A Letter From Northern Michigan, Where Remote Is Not Remote Enough to Escape COVID

A Professor Who Finds a Home in the Upper Peninsula No Longer Has the Heart to Return to the Classroom

Last winter, I felt pressure and spasms beneath my breastbone and went in for a cardiac stress test. Two days later, I left the hospital with a stent in the circumflex coronary artery and a plastic pill organizer packed with statins, blood thinners, and beta blockers. I had been a hale 63-year-old who hiked miles each day, lifted weights and ate and drank sensibly—most of the time, anyway. Now I’m a high-risk senior with a pre-existing condition, a baby boomer presenting a bullseye to COVID-19.

At my age, some physiological organ …

by James McCommons | September 3, 2020

The Pioneering Cornell Anatomist Who Sought to Bring ‘Honor’ and ‘Duty’ to College Life

At the Turn of the 20th Century, Burton Green Wilder Railed Against Frivolous Activities and Thought Privileged Students Should Hold Each Other to Higher Standards

by Richard M. Reid | November 8, 2018

In 1901, Cornell University students created a new holiday on campus, called “Spring Day.”

Many faculty members objected to the holiday, but few were as visible and vocal as professor Burt …

How Attending Elite Universities Helped Mormons Enter the Mainstream

Through Higher Education, Latter-day Saints Joined the U.S. Meritocracy and Transformed Their Own Identity

by Thomas W. Simpson | July 9, 2018

The history of Mormon “Americanization” has long puzzled those who try to understand it.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, Mormons, under immense pressure from local and federal …

Why an Undocumented College Student Left California for Indiana

The Golden State Values Dreamers Like Me, but the Hoosier State Put Graduation Within Reach

By Miguel Molina-Ventura | August 8, 2017

I’m one of the young people covered by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows people who immigrated with their parents before they were 16 to live …

How Much Do We Learn in College?

Until Universities Track Improvement, We Won't Know the Real Value of Higher Ed

By James R. Pomerantz and Daniel Oppenheimer | February 28, 2017

It’s mid-winter, your college applications have been submitted, and you’ll soon be pacing the floor waiting to learn where you have been accepted. But will you emerge from college four …

Why College Rankings Are Anti-Diversity

To Boost Prestige, Magazines Pressure Universities to Leave Poor Students Behind

By Kim A. Wilcox | October 24, 2016

In the next several weeks, millions of high school seniors will apply to colleges and universities across the nation. If you are one of them—and if you come from a …

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