AKA Review– June 10, 2022

From EdSurge:
With Money From Facebook, 10 Colleges Turn Their Campuses into ‘Metaversities’
By Rebecca Koenig
Students may soon be able to strap on a virtual reality headset and drop into a virtual version of their college or university campus. Proponents of such ‘Metaversities’ say that these tools will help bridge the socioeconomic and geographic divides hindering some students’ ability to access higher education. While there are concerns about user privacy, supporters argue that universities are the perfect place to teach this vital new technologic literacy and train students how to keep themselves safe in the new virtual world. Read this article

From The Guardian:
The Big Idea: Could the Greatest Works of Literature be Undiscovered?
By Laura Spinney
Research has revealed that an estimated 90 percent of medieval narratives have been lost to fires, war, and decay. The authors note that in addition to this vast trove of lost literature, perhaps 10-30 million ancient Indian and Buddhist manuscripts survive but have yet to studied. This poses an essential esthetic problem: our criteria for judging literary talent have been shaped by the texts that survive and are studied. Who might the giants of world literature be, if we knew just what those 30m Indian manuscripts contained? Read this article

From WIRED:
The Unwritten Laws of Physics for Black Women
By Katrina Miller
University of Chicago physics doctoral candidate, Katrina Miller, reflects on her path in academia and that of other Black women in her field. She illuminates the problems Black women in STEM confront in ways that one can’t get from even the most airtight study or analysis. Her story and those of the women she finds through the African American Women in Physics database are uplifting personally but disheartening institutionally. The author emphasizes that the problems are systemic and can only begin to change once there are more diverse people taking up space and sharing their views. Read this article

From Brown Political Review:
The Gilded Age of Higher Education
By Francisca Saldivar Palacios
The 2022 college admission cycle finds top-tier universities showcasing their lowest admission rates in history and admitting more socioeconomically diverse students. Yet, since 2014, college enrollment rates have been plummeting, with the negative effects of this shift impacting lower income families much more dramatically than others. Projecting these trends and looking ahead to growing workplace changes, the author paints a picture of a new "gilded age," in which elites continue to thrive while the rest struggle for socioeconomic mobility. Read this article

From The New Yorker:
How Harmful is Social Media?
By Gideon Lewis-Kraus
In response to social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt’s recent Atlantic essay, "Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid," in which Haidt pointed to social media as the culprit, this article offers a different perspective. Looking at studies and meta-analyses of social media’s effect on such concerns as violence, the rise of populism, and trust, the author concludes that social media might not be as catastrophically bad in the specific ways that many assume as true based on generalized statements in the media. Read this article