A letter to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The academy has an important role to play in addressing the major challenges facing higher education, says Anna Krylov in her acceptance letter.

Congratulations to Anna Krylov, USC Associates Chair in Natural Sciences and Professor of Chemistry and Heterodox at USC member, who was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

We’re resharing her acceptance letter to the academy, which calls on the organization and its members to help return American universities to a focus on free inquiry rather than political ideology.

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Dear President Patton and Chair Liu,

I am deeply moved and honored to have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

This prestigious recognition of our decades-long work in quantum chemistry is a great milestone in my career and an inspiration for me and my present and past students and postdocs, who share the credit for what we have accomplished over the years.

I am delighted and proud to accept your invitation and join the ranks of the distinguished scholars of the Academy.

This honor comes at a time of crisis for American universities. The public’s trust in higher education and scientific institutions is at a historic low. American universities have been leaders in advancing science, fostering innovation, and educating the next generation. Our universities hold enormous intellectual capital. Yet in recent years, they have drifted off course. They have allowed their mission of truth-seeking to be compromised by political advocacy. They have permitted identity politics to subjugate meritocracy.

They have allowed disciplines with little intellectual merit to take root on campus. They have allowed bureaucracies to grow to gargantuan proportions and have allowed bureaucrats to control scholars. They have allowed ideology to suppress the spirit of open inquiry and intellectual curiosity. Bean-counting and political activism have been given precedence over creativity and innovation; indoctrination has eclipsed education. All this has led to a breach of their social contract with the American public. This crisis has created fertile ground for the governmental overreach, interruption of science funding, and encroachment on academic freedom that we are witnessing today.

I believe honor societies such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences have a role to play in addressing these challenges. The Academy can lead the reform of American universities towards restoring their excellence and their ability to innovate and educate future generations of intellectual leaders.

Together, we can defend the principles of free inquiry against political attacks from both sides of the political spectrum. Together, we can work with government officials to direct their actions towards the betterment of our institutions rather than to their destruction.

These are difficult times, but I am looking forward to the future with hope and optimism.

Sincerely,

Anna I. Krylov,
USC Associates Chair in Natural Sciences and Professor of Chemistry