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 is an election year, and for most American voters the November midterm races for the House and the Senate are of paramount concern. But Americans should also pay close attention to elections happening abroad, particularly those in Italy, because they highlight important global trends which have wide-reaching ramifications.
“Flip flopping” is a very charged term in the realm of politics. However, from Reagan’s flip from liberal abortion legislation in California to anti-abortion laws in the White House; to Nixon’s promise to end Vietnam that turned into massive escalation; to Lincoln’s promise to not use federal troops within the borders of the Union (a flip we are all thankful for) — this process of changing agendas is a very normal part of a president’s career.
On Feb. 22, 2018 the Task Force on Student Mental Health and Well-being released a report outlining the insufficiently met mental health needs of students and strategies to better meet those needs. Three major recommendations called on Hopkins to “promote a climate of awareness,” “to provide greater access to mental health services” and “offer, and in some cases require, training on mental health awareness and resources for faculty, staff, and students.”
I started bullet journaling in May 2017. I started on the first day of May. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a special bullet journal. I didn’t have any fun pens. I didn’t have a plan. Actually, that was the whole reason I started doing it — because I didn’t have any plans.
It’s a well-known fact that for many people, Hopkins is a stressful school. There’s probably only one place in the world where you’ll see students streaming directly into the library after their University holds a campus-wide ceremony and light show, and that’s Hopkins!
The Parkland school shooting two weeks ago proved to be the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012. Video surveillance footage revealed that the single armed guard at the school never made an attempt to confront the shooter and never even went into the school.
Tonight marks the final figure skating event of the 2018 Winter Olympics: women’s long program. While the three Americans are likely out of contention for the podium, the gold medals favorites are Russian teens Evgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova, both of whom hold world records.
The University and President Daniels love to brag about the relationship that Hopkins has with Baltimore and about how Hopkins is an “anchor institution.”
What else is there to say about guns? In 1999, 12 students were fatally shot in Columbine High School.
With categorical evidnece that sea levels are rising and that the average global temperature is increasing, we need to show strong commitments to combatting climate change, especially given our current presidential administration’s refusal to take climate change seriously.
Every year, one billion toothbrushes (roughly 50 million pounds) are thrown out and added to landfills every year. That’s enough plastic to stretch around the world four times. The average American woman menstruates for 38 years and uses disposable feminine hygiene products. That’s roughly 250-300 pounds of garbage during your lifetime, just from your period.
I didn’t study abroad during my time at Hopkins. I stayed on campus for all four years and got to live vicariously through my friends posting on Instagram from cities across the globe: London, Buenos Aires, Rome, Sydney, Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, the list goes on. Sometimes I wished I was with them. But at the end of it all, as a second-semester senior, I’m glad I’ve spent four whole years at Hopkins.
I first heard about the community of Susya this fall. I was horrified to learn about the ways in which the inhabitants of the village, by virtue of the circumstances of their birth, are forced to live with the constant fear that their homes could be taken away at any moment. Susya is a Palestinian village of about 350 people, located in Area C of the West Bank.
There’s a pretty good chance that you, the Hopkins student reading this article, consumes drugs on the weekend. Or if not you, your friend or your roommate and certainly your classmates.
In this week’s editorials, we would like to highlight two stories that we believe are not discussed on our campus as much as they should be. Both stories are grounded in historically rooted problems that carry very real implications today. Even though these stories may not always be in the headlines that we read, we hope that we can — at the very least — be aware of them and perhaps, do something about them. —The Editorial Board
As they returned to campus this January, students working as leaders in the PILOT program were greeted with an email informing them that the program would be making cutbacks, including some leaders not being assigned a session for the semester. This is terrible news.
With the introduction of the internet, more specifically social media, activism has ceased to be the radical exercise it once was. Instead, it has become something accessible, something easy, something commonplace. Where marches and mass demonstrations used to be the main staples of activism and awareness, Twitter trends and Instagram hashtags now dominate.
Although the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by Donald Trump on Dec. 22, 2017 does not contain the repeal of tuition remissions for graduate students employed as research assistants (RAs) and teaching assistants (TAs), the occasion of this near-crisis has brought to light a number of important issues for graduate students at Hopkins.
At the end of the fall semester, our Board of Trustees finally released their decision on fossil fuel divestment. In an email to the Hopkins community, President Daniels lauded their decision to divest from companies that make more than 35 percent of their profits from coal, rather than follow the Public Interest Investment Advisory Committee (PIIAC)’s recommendations to divest from companies that profit from all types of fossil fuels.
Renowned investor Bill Miller recently donated $75 million to the University’s Department of Philosophy. Not only is this donation the largest gift to any Hopkins humanities department, but it is also the largest donation to any philosophy department in the country.
