All posts tagged: college

A Clearing of the Ground | Christopher Benfey

A Clearing of the Ground | Christopher Benfey

Published by José Betancourt

Small liberal arts colleges face so many challenges today that their precarious survival may be more surprising than their escalating demise. The casualties are staggering, with an estimated eighty-nine colleges closing or merging since 2020 alone and forecasts that a quarter of the nation’s private colleges and universities are at risk in the coming decade. With a shrinking domestic applicant pool (the so-called “demographic cliff”), international students spooked by Trump’s immigration policies, rising costs and rising tuition, a terrifying job market exacerbated by AI, lingering fallout from the pandemic, plummeting interest in the humanities, and so on, even relatively comfortable institutions have had to rethink their priorities to stay afloat. And yet the shuttering of Hampshire College—which announced on April 14 that it finally couldn’t attract enough students to pay its debts—feels different, not so much another liberal arts domino falling as the symbolic end of a whole tradition of progressive education in the US. Since its founding on farmland outside Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1970, Hampshire was the most visible exemplar of a tradition of …

A rural college uses ancient Islamic archives to reconnect students to African legacy

A rural college uses ancient Islamic archives to reconnect students to African legacy

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — In a former segregated school in rural Virginia, an Islamic college has been reconnecting its mostly African American Muslim students with a legacy of faith and scholarship largely erased from mainstream history.  IQOU Theological College, in the town of Charlotte Court House, for the past two years has housed a small, borrowed collection of ancient manuscripts from the West African city of Timbuktu in Mali, a center of Islamic learning that thrived between the 13th and 17th centuries. It’s also a region where many Africans were kidnapped during the transatlantic slave trade.  Hafiz Hassan Ali Qadri, a Quran teacher at the college, said the 17 manuscripts can offer African American Muslims a concrete link to a part of their ancestors’ history. Seeing handwritten works on law, theology, astronomy and other subjects challenges an enduring narrative that enslaved Africans arrived in the United States with little education or scholarly traditions, he said. “It goes full circle, showing that this is where we came from — we came from knowledge,” Qadri said. “And what we’re …

Rare rotting-flesh smelling flower blooming at a Massachusetts college

Rare rotting-flesh smelling flower blooming at a Massachusetts college

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. What’s big, rare, and smells like literal death? If you guessed a corpse, you’re not wrong. The pungent flower in question is a tropical plant called titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), a species of corpse flower. Appropriately, people say it smells like rotting flesh.  The stinky plants are rare and native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Nevertheless, a corpse flower named “Pangy” calls Massachusetts’ Mount Holyoke College home, where it has just bloomed, according to the Associated Press. “Terrible,” “horrible,” “putrid,” and “rotten” are just some of the one-worded descriptions the blooming has inspired, per a Mount Holyoke College social media video. One person has a more inspired take: “Impressive. I don’t think I’ve smelled a flower that smells like that anywhere, so very impressive.”  The chances to be impressed by a titan arum are few, however, because its blooming cycle is brief and occurs every five to seven years. Researchers reportedly discovered the chemistry behind its pungent odor …

College Closures Are Getting More Common

College Closures Are Getting More Common

Published by Jenni Sidey

A slew of new reporting suggests a non-ideal image of American higher education in the year 2026. Hampshire College, the liberal arts institution in Massachusetts, recently announced its future closure due to financial problems. And it isn’t the only one. A number of colleges and universities across the country have shut their doors over the past few years, with others reporting real strain and lowering enrollment. Josh Moody writes in Inside Higher Education, Founded in 1965 and known for its progressive values and student-driven curriculum, Hampshire is the latest in a string of small colleges to announce closures this year, including Labouré College of Healthcare (also in Massachusetts) and Lourdes University. According to new data from Huron Consulting, nearly a quarter of the country’s 1,700 private, nonprofit four-year institutions may be forced to close or merge over the next decade. –Hampshire College Announces Closure According to some sound analysis by Michael B. Horn, two present realities threaten the long-term security of many schools: the declining birth rate and the unpromising “cash flow.” Basically, Americans stopped having as many babies after …

Pharmacist Tells Her Sister In College To Turn Down A Job Offer Over Salary

Pharmacist Tells Her Sister In College To Turn Down A Job Offer Over Salary

Published by Jenni Sidey

A college degree doesn’t exactly provide the return on investment it once did, thanks to our difficult job market. Still, one woman had high hopes for her sister’s first job post-grad and was unhappy with the job offer she received.  Finding an acceptable job after college graduation is not so easy these days, especially if you’re looking for something that pays well and has a positive work culture. In fact, according to The Washington Post, recent graduates are more likely to be unemployed than other workers.  The woman advised her sister not to take the job offer because she believed the pay was too low. Pharmacist and entrepreneur Dr. Najifa Choudhury wrote in her TikTok bio that she is “sharing ways for you to become wealthier and healthier.” It only makes sense that she would want her sister to do the same. However, there are conflicting views online about whether she gave her sister the right advice. In a video on the app, Choudhury shared “the low job offer [her] sister just got.” She explained that her sister …

Berklee College of Music Students Furious That It’s Offering an AI “Songwriting” Class

Berklee College of Music Students Furious That It’s Offering an AI “Songwriting” Class

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Hundreds of students at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston have signed an online petition protesting a new course on generative AI music and songwriting, marking another salvo in the continuing battle between artists and a technology they believe is stealing their hope for a livelihood. As of Tuesday, 418 people have signed the petition, which is targeting the two-credit course “Bots and Beats: AI and the Future of Songwriting” and calling for the school to stop leveraging AI on campus. The petition accuses the school of promoting OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which “steal the art of [tens of thousands] of artists and rot the essence of the industry and have devastating consequences on the environment all to create facsimiles of real human art,” the petition’s organizers wrote. Angry comments from current and former students filled the discussion area of the petition, with many expressing disappointment that a school known for fostering the creation of popular music has …

Hampshire College, Alma Mater to Many Artists, to Close After 51 Years

Hampshire College, Alma Mater to Many Artists, to Close After 51 Years

Published by José Betancourt

Hampshire College, a liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, will close after 51 years in operation, becoming the latest school of its kind to shutter amid financial difficulties. Though small in scale, the college has had an outsize effect on the art world, with its art department graduating a number of painters, sculptors, and photographers who went on to achieve fame in the years after their undergraduate education there. The alumni list includes Christina Quarles, a painter who is now represented by Hauser & Wirth and has shown at the Venice Biennale; Math Bass, a painter who has had shows at the Hammer Museum and MoMA PS1; and Every Ocean Hughes, an artist who has staged exhibitions and performances at institutions ranging from the Whitney Museum to the MIT List Center for Visual Arts. Related Articles Non-artist alumni of the college include filmmaker Ken Burns, actress Lupita Nyong’o, and the writer Eula Biss. The college, which will officially shutter after the fall 2026 semester, will allow students to complete their education at a range of …

Centennial College leads paramedic education with SimRig

Centennial College leads paramedic education with SimRig

Published by skeptic

Advanced ambulance simulation technology is transforming paramedic education at Centennial College, giving students immersive training that mirrors real-world emergency medical situations. Preparing future paramedics for the fast-paced world of emergency medical services (EMS) requires more than classroom learning. It needs realistic, hands-on training that mirrors the pressures of the field. That’s why, at Centennial College, paramedic students train in environments designed to reflect the real-world conditions they will face when responding to medical emergencies. This year, Centennial College’s Paramedic Program has taken another major step forward in EMS education with the unveiling of two new SimRig Classroom Ambulance Trainers – advanced ambulance simulation units designed to deliver hands-on paramedic training in a realistic clinical environment. This cutting-edge equipment was introduced during a special event on Friday 23 January at Centennial College’s Morningside Campus in Toronto, Ontario. Among the VIP attendees were Ron Kelusky, former Chief Prevention Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister; Susan Picarello, Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Health Services Branch at the Ministry of Health; and Councillor Neethan Shan of Scarborough–Rouge Park. The new simulation …

Parents Of Highly Intelligent Kids Do These 7 Things At Home Very Differently, Says College Advisor

Parents Of Highly Intelligent Kids Do These 7 Things At Home Very Differently, Says College Advisor

Published by Jenni Sidey

Intelligence is widely objective, characterized by creativity, curiosity, and even genetics — there’s not one single way to embody high intelligence, to measure it, or to seek it, even if you’re a professional.  “Intelligence reflects the general ability to process information, which promotes learning, understanding, reasoning, [and] problem-solving,” Dr. Linda S. Gottfredson, professor of education at the University of Delaware in Newark, told WebMD. However, there are ways parents can help to allow all of the traits that influence intelligence to flourish. “I’ve been surrounded by incredibly smart people, in high school, college, and even graduate school,” college advisor YJ Heo on TikTok explained in a recent video on cultivating high intelligence in your children.  “I’m not a parent, but this is what I’ve learned from these highly successful people.” Heo offered specific guidance for parents who want to prioritize learning and scholarly pursuits in their kids. Parents of highly intelligent kids do these 7 things at home very differently: 1. They embrace worldly dinner table discussions Kids are kids — of course — and they …