walker (Ford Founda- sociation of American Universi- Mona Nemer (University of Ot- and the Wilbur Cross Medal from tion) was awarded the W.E.B. Du ties. tawa) was named Canada’s Chief the Yale Graduate School of Arts Bois Medal from Harvard Univer- Science Advisor. and Sciences. sity. Fred H. Gage (Salk Institute for Biological Studies) has been ap- Susan Packard Orr (David and William Nordhaus (Yale Univer- Kara Walker (Columbia Univer- pointed to the Scientific Adviso- Lucille Packard Foundation) has sity) received the bbva Foun- sity) was awarded the W.E.B. Du ry Board of Presto Therapeutics. been elected to the Board of Di- dation Frontiers of Knowledge Bois Medal from Harvard Uni- rectors of the National Audubon Award. versity. Shafi Goldwasser(Massachusetts Society. Institute of Technology) has been Michel Nussenzweig (The Rocke- Peter Walter (University of Cali- appointed Director of the Simons Roger M. Perlmutter (Merck Re- feller University) received the Sa- fornia, San Francisco) was award- Institute for the Theory of Com- search Laboratories) has been ap- nofi-Institut Pasteur Internation- ed the Breakthrough Prize in Life puting at the University of Cali- pointed to the Board of Directors al Award. Sciences. fornia, Berkeley. of Exonics Therapeutics, Inc. Onora O’Neill (University of Carl Wieman (Stanford Universi- John L. Hennessy (Stanford Uni- Sharon Percy Rockefeller (weta) Cambridge) was awarded the ty) was named a Howard Hughes versity) has been named Execu- has been appointed to the Board of 2017 Berggruen Prize for Philoso- Medical Institute Professor. tive Chairman of Alphabet. Trustees of The Rockefeller Foun- phy & Culture. dation. David Ho (Rockefeller Universi- Lyman Page, Jr. (Princeton Uni- ty) has been appointed to the Sci- Peter Schultz (Scripps Research versity) was awarded the Break- New Appointments entific Advisory Board of WuXi Institute) has been appointed to through Prize in Fundamental Biologics. the Scientific Advisory Board of Physics. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede (Nige- WuXi Biologics. Mellody Hobson (Ariel Invest- rian Stock Exchange; Africa Ini- Ruth J. Simmons (Brown Uni- Henry Samueli (Broadcom Cor- tiative for Governance) was ap- ments) has been appointed to the poration) was inducted into the Board of Trustees of The Rocke- versity) was named President of pointed to the International Ad- Prairie View A&M University. U.S. News stem Leadership Hall visory Board of the Blavatnik feller Foundation. of Fame. School of Government, Universi- Randy H. Katz (University of Cal- James Stavridis (Tufts Univer- George Saunders (Syracuse Uni- ty of Oxford. ifornia, Berkeley) has been ap- sity) has been appointed to the versity) was awarded the Man pointed Vice Chancellor for Re- Board of Trustees of The Rocke- Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo. search at the University of Cali- feller Foundation. fornia, Berkeley.

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 67 noteworthy

Luis A. Ubiñas (New York, New Nonfiction Linda Gordon (New York Uni- Edward O. Wilson (Harvard Uni- York) has been appointed to the versity). The Second Coming of the versity). The Origins of Creativity. Board of Directors of Boston Pri- Danielle Allen (Harvard Univer- KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s Liveright, October 2017 vate Financial Holdings, Inc. sity). Cuz: The Life and Times of Mi- and the American Political Tradition. chael A. Liveright, September 2017 Liveright, October 2017 Christian Wolff (Dartmouth Col- Meg Whitman (Hewlett Packard lege). Occasional Pieces: Writings and Enterprise Co.) has been named Martin Amis (Brooklyn, New Patricia Hampl (University of Interviews, 1952–2013. Oxford Uni- Chief Executive of Newtv. York). The Rub of Time: Bellow, Minnesota). The Art of the Wasted versity Press, March 2017 Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump: Day. Viking, April 2018 Janet Yellen (United States Feder- Essays and Reportage, 1994–2017. Gordon S. Wood (Brown Uni- al Reserve) has been named a Dis- Knopf, February 2018 David M. Kreps (Stanford Gradu- versity). Friends Divided: John Ad- tinguished Fellow at the Hutchins ate School of Business). The Moti- ams and Thomas Jefferson. Penguin Center of Fiscal and Monetary Pol- Edward L. Ayers (University of vation Toolkit: How to Align Your Em- Press, October 2017 icy at the Brookings Institution. Richmond). The Thin Light of Free- ployees’ Interests with Your Own. Nor- dom: Civil War and Emancipation in ton, January 2018 Richard W. Wrangham (Harvard Maria Zuber (Massachusetts In- the Heart of America. W.W. Norton, University), David R. Pilbeam stitute of Technology) has been October 2017 Alan Lightman (Massachusetts (Harvard University), and Mar- appointed to the Board of Direc- Institute of Technology). Searching tin N. Muller (University of New tors of the Bank of America. John Banville (Dublin, Ireland). for Stars on an Island in Maine. Pan- Mexico), eds. Chimpanzees and Hu- Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir. theon, March 2018 man Evolution. Harvard University Knopf, February 2018 Press, November 2017 Errol Morris (Fourth Floor Pro- Select Publications Robert Bly (Minneapolis, Minne- ductions). The Ashtray (Or the Man sota). More Than True: The Wisdom Who Denied Reality). University of of Fairy Tales. Henry Holt and Co., Chicago Press, May 2018 We invite all Fellows and Poetry March 2018 Steven Pinker (Harvard Universi- International Honorary Mem- David Ferry (Wellesley College), Richard Brilliant (Columbia Uni- ty). Enlightenment Now: The Case for bers to send notices about their trans. The Aeneid. University of versity). Death: From Dust to Desti- Reason, Science, Humanism, and Prog- recent and forthcoming pub Chicago Press, September 2017 ny. Reaktion Books, October 2017 ress. Viking, March 2018 lications, scienti½c ½ndings, Carl Phillips (Washington Uni- Noam Chomsky (Massachusetts Eric A. Posner (University of Chi- exhibitions and performances, versity in St. Louis). Wild Is the Institute of Technology) with Da- cago Law School). Last Resort: The films and documentaries, Wind. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, vid Barsamian (Alternative Radio). Financial Crisis and the Future of Bail- and honors and prizes to January 2018 Global Discontents: Conversations on outs. University of Chicago Press, [email protected]. n the Rising Threats to Democracy. Met- March 2018 ropolitan Books, December 2017 Fiction Marilynne Robinson (University J. M. Coetzee (University of Ade- of Iowa). What Are We Doing Here? James Carroll (Boston, Massa- laide). Late Essays: 2006–2017. Vi- Essays. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, chusetts). The Cloister. Doubleday/ king, January 2018 February 2018 Talese, March 2018 Henri Cole (Claremont McKenna Michael J. Sandel (Harvard Uni- Anne Carson (McGill Universi- College). Orphic Paris. New York versity) and Paul J. D’Ambrosio ty). Bakkhai. New Directions, De- Review Books, April 2018 (East China Normal University), cember 2017 eds. Encountering China: Michael San- Antonio Damasio (University of del and Chinese Philosophy. Harvard Thomas Keneally (Manly, Aus- Southern California). The Strange University Press, January 2018 tralia). Crimes of the Father. Atria, Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the October 2017 Making of Cultures. Pantheon, Feb- Laurence Senelick (Tufts Univer- ruary 2018 sity). Jacques Offenbach and the Mak- James McBride (New York Uni- ing of Modern Culture. Cambridge versity). Five-Carat Soul. Riverhead Noah Feldman (Harvard Law University Press, September 2017 Books, September 2017 School). The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President. Lorna Simpson (Brooklyn, New Sigrid Nunez (New York, New Random House, November 2017 York). Lorna Simpson Collages. York). The Friend. Riverhead, Feb- Chronicle Books, April 2018 ruary 2018 Paula Fredriksen (Boston Univer- sity). Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle. Yale Cass R. Sunstein (Harvard Law Laurence Senelick (Tufts Uni- University Press, August 2017 School), ed. Can It Happen Here? versity). A translation of Georg- Authoritarianism in America. Dey es Feydeau, From Marriage to Di- Michael S. Gazzaniga (University Street Books, March 2018 vorce: Five Farces of Marital Discord. of California, Santa Barbara). The Broadway Play Publishers, August Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Michael Walzer (Institute for Ad- 2017 Mystery of How the Brain Makes the vanced Study). A Foreign Policy for Mind. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the Left. Yale University Press, Jan- April 2018 uary 2018

68 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2018 Norton’s Woods, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge, ma 02138 telephone 617-576-5000, facsimile 617-576-5050, email [email protected], website www.amacad.org board of directors Bulletin Winter 2018 Issued as Volume lxxi, No. 2 Nancy C. Andrews, Chair of the Board © 2018 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Jonathan F. Fanton, President Diane P. Wood, Chair of the Council; Vice Chair of the Board The Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (issn 0002–712X) is published quarterly by the American Alan M. Dachs, Chair of the Trust; Vice Chair of the Board Academy of Arts & Sciences, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge, Geraldine L. Richmond, Secretary ma 02138. Periodicals rate postage paid at Boston, ma, and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send ad Carl H. Pforzheimer III, Treasurer dress changes to Bulletin, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge, ma 02138. Kwame Anthony Appiah The views expressed in the Bulletin are those held by each Louise H. Bryson contributor and are not necessarily those of the Board Ira Katznelson of Directors and Members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Nannerl O. Keohane John Lithgow photo credits Cherry A. Murray Richard Howard Photography page 1 Venkatesh Narayanamurti Martha Stewart pages 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, Don M. Randel 47–48, 52, 54 Tim King Photography pages 28–29, 31, 33 Larry Jay Shapiro Rod Searcey Photography pages 36, 39, 42, 44 Natasha Trethewey Kaveh Sardari Photography pages 60, 62 Pauline Yu Louis W. Cabot, Chair Emeritus committee on studies and publications John Mark Hansen and Jerrold Meinwald, Cochairs; Bonnie Bassler, Rosina Bierbaum, Marshall Carter, Gerald L. Early, Carol Gluck, Linda Greenhouse, John G. Hildebrand, Philip S. Khoury, Arthur Kleinman, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Rose McDermott, Nancy C. Andrews (ex officio), Jonathan F. Fanton (ex officio), Diane P. Wood (ex officio) editorial staff Phyllis S. Bendell, Director of Publications Peter Walton, Associate Editor Heather M. Struntz, Senior Editorial Associate Emma Goldhammer, Senior Editorial Assistant Scott Raymond, Creative Lead american academy of arts & sciences Norton’s Woods 136 Irving Street Cambridge, ma 02138-1996 usa telephone 617-576-5000 facsimile 617-576-5050 email aaas @ amacad . org website www . amacad . org @americanacad