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Jeb Bush has a liberal arts degree. It didn’t stop him from belittling liberal arts majors. (Washington Post) by Valerie Strauss “Not surprisingly, liberal arts majors, especially psychology majors, were not amused.” The Narrative Frays for Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes (New York Times) by James B. Stewart “Her wealth and fame rest almost entirely on … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: November 5, 2015"

Women’s Groups Urge Colleges and Government to Rein In Yik Yak (The Chronicle of Higher Education) by Peter Schmidt “Seventy-two women’s and civil-rights groups on Wednesday announced a campaign to enlist the federal government in pressuring colleges to protect students from harassment via anonymous social-media applications like Yik Yak.” Hummus Diplomacy: Israeli Cafe Discounts Meals … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: October 29, 2015"

Self-Driving Cars Hit the Streets, Sort Of (NPR) by Aarti Shahani “Just as I’m lifting my foot from the accelerator, I feel the steering wheel take on a life of its own. I jerk my hands away, surprised. My hands and feet are doing nothing and the car is moving.” For Students Accused of Campus … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: October 22, 2015"

Happy Back to the Future Day! October 21, 2015 is the day that Marty McFly travelled to the future in Doc Brown’s time-traveling DeLorean. To commemorate this day, I thought we should have a bit of fun and consider an interesting (and hypothetical) moral question. Suppose we could build a time machine. Would it be … Continue reading "Would It Be Wrong to Build a Time Machine?"

An Oklahoma Execution Done Wrong (Atlantic) by Matt Ford “Oklahoma used the wrong drug to execute Charles Warner in January, according to autopsy records obtained by the The Oklahoman on Thursday.” Victimhood is a real, brutal fact, and Ben Carson’s Holocaust logic denies that (Guardian) Gayatri Devi “The denial of “victimhood” to those who have … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: October 15, 2015"

Graduate Fellow Sandra Bertin attempts to clarify miscommunication that set the tone of the forum after Brother Jed's initial protests on campus.

Everyone you know will be able to rate you on the terrifying ‘Yelp for people’ — whether you want them to or not (Washington Post) by Caitlin Dewey “You can already rate restaurants, hotels, movies, college classes, government agencies and bowel movements online. So the most surprising thing about Peeple — basically Yelp, but for … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: October 8, 2015"

Resilience–the ability to bounce back after trauma or crisis–is an ideal that is increasingly central to our culture. “Bouncing back” can mean breaking even, but generally people think resilience is the ability to come out ahead of where you started, the ability to, as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel put it, never let a crisis go … Continue reading "Resilience, an ideal that hurts more than it helps"

Last Friday, the House of Representatives, largely led by Republicans, passed a bill that would defund Planned Parenthood. This means that Planned Parenthood would no longer be able to receive funding from the government. Though the bill is expected to die in the Senate, house Republicans are considering forcing a government shutdown over the issue.

In 2013 a pledge died during a hazing incident at Baruch College. How has the death changed campus 2 years later?

Skin Feeling (New Inquiry) by Sofia Samatar “What it is to be encountered as a surface, to be constantly exposed as something you are not.” Fact Check: Your Demand for Statistical Proof is Racist (The Society Pages) by Candice Lanuis “This past December, most major American news outlets ran a story about police shooting statistics … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: October 1, 2015"

More Food Banks Serve Hungry College Students (CNN) Katie Lobosco “They may be studying at high-priced institutions, but a growing number of U.S. college students rely on food pantries for their next meal.” It’s Time to Get Serious about Reducing Food Waste, Feds Say (NPR) by Allison Aubrey “We consumers let a lot of food … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: September 24, 2015"

6 Things You Should Know about the Iran Nuclear Deal (Politifact) by Linda Qiu “With 41 Senate Democrats backing the historic agreement between Iran and five world powers, the Iran nuclear deal is on its way to becoming a done deal, notching a foreign-policy win for President Barack Obama…The 159-page deal may hinge on nuclear physics, but … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: September 17, 2015"

College students are burning the candle at both ends. Will their lack of sleep catch up to them?

Brutal Images of Syrian Boy Drowned Off Turkey Must Be Seen, Activists Say (New York Times) by Robert Mackey “A sense of weary resignation at the plight of the Syrians — and hundreds of thousands of other refugees and migrants taking desperate risks to reach the safety of Europe — was briefly punctured by horrifying images of one … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: September 10, 2015"

We live in a digital age in which humanity has the ability to connect in ways heretofore only imagined in science fiction. Anyone over the age of 30 has surely cringed with embarrassment as our parents shared our baby pictures with household guests. Now, parenting and parental sharing is a regular part of our online … Continue reading "Parenting in Public: Social Media and Public Shaming"

The Ethics of Watching and Sharing Violent Viral Videos (Vice) by Allie Conti “Questions about whether to publish upsetting content used to be the purview of media outlets…but thanks to social media everyone gets to decide whether to share graphic, disturbing videos with their followers and friends.” Taking My Parents to College (New York Times) by Jennine … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: September 3, 2015"

The Hell You Say (New Yorker) by Kelefa Sanneh “The new battles over free speech are fierce, but who is censoring whom?” How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election (Politico Magazine) by Robert Epstein “America’s next president could be eased into office not just by TV ads or speeches, but by Google’s secret decisions, and … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: August 27, 2015"

Pics or It Didn’t Happen (Medium) by John de Jong “Is Photography Even a Healthy Pastime? Considering Susan Sontag’s ‘On Photography’” The Movement Against Solitary Confinement (New York Magazine) by Benjamin Wallace Wells “Why this focus now? For most of the past half-century, the single moral cause of the prison-reform movement, to the degree that such a … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: August 20, 2015"

The Makeup Tax (The Atlantic) by Olga Khazan “Women who wear makeup earn more and are treated better. This has steep costs, in both money and time.” This may be the biggest threat to Facebook right now (Fortune) by Michal Addady “…Facebook’s video efforts are drawing controversy lately. Some observers say the social network is littered in … Continue reading "What We’re Reading: August 13, 2015"