learned

10Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

Here’s What I Learned As An Election Law Expert Who Ran A Polling Station This Election – The Powerful Role Of Local Officials In Applying The Law Fairly

Derek Muller is a nationally recognized expert in election law at the University of Iowa College of Law, where he studies and teaches about the role of states in the administration of federal elections. In late October he submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on a case that could drastically reshape U.S. elections, addressing the independent state legislature theory. But Muller doesn’t just understand election law from an ivory tower perch. On Election Day, he was a precinct chair in Iowa City, running a polling station inside the University of Iowa. The Conversation U.S. asked him to reflect on what it’s like to be both a election law scholar and an election worker. You occupy a pretty high place in the world of election law scholars. But here you are, participating at the...

By Listening To Other Black Mothers, As A Black Sociologist, And A Mom – I’ve Learned About Their Pandemic Struggles And Strengths

2May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, Journalism

By Listening To Other Black Mothers, As A Black Sociologist, And A Mom – I’ve Learned About Their Pandemic Struggles And Strengths

I spent the 2020 spring break week setting up to teach my college courses online while helping to care for my 14-month-old grandchild, whose daycare had closed. At the same time, I couldn’t help thinking, being the sociologist I am, of the devastating consequences of COVID-19 I saw for women like me, Black mothers, whom I have studied for over a decade. Social science research can influence policy. Sharing Black mothers’ stories in their own voices may ultimately lead to more compassionate policies. My work is part of a small body of descriptive research, mostly by researchers of color, countering negativity and victim-blaming in earlier studies of Black families. My research partner, sociologist BarBara Scott, lives in Chicago, where I grew up. In our studies of Black mothers there, we’...

5 Things I’ve Learned Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. And Curating The MLK Collection At Morehouse College

17Jan

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

5 Things I’ve Learned Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. And Curating The MLK Collection At Morehouse College

For the past 11 years, civil rights historian Vicki Crawford has worked as the director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, where she oversees the archive consisting of iconic sermons, speeches, writings and other materials belonging to King. Few archives of historical papers compare with the importance of the Morehouse King Collection. Aside from King’s life, the collection chronicles many of the major events that occurred during the civil rights movement. Since joining Morehouse, Crawford says she especially enjoys introducing younger generations to King and helping them understand the powerful lessons of the struggle for social justice, particularly how everyday people organized and worked for social change. Of the countless things she has seen, read and learn...

A Professor Learned To Bring Compassion To Engineering And Design

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE, VIDEO REELS

A Professor Learned To Bring Compassion To Engineering And Design

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Tahira Reid leads a lab focused on human-centered design. Over her career, she’s gone outside the “traditional engineering box” and integrated compassion for the users of products and services into the design process – what she and colleagues refer to as “compassionate design.” She has also leveraged her insights as a Black woman in mechanical engineering in her work. Together, these considerations led to the development of a compassionate design framework that helps engineers think critically about their design decisions and, in her case, an investigation of how heat from flat-irons can damage curly hair. In this interview, Reid describes how her personal experiences led her to focus on the human aspects of engineering, and why she believes a...

Here’s What I learned About Big Ben And Online Information Overload When I Went Down The ‘Rabbit Hole’ To Debunk Misinformation

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IMPACT

Here’s What I learned About Big Ben And Online Information Overload When I Went Down The ‘Rabbit Hole’ To Debunk Misinformation

Big Ben was stolen from Palestine. So claimed an elderly woman, in Arabic, in a retweeted clip I received recently. Yes, that Big Ben: the great bell in the iconic clock tower of London’s Palace of Westminster. The British took it, she said, from a tower they demolished at Hebron Gate in Jerusalem in 1922. The claim pulled me up short. It seemed so outlandish. Who would invent something so easy to refute? And why? The woman spoke with great conviction, but could she really believe what she was saying? And if this was a hoax, then who was perpetrating it on whom? These questions sent me down a Big Ben rabbit hole. A matter of seconds Before I share what I discovered, let’s pause here for a moment, where many would have shrugged and moved on. You’d have to have some prior interest in the...

The Famous ‘Doll Test’ That Looked At How Black Kids See Race, Recreated, This Is What I Learned

22Feb

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

The Famous ‘Doll Test’ That Looked At How Black Kids See Race, Recreated, This Is What I Learned

Back in the 1940s, Kenneth and Mamie Clark – a husband-and-wife team of psychology researchers – used dolls to investigate how young Black children viewed their racial identities. They found that given a choice between Black dolls and white dolls, most Black children preferred to play with white dolls. They ascribed positive characteristics to the white dolls but negative characteristics to the Black ones. Then, upon being asked to describe the doll that looked most like them, some of the children became “emotionally upset at having to identify with the doll that they had rejected.” The Clarks concluded that Black children – as a result of living in a racist society – had come to see themselves in a negative light. Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark in 1945. Washington Area Spark/flick...

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

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

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...

Porch piracy: Here’s what we learned after watching hours of YouTube videos showing packages being pilfered from homes

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

Porch piracy: Here’s what we learned after watching hours of YouTube videos showing packages being pilfered from homes

Deliveries of groceries and packages are soaring as physical retailers close their doors and tens of millions of Americans “shelter in place.” Moreover, the need for social distancing may encourage more delivery workers to leave packages unattended on porches rather than risk an interaction with someone who has the coronavirus. These conditions may be perfect for thieves, who prior to the pandemic were increasingly pilfering packages from homes across the country. About 11 million homeowners reported having a package stolen in 2017 – and a separate 2018 survey found that almost a fifth of Americans said they had been a victim. Three-quarters of the 2017 thefts occurred during the day, and the average cost of the stolen items was close to US$200. I led a recent study of “porch piracy” to...