October 21, 2004
CollegeNews.org: Top Higher Ed Priorities for Next U.S. Administration
Remarks by acting Earlham President Nelson E. Bingham are included among the responses of a dozen liberal arts college presidents from across the country asked to weigh in on what they believe should be the top higher education priorities for the next U.S. president. “It is vital,” says Bingham, that the next administration take steps to address the “growing socioeconomic disparity that is a serious challenge” not only to higher education, but also to American society at-large.
October 14, 2004
Million-Dollar Gift Endows Management Chair
Fortunate alumni often give back to their alma maters by making significant contributions toward program enhancements, scholarships, faculty chairs and other worthy needs of one’s college or university. What helps to make recent benefactions to the College by corporate executive Ron McDaniel even more special and appreciated is that McDaniel is not an Earlham graduate.
October 07, 2004
Don't Tell "Dubya"
Given his recently expressed negative view of “legacy” admissions — or children of alumni admitted with supposed preference to their parents’ alma mater — it’s probably best that no one tell President George W. Bush (himself a “legacy” at Yale) about first-year student Tom Schutt, who can trace his family connection to Earlham back five generations, to within two years of the College’s founding in 1847.
New York Post: "Christmas" Gift — Of Life
In a recent article fellow Class of ‘77 alumni Brian Carter and Vincent Christmas reflected on the life-changing events (for each of them) of last spring, when Carter donated one of his kidneys so that his friend of 30 years could live. It is the second time that the newspaper has profiled the two men, first telling their story last April in the days leading up to their surgeries at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York. Fully recovered, Christmas and Carter now are working together to promote kidney donations through the development of a new Web site:www.give2.org
WIPB-TV (PBS): Post-9/11 Treatment of Arabs, Muslims Spurs Pictorial Remembrance of WWII Internment
Brooklyn-based artist Katie Yamasaki ‘99 says she’d wanted to paint a mural about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II for several years, but it was the distressingly similar arrests and detainment of many persons of Middle Eastern descent following the 9/11 attacks that finally moved her to action. While creating the new mural on campus in September, Yamasaki told its story to WIPB-TV, Indiana Public Broadcasting (be sure to click the video link).
October 06, 2004
The Atlantic Monthly: Earlham Produces More Eventual Ph.D. Grads Than Some In Ivy League
“Who Needs Harvard?” That’s the question contributing editor Gregg Easterbrook asks in an article in the October 2004 college admissions issue of The Atlantic Monthly. “The pressure on smart kids to get into top schools has never been higher,” writes Easterbook. “But, the differences between these schools and the next tier down have never been smaller.” And in some cases, Easterbrook observes, lesser known schools actually exceed the accomplishments of their “elite” peers. He writes, for example, “In the 1990s little Earlham, with just 1,200 students, produced a higher percentage of graduates who have since received doctorates than did Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern, Penn, or Vassar.” A Web version of “Who Needs Harvard?” is available from The Brooking Institute of Stanford University, where Easterbrook is a visiting fellow in economic studies.
Newsweek: Alumnus Advises How to Cut Diabetes Risk: "Cut Stress"
Richard Surwit ‘68 is vice chairman for research, psychiatry and behavior at Duke University Medical Center. He argues in the September 27 edition of Newsweek that, compared with other methods of managing diabetes — strict diets, insulin injections, vigilant blood-sugar monitoring — diabetes patients can help keep their condition in check by simply learning to relax.