Tag Archives: Focus on Research

Focus on research: PA primaries offer microcosm of unusual election year

By Michael Berkman and Zachary Baumann

In an election year notable for the success of “outsider candidates,” Pennsylvania confirmed that the party establishment has a much stronger hold on the Democratic than it does the Republican Party.

Pennsylvania Democrats participated in three notable statewide races: for president, for senator and to replace Kathleen Kane as attorney general. As we saw, in all three cases, the establishment candidate won by a significant margin.

Continue reading Focus on research: PA primaries offer microcosm of unusual election year

Focus on research: Does climate change affect genders differently?

By Nancy Tuana

There is increasing agreement that human activities are resulting in significant changes in the global climate. The NASA website on climate change provides a snapshot of these changes.

Global temperatures have gone up an average of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with last year, 2015, ranked as the warmest on record. These temperatures have contributed to rising sea levels due both to increasing ocean temperatures and the accelerated melting of glaciers and ice sheets. These changes are fueling altered weather patterns such as precipitation changes resulting in droughts in some regions and flooding in others, as well as increasing the intensity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes.

If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unchecked, the effects could result in serious disruptions to agriculture, flooding of the world’s coastal cities, changes in species migrations, and even extinction of some plants and animals.  Continue reading Focus on research: Does climate change affect genders differently?

Focus on research: Rethinking the notion of a second Holocaust

By Boaz Dvir

As a documentary filmmaker, I change my mind about societal issues related to my projects much like kids experience growth — I only notice it months, sometimes years, later.

Directing and producing “Jessie’s Dad,” which captures the transformation of an uneducated truck driver into an effective child-protection activist following the loss of his daughter to a repeat sex offender, altered my point of view on mandatory sentencing. Making “Discovering Gloria,” which paints the portrait of an average teacher who became an innovative trailblazer after her inner-city school failed its No Child Left Behind exam, made me feel quite differently about standardized testing.

Isn’t that what Holocaust Remembrance Day is all about? To make sure it never, ever happens again?

Gearing up for the May 4 Baltimore screening of my latest documentary, “A Wing and a Prayer,” I’ve noticed that it’s happened again: My thinking has shifted on a key topic, and my brain has only now bothered to notify me.

This time, it’s the Holocaust.

Continue reading Focus on research: Rethinking the notion of a second Holocaust

Focus on research: Unilateral presidential power in an age of polarized politics

President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the most executive orders at 3,721. Image in the public domain, downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued far more executive orders than any other U.S. president to date. Image: Public domain, downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.

By Mark Major

Presidential power, especially their unilateral authority, has been a fierce point of contention in the Obama era. Recently, 43 senators, all Republican, filed a friend-of-the-court brief challenging President Barack Obama’s, as they put it, “extra-constitutional assertion of a unilateral executive power” over immigration policy. The public, and many in the press, assume that the controversy centers on an executive order. This is incorrect.

In the case of Obama’s immigration reform, it deals with “prosecutorial discretion.” Regardless of the term, unilateral executive powers are a compelling, and long overdue, topic for national discussion. Despite this high level of attention to Obama’s unilateral actions on immigration, health care, and gun reform, we have little understanding of this unique presidential power.  Continue reading Focus on research: Unilateral presidential power in an age of polarized politics

Focus on research: Here’s why kids fall behind in science

By Paul Morgan

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on The Conversation.

Globally, the U.S. is at risk of declining economic competitiveness due to its continuing lower levels of educational attainment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

The U.S. currently ranks 44th according to the quality of its mathematics and science education.

A “leaky STEM pipeline” – in which factors such as lower expectations, discrimination, and a lack of interest make it less likely that racial or ethnic minorities, women or those from low-income families will pursue STEM careers – makes many adults less likely to be employed in these types of positions.

Yet STEM positions are often high-paying and provide greater economic well-being and employment stability, especially as the U.S. transitions to a knowledge-based economyContinue reading Focus on research: Here’s why kids fall behind in science