Tuesday, May 7

Tag: after

Nikole Hannah-Jones Receives Tenure Offer From UNC After Backlash
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IMPACT

Nikole Hannah-Jones Receives Tenure Offer From UNC After Backlash

Her 1619 Project is at the center of a political battle over what students can learn about race in America. Amanda Becker Originally published by The 19th The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s board of trustees voted on Wednesday to grant tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones after initially delaying the customary job protection for the incoming journalism professor, who is best known for her award-winning work reexamining how slavery shaped the United States’ founding. The board’s vice chair, R. Gene Davis Jr., who was among those who voted to offer tenure to Hannah-Jones, said that UNC “is not a place to cancel people or ideas. Neither is it a place for judging people and calling them names, like woke or racist.” “In this moment at our university, in our state, and in our nati...
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Anxiety After Lockdown – 8 Ways To Manage Body Image
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SELF, VIDEO REELS

Anxiety After Lockdown – 8 Ways To Manage Body Image

Tracy Tylka, The Ohio State University Being able to socialize again may bring enthusiasm and a sense of normalcy – but it may also increase anxiety over how your body might have changed. I am a psychologist who has studied body image for over 20 years, and I’ve seen how the COVID-19 pandemic could affect health and well-being in numerous ways, including body image. Gyms were closed. Self-care rituals may have fallen by the wayside as stress and hardships like homeschooling and strained finances piled up. The pandemic also took away a major way people cope: Social support through physical contact. Pandemic stress has led many people to turn to other coping mechanisms, with some harmful to both physical and mental health. In one study of 5,469 adults in Australia, 35% reported increased ...
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To Catch Students Up After The Pandemic Intensive Tutoring, Longer School Days And Summer Sessions May Be Needed
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IN OTHER NEWS

To Catch Students Up After The Pandemic Intensive Tutoring, Longer School Days And Summer Sessions May Be Needed

Thomas Goldring, Georgia State University and Tim R. Sass, Georgia State University The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea The COVID-19 pandemic has led to substantial reductions in student learning in metro-Atlanta public elementary and middle schools. What’s more, these impacts have grown over time, according to our new research. By winter of 2020-21, we found that average math achievement within a grade was up to seven months behind where students likely would have been had the pandemic not occurred. In reading, students were up to 7 ½ months behind on average in some grades. Students often fell further behind between the fall and winter tests, sometimes dramatically so. The effects of the pandemic varied by subject, grade and school district...
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Lessons From My Grandfather, 100 Years After The Tulsa Race Massacre
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EDUCATION

Lessons From My Grandfather, 100 Years After The Tulsa Race Massacre

When Viola Fletcher, 107, appeared before Congress in May 2021, she called for the nation to officially acknowledge the Tulsa race riot of 1921. I know that place and year well. As is the case with Fletcher – who is one of the last living survivors of the massacre, which took place when she was 7 – the terror of the Tulsa race riot is something that has been with me for almost as long as I can remember. My grandfather, Robert Fairchild, told the story nearly a quarter-century ago to several newspapers. Here’s how The Washington Post recounted his story in 1996: “At 92 years old, Robert Fairchild is losing his hearing, but he can still make out the distant shouts of angry white men firing guns late into the night 75 years ago. His eyes are not what they used to be, but he has no trouble s...
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20 Years After The First Stellar Tourist Space Tourism Is Here – Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Plans To Send Civilians To Space
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SCIENCE

20 Years After The First Stellar Tourist Space Tourism Is Here – Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Plans To Send Civilians To Space

For most people, getting to the stars is nothing more than a dream. But on May 5, 2021, the 60th anniversary of the first suborbital flight, that dream became a little bit more achievable. Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson on the International Space Station with a view many more are likely to see soon. NASA/Tracy Caldwell Dyson/WIkimediaCommons The space company Blue Origin announced that it would start selling tickets for suborbital flights to the edge of space. The first flight is scheduled for July 20, and Jeff Bezos’ company is auctioning off one single ticket to the highest bidder. But whoever places the winning bid won’t be the first tourist in space. On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito, a wealthy businessman, paid US$20 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to be the first tou...
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Reducing School Absenteeism, Breakfast After The Bell Programs
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EDUCATION

Reducing School Absenteeism, Breakfast After The Bell Programs

The big idea Making a healthy breakfast available to students not only can help alleviate hunger and improve concentration at school; it also appears to encourage regular attendance, according to new research I co-authored. In a study published in February 2021, my co-author and I explored how the rollout of Breakfast After the Bell programs at high-poverty schools in Colorado and Nevada have been linked to reductions in the number of students who were chronically absent. The programs extend free morning meals to learners unable to get into school before classes start. Our study looked at levels of absenteeism in the last year before Breakfast After the Bell was introduced in the states – the 2013-2014 academic year – and two years after. In both states, high-poverty schools, where 70% o...
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After Each Mass Shooting, Gun Control Fails Quickly In Congress But States Often Act – Including To loosen Gun Laws
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IN OTHER NEWS

After Each Mass Shooting, Gun Control Fails Quickly In Congress But States Often Act – Including To loosen Gun Laws

Recent mass shootings at three spas in Atlanta, Georgia and a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado have renewed calls for new gun legislation. The U.S. has been here before – after shootings in Tucson, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, Roseburg, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso and other communities across the United States. Congress has declined to pass significant new gun legislation after dozens of shootings, including shootings that occurred during periods like this one, with Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, Senate and presidency. This response may seem puzzling given that national opinion polls reveal extensive support for several gun control policies, including expanding background checks and banning assault weapons. But polls do not determine polic...
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What Our ‘World After Coronavirus’ Might Look Like – I Spoke To 99 Big Thinkers – This Is What I Learned
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IMPACT, IN OTHER NEWS, VIDEO REELS

What Our ‘World After Coronavirus’ Might Look Like – I Spoke To 99 Big Thinkers – This Is What I Learned

Back in March, my colleagues at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University thought that it might be useful to begin thinking about “the day after coronavirus. Adil Najam, international relations professor at Boston University, interviewed 99 experts about what the post-pandemic future will bring. Pardee Center/Boston University, CC BY-SA For a research center dedicated to longer-term thinking, it made sense to ask what our post-COVID-19 world might look like. In the months that followed, I learned many things. Most importantly, I learned there is no “going back to normal.” My season of learning The project took on a life of its own. Over 190 days, we released 103 videos. Each was around five minutes long, with one simple question: How mig...
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After Wildfires Plastic Pipes Are Polluting Drinking Water Systems – It’s A Risk In Urban Fires, Too
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ENVIRONMENT

After Wildfires Plastic Pipes Are Polluting Drinking Water Systems – It’s A Risk In Urban Fires, Too

When wildfires swept through the hills near Santa Cruz, California, in 2020, they released toxic chemicals into the water supplies of at least two communities. One sample found benzene, a carcinogen, at 40 times the state’s drinking water standard. Our testing has now confirmed a source of these chemicals, and it’s clear that wildfires aren’t the only blazes that put drinking water systems at risk. In a new study, we heated plastic water pipes commonly used in buildings and water systems to test how they would respond to nearby fires. The results, released Dec. 14, show how easily wildfires could trigger widespread drinking water contamination. They also show the risks when only part of a building catches fire and the rest remains in use. In some of our tests, heat exposure caused more ...
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Nursing Home Aides Aren’t Taking Sick Leave After Exposure To COVID-19 – Why?
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COVID-19, IN OTHER NEWS

Nursing Home Aides Aren’t Taking Sick Leave After Exposure To COVID-19 – Why?

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated America’s nursing homes, but the reasons aren’t as simple as people might think. To understand how nursing homes became the source of over one-third of U.S. COVID-19 deaths, you have to look beyond just the vulnerability of the residents and examine how nursing homes pay and manage their employees. The average nursing aide earns just $14.25 an hour, less than $30,000 a year. Many are women who work at multiple nursing homes to make ends meet. Partly as a result of that, the typical nursing home has staff connections to 15 other facilities – each an opportunity for the coronavirus to spread. That risk is magnified by a reluctance among many nursing aides to take sick days when they are ill, even though federal law currently requires employers to provid...
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