NEW YORK (AP) — One of the country’s oldest cultural instititutions, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, is undergoing some of its biggest changes in more than a century. For the first time since 1908, the academy is expanding its core membership, from 250 artists in literature, music and art and architecture, to 300 within the next five years. And this year’s inductees, 33 of them, are the largest and most diverse group in recent memory. They range from U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo and author-journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates to jazz great Wynton Marsalis and visual artist Betye Saar.
