Kirwan named to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

COLUMBUS - William E. Kirwan, president of The Ohio State University, has been elected to join the nation’s preeminent learned society and research institution.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences today announced Kirwan is one of 177 Fellows and 30 Foreign Honorary Members named as the class of 2002. Kirwan is joined this year by one current and one former United States Senator, three other college presidents, three Nobel Prize winners, six Pulitzer Prize winners, three MacArthur Fellows and six Guggenheim fellows.

“I am deeply honored and completely surprised to be recognized in this way by the Academy,” Kirwan said. “I was unaware that I had even been nominated. In fact, I learned this news from an e-mail message sent by an Academy member late last night. Needless to say, I was too excited to get much sleep.”

U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., former U.S. Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., violinist Itzhak Perlman, Academy Award winner Anjelica Huston, author and physician Oliver Sacks, National Medal Of Science For Research On Mental Illness recipient Nancy C. Andreasen, and Nobel Prize winning chemist George Olah are among this year’s new Fellows. This year's election maintains the Academy's practice of honoring intellectual achievement, leadership and creativity in all fields. A full list of new members is available on the Academy website at http://www.amacad.org/members/new2002list.htm.

The Academy has elected as Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Ben Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th.

The current membership includes more than 150 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners. Drawing on the wide-ranging expertise of its membership, the American Academy conducts non-partisan studies on international security, social policy, education and the humanities.

“Election to the American Academy is the result of a highly competitive process that recognizes those who have made preeminent contributions to all scholarly fields and professions,” said Patricia Meyer Spacks, Academy president. “The Academy is pleased to welcome these outstanding and influential individuals to the nation’s most illustrious learned society.”

The Academy will welcome this year's new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members at the annual Induction Ceremony at the Academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. on Oct. 5.

New Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members are nominated and elected by current members of the Academy. Members are divided into five classes: I) mathematics and physics; II) biological sciences; III) social sciences; IV) humanities and arts; and V) public affairs and business.

The unique structure of the American Academy allows members to conduct interdisciplinary studies that draw on the range of academic and intellectual disciplines.

The Academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”