The Conversation

More student or faculty diversity on campus leads to lower racial gaps in graduation rates

Written by Nicholas A. Bowman, Mary Louise Petersen Chair in Higher Education, University of Iowa

At colleges with a majority-Black student population, Black and white students graduate at the same rate. Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

College graduation gaps between Black and white students tend to shrink when there are...

How the role and visibility of chaplains changed over the past century

Written by Wendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis University

A chaplain prays for a COVID-19 patient in Los Angeles while on a video call with the patient's daughter in November 2020.AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

The COVID-19 pandemic brought new attention to the work of chaplains.

Before the pandemic, as an article in The New York Times put it, the place of the hospital chaplain was “at the bedside, holding a...

Firearm stocks spike after mass shootings as investors dismiss the chance of tightening gun laws

Written by Brad Greenwood, Associate Professor of Information Systems and Operations Management, George Mason University

Trading on tragedy.Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images.

The day after an armed 18-year-old entered the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and shot dead 19 children and two teachers, the share prices of gun and weapons manufacturers jumped.

A week on, and the market rally of gun stocks following the latest mass shooting hasn’t...

Most people support abortion staying legal, but that may not matter in making law

Written by Tarah Williams, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Allegheny College

The Supreme Court is set to soon rule on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case, nearly one month after a leaked draft majority opinion showed the court might uphold a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Ruling to uphold this ban could undo women’s constitutional right to abortion, guaranteed by Roe v. Wade...

The lasting consequences of school shootings on the students who survive them

Written by Maya Rossin-Slater, Associate Professor of Health Policy, Stanford University

A girl grieves for a friend killed in the Uvalde shooting.Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

As the U.S. reels from another school shooting, much of the public discussion has centered on the lives lost: 19 children and two adults. Indeed, the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas is the second deadliest such incident on record, after...

50 years of UN environmental diplomacy: What's worked and the trends ahead

Written by Mihaela Papa, Adjunct Assistant Professor in Sustainable Development and Global Governance, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Negotiations over the years have aimed to protect forests, biodiversity and the climate.Manjunath Kiran/AFP via Getty Images

In 1972, acid rain was destroying trees. Birds were dying from DDT poisoning, and countries were contending with oil spills, contamination from nuclear weapons testing and the environmental harm of the Vietnam War. Air...

The Asian Canadian gay activist whose theories on sexuality were decades ahead of their time

Written by Laurie Marhoefer, Jon Bridgman Endowed Associate Professor of History, University of Washington

Li Shiu Tong, right, was the boyfriend and intellectual heir of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld.Imagno/Getty Images

Historians are rediscovering one of the most important LGBTQ activists of the early 20th Century – an Asian Canadian named Li Shiu Tong. You probably don’t know the name, but he was at the center of the first wave of...

The Wall of Wind can blow away buildings at Category 5 hurricane strength to help engineers design safer homes – but even that isn't powerful enough

Written by Richard Olson, Director of the Extreme Events Institute, Florida International University

The Wall of Wind can create Category 5 hurricane winds for testing life-size structures.Margi Rentis/Florida International University

In an airplane hangar in Miami, engineers are recreating some of the most powerful hurricane winds to ever strike land. These Category 5 winds can shatter a test building in the blink of an eye.

Yet they...

What are HeLa cells? A cancer biologist explains

Written by Ivan Martinez, Associate Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology, West Virginia University

Cancer-causing viruses like HPV can cause cells to divide indefinitely and, in the case of Henrietta Lacks, become immortal.Tom Deerinck/NIH via Flickr, CC BY-NC

In an amazing twist of fate, the aggressive cervical cancer tumor that killed Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year old African American mother, became an essential tool that helped the biomedical...

Shavuot: A Jewish holiday of renewing commitment to God

Written by Alan Avery-Peck, Kraft-Hiatt Professor in Judaic Studies, College of the Holy Cross

An Ultra Orthodox Jewish man in Israel harvests wheat ahead of the holiday of Shavuot.AP Photo/Ariel Schalit

The festival of Shavuot, marked this year on June 5 and 6, celebrates the biblical story of God revealing Torah – Jewish scriptures and teachings – to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. This gift, and the observance of Torah’s...