Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896
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Opinion

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.

Calendar changes benefit students

March 27, 2014

Midway through last week, the Hopkins administration announced several changes to the academic calendar. Beginning in the 2014-2015 academic year, Thanksgiving Break will be extended to a full week, and to make up the days lost, classes will begin two days earlier at the start of the fall semester. Furthermore, during Thanksgiving and Spring Breaks, undergraduate residence halls will remain open. Previously, Thanksgiving Break began the Wednesday before the holiday, and all residence halls except for Homewood and Bradford shut down during the two mid-semester breaks. The Editorial Board would like to applaud the University for these decisions.

Commencement embraces equality

March 27, 2014

The commencement speaker for the Class of 2014 was revealed on Tuesday and will be YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Wojcicki, in whose garage the company Google was founded, has been named one of the 50 most powerful women in business by Fortune magazine, and one of the 100 most powerful women in the world by Forbes magazine. The announcement comes at the heels of controversy surrounding the commencement decisions in recent years, on topics ranging from speaker compensation, to prior Hopkins exposure to the speaker, to Dr. Ben Carson’s social conservatism. Wojcicki will not be compensated for her services (although we suspect that she, as CEO of YouTube and a founding member of Google, hardly needed the money anyway). Commencement will be held on May 22.

Class provides practical skill set

March 13, 2014

The Editorial Board commends the University and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences for developing and promoting the course “U.S. Intelligence Community: Theory and Practice.” We feel that it is vitally important that students at Hopkins expose themselves to environments that are highly similar to actual workplace situations. This course achieves this critical characteristic by transcending the usual discussion based style of learning to reinforce critical thinking skills through impromptu exercises that require intense focus and teamwork.

Women’s Summit gives insight

March 13, 2014

This past Saturday, five successful female leaders affiliated with Hopkins came to Homewood to share their wisdom, insight and advice with Hopkins’ female student body. Organized by the newly founded, eight-member undergraduate group Women’s Initiative for Social Equity (WISE), the event featured lawyer-turned-broadcast-journalist and NBC 10 Philadelphia news anchor Renee Chenault-Fattah as the keynote speaker. Chenault-Fattah, a 1979 Hopkins graduate, was followed by Mindy Farber (Class of ‘74), Joanne Leedom-Ackerman (Board of Trustees member) and Sarah Hemminger (BME PhD from Whiting) at the speaking podium. Before lunch, the 60 or so attendees were partnered with alumnae, faculty and WISE board members and given the opportunity to discuss issues faced by working women in a one-on-one conversation. WISE plans to host similar events moving forward, including a speaker series this fall and an informational meet-and-greet on March 31.

Rational dialogue more effective at combating crazy ideas than derision

By NATHAN BICK | March 7, 2014

This past Wednesday, the Johns Hopkins Foreign Affairs Symposium kicked off their Spring 2014 series of speakers by hosting Governor Martin O’Malley, current two-time governor of Maryland, former mayor of Baltimore City, national political figure, and potential future presidential candidate. O’Malley addressed the overall FAS topic of “Idealism vs. Realism” by discussing an environmentally-informed economic vision for the future of the nation. After his speech, the Governor accepted several questions from the audience in an extended Q&A segment. It was during this period that the LaRouche PAC made its appearance.

Promoting mental health is not the same as educating about mental illness

By CARISSA ZUKOWSKI | March 7, 2014

With February being Mental Health Awareness month, Hopkins students have recently been bombarded by Facebook statuses, emails, and flyers on the Breezeway promoting the topic. Most of us understand the gist of it: don't stress too much, talk to someone, look for red flags from our friends, etc. We are also aware, to some extent, of the prevalent role that mental health disorders and diseases play in competitive and ambitious environments.

Politicized Olympics reflect poorly on Russian hosts

By NIKA SABASTEANSKI | March 1, 2014

The political undertones of the Olympic games occupy a spectrum, taking center stage in some years and a back seat in others. Famous examples of the former were 1936, when Nazi Germany used the event as a stage for their propaganda, or 1972, when Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage, resulting in all of their deaths. The Olympics cannot be expected to be a two week pause in international hostilities, where the olive wreath bestowed on the victors from ancient times is fully realized in all of its symbolism. Every two years, the course of current events is interrupted as a city, perhaps unknown before they were selected by the committee to host the games, scrambles to wash the dishes and make up the guest bedrooms before the world arrives. But in a flash, they are over, and the world picks up where it had left off with no competition to distract from the turmoil that was momentarily quieted.

Wear your pride on your sleeve! In defense of patriotic belligerence

By WILL MARCUS | March 1, 2014

I am an extraordinarily patriotic guy. I own American flag shirts, shorts, socks, shorter shorts, sweat bands, swimsuits, and even boxers. Occasionally, I will wear Ol' Glory on every part of my body at the same time. At major sporting events, you would need Seal Team Six to keep me from joining in on the National Anthem.

Hopkins should offer speaker series' for class credit

By NATHAN BICK | March 1, 2014

As students here at Hopkins, we have an embarrassment of riches — but we don’t seem to know it. There are too many fascinating symposiums, speaker series, seminars, colloquia, presenters, and speakers that go largely unnoticed and unattended by people disconnected from the subject matter, or just unlucky enough to not get word.

Commemoration Ball boosts spirit

February 21, 2014

This week Hopkins will celebrate the 138th anniversary of Daniel Colt Gilman’s inauguration as the University’s first president in 1876 with Commemoration Day activities and the revival of the Commemoration Ball.

Employees deserve better treatment

February 21, 2014

Last semester, Hopkins switched the company it contracts to operate on campus undergraduate dining facilities. The old provider, Aramark, was replaced by Bon Appétit, but because the employees at these facilities are unionized and contracted with Hopkins directly, they are mostly the same workers who used to work for Aramark. Bon Appétit prides itself on its fresh food, and so far student reviews of the new dining options have been mostly positive. Unfortunately, the employees who work at these facilities are not so pleased. Multiple anonymous sources have come forward to The News-Letter reporting sizable lay-offs, slashed paychecks resulting from unpredictable hours reductions, overworked employees, mismanagement of guaranteed off-days, rude and inconsiderate treatment of subordinates, uncomfortable working conditions, explicit contract violations, inefficient refusal to specialize labor, angry and unprofessional employee interactions and unfairly delayed compensation.

US and allies must rethink Syria policy as Assad’s war marches on

By BAYLY WINDER | February 20, 2014

As the Syrian crisis nears the three year mark, hope for a resolution in the near future appears extremely low. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group, says that the period since the "Geneva 2" peace talks has been the bloodiest in the conflict’s history. When negotiations in Geneva concluded most recently, on February 15th, United Nations mediator Lakhdar Brahimi apologized to the Syrian people for another futile conversation. The final session of the conference, in fact, lasted a measly 27 minutes. When all sides left a neutral and pleasant Switzerland to return to their respectful home-bases, the sense of frustration was very palpable.

Rub some dirt on it! In defense of violence in sports

By WILL MARCUS | February 14, 2014

Way back in the day, (~10,000 BC) the only sport on Earth was killing stuff. There really wasn't much to do besides killing people...and making people. Sometimes for better and most of the time for worst, violence is an integral part of what makes us human. I'm here to talk about "the better".

Religious hierarchy is the biggest impediment to a more equitable America

By SARALLAH SALEHI | February 14, 2014

In his critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx emphatically claims, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless world.” Going further, Marx remarks religion is nothing but an opiate that provides an illusory sense of happiness, which impedes their ability to realize that real happiness lies not in an abstract illusion but rather in their concrete material relations. Almost 200 years after this insightful expose, religion today, more than any other factor, continues to play the most integral role in how a large majority of our country sees both itself and others’ position within the intricate global web.

Olympic observers must not be passive in the face of intolerance

By CARISSA ZUKOWSKI | February 14, 2014

With the Winter Olympics in full swing, all eyes are on Russia. The Games at Sochi are attracting a surplus of media attention, ranging from reports on the unfinished hotel rooms to the invasive surveillance program implemented to avoid terrorist attacks. Earlier this month, however, exposé writer Jeff Sharlet reported an even more somber Russian reality in an article in GQ Magazine, titled “Inside the Iron Closet: What it’s like to be gay in Putin’s Russia.” For those looking for a worthwhile read (or even just procrastinators bored of BuzzFeed), I highly recommend this short report on a world far away from our own.

Baltimore must rectify pervasive homelessness

By MADDIE GOODMAN | February 8, 2014

On the first Monday night of intersession, I walked into “Healthcare, Housing, and Homelessness in Baltimore,” with literally no idea what to expect; I had not even enrolled in the class. The friend I had just eaten an early dinner with told me that she was taking this class from six in the evening until eight thirty. Immediately, my adolescent mind recoiled: who wants to be in class that late? But as it turned out, dragging myself there through the cold Baltimore air was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Little did I realize, with the wind whipping my face as we walked to class, just how many people in Baltimore that evening were going to be sleeping in these extreme temperatures.

Invest your hope in something eternal

By JOSHUA KAYS | February 8, 2014

The other day, as I headed towards some unimportant engagement, I noticed a classmate (let’s call her “Jane”) walking by and offered her my usual enthusiastic greeting. She looked up with puffy eyes and an utterly exhausted sigh, and I could tell that this was not the afternoon for joyful gusto.

Facebook breeds social prejudice

By CARISSA ZUKOWSKI | February 8, 2014

We college students are often referred to as “Generation Y,” underwhelmingly defined as technology-frenzied, over-parented, high-spirited, and entitled. The last generation of young adults in our country were associated with technological advancements and praised for their innovation. But in Generation Y, these innovations have transformed into an invasion so pervasive that it distorts the expectations and understanding of social interactions in today’s society.

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