AKA Review– June 3, 2022

From Nature:
Has the ‘Great Resignation’ Hit Academia?
By Virginia Gewin
Since the start of the pandemic, large numbers of mid-career scientists in academia are calling it quits in favor of private sector jobs. Researchers cite lack of support, increased workloads, micromanagement, increasing right-wing hostility towards academics, and salaries that have not kept up with cost of living. Before COVID, the exodus was most visible in computer, medical, and bio-sciences—disciplines with clear research opportunities in the private sector—but increasingly faculty in all fields are leaving. Read this article

From The New York Times:
America Turned the Greatest Vehicle of Social Mobility Into a Debt Machine
By Tressie McMillan Cottom
From The Atlantic:
How to Really Fix Higher Ed
By Ben Sasse
Professor Tressie McMillan Cottom of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse agree that our system of funding student educational costs is broken. But their antithetical views on student loan debt encapsulate, respectively, the progressive and conservative positions on who bears responsibility and how to fix the problem. “Debt forgiveness misses the moment by rewarding and reinforcing a broken system,” Sen. Sasse tells us, before beginning his list of solutions with, “Start by means testing grants and loans.” “Means-testing…is the wrong ax for this woodpile,” Prof. Cottom responds, laying responsibility not with higher education but rather with policymakers who knew a decade ago that "our approach to student funding was going off the rails.…When you are scammed by a friend, it is a shame. When your country scams you, it is a fraud.” Read Prof. McMillan Cottom’s article Read Sen. Sasse’s article

From The New Yorker:
How the Pandemic Remade the SAT
By Eren Obrey
This article examines the College Board’s retooling of its signature test, the SAT, to respond to the increasing number of institutions going test-optional. Critics note that changes to the SAT have never made the test a better or fairer predictor of college preparedness. However, the author cites research that mandating the SAT or ACT increased the number of low-income high-school students who went on to four-year universities, before noting that underlying the College Board’s strategies is a conviction that quantifying students’ records can help promote social justice. Read this article

From Artnet News:
Artle Is the Art-Historical Version of Wordle You Didn’t Know You Needed to Play
By Jo Lawson-Tancred
The National Gallery of Art has released a new art-historical, image-based version of the popular game Wordle for those interested in the arts: Artle. Each day, users are shown a new series of four artworks from the museum’s collection and are given four chances to guess the artist. Since Artle’s launch, the museum has reported a 40 percent increase in web traffic and reached hundreds of thousands of users from around the world, with many proceeding to explore the Gallery’s online collection, oftentimes, for the first time. Read this article