The recent Supreme Court decision to strike down affirmative action effectively disparages the intellectual value and contributions of racial and ethnic minority students. The decision leads those of us who saw affirmative action as an important attempt to remedy historic and systemic racism to question the foundation of equality and justice in U.S. educational institutions Read more
Health
“It’s a very insidious, beneath-the-radar-screen public health emergency…. [F]unction is being considerably impaired…[but] that doesn’t attract as much attention as a death rate.” (Dr. Anthony Fauci interview about long COVID, October 2022) I scanned Robbins Auditorium on Rose F. Kennedy (RFK) Center Day. I noted few masks; mine was the only N95. With the announced Read more
Roberta was a successful healthcare provider working in emergency services at a hospital in Pennsylvania. Eighteen months ago she changed jobs, with a salary increase and greater responsibilities, to run the sexual-assault survivor services at her hospital. The new role entailed daily immersion in the stories and emotional and medical aftermath of sexual assault. Sixteen Read more
As I was preparing for a parent conference, gathering information on autism and making copies to provide to the parents, I realized I was anxious. My stomach was in knots and I asked myself why I was nervous. It dawned on me that I was getting ready once again to tell parents that their child has autism. My Read more
EDITORS’ NOTE: The following post first appeared in The Conversation. Social ballroom dancing can improve cognitive functions and reduce brain atrophy in older adults who are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. That’s the key finding of my team’s recently published study in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity. In our study, we Read more
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” So wrote John Donne in 1642. While we might want to update this statement by saying “No person is an island,” and while this was intended to point out people’s dependencey on others, there Read more
