Jayne Anne Phillips’ “Night Watch,” a mother-daughter saga set in a West Virginia asylum after the Civil War, has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction
May 06, 2024
Harvard University has released a detailed account of its investigation into plagiarism allegations against former president Claudine Gay, who resigned this month over those concerns and her antisemitism testimony at a congressional hearing
January 22, 2024
The U.S. Department of Education says Liberty University has agreed to pay an unprecedented $14 million fine after the large Christian school in Virginia failed to disclose information about crimes on campus
March 05, 2024
Spanning evolutionary biology, genetics, development, neurobiology, endocrinology and psychology, as well as current events and sports, students explore the complexities of the biology of sex.
October 23, 2023
As the Netherlands on Monday marked 161 years since the abolition of slavery with annual Ketikoti celebrations, activists have questioned the
July 01, 2024
Majd Hamad, 18, dreams of becoming a doctor but the war in Gaza has left his textbooks buried under rubble amid relentless Israeli bombardment
June 25, 2024
President Joe Biden is rejecting calls from student protesters to change his approach to the war in Gaza while insisting that “order must prevail” on college campuses across the country
May 02, 2024
Students who attend for-profit colleges on average have higher student loan debt than those who attend public institutions. FatCamera via Getty Images For the majority of students, the college where they enroll is often the one from where they will graduate. But not so for the approximately 1 million students who transfer each year from one school to another. Of these 1 million, about 100,000 students transfer from one of the approximately 2,300 for-profit universities that exist in the U.S. That’s a sizable portion of the approximately 777,000 students who attend for-profit colleges. As researchers who specialize in higher education,
June 08, 2023
A Juneteenth celebration in Prospect Park in New York City in 2022. Michael Nagle/Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images After decades of being celebrated at mostly the local level, Juneteenth – the long-standing holiday that commemorates the arrival of news of emancipation and freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 – became a federal holiday in 2021. In honor of this year’s Juneteenth, The Conversation reached out to Wake Forest University humanities professor Corey D. B. Walker for a list of readings that can help people better understand the history and meaning of the observance. Below, Walker
June 09, 2023
Joshua Houston leads a Juneteenth Parade in Huntsville, Texas, in a photo circa 1900. Sam Houston Memorial Museum and Republic of Texas Presidential Library The news was startling. On June 19, 1865, two months after the U.S. Civil War ended, Union Gen. Gordon Granger walked onto the balcony at Ashton Villa in Galveston, Texas, and announced to the people of the state that “all slaves are free.” As local plantation owners lamented the loss of their most valuable property, Black Texans celebrated Granger’s Juneteenth announcement with singing, dancing and feasting. The 182,566 enslaved African Americans in Texas had finally won
June 16, 2023
NBA rookies must navigate their way over a series of pitfalls. Credit: Jon Enoch Photography Ltd via Getty Images When a young athlete is drafted into the NBA – as 58 players were on June 22, 2023 – it is often seen as a life-changing event. The money makes it so. Salaries for first-round draft picks this year are projected to range from about $2.4 million at the low end to $12 million at the very top. That’s a lot of bread for a young person to handle. The three youngest prospects this year will still be 18 at the
June 21, 2023
Moms get about 25 minutes less sleep each weeknight when their kids’ school is in session. Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/DigitalVision Collection/Getty Images The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Moms of school-age children get significantly less sleep during the school year than during the summer. We are economists who specialize in education and health research. We combined extensive data on school district schedules with information derived from the American Time Use Survey to explore the ways families use their time differently depending on whether school is in session or out for summer. We
June 23, 2023
A teacher tells a story to a group of students. Getty Images In a Cambodian children’s folktale, one man is afraid of lawyers and another is afraid of filth. As the story goes, both are constantly bombarded by their fears despite their efforts to avoid them. The moral of the tale is revealing and contains a powerful anti-racism message: What you hate becomes your fate. As an educational linguist and a psychologist who specialize in children’s literacy development, we know that reading such folktales about people from different ethnic groups reduces prejudice in young children. By age 4, children learn
June 26, 2023
‘Sociology of Guns’ students during a gun range field trip. Sandra Stroud Yamane, Author provided Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching. Title of course: “Sociology of Guns” What prompted the idea for the course? I grew up in the liberal culture of the San Francisco Bay Area and never touched a firearm until I was 42 years old, living in North Carolina and teaching sociology at Wake Forest University. For the past 10-plus years I have been deeply immersed in American gun culture both professionally and personally. I have both studied
June 26, 2023
The pandemic’s effect on student learning could exacerbate racial and economic achievement gaps. Laura Olivas/Moment Collection/Getty Images The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea The COVID-19 pandemic had a stark negative impact on students’ math scores, new data from Michigan shows. Math achievement growth over the three-year period from spring 2019 through spring 2022 was substantially lower – approximately 7 national percentiles – than among comparable students the three years prior. There were even larger decreases among students who are Black or Latino, low income or who attended the majority of schools that
June 27, 2023
The Supreme Court issued a decision on June 29, 2023, that ends affirmative action in college admissions. Drew Angerer/Getty Images In an anticipated but nonetheless stunning decision expected to have widespread implications on college campuses and workplaces across the country, the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 2023, outlawed affirmative action programs that were designed to correct centuries of racist disenfranchisement in higher education. In the majority opinion about the constitutionality of admissions programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Harvard’s and UNC’s race-based admission guidelines “cannot be
June 30, 2023
A person protests outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 29, 2023. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana In a 6-3 ruling on Thursday, June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of race in college admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, outlawing the use of race in college admissions in general. The Conversation reached out to three legal scholars to explain what the decision means for students, colleges and universities, and ultimately the nation’s future. Kimberly Robinson, Professor of Law at the University of Virginia Writing for the majority in a case
June 30, 2023
The Supreme Court rejected President Joe Biden’s plan to eliminate $430 billion in student loan debt Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images The Supreme Court has struck down the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan. In Biden v. Nebraska, the court ruled 6-3 on June 30, 2023, that the secretary of education does not have the authority to forgive US$430 billion of student loans under the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act. That kills the president’s proposed plan to forgive up to $10,000 in student loans per borrower for those with incomes under $125,000 per year, or $250,000 per
June 30, 2023
Harvard students protesting on July 1, 2023, after the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action. Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Ever since U.S. President Lyndon Johnson enacted affirmative action in 1965, white conservatives have challenged the use of race in college admissions. Their arguments against such policies are typically based on the use of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which prohibits discrimination against American citizens on the basis of their race, religion or sexuality. According to this conservative thinking, race-based solutions are discriminatory by their very definition and, as such, are unconstitutional.
July 07, 2023
Research shows that at least 17% of the population experiences high levels of math anxiety. Emilija Manevska/Moment via Getty Images The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Putting off college math could improve the likelihood that students remain in college. But that may only be true as long as students don’t procrastinate more than one year. This is what colleagues and I found in a study published in 2023 of 1,119 students at a public university for whom no remedial coursework was required during their first year. Enrolling in a math course during
July 07, 2023
Warm, supportive caregiving can help counteract the effects of stress during childhood and development. The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Warm and supportive parenting may buffer against the effects of stress during childhood and adolescence. That is the key takeaway of our recent study, published in the journal PNAS Nexus. Some children and adolescents who experience stressful events such as physical abuse or neglect have less tissue in a brain region called the hippocampus. The hippocampus plays a critical role in learning and memory and is also highly susceptible to stress. However,
July 10, 2023
Lise Meitner, in the front row, sits alongside many male colleagues at the Seventh Solvay Physics Conference in 1933. Corbin Historical via Getty Images Christopher Nolan’s highly-anticipated movie “Oppenheimer,” set for release July 21, 2023, depicts J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb. But while the Manhattan Project wouldn’t have been possible without the work of many accomplished female scientists, the only women seen in the movie’s trailer are either hanging laundry, crying or cheering the men on. The only women featured in the official trailer for Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ are crying, hanging laundry
July 12, 2023
Novels about underwater adventures offer a glimpse at oceanic life. fotograzia via Getty Images When OceanGate, the deep-sea exploration enterprise, created a promotional video for its ill-fated US$250,000-per-head trip to see the wreck of the Titanic, it told prospective passengers to “Get ready for what Jules Verne could only imagine – a 12,500-foot journey to the bottom of the sea.” Those behind the video hoped viewers would recognize the allusion to the author of one of the most influential and widely read oceanic novels of all time, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” There are indeed eerie similarities between the 1870
July 12, 2023
Critics of legacy admissions argue they maintain racial hierarchies that disproportionately benefit white students. YinYang/iStock via Getty Images Not long after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision to ban the use of race in college admissions, people began to ask questions once again about the fairness of legacy admissions. Legacy admission is a practice in which colleges give a preference to the children of graduates when deciding which students to let in. As a researcher who specializes in education and workplace policies, I have examined why people support legacy admissions and not affirmative action. I found that even though
July 13, 2023
Affirmative action for college students in Brazil led to better employment prospects for those who benefited from the policy. Cesar Okada via Getty Images When Brazil implemented affirmative action at its federal universities in 2012, the policy prompted a public debate that largely resembles the debate over affirmative action in the United States. Brazil’s affirmative action policy requires every federal university to reserve at least half of all seats for students from certain groups. Out of that half, about half of the seats go solely to Black, mixed and Indigenous Brazilians. The other half go to low-income public-school students. Other
July 17, 2023
UN experts urge United Nations to lay foundations for global governance of artificial intelligence
Thailand household financial conditions fragile, central bank chief says
Asian shares bathed in Fed afterglow, yen jittery ahead of BOJ
China unexpectedly leaves lending rates steady; markets expect cuts soon
Dodgers clinch 12th straight playoff berth on Shohei Ohtani's historic night
Diana Taurasi all business in what could be final home game of her 20-year career
Walt Disney appoints 'Moana' writer Jared Bush as creative head of animation studios