??Professor Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor in Education at Stellenbosch 万博体育官网 (SU) and president of the Academy of Science of South Africa, has been elected as a member of the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
His election, which took place yesterday (19 April 2023), places him in the company of eminent past and present members including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King, Georgia O'Keeffe, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, as well as international honorary members such as Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Wislawa Szymborska, Laurence Olivier, Mary Leakey, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Akira Kurosawa and Nelson Mandela.
Founded in 1780, the Academy honours excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavour to examine new ideas and address issues of importance. In a welcoming letter, chair of the American Academy's board, Nancy Richards, and Academy president, David Oxtoby, said: “This honour signifies the high regard in which you are held by leaders in your field and members throughout the nation."
Says Jansen: “This is an incredible and unexpected honour for which I am deeply grateful. The fact that one's peers around the world, and in this prestigious academy of scholars, believe that you have something to say and that your work counts for something, is the ultimate reward for one's intellectual endeavours."
He adds that he is humbled and blessed by the recognition. “None of this would have been possible without the generous space, support and resources that SU has provided to make my research teams so productive and impactful in the scholarly arena, but also in the communities served by our research."
Current Academy members represent innovative thinkers in every field and profession, including more than 250 Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners. The Academy aims to cultivate “every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people".
Jansen has been invited to attend a formal in induction ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts on 20 September 2023.
He has also been asked to take part in the Academy's longstanding tradition of responding with a formal letter of acceptance. Copies of letters dating back to 1780, from those first penned using quills to contemporary responses captured with emojis, can be viewed on the Academy's website and are on exhibit at the House of the Academy.
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