Time to vote and not to despair Over the past couple weeks, I have had the privilege of talking with many people about the qualifications of Brett Kavanaugh to be Supreme Court justice. These included Republicans and Democrats, several people who knew and had practiced law, students, faculty, family members… Read More
Category Archive: leadership
Last words to live by
Transcendent power of last messages In September 2007, people in academia and beyond were moved by the last lecture of Dr. Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon University professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design. Knowing he was suffering from incurable pancreatic cancer, Pausch wanted to leave students and colleagues with… Read More
Making the right choices in higher education leadership
Choosing leaders is no simple matter. I read with interest last weekend an emailed announcement from William F. Lee, chair of the presidential search committee, about the selection of Lawrence Bacow as the next president of Harvard University. Bacow succeeds Drew Gilpin Faust, a president I have admired greatly for… Read More
Revisiting banned words and a change of leadership at CDC
I wrote an earlier blog post about reports that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had banned certain words from use in communications by the agency. As Slate, among many other sources, conveyed, they were relatively ordinary words, including vulnerable, evidence-based and fetus. I’m writing now because… Read More
Celebrating the experiment of independence
Even today, one can be an optimist Tomorrow, we celebrate the birth of the United States. I assume that, as it has since 1922, the New York Times will publish the Declaration of Independence, and some will read it. We heard in the news today about the thousands who have died… Read More