Arts and Letters

RISD alumni join Academy of Arts and Letters.

Arlene Shechet MFA 78 CR, Huma Bhabha 85 PR and Michael Maltzan BArch 85 were among nineteen new members and four honorary members inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters during its annual ceremony, which was held on May 24, 2023.

The Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov, inducted into Foreign Honorary membership, delivered the keynote.

Shechet, Bhabha and Maltzan were joined by such luminaries as writer Phillip Lopate, director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Frances McDormand; Coppola and McDormand became honorary members.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 as an honor society of the country’s leading architects, artists, composers and writers. Early members included William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Julia Ward Howe, Henry James, Edward MacDowell, Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent, Mark Twain and Edith Wharton. The Academy’s 300 members undergraduate programs (reflecting 80 percent of matriculants) were unranked. However, because of small curriculum changes to some of RISD’s programs, last year the school was categorized as a “regional school.”

“As is often the case, change triggers important reflection and opportunities to reassess and revise a course of action,” added President Williams.

“So, while we ranked third out of 181 schools in the ‘Best Regional Universities North,’ a category placing us in comparison to institutions with which we share very little in common, this change by U.S. News catalyzed our deeper thinking about the ranking system overall, its relevance to RISD and our work as educators, and the criteria used to create it. Many of those criteria have been written about in critical terms and publicly questioned, and are unambiguously biased in favor of wealth, privilege and opportunities that are inequitably distributed.” are elected for life and pay no dues, according to the Academy’s website.

The Academy’s American Honorary membership, which began in 1983, recognizes up to twenty Americans of extraordinary artistic achievement whose work falls outside or transcends the fields of architecture, art, literature and music composition. Foreign Honorary membership, which was established in 1929, celebrates up to seventy-five distinguished architects, artists, writers and composers from other countries whose work the Academy’s membership greatly admires.

In addition to electing new members as vacancies occur, the Academy’s website indicates that it seeks to foster and sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts by administering over 70 awards and prizes totaling more than $1 million, exhibiting art and manuscripts, funding performances of musical theater, purchasing artwork for donation to museums across the country and presenting talks and concerts.