Photo credit: Brendan Church
Dear Friends of the National Institute —
I hope this message finds each of you and your family safe and well. I am writing to you from New York City, the heart of the pandemic and the hardest hit city in the hardest hit state in the country, where our family has been sheltering in place since early March. The human toll of COVID-19 is horrendous, but the infection rates and deaths in New York State have been slowly falling for weeks. It looks like we may have come through the first wave relatively okay. Less populated areas of Upstate New York are already reopening, as are many states and cities throughout the nation.
But there is no way to minimize the enormity of the wreckage left behind. As one of our Trustees mentioned a few weeks ago, we are in the middle of the greatest real time social experiment in recent history. Literally everything has been upended: our lives, our livelihoods, our families, our friends. The economy, healthcare, education, courts, politics, arts, and daily social interaction have all been disrupted by the pandemic at massive and unprecedented scale and speed. Already many predict that society will not and cannot be ordered the way it was before the pandemic after we emerge from this test. The future is cloudy and all of us are figuring it out as we go.
What Are We Doing?
Fortunately, the Trustees and Officers of the National Institute have not been idle during the past few months. We have accomplished a number of tasks to clarify our mission, focus our activities, and put the Institute on a sustainable footing for the duration of the crisis and its aftermath. Among the tasks we have addressed are the following:
We have thoroughly revised and updated the NISS website, making it cleaner and easier to navigate and incorporating much more useful information. We invite you to explore it at your leisure.
In conjunction with our newly formed Communications Committee, we have clarified our Mission Statement. Now members, guests, and the general public will have a better idea of the key elements of our mission and the purpose of our activities.
We have moved forward with the current Dissertation Grants program and plan to make an announcement of the winner(s) in the near future. This continues the vital element of direct support to social science scholars we began several years ago and have enshrined in our mission.
Most importantly, we have decided to respond to the challenges of the pandemic by pivoting our events program away from the traditional in-person gatherings the Institute is known for to a series of virtual online interactive educational events. These events will be free, open to the public, and will feature scholars and experts discussing vital societal issues of the day and answering members’ and the general public’s questions. (Think TED Talks with Q&A.) We are excited about this new initiative, and we are busy developing a full schedule of interesting and informative online events for the rest of the calendar year. Check the website often and watch your email for announcements of upcoming events as they are scheduled.
It Is Our Time Once Again
Even before the pandemic upended society, the societal structures and behaviors by which we organize our lives had been undergoing accelerated, contentious, and even violent change. In such a period of disruption, uncertainty, and confusion, the mission of the National Institute takes on even greater importance.
As many of you know, the National Institute had its origins in a meeting of 300 concerned public citizens convened by the Governor of Massachusetts in October 1865. They met to establish the American Association for the Promotion of Social Science, the mission of which was “to plan measures of public improvement” in the wake of the end of the Civil War. After five years of horrific and devastating civil conflict, the nation faced the tremendous task of rebuilding society, and these individuals turned to the newly established field of social sciences to better understand what to do.
Now, we stand in a very similar place. We need more social science scholars and experts to study and understand the current state of affairs and propose solutions. We need more experts to share their knowledge—and perhaps even more importantly their uncertainty and questions—with the general public so we can understand what alternatives and trade offs lie before us. And we need to celebrate distinguished individuals who have made outstanding contributions to society and humanity in order to give our citizens role models to look up to and aspire to their example.
Our mission is more important and relevant than ever. I invite you to join us as we take the exciting next steps on our 155 year-old journey!
In the meantime, please take care of each other, be safe, and stay healthy.
Sincerely,
Fred Larsen
President, Board of Trustees