Word: topicalities
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...Harvard as Harvard, of course, is an impolite topic of conversation, much like asking about a parent’s salary or someone’s racial composition. While the topic may drift up in the first few weeks of freshman year, it is quickly squashed by the monotony of concentration, secondary, citation, and Core credits and the erratic drive to build the old resume. Yet, periodically, the idea resurfaces. Most of the time, it’s in the form of a complaint as in, “Why the hell are they cutting hot breakfast? This is Harvard...
...ROTC, just as it would refuse to recognize any other organization that denied membership to applicants who are openly homosexual, but we hope that President Obama and Congress will overturn DADT in the near future so that ROTC can have a place on Harvard’s campus.Another hot topic in national politics this year was stem cell research. Under President Bush, the religious beliefs of a sector of the population had too great of an impact on scientific policy. Under Obama’s administration and with the backing of the current Congress, embryonic stem cell research is permitted...
...rapidly and inexorably changing. I do not mean that our numbers are exploding – a topic that has been attracting attention since Malthus. Nor do I mean that life expectancy is rising – a fact that is widely appreciated. I mean a very modern and massive set of changes in the composition of the human population...
...more important lessons is in the area of criticism. There are far too many teaching fellows and professors who fail to criticize students when they make mistakes. It would be entirely possible to go through a course, especially a larger course in the Core, and make completely inane, off topic comments throughout the sections without ever being told that the comments were “wrong.” Perhaps TF’s consider it rude or insulting to tell students that their arguments or insights are incorrect, but this does the students a grave disservice. Rather than learning...
...that Islam and Judaism are the only two truly monotheistic religions prompted me mischievously to ask why the Hebrew god is sometimes called “Elohim,” a term ending with a plural marker. He told me to shut up, because he had been studying the topic for over a dozen years. That this fellow scholar did not receive tenure is a comfort to me. However, I cannot but recognize the ethos of which he is an unsophisticated manifestation. The cult of expertise—and the pride of being named the “top?...