| November 2005
Education-Academic | Ethnic
Groups | Immigration | Media
| Religion | Urban Society
| Youth Culture
E1 - The Best Class Money Can Buy
Quirk, Matthew
Atlantic, November 2005, v296, #4, p128-134
Enrollment management is a relatively new but increasingly essential
post in higher education in the U.S., with most colleges and universities
now employing an enrollment manager to oversee admissions and
financial aid. Enrollment management has transformed admissions
and financial aid: At its most advanced it is involved in all
aspects of the interaction between a student and a school, and
any aspect of university life that bears on a school's place in
the collegiate pecking order is fair game. Enrollment managers,
however, are now criticized for the way they have changed financial
aid - from a tool to help low-income students into a strategic
weapon to entice wealthy and high-scoring students. Matthew
Quirk is an Atlantic Monthly reporter-researcher.
Fulltext
E2 - Is There Life After Rankings?
Diver, Colin
Atlantic, November 2005, v296, #4, pp136-139
Reed College belongs to the five percent of colleges and universities
that no longer participate in the U.S. News & World Report
ranking survey because it feels that the rankings reinforce the
view that education is instrumental only in achieving “extrinsic
goals such as prestige or wealth,” rather than intrinsic rewards,
and also that the rankings create incentives to inflate scores
by manipulating data or distorting institutional behavior. The
college has thrived since shunning the rankings system because
it now has the freedom "to pursue its own educational philosophy,
not that of some newsmagazine." Colin Diver is the president
of Reed College. Fulltext
E3 - Inside the Ivory Tower
Peterson, Susan, Michael J. Tierney, Daniel Maliniak,
Foreign Policy, November/December 05, v151, pp58-64
Professors at 1,157 institutions of higher learning in the United
States were asked to identify the 25 most influential contemporary
international thinkers and the top 20 graduate schools for the
study of foreign policy. Among the results from the survey: despite
their supposedly global outlook, American scholars primarily assign
American authors to their students; also, professors are convinced
that East Asia will be the most strategically important region
20 years from now, but only 9% say they have a research expertise
in that part of the world; and finally, almost all believe that
the US is less respected in the world because of Iraq, and that
this loss of respect poses a significant problem for U.S. foreign
policy. Susan Peterson is dean for educational policy and
professor of government, Michael J. Tierney is assistant professor
of government, and Daniel Maliniak is an undergraduate at the
College of William and Mary. Fulltext
E4 - America's Other Muslims
Peter Skerry
The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 2005, v29, #4, pp16-28
"Today there are between two and three million Muslims living
in the United States. Most of them -anywhere from two thirds to
four-fifths - are immigrant-origin Muslims. Since 9/11 these newcomers
have felt under siege yet challenged to become more directly involved
in American society and politics. For potential allies and guides
through this unfamiliar terrain, they have been turning to African-American
Muslims." W.D. Mohammed's African-American Muslims followers
reject racial and religious separatism and are firm believers
in the American dream. The author discusses whether Imam Mohammed
can help make America's immigrant Muslims more at home in their
adopted country? Peter Skerry, a former Wilson Center fellow,
teaches political science at Boston College and is a nonresident
senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Fulltext
E5 - Rise, Peak and Decline: Trends in U.S. Immigration 1992
– 2004
Passel, Jeffrey S.; Suro, Roberto
Pew Hispanic Center, Report, September 27, 2005, 64p
This report “provides the first detailed analysis of recent year-to-year
immigration flows to the United States. Using newly developed
statistical methods Jeffrey S. Passel … breaks down the overall
increases in the foreign-born population that the United States
has experienced since the early 1990s into estimates of annual
flows and charts key changes in its major components, including
countries of origin and legal status.” This publication “offers
new insights into the pace and content of migration. The report
is based on multiple data sources compiled by the US Census Bureau.”
Jeffrey S. Passel is a senior research associate at the Pew
Hispanic Center. Roberto Suro is the director of the Pew Hispanic
Center. Fulltext
E6 - Oversight Hearing on "Dual Citizenship, Birthright
Citizenship, and the Meaning of Sovereignty"
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims, September
29, 2005
“Nationality and citizenship define an individual’s membership
to a political community, and confer a significant set of privileges
and civic responsibilities. U.S. citizenship allows an individual
to carry an American passport, vote, run for office, be employed,
and gain numerous other benefits. Each nation defines the rules
of nationality or citizenship for itself. In the U.S., an individual
can acquire citizenship by birth or through naturalization.” This
hearing examines “the subject of so-called birthright citizenship”
and dual citizenship as it relates to persons in the United States,
and its long-term effects generally on [U.S.] sovereignty as a
nation.” Dr. Stanley Renshon, City University of New York
Graduate Center, Dr. John Fonte, Senior Fellow at The Hudson Institute,
Dr. John Eastman, Professor at Chapman University School of Law
and Peter Spiro, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Dean
and Virginia Rusk Professor of International Law at University
of Georgia School of Law served as witnesses in this oversight
hearing. All statements are available via this website. Fulltext
E7 - Reforming Dual Citizenship in the United States. Integrating
Immigrants into the American National Community
Renshon, Stanley A.
Center for Immigration Studies Paper 25, October 2005, 30p
”In the past four decades, because of substantial increases in
immigration, America has become more racially, ethnically, and
culturally diverse. At the same time, the country’s cultural,
social, and political institutions have been subject to enormous
pressure — domestically from multiculturalism and internationally
from the rise of international cosmopolitanism… This paper explores
the intersection of high immigration rates into a culture under
pressure to allow and even encourage new immigrants, as well as
Americans more generally, to downplay their attachments to the
American national community in favor of attachments abroad.”
Stanley A. Renshon is professor of political science at the City
University of New York and a certified psychoanalyst. He is also
coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Program in the Psychology
of Social and Political behavior at the City University of New
York Graduate Center. Fulltext
E8 - Rethinking the Gains from Immigration: Theory and Evidence
from the U.S.
Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P; Peri, Giovanni
National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 11672,
September 2005, 45p.
”Contrary to the findings of previous literature, overall immigration
generates a large positive effect on the average wages of U.S.-born
workers. [The authors] show evidence of this positive effect by
estimating the impact of immigration on both average wages and
housing values across U.S. metropolitan areas (1970-2000). We
also reproduce this positive effect by simulating the behavior
of average wages and housing prices in an open city-economy, with
optimizing U.S.-born agents who respond to an inflow of foreign-born
workers of the size and composition comparable to the immigration
of the 1990s.” Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano is affiliated with
the Department of Economics at University of Bologna. Giovanni
Peri is affiliated with the Department of Economics at UC Davis.
Fulltext
E9 - Uncharted Terrain
Smolkin, Rachel
American Journalism Review, October/November 2005, v27, #5,
pp32-41
As editors and lawyers revise internal policies, the prosecutor's
actions in the Plame case (involving the leak of a CIA operative's
identity) and the dramatic jailing of Times reporter Judith Miller
have rekindled efforts to enact a federal shield law that would
protect reporters from revealing sources in most situations. Rachel
Smolkin is an AJR senior writer. Fulltext
E10 - Beyond Deep Throat
Greenberg, David
Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 2005, v44, #3,
pp51-54
“With the publication of The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s
Deep Throat, Bob Woodward’s memoir of his relationship with his
legendary source — now known to be the former FBI honcho Mark
Felt -- speculation about journalism’s greatest mystery has ended.
But as exciting as many found the resolution of Washington’s oldest
floating parlor game, to students of the press and the presidency
it presented a chance to answer other questions about Watergate
and journalism, some of which matter far more than Deep Throat’s
identity.” David Greenberg is a professor of journalism, media
studies, and history at Rutgers University. He worked as Bob Woodward’s
assistant on The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House (1994). Fulltext
E11 - Evolution & Intelligent Design: Understanding Public
Opinion
Nisbet, Matthew C.; Nisbet, Erik C.; Hansen, Kathryn
Geotimes, v50, #9, September 2005, online edition
"Tensions in American society over religious and scientific
accounts of human origins are centuries old, and the divide between
the two contending worldviews continues today as part of an escalating
political conflict over science education." This article
discusses recent U.S. surveys on evolution and how it should be
taught in American schools. These polls show the confusion of
the public debate over this topic. Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D., is
an assistant professor in the School of Communication at the Ohio
State University. Erik C. Nisbet is a senior research associate
at the Survey Research Institute at Cornell University. Kathryn
Hansen is professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
Fulltext
urban society
E12 - Can Immigration Save the Cities?
Motavelli, Jim
E: The Environmental Magazine, September/October 2005, v16,
#5
Wausau, Wisconsin may seem like the furthest thing from a global
mega-city, but the forces in play in this small city are echoes
of the worldwide issues of population and immigration. Over the
past decades Wausau has received a large influx of Hmong, a nomadic
Laotian hill people who fought under the direction of CIA advisors
during the Vietnam War era. Motavelli examines the demographic
shifts caused by increased immigration to the U.S. (This article
is a companion article to "Cities of the Future" in
the same issue.) Jim Motavalli
is editor of E. The Environmental Magazine. Fulltext
Youth Culture
E13 - The Battle Over Gay Teens
Cloud, John,
Time, October 10, 2005, v166, #15, pp42-51
The author profiles the new generation of gay teens in the U.S.
and how gay youth are challenging both the right and the left.
Children who become aware of their homosexual attractions no longer
need endure the baleful combination of loneliness and longing
that characterized the childhoods of so many say adults. Gay kids
can now watch fictional and real teens who are ‘out’ on shows...
Over a dozen novels about gay adolescents have been released in
the past two years. Gay kids can subscribe to the 10-month-old
glossy YGA Magazine (YGA stands for "young gay America")
and meet thousands of other gays via young gayamerica.com or outproud.org.
John Cloud is a Time staff writer. Fulltext
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