On Campus - Friday, October 2, 2009 10:30 - 2 Comments

NYU to Launch Institute for Study of Poverty

Just got a press release stating that tomorrow, thanks to a massive donation from the Silvers, the school of social work is going to be officially launching the McSilver Institute of Poverty Policy, Practice, and Research. Here’s the full text of the release:

Inspired by a large gift from New York University alumni Constance and Martin Silver, NYU Silver School of Social Work will launch the McSilver Institute of Poverty Policy, Practice, and Research – a major new initiative – with a public conference on Saturday, October 3, 2009. The event, which begins at 2:30 p.m., will take place at NYU’s Schimmel Auditorium (40 West 4th Street, New York, N.Y.). The keynote speaker will be Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, who will illuminate his acclaimed approaches to reducing poverty in Harlem and the United States.

The McSilver Institute will partner with social service agencies in the New York City area to undertake the broad, complex, and in-depth efforts needed to meet the challenge of widespread poverty in the United States. While the Institute will concentrate on the consequences of poverty as they affect children, families, the elderly, the homeless, domestic violence victims, the disabled, and others, the major effort will be to use the knowledge gained through current and planned research work to achieve a direct impact on these constituencies.
Continue…

Opinion - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 17:14 - 0 Comments

Not That There’s Anything Wrong with Political Science

Steven White, a Poli Sci Ph.D student uptown at Columbia, takes issue with my dismissal of political science as a discipline. But I think political science is a fine and noble discipline! It’s just that I feel like viewing politics through a purely analytical lens is going to obfuscate just as much as it illuminates. An analytical approach has a lot of value, but like a non-analytical approach, it only gets you so far.
Continue…

Opinion - Tuesday, September 9, 2008 12:21 - 6 Comments

Most Departments are Medieval Studies Departments

Editorialiste touches on something else that I was meaning to talk to in regards to Alana’s post yesterday. Namely, from reading those two links, you would get the impression that our Journalism department just isn’t very good.

But I’m not here to rag on the Journalism department. If someone who’s actually taken a Journalism class wants to do it in this section, they’re more than welcome to, but I’m not really qualified. Instead, I want to talk about how this is indicative of a major bug in our departments as a whole.
Continue…