NORMAN – OU President David L. Boren has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the country’s oldest and most distinguished honorary societies.
Founded in 1780, the Academy counts such individuals as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexander Graham Bell among its membership. Boren is one of the first OU faculty and staff members ever elected to the Academy and was chosen in the category of Public Affairs, Business and Administration.
“It is a humbling and exceptional honor to become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,” Boren said. “I am mindful of the many distinguished members of the Academy who have preceded me, including many of my personal heroes.
“The intellectual life of the Academy helped to shape our formative values as a free people during revolutionary times. I am mindful that with this recognition comes a heavy responsibility to make a contribution to our national conversations about these basic values and our identity as a people.”
Among the current members of the Academy are more than 250 Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners. Boren’s class, the Academy’s 237th, consists of 228 new members who will be inducted in October.
