The first step for parents to help their children navigate the dark side of modern college life is to become better informed. The second step is to show unqualified compassion and empathy. The third step is to help guide our children onto a path toward healing and recovery. Together these steps can build emotional connection and offer buoyancy to young lives otherwise at significant risk of being lost at sea.
One of the most satisfying parts of the assignment was that I challenged the students to write both a government and a defense memo that were so balanced in their arguments that I could not tell which side they personally favored. Virtually all of the students succeeded in doing so.
The School of Arts and Sciences took third graders to Trader Joe's this year, and many students and parents were surprised at how engaging and interesting this simple, inexpensive field trip was. It allowed exploration of nutrition, business management, advertisement and budgeting. Creative field trips like these are affordable and expand kids' practical understanding of work and their cities.
Will teachers in Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona win their battles? It is difficult to say if teachers will get some or any of their demands met. Politicians, however, would be wise to note that there isn’t a groundswell of parents calling for teachers to get back in the classroom – and that, in some cases, parents are joining their kids’ teachers on the proverbial picket line. This suggests that a new kind of Parent-Teacher Organization may be in the works – one that politicians’ may find difficult to ignore.
Engagement in visual-centric blogging introduces students to a popular form of public sociology that develops the sociological imagination. As Lisa Wade and Gwen Sharp, founders of Sociological Images, note, sharing compelling images and social scientific analysis in blog form is an effective way to engage a non-scholar audience in developing understandings of social science principles.
As we look towards a new era of increasing industrialization of the ocean, it is critical that we use scientific approaches that can guide the “blue economy” on a sustainable pathway.
This research calls for greater attention from policy makers and researchers because sexual orientation differences in STDs may exacerbate sexual minorities’ disadvantages in overall health status and quality of life in the older adult population.
The burgeoning trend in educational debt also affects more intimate decisions, like whether or not to marry or have children. Moreover, the downstream consequences of borrowing for college will look different for those who are at the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, and economic class.
It’s important to remember that Black history is more than just slavery, Jim Crow, and reconstruction. Black history started way before the slave trade began, and it’s being made everyday by Black people of all ethnicities, skin tones, genders, and sexualities. Make the effort to explore it all, because like all Black lives, all Black history matters.
Disciplines in the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy promote critical thinking, analytical methods, and empirical skills as the path to understanding the key political, social, and economic issues that dominate our public discussions.
