After spending much of November 22, 1963 in the Tabor College library working on some long-forgotten term paper, I went to my freshman Psychology class.   The professor walked in, looking very sad, and asked if anyone had something urgent that needed to be addressed immediately. “Otherwise,” he continued, “in view of what happened today, I just don’t feel like teaching.”  When nobody said anything, he picked up his papers and walked out.  Stunned, I turned to another student and asked what had happened.  He told me that President Kennedy had been shot.  When I asked if the President was going to be okay, my colleague responded, “No, Kennedy is dead.” It felt like the whole world had stopped.  It

While tracking the path of Super Typhoon Haiyan online as it moved across the Philippines, I realized that it was passing over the island of Cebu around that time.  My family and I lived in Cebu City for 10 months while I did research as a Fulbright Scholar a number of years ago.  Several of my Cornell University graduate students also did field research in this region so the places I saw on the map, were familiar. This evening, a blog on the Christianity Today web site entitled, “How churches can help without hurting after Super Typhoon Haiyan but don’t become an SUV (Spontaneous Uninvited Volunteer)” caught my eye.  Having worked in disaster relief, during (and following) wars and famines

The national debate over student loan debt has almost obscured a more basic question; will people need college degrees in the future?  The research is clear.  College graduates earn significantly more money during their careers, are more likely to be employed and quicker to find new jobs than those without degrees.  Graduates are also more likely to have pensions and health insurance, and less likely to draw on public assistance. College graduates, the studies show, not only have higher levels of general knowledge than non-graduates, but also greater ability to think critically, higher levels of verbal and quantitative skills, more self-confidence and more highly developed leadership skills. They’re also more likely to exercise, vote, participate in the political process, give

Angry debates over state and national budgets have placed higher education in the political crosshairs. The painful cuts facing our public universities and the public support for students attending independent institutions have been well documented. So have abuses by for-profit colleges and individuals who treat financial aid like welfare, collecting money for degrees they have no intention of earning. In tough economic times, these problems have led some to call for wholesale cuts to federal and state grants and programs that enable hundreds of thousands of students from families with limited means to attend college. Clearly these abuses must be stopped and the system made more accountable. But simply slashing funds will only keep the hardworking majority of students—many the