Mission

Society for Advanced Study

The Society for Advanced Study is the auxiliary arm of the Institute for Advanced Study consisting of more than 100 academic and civic members who work to develop public understanding and support for advanced research and creative activity. The Society also supports the Institute financially and provides a medium through which interested persons may share in the Institute's activities.

The Institute for Advanced Study, in turn, was created by the University in 1981 to support and encourage research and creative activity by IU faculty on all campuses and in all fields. It does this primarily by arranging for extended visits by distinguished scholars, artists and scientists from across the world, who come to the university to work with specific faculty members and their students and colleagues on their on-going research or creative projects. Leonard Bernstein was the inaugural External Academic Fellow.

In addition, the IAS also arranges for visits by distinguished citizens such as Otis Bowen, Birch Bayh, Alice Rivlin and J. Irwin Miller, who are brought to various campuses to meet with student and faculty groups in order to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and practical experience. Congressman Lee Hamilton is our current Distinguished Citizen Fellow.

The Institute has also hosted more than two hundred Visiting Scholars on leave from other universities who have come to Indiana University for extended periods at their own expense to use our library and other resources and interact with our faculty. All of these visiting Fellows and Scholars significantly enrich and renew the intellectual life-blood of the university.