| US Military Dictionary: Institute for Advanced Study |
A private, academic, non-degree granting institution founded in 1930 in Princeton, New Jersey. Students are postdoctorate or senior scholars who conduct independent, intensive research through any of the institute's four schools.
It is not affiliated with any other academic institution but has an informal relationship with Princeton University.See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
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| US History Encyclopedia: Institute for Advanced Study |
The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, was founded in 1930 by a gift from Louis Bamberger and his sister, Caroline Bamberger Fuld. During the preceding year, they had decided to sell their business, R. H. Macy and Company, and devote their time and fortune to philanthropic endeavors. Although they remained involved in structuring and formulating the Institute, they created a board of trustees and a directorship to supervise academic programs and oversee administration. Abraham Flexner, a classicist as well as an innovator of American medical education, was chosen as the first director and, in many ways, determined the Institute's future course.
In an early letter to the board of trustees, the founders envisioned the Institute as a place for "the pursuit of advanced learning and exploration in fields of pure science and high scholarship to the utmost degree that the facilities of the institution and the ability of the faculty and students will permit." The Institute has retained the spirit of the founders' vision, while also revising its particular mission. The Bambergers had initially imagined establishing an entirely new university, but as they discussed their ideas with Flexner, they devised a new model of scholarship, unburdened by the administrative demands of a university. Primarily under the leadership of Flexner, the Institute carved out an identity somewhere between the traditional roles of university and research institute. The Institute still does not award any higher degrees and does not provide any formal graduate training. Its small size and highly specialized academic agenda remain points of pride.
In the fall of 1932, Albert Einstein and Oswald Veblen were approved as the first academic appointments to the Institute's newly established School of Mathematics. Two years later, the Schools of Humanistic Studies and Politics were added to the Institute's academic scope. In the following six decades, the Institute formally designated five areas of study, including the Schools of Mathematics (1933), Historical Studies (1948), Natural Sciences (1966), Social Sciences (1973), and, most recently, Theoretical Biology (1998).Each school has a small permanent faculty but relies quite heavily on the academic strength and contributions of the approximately 180 fellows invited to the Institute each year.
Although the Institute enjoys a close, symbiotic relationship with nearby Princeton University, it is administratively and financially independent. Funding comes from a number of different private and public sources, including gifts from corporations and individuals and grants from government agencies. Fellows and faculty of the Institute are given the opportunity to explore Prince-ton's resources and attend lectures and seminars sponsored by the university, but they are not expected to teach any courses. Likewise, members of the Princeton community can attend events at Institute facilities.
The historical moment of the Institute's founding, when Nazism and fascism were on the rise in Europe, set a precedent for close ties to the international scholarly community. In its early years, the Institute provided academic asylum for many refugee scholars from the Continent. To this day, the Institute invites scholars from around the world to engage in serious learning and research. It also is committed to providing opportunities for new scholars to focus on their independent work in the company of other scholars, without the demands of teaching. The Institute houses its faculty and fellows and offers a number of cultural activities, lectures, and seminars to foster a sense of academic exchange.
Over the last decades of the twentieth century the faculty of the Institute has included scholars such as Clifford Geertz, George Kennan, Joan Wallach Scott, and Michael Walzer. From 1991, Phillip A. Griffiths served as director.
Bibliography
The Institute for Advanced Study: Some Introductory Information. Princeton, N.J., 1975.
Institute for Advanced Study home page at http://www.ias.edu.
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| Wikipedia: Institute for Advanced Study |
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The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is a center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute is perhaps best known as the academic home of Albert Einstein, John von Neumann, and Kurt Gödel, after their immigration to the United States. Other famous scholars who have worked at the institute include Edward Witten, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Freeman Dyson, Erwin Panofsky, Homer A. Thompson, George Kennan, Hermann Weyl, Paul Erdős, Michael Atiyah, and Michael Walzer. There have subsequently been other Institutes of Advanced Study, which are based on a similar model.
Since its founding, the Institute has no formal links to Princeton University or other educational institutions, although it has enjoyed close, collaborative ties with Princeton. It was founded in 1930 by philanthropists Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld; the first Director was Abraham Flexner. The current Director is Peter Goddard.
The Institute is divided into four Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Science, with a more recent program in systems biology. It consists of a permanent faculty of 29, and each year awards fellowships to 190 visiting Members, from over 100 universities and research institutions. Individuals apply to become Members at the Institute, and each of the Schools have their own application procedures and deadlines. Members are selected by the Faculty of each School from more than 1,500 applicants, and come to the Institute for periods from one term to a few years, most staying for one year. All Members, whether emerging scholars or scientists at the beginning of their careers or established researchers, are selected on the basis of their outstanding achievements and promise.
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There are no degree programs or experimental facilities at the Institute, and research is funded by endowments, grants and gifts — it does not support itself with tuition or fees. Research is never contracted or directed; it is left to each individual researcher to pursue his or her own goals.
It is not part of any educational institution; however, the proximity of Princeton University (less than three miles from its science departments to the Institute complex) means that informal ties are close and a large number of collaborations have arisen over the years. (The Institute was actually housed within Princeton University—in the building since called Jones Hall, which was then Princeton's mathematics department—for 6 years, from its opening in 1933, until Fuld Hall was finished and opened in 1939. This helped start an incorrect impression that it was part of Princeton, one that has never been completely eradicated.)
The Institute was founded in 1930 by Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld with the proceeds from their department store in Newark, New Jersey. The founding of the institute was fraught with brushes against near-disaster; the Bamberger siblings pulled their money out of the stock market just before the Stock Market Crash of 1929, and their original intent was to express their gratitude to the state of New Jersey through the founding of a medical school. It was the intervention of their friend Dr. Abraham Flexner, the prominent education theorist, that convinced them to put their money in the service of more abstract research.
The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you. In fact I will give you my favorite quotation of many years. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in my opinion, has ruined more good scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they did before they came and judged by what they did after. Not that they weren't good afterwards, but they were superb before they got there and were only good afterwards.[1]—Richard Hamming, You and Your Research, 1986
When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they're not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come.Nothing happens because there's not enough real activity and challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!
—Richard Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, 1985
The Institute has been the workplace of some of the most renowned thinkers in the world, including Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel, Clifford Geertz, T. D. Lee and C. N. Yang, J. Robert Oppenheimer, John von Neumann, Freeman J. Dyson, Hassler Whitney, André Weil, Hermann Weyl, Harish-Chandra, Joan W. Scott, Frank Wilczek, Edward Witten, Albert O. Hirschman, and George F. Kennan. (For more, see List of faculty members at the Institute for Advanced Study.)
In addition to faculty, who have permanent appointments, scholars are appointed as "members" of the Institute for a period of several months to several years. Some 190 members are now selected annually. This includes both younger and well-established natural scientists and social scientists.
There are numerous academic centres of varying status named as places for "Advanced Study" all over the world, but the Princeton, NJ-based Institute is the original institution upon which all the others were based.[citation needed] Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) is a consortium of such establishments.
Coordinates: 40°19′54″N 74°40′04″W / 40.33167°N 74.66778°W
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