The opinions presented below are solely the views of the author and do not represent the views of The News-Letter. If you are a member of the Hopkins community looking to submit a piece or a letter to the editor, please email opinions@jhunewsletter.com.
This past Alumni Weekend, members of the first full class of female undergraduates were welcomed back to Hopkins to commemorate 50 years since their graduation. Since then, we’ve come a long way on making progress toward gender equity in academics, athletics and campus culture.
If we want to address the rising cost of housing in this country, we need to take a hard look at how our own zoning laws and restrictions are the cause of this. Let's get straight to the point: The U.S. is in the middle of a housing crisis.
In the days since Mitt Romney was announced as the University’s 2024 commencement speaker, students on campus have expressed their disapproval of the University’s choice of such a polarizing political figure. Are not all political figures polarizing, though? As a leftist, I couldn’t disagree more with Romney’s politics. Yet, Romney is not a bad person. Romney is simply a man who holds different political opinions to myself and other left-leaning college students. I believe Romney should speak at the commencement, and his polarizing presence could even be valuable to our community.
Minors are restricted from receiving contraceptives, abortions and other types of reproductive health care from their primary physicians without parental consent in many states. Yet, 44% of women who use birth control pills (BCP) are girls aged 15 to 19, outnumbering women aged 35 and over. Anyone seeking medical care has the right to receive the medication they want for their personal medical conditions. Minors seeking contraceptives should not be excluded from this medication and their access should be legally protected.
Many of us woke up last Tuesday to the heartbreaking news that Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge had collapsed. The bridge was struck by the Dali, a Singaporean-flagged cargo ship en route to Sri Lanka.
If you spent your break checking Canvas from the beaches of Cancún or frantically writing papers from airport terminals, you are not the only one. Contrary to what the name might suggest, spring break doesn’t always feel like a break. Our academic responsibilities seldom pause for our vacations with friends or trips back home.
Hopkins is not insulated from the trend of rising college tuition and student debt. In the past decade, the cost of attendance at Hopkins, including tuition and living costs, has increased 10% more than the average increase at other U.S. colleges. Although the University states that it is committed to making every attempt possible to prevent students from taking on loans, many still graduate with substantial debt. The average debt among Hopkins undergraduates who have federal loans is $12,750. For the 6% of graduating seniors who borrow from private lenders, the average loan is an astounding $52,734.
The notion that the humanities are inherently less valuable than STEM has pushed students away from studying societally important subjects. While a sizable number of students continue to study the humanities, the number of humanities degrees awarded drops every year, dropping nearly 25% from 2012 to 2020. This decline of the humanities could deeply hurt academia and society as a whole.
Another day, another TikTok trend. Yesterday it was the “clean girl” aesthetic, and today it’s “mob wife.” What do these things have in common? They’re both ploys to get impressionable young girls to buy into a new trend. This makes these girls a cog in the capitalist machine — it makes rich influencers richer, rather than giving girls the space to carve out their own lifestyle and sense of fashion.
If you haven’t noticed yet from the many posters around campus or the flurry of social media activity, it is officially time to elect our student government representatives for the next year. The Student Government Association (SGA) elections are set for March 11 and 12, and positions range from class senators to the Executive Board. Yet, we’re disappointed to see a relative lack of interest in the Executive Board positions.
There are reasons why we’ve all read the classics in high school that seem to get annually recycled in English curriculums nationwide. Timeless themes of human compassion and conflict, dynamic character development and carefully crafted motifs remain a source of inspiration and recurring analysis for readers. Yet, these key components vital to what we call truly “classic” literature are dwindling in the modern publishing industry, where rising consumerism and mass production are leading to the imminent decline of the creation of future classics.
When Colorado and Maine made the decision to remove former President Donald Trump from their ballots back in December 2023, and based their decision on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, I was surprised to see concrete action taken on disqualifying him from the elections. I thought responses to Trump’s presidential candidacy wouldn’t go further than complaining and criticizing his past actions.
If you have TikTok or any short-form social media, have walked into a bookstore recently or have simply spoken to someone who likes to read, you’ve probably heard of BookTok.
It is unacceptable for Hopkins to pay their graduate students less than the cost of living under any circumstances, but especially egregious when considered alongside the vast surplus that Hopkins has accumulated.
If you’ve ever traveled from Homewood Campus to Fells Point, you’ll know how hard it can be to get to certain parts of Baltimore without shelling out money for an Uber. The Blue Jay Shuttle only offers rides within a limited radius, making it difficult to get to neighborhoods in East, West and South Baltimore. But, there’s an alternative to calling a shuttle or an Uber — Baltimore has a public transportation system. Why don’t we use it more often?
The SAT is one of the most contentious aspects of college admissions. It has drawn scrutiny from many on the left for discriminating by race and socioeconomic status, propelling already privileged students to advantages in admission to top colleges in the U.S. Many elite universities have made their pandemic-era test-optional policy permanent, like Columbia University, or gone test-blind entirely, like the University of California system.
Those of us who have been following changes in governance here at Hopkins have watched as President Daniels has, over his long presidency, accumulated power at the expense of other University constituencies. Even at an institution in which power has become centralized as it has at Hopkins, however, the idea that an epistolary exchange between a dean and university president could unilaterally dissolve an elected faculty body seems quite extraordinary.
A city gets its personality from its people — likewise, people are heavily influenced by where they call home. In the complexity of modern life, we often forget about this simple, symbiotic relationship — what we give to our city is what we get. In this light, making cities more walkable and pedestrian-friendly gives back to a city that has already given us so much.
In contrast to the careless mass production of content by AI, student journalists at The News-Letter devote much more time and effort to their work. Our staff spends hours attending events, conducting and transcribing interviews, and writing and polishing content, all while balancing school work. It is a slap in the face to have our work lazily swiped.
At a competitive school like Hopkins, students can often feel pressured into activities that improve their resumes and medical school applications at the expense of engaging in activities for leisure. Although you may claim that doing research, volunteering at a clinic or participating in a consulting club is a hobby, at the end of the day, you are probably doing it with the aim of advancing your career. We should find fulfillment outside of pursuits for academic or professional validation.
