Weekend To-Do List

6/1 - 6/2

and

Jun 01, 2024

1. Harvard on Mute

READ: Harvard’s Institutional Voice Working Group released a report earlier this week, recommending that Harvard stop issuing statements on topics that do not directly affect the university’s “core function.” Conor Friedersdorf took to the pages of The Atlantic to applaud this stance and argue that institutional neutrality is critical for maintaining integrity and credibility and promoting inclusivity. Friedersdorf says more colleges and universities should adopt this stance in order to center individual voice and thought:

As university leaders pronounce less, faculty and students should feel more free to step up and speak up, not on behalf of any collective, but as individuals who prefer constructive discourse to groupthink. For those who crave pronouncements from the top, there is still religion.

2. Yale Set To Welcome First Woman President

READ: Congratulations are in order to Yale’s new president Dr. Maurie McInnis, currently the president of Stony Brook University. The university announced this week that Dr. McInnis will formally transition into the role in July, marking the first time a woman will serve as Yale’s permanent president. In her first remarks since the announcement became public, Dr. McInnis emphasized Yale’s commitment to ensuring a diverse campus:

“My deep commitment to advancing opportunities for students and for our prospective students is steadfast, certainly in my work at Stony Brook, and that will continue at Yale,” Dr. McInnis said in the interview, adding, “And none of that changes with the court ruling.”

As a graduate of both SUNY and Yale, I see this as a demotion. But it’s a strong move by Yale. Read more from Stephanie Saul in The New York Times here.

3. Gen Z Wants to Talk

READ: Molly Ball at The Wall Street Journal sat down with California Polytechnic State University students for a political discussion hosted by BridgeUSA. The 15 students discussed often controversial topics, like the Israel-Hamas War and the 2024 presidential election. Attendees say the majority of their peers want to participate in similar open-minded, exploratory conversations but haven’t found those opportunities in classrooms or similar settings:

“There’s a silent majority that wants to have a dialogue, but all the air is taken up by the vocal extremes, and the universities are held hostage by them.”

4. Communes for Parents

READ: Jay Caspian Kang took to the pages of The New Yorker to reflect on “The Commune Form,” a forthcoming book from historian Kristin Ross that examines the resurgence of communes and what today’s (often over-anxious and lonely) parents can learn from the alternative lifestyle. Of course, Caspian Kang notes that these lonely parents have never been more connected with one another thanks to group chats, e-mail chains, and social media. He says the antidote lies in a return to a communal spirit found primarily in physical spaces:

I attended a coöperative nursery school as a child, but, when it came time to send my daughter to a similar place, the price tag was close to three thousand dollars a month. A similar fate has met so many formerly communal spaces: civic recreational sports leagues replaced by competitive clubs, city pools replaced by prohibitively expensive swim centers, public schools supplemented with after-school tutoring. These are all physical spaces, and so many of them have been plundered by privatization and neglect. This is what happens when everyone just gets too busy to invest in the commons.

5. Immigration Crisis Continues To Grow

READ: As thousands of migrant children continue to arrive in the U.S., school districts are feeling the financial and operational strain. Jon Kamp and Alicia A. Caldwell reported on the influx of students to school districts outside Boston. They spoke with teachers who say the needs that arise from learning challenges, such as more than doubling ESL staff in one year, are much easier to solve than the personal challenges most students come with:

“There are huge trauma issues. There are students who don’t even have basic skills in their first language,” said Baeta. “In some cases they have lived in two, three or four countries and are not even five years old.”

Read more from Jon Kamp and Alicia A. Caldwell in The Wall Street Journal here.

6. Texas Voters Choose Vouchers

READ/LISTEN: Fewer than 400 votes saved Texas House speaker Dade Phelan’s job earlier this week. He was one of the lucky ones after 15 Republican incumbents were ousted from their seats in the state’s primaries. The majority of the victors were funded by school voucher proponents, a topic Governor Greg Abbott made sure to center in the months leading up to the election:

“While we did not win every race we fought in, the overall message from this year’s primaries is clear: Texans want school choice,” Abbott said. “Opponents can no loner ignore the will of the people.”

Abbott’s push comes after the voucher bill failed in Texas last year. Since then, he’s made the topic a cornerstone of his work and of those he closely works with. Read more from Carla Astudillo in The Texas Tribune here. I also talked about the elections on this week’s Lost Debate. Listen here.

7. L-e-s-s-o-n-s From a Champion

READ: Alyssa Lukpat spoke with 84-year-old William Cashore about the lessons he’s learned since winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee 70 years ago. Cashore says he’d be lost in recent competition years given the influx of technical terms like psammophile and moorhen. The retired neonatologist says future winners should temper their initial reactions:

“Keep your modesty,” he said. “Don’t make a big deal out of this until you see what it holds for you in the rest of your life.”

Congratulations to this year’s victor, 12-year-old Bruhat Soma, whose winning word was “abseil.” Read more in The Wall Street Journal here.