Last week, sociology professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa made national news with a provocative op-ed in the Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled "Are Undergraduates Actually Learning Anything?" The article previewed their book documenting some unsettling studies on undergraduate education. In ...
The tragic events that took place just a few weeks ago in Tucson, Ariz. — where 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire on a crowd, killing six and injuring 14 — raise questions about how colleges deal with mental health issues. Records at Pima Community College show that school officials ...
The world rang in the new year nearly a month ago, and now we ring in a new semester. For some of us it will be our last at Brown, a bittersweet moment at the intersection of reflection on the past and anticipation for the future. To them we say welcome back, and take some time to enjoy your last weeks ...
Over the course of a semester, the editorial page board sometimes starts to feel like the complaint department. Each day, we try to make a suggestion to improve our school, the surrounding community or higher education broadly. For instance, this fall we've called for:
Each semester, there is one time in particular when professors should avoid making assignments due. During the spring semester, it's the first few days after Spring Weekend. As we wrote last April, professors who assign work due the following Monday or Tuesday aren't just being unkind to their students ...
Leaked footage of a professor at Cornell losing his temper over a student's yawning has recently gone viral, drawing attention to the sometimes excessive reactions professors have to students' misbehavior.
A new wave of hysteria is sweeping the nation. The target this time: Four Loko and other caffeinated alcoholic beverages like it. According to a Web page set up by Brown Health Services, one Four Loko contains as much alcohol as a six-pack of beer and as much caffeine as four sodas. Unlike these other ...
Alice … our staff, who amaze us every day … our business staff, who pay for us every day … our parents, for everything … our understanding roommates and siblings … Officer Chuck … boxes of donuts, drawers of candy and cabinets filled with cookies … ...
Most of the classrooms at Brown are quite good. MacMillan 115 and Smith-Buonanno 106 in particular are very nice places to watch a professor lecture, and the two auditoriums in the Salomon Center definitely get the job done. The same cannot be said of what used to be the Metcalf Chemistry Lab auditorium. ...
It's pretty much inevitable that we will all have to get letters of recommendation at some point during our time at Brown. Whether we're applying for jobs, internships, grants, study abroad programs or graduate schools, the time will invariably come to confront this rite of passage.
An editorial in the Providence Journal recently called out students at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design for being careless when crossing streets and riding bicycles. The Journal brings up a good point — one that we already made in an editorial last March. We asked students to take greater ...
In May, The Herald reported that the Admission Office saw a nearly 21 percent spike in applicants for the class of 2014. The record number of 30,135 applicants was cited by the New York Times in a recent article on a nationwide push by many universities for more applications without a corresponding ...
There is a class at Harvard — Science of the Physical Universe 27: "Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science" — where students, instructed by math and physics professors as well as professional chefs, apply scientific principles to the culinary arts. As much as we hate ...
Earlier this month, the Office of the Dean of the College unveiled Focal Point, a new concentration-mapping tool. As usual, we're glad to see the University continue to improve its Internet resources. We like the idea of a tool that allows students to explore different majors. However, we think the ...
Anyone who takes a realistic look at our nation's fiscal situation will see that both spending cuts and tax increases are necessary to get the federal budget back on a sustainable path. For those who disagree, we direct you to an excellent editorial in Monday's Washington Post, which lays out just how ...
Last Tuesday, when Rhode Islanders headed to the polls to vote on leaders and bond issues, they were also asked whether they wanted to change the state's name from "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" to the simpler "Rhode Island." The full and rather unwieldy name is almost never used, ...
Only 41 undergraduate students were cited for potential academic violations last year, The Herald reported last week. Out of a total undergraduate population of around 6,000 students, that number represents less than 1 percent of the student body.
Brown students consistently rank among the happiest in the nation, so it's no surprise that when the senior class gift campaign rolls around, many soon-to-be graduates are glad to donate. But things aren't so nice and simple at some of Brown's peer institutions — a few of last year's seniors at ...
Most of the upperclassmen can remember a chilly but clear November night in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. We watched, full of anticipation, as the votes were tallied and the historic win was announced. Many of us celebrated together, cheering on the Main Green and ...
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