AKA Review– March 25, 2022

From The Wall Street Journal:
How to Close the Networking Gap
By Ben Wildavsky
Professional networking is thriving with a powerful assist from digital technologies, yet low-income Americans, racial minorities, and first-gen college students typically navigate their careers with the fewest networking advantages and struggle to find high-quality jobs compared to better-connected classmates. Entrepreneurs have noticed the difficulty of these student have in finding high quality jobs. Platforms like Handshake and nonprofits such as Braven provide expanded networking and coaching that help low-income students develop the social capital needed to build successful careers. Read this article

From The Hechinger Report:
Studying humanities can prepare the next generation of social justice leaders
By Phillip Brian Harper
Since the start of the pandemic, the number of students interested in fields associated with social justice has increased substantially and represents a significant opportunity for the humanities: training the next generation of social justice leaders. To attract socially engaged students to the humanities, we must frame its benefits not in terms of abstract critical-thinking skills, but as specific practices in which humanities students are trained. From archival research to discourse analysis, students are equipped to address the conditions that hinder the achievements of a just and equitable society. Read this article

From The New York Times:
Colleges Can Avoid Shutting the Door on Financial Aid Knowledge
By Ron Lieber
Concern over paying for college weighs heavily on students and parents. Yet colleges intentionally and unintentionally cloud the true cost of students’ education in a haze of terms and vaguely described financial-aid processes. The net price calculators that schools are required to provide typically only take need-based aid into account, leaving ambiguous the availability of merit aid that can greatly decrease the actual cost to students. Several colleges have begun addressing this problem through practices that will lead, hopefully, to greater transparency in the financial aid system. Read this article

From The Atlantic:
Why We Should Read Hannah Arendt Now
By Anne Applebaum
Hannah Arendt’s influential works are just as relevant now as when she wrote them in the mid-20th century. Her analyses of the rise of totalitarianism in Europe bears a striking resemblance to the events unfolding in Ukraine today and can help clarify the complexity of geopolitics today. Arendt emphasizes the importance of maintaining community and resisting isolation in times of tumult because, as she says, "Terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other." Read this article

From The Nation:
Are museums in crisis?
By Barry Schwabsky
It was radical in 1938 when the director of the RISD Museum of Art accused museums of being "incoherently eclectic storehouses" that served the elites. The author argues that little has changed, though the role of museums and their presumed cultural authority is increasingly questioned. This is less an aesthetic crisis than one social, political, and economic, and it reflects challenges to the historical role of Western museums as guardians of the world’s arts and cultures and a growing number of young artists more concerned with subject matter that appeals to their ethical aspirations than with aesthetics. Read this article