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(10/02/13 1:03am)
My fourth year is far from over, yet I already have friends who are becoming nostalgic. Goals of graduate school and jobs are becoming realities and students are widely recognizing at this point that their stints at the University are coming to an end. But though their time at this school has been spent working toward specific postgraduate opportunities, it seems as if very few students actually want to leave the University after this year. I find that sentiment to be somewhat strange, because it is a feeling that I do not share.
(09/24/13 11:13pm)
Pettiness and gridlock in today’s Congress have been accepted as the norm. It is an unfortunate reality, but one that has been validated time after time. Lawmakers frequently propose laws that have no realistic chance of being implemented. And as Congress attempts to pass its newest budget, we have more of the same.
(09/11/13 2:28am)
For the pharmaceutical industry to be accused of less-than-ethical behavior is nothing new. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are businesses that, like any other company, are motivated by profits and competition. A successful drug can become a multi-billion dollar seller, and pharmaceutical companies have been known to use nefarious means to push their products. One need only look in the news to find numerous examples of pharmaceutical companies committing instances of health care fraud or withholding information about a drug’s dangerous side effects. Now, we can observe a new development in what pharmaceutical companies withhold: not just information about potentially dangerous drugs, but also information about potentially dangerous physicians.
(09/04/13 1:04am)
There are many Thomas Jefferson quotes that a student is bound to hear repeated ad nauseum during his time at the University. Yet one may escape his memory unless he visits the gyms around Grounds: “Give about two of them [hours] every day to exercise; for health must not be sacrificed to learning. A strong body makes the mind strong.” The University widely — and rightly — celebrates Jefferson’s intellectual prowess and devotion to academic pursuits. Jefferson’s views on physical activity, though, should also be embodied in his university’s curriculum.
(08/29/13 12:46am)
I try to refrain from writing about sports for opinion pieces, but I had to make an exception in this instance. As some tennis fans know, it has become a tradition for American tennis players to retire following the U.S. Open. Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick, among others, played their final matches in similar fashion. On Monday, James Blake announced that he would be retiring after the year’s final major. Blake’s announcement comes after a period of several years in which his ranking has continuously dropped.
(08/22/13 1:14pm)
Intense excitement and optimism swept over me during my first-year move-in day. College seemed like an entirely different world, and I couldn’t wait to embrace new academic and extracurricular opportunities. If there is one thing that I have learned from my time at the University, though, it is that an abundance of social and extracurricular prospects can detract from and add to one’s undergraduate experience in equal proportion. Sometimes, too many interesting outlets can cause students to lose sight of their initial goals.
(04/24/13 3:14am)
When one thinks of immigration reform, one often thinks of arguments about securing the United States’ borders or dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants living in the country. These debates about immigration reform dominate the news. There are recent developments, however, in another kind of immigration reform. These developments are arguably more important to our nation’s future than anything concerning undocumented aliens.
(04/17/13 2:04am)
Good teachers constantly search for ways to better engage their students and encourage varied modes of thought. But sometimes an instructor can get too ambitious with his or her lesson plan. Such a situation recently occurred in an Albany, N.Y. high school, where a high school English teacher is being heavily criticized for an unorthodox lesson that is, at its core, not totally unreasonable.
(04/10/13 2:28am)
Thomas Jefferson, whose self-composed epitaph deems his composition of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom more important than his terms as president, would be appalled to learn that one state was seriously considering establishing an official religion. Fortunately, Mr. Jefferson does not have to bear witness to the fact that, 200 years after the Constitution was signed, lawmakers still do not understand the importance of separating church and state.
(04/03/13 2:43am)
Even if you do not use Google, you are probably aware of the search engine’s practice of stylizing its homepage logo into quirky doodles. The doodles normally reference a particular person or event, usually one that coincides with the date on which the doodle appears. Many users consider the doodles one of the site’s endearing characteristics. This past Easter, though, Google’s doodle incited controversy in a ridiculous instance of religious outrage.
(03/27/13 3:13am)
If you’re like me, you cringe a bit every time you hear that a particular animal has become endangered or is on the brink of extinction, especially when such extinction or endangerment is the result of human activity. Fortunately, science may soon be able to recreate species that mankind has previously eliminated. If the technology necessary to revive extinct species becomes reality, scientists should not hesitate to use it, as doing so would rectify some of mankind’s most detrimental impacts on the natural world.
(03/06/13 5:12am)
A disturbing account of inaction has recently come to light. Even more disturbing is the fact that the inaction was during a life-or-death situation. On Feb. 26, a nurse in a California retirement home refused to administer CPR to a resident of the home who had just collapsed. Even though the resident was not breathing well, the nurse refused to do anything beyond calling 911. This incident highlights a high degree of moral abandonment and should prompt anyone in similar situations to act in an opposite manner.
(02/27/13 3:16am)
The Food and Drug Administration exists to regulate products and protect consumers from ingesting dangerous substances. And it is time the FDA exerted more influence into a new area, one that involves neither food nor drugs. As of now, the FDA is responsible for advising people on the risks presented by indoor tanning. It has not actively sought to enforce tanning safety. The regulation of the tanning industry is currently done on a state-by-state basis, which has resulted in glaring inconsistencies in safety measures from state to state. That needs to change, and the FDA, or some other government agency, should begin regulating tanning salons on a national scale.
(02/20/13 4:56am)
The founder of a revolutionary educational movement is speaking at the University Wednesday. Daphne Koller, a Stanford professor and the co-founder of online-learning company Coursera, will be giving a lecture at 3 p.m. in Bavaro Hall. It is fitting that the talk will be given in an Education School building, as Koller will be elaborating on ways in which Coursera may provide people of all ages with enhanced educational opportunities. This presentation should not be an isolated event. The University’s future will include increasing its online-education efforts, and members of the University community should have opportunities to become as knowledgeable as possible about how Coursera could change their school’s future.
(02/13/13 4:11am)
Though many people were probably unaware, yesterday marked Charles Darwin’s birthday. Darwin, as hopefully everyone knows, solidified the theory of evolution with his explanation of descent with modification, the process by which adaptive changes take place. Darwin’s theory has seen a disturbing amount of opposition in the United States, and it is not surprising that many Americans do not fully understand the workings or importance of evolution. To that end, Darwin’s birthday should have received more coverage, so that evolution could be more properly recognized for its importance.
(02/06/13 5:28am)
WHEN it comes to reforming American schools, the debate rightly focuses most consistently on improving academics. Yet our school system needs more than just improvements in academic quality. Another movement, the war against unhealthy eating in schools, pops up occasionally in the media and deserves more coverage in its own right. This is especially true because of how severely America is struggling with obesity. Fortunately, progress in school dining may be imminent, thanks to new regulations passed by the U.S. Agriculture Department.
(01/23/13 3:35am)
As some scientists are preparing for the future of mankind by exploring space, fighting climate change or trying to cure disease, one man is taking a much different approach — bringing back an ancient humanlike species. Dr. George Church, a professor at Harvard Medical School, has recently claimed that he will be able to recreate Neanderthal DNA. If Church is correct, his research could potentially lead to the creation of the first Neanderthal since that species went extinct tens of thousands of years ago. Church says that all he needs is an “adventurous female human” to gestate and birth the Neanderthal.
(01/16/13 3:49am)
Here at the University, reminders of Thomas Jefferson are ubiquitous, and students are well-educated about many of the former president’s political and intellectual endeavors. Perhaps a less well known endeavor, however, is Jefferson’s creation of his own version of the Bible. “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” as Jefferson titled it — or the Jefferson Bible, as it has also come to be known — was the result of Jefferson’s manipulation of the first four books of the New Testament, in which he removed all traces of divine occurrences and left only Jesus’ teachings. Jefferson’s Bible was for his personal use and was an attempt to better understand the morality presented in the New Testament while excluding the religious preachings of which Jefferson was skeptical.
(12/05/12 1:25am)
English teachers across the country are objecting to new changes to future English class curricula. Most of the objections stem from new recommendations by the Common Core State Standards in English, a document that seeks to better prepare middle and high school students for college and future employment. According to the Common Core Standards, English classes are to begin teaching more nonfiction literature, which inevitably will lead to less fictional literature being taught. But while many teachers are objecting to these changes, claiming that teaching less fictional literature is against the purpose of English class, teaching more nonfiction literature will be beneficial because it will require students to become more proficient in understanding a wider usage of the English language.
(11/28/12 1:11am)
In her November 25 column “Weeding out the young,” Ashley Spinks writes against the concept of the “weed-out” class, claiming that such classes unduly deter some students from pursuing their original career paths. She cites the fact that the University implements weed-out courses from an early point in a student’s education, which may result, for example, in pre-medical students changing their aspirations after only a semester. Not all information taught in college is applicable to the medical profession, she argues, so it should not be treated as such.