Publication | Issues in Preservation Policy: Preservation, Sustainability, and Equity

Heritage occupies a privileged position within the built environment. Most municipalities in the United States, and nearly all countries around the world, have laws and policies to preserve heritage in situ, seeking to protect places from physical loss and the forces of change. That privilege, however, is increasingly being unsettled by the legacies of racial, economic, and social injustice in both the built environment and historic preservation policy, and by the compounding climate crisis. Though many heritage projects and practitioners are confronting injustice and climate in innovative ways, systemic change requires looking beyond the formal and material dimensions of place and to the processes and outcomes of preservation policy—operationalized through laws and guidelines, regulatory processes, and institutions—across time and socio-geographic scales, and in relation to the publics they are intended to serve.

This third volume in the Issues in Preservation Policy series examines historic preservation as an enterprise of ideas, methods, institutions, and practices that must reorient toward a new horizon, one in which equity and sustainability become critical guideposts for policy evolution.

With contributions from Lisa T. Alexander, Louise Bedsworth, Ken Bernstein, Robin Bronen, Sara C. Bronin, Shreya Ghoshal, Scott Goodwin, Claudia Guerra, Victoria Herrmann, James B. Lindberg, Randall Mason, Jennifer Minner, David Moore, Marcy Rockman, Stephanie Ryberg-Webster, A.R. Siders, Amanda L. Webb, and Vicki Weiner.

Available online and in print.

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The Urban Heritage, Sustainability, and Social Inclusion Initiative is a project of CSUD, the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and The American Assembly. The initiative examines historic preservation as a sustainable and socially-inclusive urban policy tool. It has been generously funded by the New York Community Trust. The initiative engages researchers, government officials, and practitioners in a series of three symposia and related publications, to advance the collaborative processes needed to inform the next generation of preservation policy.

The American Assembly partners with Hothouse Solutions to promote climate action

Columbia University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) and The American Assembly have partnered with Hothouse Solutions, a solutions-oriented media venture dedicated to making climate action accessible to whoever is ready to take on the challenge.

Climate change has historically been ignored as a top issue in the US press. That’s changing amid unprecedented concern about the climate crisis among millions of people. A focus on solutions is more urgent than ever.

Hothouse’s original journalism gives readers a blueprint to enact the climate solutions the world needs—right now, in their own lives. Through stories, from detailing the climate benefit of eating oysters, to a how-to guide on re-careering for the climate, Hothouse aims to show how we can advance solutions in our lives, communities, and political institutions. 

“A pillar of our work at INCITE and the American Assembly is the belief that trust is foundational to our collective capacity to act upon research,” said INCITE director and The American Assembly president Peter Bearman. “We know this is especially true about a topic as fraught as climate change. That’s why we are so pleased to work with and fund Hothouse, whose mission is to lead with trust by invoking curiosity in readers, avoiding reductive narratives, and advancing solutions.”

During the next year, Columbia University will collaborate and support Hothouse in order to help deliver actionable climate coverage wherever readers find their news, serve as a climate desk to supply dedicated climate coverage to other media outlets, and to train and advance early-career journalists in climate solutions journalism.

“The time is right for this approach,” said Hothouse co-founder Michael J. Coren. “Recent research shows that more Americans than ever say they are being harmed ‘right now’ by global warming. By pairing original journalism and rigorous scientific research, Hothouse will experiment with ways to deliver effective stories that illuminate both the personal and systemic behavior changes needed to address climate change through a new digital media venture.”

Hothouse has been attracting new readers and content and has been syndicated in major national publications such as Popular Science. As one reader put it, Hothouse is “a source for fascinating information on climate action—it's not all doom and gloom.”

“Hothouse’s mission of civic engagement embodies our belief that citizens can and do shape the future,” said The American Assembly executive director Michael Falco. “We are excited to partner with Hothouse to watch them grow, and step up to addressing one of the greatest challenges of our time alongside them.”

The American Assembly announces its first cohort of Assembling Voices fellows!

We at The American Assembly (TAA) are pleased to announce our first cohort of Assembling Voices fellows!

J. Khadijah Abdurahman is the founder of We Be Imagining, an initiative applying the Black radical tradition to developing public interest technology. Through the Assembling Voices fellowship, Khadijah will continue to bridge siloed disciplines and activists, using art, technology, and community networks to combat harmful systems of surveillance, exclusion, and exploitation. Khadijah will organize a series of events in Brownsville, Brooklyn to support political education, organizing, and mutual aid with those most impacted by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (NYC ACS). These events will support a community-designed mural celebrating Black family life and abolition of the Family Regulation System.

Asha Boston, a filmmaker, and storyteller from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, has spent her career exploring and documenting the history of Black neighborhoods struggling to retain their culture and self-sufficiency amid gentrification through her film project, A Time Before Kale. With support from Assembling Voices, she plans to expand on this work through a series of peer-to-peer storytelling workshops that teach residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant to digitally collect, preserve, and archive pictures, oral histories, and artifacts of their life in this neighborhood. By gathering residents in trusted spaces, the workshops also provide sites to coordinate resistance against rising rents, predatory development, and other threats to neighborhood stability.

Through the Winston-Salem Portrait Project, JCKB Studios (artist/organizer Jasmin Chang and photographer/ storyteller Kisha Bari) developed a new model for intercommunity exchange: they brought together activists and leaders from across Winston-Salem to participate in workshops, and placed them into pairs to learn one another’s stories and take portrait photographs of each other, which were then displayed in public art installations around the city. Chang and Bari now seek to expand on that model in New York City, by systematically identifying and connecting community activists and representatives across boroughs and issue spaces, creating pathways through which skills, experiences, and resources may flow.

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These fellows’ initiatives combine mediums to meet audiences where they are, identify community-defined needs, and encourage sustained involvement. Through their use of such interactive, accessible mediums and their reliance on community members and trusted messengers, these programs redefine expertise, deepen understandings of pernicious social problems, and refine strategies for action and resilience. Though the programs are based in New York City, they confront issues of national relevance and offer inspired models to replicate elsewhere.

“With this fellowship, we hoped to expand and reimagine notions of who produces knowledge, how trust is built, and why assembly matters. These remarkable fellows and the initiatives they have proposed bring this ethos to fruition through art, education, dialogue, and activism. We couldn’t be more thrilled to assist them in this work, to learn from them in the process, and to see the impact of these community-centered approaches to addressing social problems,” said Peter Bearman, President of The American Assembly.

“The fellows were selected not only for their respective visions, but for the potential for intracohort learning and collaboration. Each member brings unique skillsets and experiences that become assets to all involved, as they seek to bridge communities, preserve histories, and address injustices and inequities here in New York City,” said Executive Director Michael Falco. 

The fellowship will encourage and facilitate these exchanges through regular seminars, designed around the fellows’ own identified needs, in which they will be able to share their initiatives-in-progress, engage in professional and educational development, and build connections between themselves, their communities and partners, INCITE/TAA, and the institutional resources of Columbia University. 

The fellowship will launch officially on September 1 of this year. Keep an eye on our website or subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date on these projects as they unfold in the coming months!

Video | Trust and Mistrust in Climate Science, Part II

Over the last three decades, the debate about climate change has involved challenges to the very evidence of change, disagreements about status of models and simulations as scientific evidence, calls for “sound science,” disputes about the contribution of anthropogenic causes, attempts to cast doubt on the integrity and plausibility of forecasts and assessments, and various forms of “solution aversion.”

What are the sources of skepticism about climate change and/or mistrust of climate science?

What processes, mechanisms and dynamics are implicated in provoking and prolonging the debate about climate change?

To what extent are these specific to the climate debate, and to what extent are they representative of a broader mistrust in experts?

What can be done to increase trust in climate science or consensus around appropriate measures or interventions?

Join us for a conversation with these esteemed panelists (Full Bios Here)

• Mike Hulme: Professor of Human Geography at Cambridge University

• Naomi Oreskes: Professor of History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University

• Andrew Revkin: Founding Director of the Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at Columbia University's Earth Institute

• Gil Eyal: Professor of Sociology at Columbia University (moderator)

Call for Applications | Assembling Voices Residence Program

Application open to artists, writers, scholars, journalists, activists, workers, organizers, performers and any other person with a compelling idea for social change. No minimum educational requirement, no minimum years of experience.

We are pleased to announce the Assembling Voices Resident Fellows program at The American Assembly at Columbia University. Fellowships are open to all. Applications are due May 15, 2021. Fellows receive $25,000 to design initiatives that bring people together, promote trust and dialogue, and facilitate public engagement with the problems we face, the opportunities we have, and the institutions that shape our lives.

We are seeking proposals from any person who has an idea to develop public programming that addresses pressing social justice and human rights issues, especially those relevant to Black, Indigenous, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and other historically marginalized groups. Proposed initiatives need to bring people together and give renewed attention to the diversity of expertise that exist outside academic institutions. Initiatives should pioneer creative ways to enhance social life and dialogue through public events. We are especially interested in ideas that use engaging and creative techniques to bring people together. 

In the broadest sense, Assembling Voices intends to break down walls that exclude people from institutions and knowledge production. The knowledge, dialogue and relationships that are fostered through each proposed public initiative will ideally have a lifespan beyond a single event series or multimedia presentation. We expect that Assembling Voices—our fellows and their initiatives—will amplify and engage with the talents, abilities, aspirations, hopes, and needs of the communities that comprise our democracy.

Assembling Voices Resident Fellows will have the creative freedom to conceive and execute public programming as they envision, especially addressing communities and topics that require more attention from and dialogue with academic institutions. Fellows will develop their initiatives alongside Assembly leadership and staff, who will provide support from the initial phases of project conceptualization through the initiative’s public launch.

This program is for artists, writers, scholars, journalists, activists, organizers, performers and for any other person with a compelling idea. We encourage people of all generations and nationalities to apply. Collectives will be considered. Participation has no minimum educational requirement, nor do we require a minimum number of years of experience. If you have questions about eligibility based on your visa or immigration status, please contact Michael Falco (mf2727@columbia.edu).

Video | Social Science Perspectives on Trust and Mistrust of Climate Science

What are the sources of skepticism about climate change and/or mistrust of climate science? What processes, mechanisms and dynamics are implicated in provoking and prolonging the debate about climate change? To what extent are these specific to the climate debate, and to what extent they are representative of a broader mistrust in experts? What can be done to increase trust in climate science or consensus around appropriate measures or interventions?

We will explore these questions and more with an esteemed panel of social scientists including Paul Edwards, Myanna Lahsen and Peter Weingart. Moderated by Gil Eyal. More information about the panelists is available here.

For those interested in exploring this topic more, a primer featuring concise, accessible and compelling articles from mainstream media outlets is available here.

Publication | Issues in Preservation Policy: Preservation and Social Inclusion

The Urban Heritage, Sustainability, and Social Inclusion Initiative, in which TAA is a collaborator, has released the second volume of its Issues in Preservation Policy series. Bringing together a broad range of academics, historians, and practitioners, this volume documents historic preservation’s progress toward inclusivity and explores further steps to be taken.

Stemming from the work on the above volume, we are also pleased to announce the launch of “Building a Foundation for Action: Anti-Racist Historic Preservation Resources,” an open-access, collaborative resource list for preservationists seeking to acknowledge the field’s structural racism and to take actions toward de-centering Whiteness.

The third and final volume in the Issues in Preservation Policy series, Preservation, Sustainability, and Equity, is in production and will possibly be out by late Spring 2021.

Read additional commentary on the latest volume in this Earth Institute blog.

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The Urban Heritage, Sustainability, and Social Inclusion Initiative is a project of CSUD, the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and The American Assembly. The initiative examines historic preservation as a sustainable and socially-inclusive urban policy tool. It has been generously funded by the New York Community Trust. The initiative engages researchers, government officials, and practitioners in a series of three symposia and related publications, to advance the collaborative processes needed to inform the next generation of preservation policy.

Video | A COVID-19 Vaccine in a Time of Heightened Mistrust of Vaccinations

What is the reception and impact of a COVID-19 vaccine likely to be like? Is the fate of the vaccine already sealed by the public and political tug-of-war over its rapid approval? Are we likely to see the same fault-lines as with the MMR vaccine, or would a COVID-19 vaccine have the potential to change the debate about vaccination? How will the recent U.S. election change the dynamics of how the vaccine is received?

More generally, under what conditions do people tend to trust vaccines? What has worked in the past when it comes to vaccination campaigns, and could potentially work in the future? Does it help to frame the matter not as individual decision but in relation to one’s network of family and friends? What are, conversely, the sources of resistance to vaccines or of vaccine hesitancy? How should a vaccination campaign be framed and organized?

We explore these questions and more with an esteemed panel of practitioners, communication specialists and social scientists including Amanda Cohn (CDC), Rupali Limaye (Johns Hopkins), James Colgrove (Columbia), Jane Zucker (NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene) and Jennifer Reich (University of Colorado).

Video | Experts, Publics and Trust During the Pandemic: Sociological Perspectives

The pandemic has brought into focus the fraying of relations between experts, policy-makers and relevant publics in liberal democracies. How should social researchers analyze the factors and processes that contribute to this fraying? What insights can be gleaned from comparative analysis, either of liberal democracies, or across the liberal-authoritarian divide? What have we learned about the determinants and nature of trust that can shed light and perhaps guide interventions in the current moment? What are the specific vulnerabilities of different forms of organizing the relations between experts, policy-makers and the public, and how can they be addressed?

We explored these questions and more with an esteemed panel of sociologists specializing in science, knowledge, medicine, public health and expertise including Rogers Brubaker, Stephen Hilgartner, Zeynep Tufekci and Andrew Lakoff. Moderated by Gil Eyal.

More information on the panelists and moderator is available here: http://sawyerseminar.americanassembly...

To help better acquaint people with the core issues at stake, we’ve prepared a short primer, with concise and compelling readings drawn from mainstream media outlets, available here: http://sawyerseminar.americanassembly...

Video | COVID-19, Race, and the 2020 Election

This webinar discussion took place on Wednesday, September 30th, as part of the Challenges and Opportunities in 2020 Election Series.

Panelists

SHERRY GLIED is Dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. From 1989 to 2013, she was professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She also served as assistant secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She is the author of Chronic Condition, coauthor of Better But Not Well: Mental Health Policy in the U.S. Since 1950, and coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics.

MICHAEL NUTTER was the 98th Mayor of the City of Philadelphia after serving almost 15 years in the Philadelphia City Council. He is a past President of the United States Conference of Mayors. Since leaving public service, Mayor Nutter has remained active in public policy, government, and civic life. He is also the David N. Dinkins Professor of Professional Practice in Urban and Public Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.

DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN is a Democratic campaign consultant and founding partner and principle strategist for Penn, Schoen & Berland. He is the author of multiple books, including The Power of the Vote: Electing Presidents, Overthrowing Dictators, and Promoting Democracy Around the World and Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System.

Moderator

ROBERT Y. SHAPIRO is President of the Academy of Political Science and Editor of Political Science Quarterly. He is also the Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Video | Trust in Models and Modeling Trust: Modeling COVID-19 in Real Time

How should modelers communicate the uncertainty inherent in their models without undermining trust? What does it mean to trust a probabilistic forecast? Do models incorporating assumptions about public behavior need to be understood and trusted by the public being modeled? Should modelers try to influence the public and decision-makers or should we be worried that such attempts might backfire and lead to loss of trust? We explored these questions and many more with the help of an esteemed panel of epidemiologists and public health experts. A concise and accessible primer on some of the core tensions around models, policymaking and public sentiment is available here.

We Be Imagining takes part in Uptown People's Assembly: Facing the Raging Pandemics

Statement on Assembly, Leadership and Democracy

Americans are assembling. It is a right enshrined in the First Amendment of our constitution. The right to assemble is the right to come together, to act in concert, to petition the government for a redress of grievances, to resist injustice, to start a conversation, to listen, to see beyond narrow self-interest, to recognize and embrace our shared humanity. Assembly, coming together, takes many forms. Today, thousands of Americans are assembling in peaceful protests that ask us to reflect on what we can do to improve our democracy.

The American Assembly stands firmly behind all forms of assembly that ask us to make the personal and social changes needed to bring us closer to the just, equitable society we embrace.

Today we read about an “absence of leadership” in Washington. But leadership is not absent. The President of the United States exercises leadership when he enflames dissent by calling for a militarized response to peaceful protest or by ordering security agents to teargas law-abiding citizens. The President of the United States exercises leadership when he says nothing about the horror of police brutality. The President of the United States exercises leadership when he says nothing about the more than 100,000 people who have died from Covid-19.

The American Assembly stands against leadership that threatens our fundamental democratic norms, through silence or action, whether that threat arises from malice or incompetence or both.

Leadership, though, is not reserved for those in power. We can all exercise leadership to ensure fundamental democratic norms.  Every day we see this in the news. Police who, when ordered to participate in an unjust action, step away. Sheriffs who take off their armor and join a peaceful protest. Religious leaders who remind us that their sacred books are not props. College football players who tweet that they stand with their brothers and sisters against injustice. Protesters who march on the street, in the face of both violence and a pandemic disproportionately harming their communities, and demand that the rights accorded white Americans be accorded to all Americans. Leadership is everyone who does what they can do, to assemble, to come together, to act collectively, to speak in peaceful protest, to converse, to be open to others.

The American Assembly stands for leadership in support of our fragile democracy, for the right to assemble, for the right to invite others into a conversation, for the right to ask that we be better than we currently are.

-- For more than half a century, the American Assembly has been experimenting with new ways to bring Americans together to strengthen our democracy and build a more equitable society.  Our work tells us, for example, that the right to assemble is not the right to gather with the intent of intimidating others. It is not the right to silence those with whom we disagree.  It is not the right to put others at harm by ignoring their health. Likewise, the American Assembly has long been thinking about and striving to advance leadership in support of democratic norms. These twin themes, leadership and assembly, are central to our program on trust and democracy today.

Video | Reflections on the Centennial of Women's Suffrage

This webinar discussion took place on Wednesday, April 29th, as part of the Challenges and Opportunities in 2020 Election Series. In addition to reflecting on the centennial of women's suffrage, panelists discussed women's political leadership, participation, and rights.

Panelists

LIZ ABZUG is the Founder and President of the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute, which works to inspire, train, and mentor young women to become leaders in creating positive social and economic change. As a national public affairs and strategic consultant, professor, lobbyist, and candidate for New York City elective office, Ms. Abzug has been a professional involved in many fields including politics, economic and urban development, and human rights. She is daughter of the late Bella Abzug, first Jewish Congresswoman and women’s rights advocate.

GALE A. BREWER is the 27th Borough President of Manhattan. Brewer previously served on the City Council for 12 years. Prior to that, she served as Chief of Staff to Council Member Ruth Messinger, NYC Deputy Public Advocate, Director of the city’s Federal Office, and Executive Director of the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women. She also served on the staff of Lt. Governor Mary Anne Krupsak, the first women elected statewide in New York in 1974 (under Gov. Hugh Carey) and first served in government in the City Parks Department during the Lindsay administration.

COLINE JENKINS is a municipal legislator, author, and television producer.  She is co-founder and president of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust, a collection of 3,000 objects of women’s suffrage memorabilia. She serves as Vice President of Monumental Women, a non-profit dedicated to erecting the first Central Park statue of real women—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth—in recognition of the centennial of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. She is great-great granddaughter of American Suffragist and abolitionist Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

JULIE SUK is dean for master’s programs and professor of Sociology at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is a scholar of comparative law and society, with a focus on women in comparative constitutional law. She is most known for her recent work on renewed efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, in light of the theory and practice of gender equality provisions in constitutions around the world. Her dozens of articles and book chapters address the potential and limits of antidiscrimination law as a tool for eradicating social inequality.

Moderator

KATHRYN B. YATRAKIS is Faculty Advisor at Columbia University, Office of the President. She is also adjunct associate professor in urban studies and retired Dean of Academic Affairs, Columbia College.  She serves on the Board of Directors of the Academy of Political Science.

Second civic assembly takes place in Louisville, Kentucky

From February 10-21, The American Assembly and Louisville Public Media held a Polis conversation about how to make Louisville a better city in which to work and live. Over three weeks, 1398 people submitted nearly 900 statements and cast nearly 125,000 votes, on issues ranging from education to climate change to public health. Read the full report on our second civic assembly here.

Announcing "We Be Imagining"

ARTWORK: JAHMEL REYNOLDS

We Be Imagining is a 10-part multimodal series of public programming that infuses academic discourse with the performance arts in order to foster critical conversations around race, gender, class, disability, and technology. In partnership with community-based organizations in New York City, the series represents an effort to co-create a more inclusive knowledge ecosystem—to expand the parameters of what it means to assemble and of who ought to be heard. Fostering trust in democratic society requires repairing relationships with historically excluded communities and integrating multiple ways of knowing into the reimagining of our institutions.

The series is directed by researcher and curator J. Khadijah Abdurahman, with collaboration and support from The American Assembly and the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE).

A launch party for the series, in collaboration with the Art Start Portrait Project, will be held on Saturday, February 22nd from 6:30-9:30 p.m. All are welcome!

Announcing the "Challenges and Opportunities in 2020" Election Series

Presented by The American Assembly and the Academy of Political Science, with additional support from INCITE, the nearly yearlong Challenges and Opportunities in 2020 Election Series is a forum for academics, journalists, and others to comment on the issues at stake in the 2020 presidential election, and related topics front and center in American politics and society. The series fosters interdisciplinary conversations that explore undercurrents and themes affecting the upcoming election and the integrity of—and trust in—our democratic institutions. Registration for the first two events, listed below, is open now. More to be announced soon!

Wednesday, January 29th, 1:00 - 3:00pm
Sockman Lounge, The Interchurch Center, 61 Claremont Ave.
Fake News and Civic Education: Engaging the Next Generation Voters, Readers, and Media-Makers
Presenters: Ioana Literat, Lalitha Vasudevan, Haeny Yoon, Detra Price-Dennis, Todd Gitlin

Friday, February 14th, 2:00 - 4:00 PM
Sockman Lounge, The Interchurch Center, 61 Claremont Ave.
Iowa, New Hampshire, and What’s Next 
Panelists: Christina Greer, David P. Redlawsk, 
Dante Scala, Walter Shapiro

Event Sponsors

THE AMERICAN ASSEMBLY fosters public conversations that lead to more just, equitable, and democratic societies. It does so by bringing research to bear on public problems, by creating new resources for public understanding, and by strengthening the forms of trust and deliberation that make democracy work.

THE ACADEMY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, founded in 1880, promotes nonpartisan, scholarly analysis of political, social, and economic issues by sponsoring conferences and producing publications. Published continually since 1886, the Academy’s journal, Political Science Quarterly, is edited for both specialists and informed readers with a keen interest in public and international affairs. For more information, visit: www.psqonline.org. 

With additional support from the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE).

In memory of Paul Volcker, former Fed Chairman and 30-year Assembly trustee

The American Assembly mourns the loss of Paul Volcker (1927 – 2019), who served on our board from March 1988 to February 2018.

Mr. Volcker worked in the Federal Government for almost 30 years, serving in high office under five presidents. Before becoming Chairman of the Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve System in 1979, he spent more than four years as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

From 2000-2005, Mr. Volcker served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the newly formed International Accounting Standards Committee, where he oversaw development of consistent and high-quality international accounting. In 2004, he was asked by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to chair the Independent Inquiry into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program. The inquiry found substantial corruption and malfeasance.

Three years later, Mr. Volcker was asked by the President of the World Bank to chair a panel of experts to review the operations of the Department of Institutional Integrity. That effort culminated in broad reforms to the Bank’s anti-corruption efforts. In November 2008, President Obama chose Mr. Volcker to head the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which operated until February 2011. 

Mr. Volcker led or participated in a number of Assembly programs on topics ranging from corporate governance to accounting and auditing practices. The Assembly honors the life and achievements of this dedicated public servant.

Fellowship Opportunity | Mellon-Sawyer Seminar on Trust and Mistrust of Science and Experts

NEWSMEN AND SPECTATORS STAND IN FRONT OF THE MAIN GATE OF THE THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION IN MIDDLETOWN, PENN., APRIL 2, 1979.
JACK KANTHAL / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The American Assembly, along with INCITE recently received funding from the Mellon foundation to conduct the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar on Trust and Mistrust of Science and Experts. The seminar will bring together scholars from multiple disciplines, engaging the Columbia community and the surrounding public in productive discussion on issues of trust and mistrust, in the form of reading groups, public forums, and workshops. We aim to build this series of conversations among different parts of the university by moving thematically through four orienting cases: (1) rhetoric, risk, and trust in climate science; (2) minority communities’ trust in science; (3) the politics of vaccination; and (4) trust in algorithms. These are subjects where the tensions and difficulties underlying discussions of trust are exposed in stark relief.

The seminar will launch in fall of 2020 and conclude in the spring of 2022. We are currently inviting advanced doctoral students from all Columbia University schools, who are within two years of completing their dissertations, to apply for a 2020/21 graduate fellowship. The deadline for applications is December 15th, 2019, at 5 p.m. For further details and instructions, click below.

TAA awards grant in support of upcoming ASPIRE convening

The American Assembly has awarded a grant to ASPIRE (Advancing Solutions in Policy, Implementation, Research and Engagement for Refugees), an initiative that takes a multidisciplinary approach to responding to the Syrian refugee crisis.

The recently completed Women ASPIRE study examined the health and mental health concerns of 507 Syrian refugee women in non-camp settings in Jordan. This grant specifically aims to support a 10-day convening of scholars, health care professionals, policymakers, and other stakeholders that will:

• interpret findings from the Women ASPIRE study

• create informed policy and programmatic recommendations for health agencies in Jordan regarding the most effective means of meeting the health needs of Syrian refugee women living outside of camps

• build a network of researchers, clinicians, NGO staff, and multilateral agencies in Jordan that is dedicated to interdisciplinary dialogue and advocacy to support Syrian refugee women in Jordan

We believe such a gathering constitutes a pivotal step in developing effective research-based interventions that incorporate community perspectives, and are proud to fund a proposal with such great potential to improve health outcomes.