030 - Venues for finals of UEFA 2015 club competitions chosen

049 - Award presented during ceremony at UEFA Headquarters

050 - Media accreditation deadline is Wednesday 11 September at 12.00CET

Members of a Holyrood Committee have visited the shipyard where two overdue and over-budget vessels to serve the Clyde and Hebrides ferries network are being built.

The Scottish Parliament will next week (Tuesday 10 March) be invited to nominate Stephen Boyle to Her Majesty the Queen for appointment as the new Auditor General for Scotland.

The UK and Scottish Governments must work more closely together to ensure people get the benefits they are entitled to, a new report by the Scottish Parliament’s Social Security Committee has said.

The Scottish Parliament has announced it will suspend public engagement activities as it prioritises supporting parliamentary business and responding to the Coronavirus.

On Tuesday (24 March), MSPs from across the Scottish Parliament will scrutinise the proposed UK-wide Emergency Coronavirus Bill

Ever seen how many beers sell at the cricket? When investing, SABMiller shares should come to mind.

‘Offering a complicated range of highly specialised funds defeats the aim of simplicity’.

Test the trend before taking the plunge into equities.

Preference shares have proved an efficient alternative investment for individuals seeking a relatively high and stable source of income.

The 2018 UEFA Super Cup will be played on 15 August of next year at Tallinn's Lilleküla Stadium, the first senior UEFA final in Estonia in the centenary of that republic's creation.

The 2019 UEFA Super Cup will be played at Beşiktaş Park in Istanbul on Wednesday 14 August of that year, the third major UEFA final to be played in the Turkish city.

Facebook's policy on political ads is no different than those of campaign commercials, but the social network's size and scale makes the debate more serious.

Bundles for internet, TV, and phone service might seem appealing when you sign up, but they're an intentionally complicated nightmare if you want to trim what you're paying for down the line.

Biometrics are generally a good alternative to passwords, but authentication via face-scanning is a terrible idea, according to security expert Max Eddy.

How does AI extract meaning from text? It's not as simple—and definitely not as easy—as you might think.

Students, staff and faculty members from Penn State's College of Education share recent research and career achievements.

Keep up with information about various happenings at Penn State, including study volunteer requests, activities and other opportunities.

The Alumni Spotlight is a monthly feature in Bridges, highlighting College of Education alumni who are making a difference in the lives of the people around them. This edition features Rob Longwell-Grice, who draws upon personal experience to help students who are also the first in their families to pursue a college degree.

Two years ago, one of the main networks of evangelical churches in France launched the Nouvelles Générations (New Generations) project to train young Christians for the work of ministry and to build up of the body of Christ.

French OMer Andre experiences that prayer can change the hearts of authorities regarding victims of human trafficking.

Although the escape room was created with a primary focus to mobilise Christians, OM Riverboats and OM France worked together to make adjustments in the simulation to suit non-believers better.

In this blended, mix-and-match, do-it-yourself world of education, what is curriculum, and who develops it? How do we know if it works?

As schools apply more scrutiny to the methods and materials they use to teach early reading, educators and parents in some states have started to form new advocacy efforts—trying to pressure states and districts to adopt new approaches to teacher training and evaluating materials.

A new survey of school districts and CMOs will provide new insights into trends, and complement other data on teachers and principals.

Seven months after England lifted the FIFA Under-17 World Cup, coach Steve Cooper is calling on his current crop to build on that success.

Behavioral economics applies key principles from psychology and economics to address obstacles to behavior change. The important topic of pediatric firearm injuries has not yet been explored through a behavioral economic lens. Pediatric firearm-related injuries are a significant public health problem in the United States. Despite American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines advising that firearms be stored unloaded, in a locked box or with a locking device, and separate from ammunition, estimates suggest that ~4.6 million children live in homes with at least 1 loaded and unlocked firearm. In this article, we use behavioral economic theory to identify specific cognitive biases (ie, present bias; in-group, out-group bias; and the availability heuristic) that may influence parental decision-making around firearm storage. We illustrate situations in which these biases may occur and highlight implementation prompts, in-group messengers, and increased salience as behaviorally informed strategies that may counter these biases and subsequently enhance safe firearm storage. We also describe other opportunities to leverage the behavioral economic tool kit. By better understanding the individual behavioral levers that may impact decision-making around firearm storage, behavioral scientists, pediatric providers, and public health practitioners can partner to design and test tailored interventions aimed at decreasing pediatric firearm injuries. Further empirical study is warranted to identify the presence of specific biases and heuristics and determine the most effective behavior change strategies for different subpopulations.

Next-generation sequencing has revolutionized the diagnostic process, making broadscale testing affordable and applicable to almost all specialties; however, there remain several challenges in its widespread implementation. Barriers such as lack of infrastructure or expertise within local health systems and complex result interpretation or counseling make it harder for frontline clinicians to incorporate genomic testing in their existing workflow. The general population is more informed and interested in pursuing genetic testing, and this has been coupled with the increasing accessibility of direct-to-consumer testing. As a result of these changes, primary care physicians and nongenetics specialty providers find themselves seeing patients for whom genetic testing would be beneficial but managing genetic test results that are out of their scope of practice. In this report, we present a practical and centralized approach to providing genomic services through an independent, enterprise-wide clinical service model. We present 4 years of clinical experience, with >3400 referrals, toward designing and implementing the clinical service, maximizing resources, identifying barriers, and improving patient care. We provide a framework that can be implemented at other institutions to support and integrate genomic services across the enterprise.

Source: www.youtube.com - Monday, April 27, 2020

A new supercapacitor based on manganese oxide could combine the storage capacity of batteries with the high power and fast charging of other supercapacitors, according to researchers at Penn State and two universities in China.

Penn State researchers have developed a comprehensive online tutor to educate the general public about the science behind COVID-19 and appropriate steps anyone can take to help reduce its transmission.

A new Penn State study found that life may be more stressful now than it was in the 1990s, especially for people between the ages of 45 and 64.

What gets tested gets taught, so performance assessments that measure the competencies that matter can lead to instruction that yields those competencies, argues Ben Kornell of Envision Learning Partners.

You don't need a comprehensive No Child Left Behind waiver to get a reprieve from some of the law's accountability requirements.

The U.S. Department of Education continues to quietly approve and negotiate over states' teacher-evaluation systems as part of its No Child Left Behind Act waiver process.

House leaders may hold off on a final vote on a Republican-backed bill to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law, amid pushback from powerful GOP lobbying groups

California, which has a mixed history when it comes to evidence-based reading instruction, has a plan to use federal funds for literacy programs that some say are out of sync with the science.

Europe's most famous footballing families are supporting a new TV campaign by UEFA which calls on dads to encourage their daughters to play football.

Lyon trio Lucy Bronze, Ada Hegerberg and Amandine Henry are the UEFA Women's Player of the Year nominees.

We know the 2018/19 UEFA Women's Player of the Year will be from Lyon: but which one?

Ada Hegerberg became the all-time leading scorer in the competition with her 52nd goal, taking her only 50 games.

The all-time top UEFA women's club scorer among many, many honours: we salute Ada Hegerberg.

CNA Staff, May 2, 2020 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- A man claiming to have killed the murdered Nigerian seminarian Michael Nnadi has given an interview in which he says he executed the aspiring priest because he would not stop announcing the Christian faith in captivity.

Mustapha Mohammed, who is currently in jail, gave a telephone interview to the Nigerian newspaper Daily Sun on Friday. He took responsibility for the murder, according to the Daily Sun, because Nnadi, 18 years old, “continued preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ” to his captors.

According to the newspaper, Mustapha praised Nnadi’s “outstanding bravery,” and that the seminarian “told him to his face to change his evil ways or perish.”

Nnadi was kidnapped by gunmen from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna on January 8, along with three other students. The seminary, home to some 270 seminarians, is located just off the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria Express Way. According to AFP, the area is “notorious for criminal gangs kidnapping travelers for ransom.”

Mustapha, 26, identified himself as the leader of a 45-member gang that preyed along the highway. He gave the interview from a jail in Abuja, Nigeria, where he is in police custody.

On the evening of the abduction, gunmen, disguised in military camouflage, broke through the fence surrounding the seminarians' living quarters and opened fire. They stole laptops and phones before kidnapping the four young men.

Ten days after the abduction, one of the four seminarians was found on the side of a road, alive but seriously injured. On Jan. 31, an official at Good Shepherd Seminary announced that another two seminarians had been released, but that Nnadi remained missing and was presumed still in captivity.

On Feb. 1, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto, Nigeria, announced that Nnadi had been killed.

“With a very heavy heart, I wish to inform you that our dear son, Michael was murdered by the bandits on a date we cannot confirm,” the bishop said, confirming that the rector of the seminary had identified Nnadi’s body.

The newspaper reported that from “the first day Nnadi was kidnapped alongside three of his other colleagues, he did not allow [Mustapha] to have peace,” because he insisted on announcing the gospel to him.

According to the newspaper, Mustapha “did not like the confidence displayed by the young man and decided to send him to an early grave.”

According to the Daily Sun, Mustapha targeted the seminary knowing it was a center for training priests, and that a gang member who lived nearby had helped conduct surveillance ahead of the attack. Mohammed believed that it would be a profitable target for theft and ransom.

Mohammed also said that the gang used Nnadi’s mobile telephone to issue their ransom demands, asking for more than $250,000, later reduced to $25,000, to secure the release of the three surviving students, Pius Kanwai, 19; Peter Umenukor, 23; and Stephen Amos, 23.

Nnadi’s murder is one of an series of attacks and killings on Christians in the country in recent months.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja called on Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to address the violence and kidnappings in a homily March 1 at a Mass with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.

“We need to have access to our leaders; president, vice president. We need to work together to eradicate poverty, killings, bad governance and all sorts of challenges facing us as a nation,” Kaigama said.

In an Ash Wednesday letter to Nigerian Catholics, Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City called for Catholics to wear black in solidarity with victims and pray, in response to “repeated” executions of Christians by Boko Haram and “incessant” kidnappings “linked to the same groups.”

Other Christian villages have been attacked, farms set ablaze, vehicles carrying Christians attacked, men and women have been killed and kidnapped, and women have been taken as sex slaves and tortured—a “pattern,” he said, of targeting Christians.

On Feb. 27, U.S Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told CNA that the situation in Nigeria was deteriorating.

“There's a lot of people getting killed in Nigeria, and we're afraid it is going to spread a great deal in that region,” he told CNA. “It is one that's really popped up on my radar screens -- in the last couple of years, but particularly this past year.”

“I think we’ve got to prod the [Nigerian President Muhammadu] Buhari government more. They can do more,” he said. “They’re not bringing these people to justice that are killing religious adherents. They don’t seem to have the sense of urgency to act.”

By Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J.

In a week or two, freshmen from around the country will begin their college education. The first year, the most important of the four, is meant to build a strong academic foundation for the remaining three years and even beyond.  

Freshmen year often awakens in the student a love for learning. In college, self-identity is chiseled out, attitudes and values mature, friendships and new loves, discovered. The halls of university academe can be an exciting place to hope and dream about one’s future.

Attending college is both a privilege and responsibility.  Here the phrase, noblesse oblige applies (literally, nobility obliges): Those who have received much are expected to share their gifts with others to make society a better place in which to live. 

Seeking a Liberal Arts Education

Colleges typically organize their curriculum around their mission statement. An institution of higher learning worthy of its name offers a core curriculum, also known as the humanities or liberal arts.  Some have general requirements.

The humanities offer a splendid array of disciplines, and one of them will be chosen as the focus of students’ special attention in junior and senior year.  Courses include: foreign language(s), linguistics and literature, philosophy, theology/religious studies, social sciences, the refining arts—music and art. 

The liberal arts develop the student as an intellectually rounded person exposing students to disciplines that broaden their horizons and add meaning to life.  It has been said that a specialist without a liberal arts background is only half a person.

Importance of the Humanities

Did you know that two-thirds of humanities majors find satisfying positions in the private sector?  If the college one attends does not require the humanities, here are eight benefits for choosing them on one’s own:

They help us understand others through their languages, histories, and cultures. They foster social justice and equality. They reveal how people have tried to make moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of the world. The humanities teach empathy. They teach us to deal critically and logically with subjective, complex, and imperfect information. They teach us to weigh evidence skeptically and consider more than one side of every question. Humanities students build skills in writing and critical reading. They encourage us to think creatively.   They develop informed and critical citizens.  Without the humanities, democracy could not flourish. (Curt Rice, “Here are 9 reasons why humanities matter. What’s your number 10?”) Listening to the Parents

 Before the 1990s, most parents were satisfied with the college education of their sons and daughters who had graduated with more than a passing knowledge about great ideas and universal questions. 

In recent years however, an increasing number of parents have expressed dissatisfaction: “I spent $100,000.00 for my daughter’s (my son’s) education at a four-year private college.  She graduated with a degree in Peace Studies.  She has no job.” 

Content of subject matter and intolerance of diverse opinions are two major concerns.

Content of Subject Matter

Too many colleges have abandoned required courses—no foreign language, no language arts. 

What great literature and poetry are students studying?  A prevailing attitude sees the Great Books Tradition as little more than the political opinions of dominant groups. 

What of philosophy and religious studies? Why aren’t students exposed to the ancient philosophers who wrestled with perennial questions:  Who am I? What am I doing, and why am I doing it? What is the purpose of my life? Few colleges offer a course in world religions.

As for history and American government, they’re bunk. War after war—it’s all an inventory of political grievances; our American government is composed of corrupt politicians. 

And what of art and music history?  Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Bernini?  Are they the preserve of dead white males, a phrase used by collegiates?  Is the answer offering the “gutter phenomenon” of Rock, Rap, or Hip-Hop which use orgiastic and foul language and offering shock art like the photograph, “Piss Christ,” by Andres Serrano?  A few years ago, why did Syracuse University offer a course called “Hip-Hop Eshu: Queen B*tch 101?” To exalt Lil’ Kim? 

Parents are willing to spend generously on education that expands the mind with a classic education but not for studies whose content is without purpose.  Why should they squander hard-earned dollars on a core curriculum that is a sham or on courses that entertain pubescent students with a degraded popular culture? Such institutions are caricatures of what used to be referred to as higher education.

Liberal Intolerance

Until the 1990s, the phrase: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" was operative on college campuses.  Today, those who speak what is opposed to the majority must refrain from giving their opinions that are open to critical and healthy discussion.

In former days, institutions required students to challenge each other to think clearly and logically about a topic.  In class, the Socratic methodology was employed to insure that students’ views could be articulated without reprisal.  In Jesuit education for example, students are required to argue both sides of an issue, including those topics that are abhorrent to defend or condemn.  

To give one example, if a person holds to what he or she considers a good action, does intention alone make for a moral act?  As students work their pros and cons, eventually someone will cite Hitler whose good intention was to exalt the German people beyond all others.  However, he ostracized German Jews whom he derided as polluting the German race.  This view led to the barbaric means he took to achieve his end—their annihilation.  The conclusion to the discussion? The immoral end does not justify a moral means or intention. The intention and the end must together be moral acts.

Since the 1990s, intellectual diversity has gradually muffled honest debate.

A Confession of Liberal Intolerance

Recently, the liberal columnist, Nicholas Kristoff, published two essays in the New York Times on the present status of liberal thinking in this country: Nicholas Kristoff’s “Confession of Liberal Intolerance” and “The Liberal Blind Spot.” Some of his observations apply to what unsuspecting freshmen might find on certain campuses with varying degrees of intensity. Increasing numbers of liberal professors and students pride themselves on their diversity and their tolerance of diversity—diversity of various minority groups but not of conservatives—Evangelical Christians, and practicing Catholics.  Kristoff calls this “liberal arrogance”—“the implication that these groups don’t have anything significant to add to the discussion.”

The unwritten motto may be: “We welcome people who don’t look like us, as long as they think like us.” Or, “I disapprove of what you say, so shut up.” Or I close my mind to what you may want to say because it’s not worthwhile saying, in my view. Thus we hear: “We’re tolerant. You are entitled to your truth, but keep it to yourself.  And don’t force it on me.”

What Is Truth?  

Alan Bloom, the author of The Closing of the American Mind, made the argument in the 1980s that American youth are increasingly raised to believe that every belief is merely the expression of an opinion or preference.  They are raised to be “cultural relativists” with the default attitude of “non-judgmentalism” (Patrick Deneen, “Who Closed the American Mind?”).

Parents object: “My son, my daughter entered college with a moral compass with a belief that there is such a thing as objective truth.  But in my son’s college, only the relativity of truth and the absolutism of relativity are taught across the board.  Thus, there is no longer any possibility of objective truth.”

The Crisis of Higher Education

We are experiencing an intellectual crisis that has already affected our work force, our politics, and our culture.  College costs are escalating, while too many colleges and universities without a core curriculum or without any substantive requirements are failing this generation. Western civilization, the human culmination of centuries of learning is pummeled by a pop culture.  Too many academic leaders fail to uphold the purpose of teaching Western civilization.  Academic leaders don’t believe that the humanities have any fundamental influence on their students.  There are no shared values. The result?  The advent of identity courses: Feminist studies, African-American, Latino, LGBT studies.  As long as everyone is tolerant of everyone’s classes, no one can get hurt. 

Yet not all institutions of higher learning fit this description. Many non-sectarian and private colleges offer a structured curriculum or a core curriculum around which other subjects are framed. At least twenty-five colleges and universities in the United States offer the Great Books tradition to their undergraduates. These books are part of the great conversation about the universal ideas of cultures and civilizations.

The authors of Academically Adrift, the most devastating book on higher education since Alan Bloom’s book, The Closing of the American Mind, found that nearly half of undergraduates show no measurable improvement in knowledge or “critical thinking” after two years of college. Weaker academic requirements, greater specialization in the departments, a rigid orthodoxy and doctrinaire views on liberalism are now part of the university’s politics and cultural life.

Freshmen entering college today should be aware of the crisis of liberal education which is in conflict and incompatible with the traditional aspirations of the liberal arts.

Advice to Freshmen

Choose your friends wisely. Confide in a very few. Find a small group of friends who are serious about studies and who know how to balance work with play.  Form or join a reading group. Establish healthy eating and sleeping habits. Don’t pull all-nighters. Don’t go out on the week nights.  Study for about 50 minutes.  Take a ten-minute break.  Then return to study. Repeat.  Make a habit of this process—study, break, study. If you put your energies into academics, you will be handsomely rewarded later on. Don’t get behind in your assignments.  Make certain that you are up-to-date on all of them.  In the case of writing papers, get started on your research as soon as the assignment is given.  Work a little on the research every day. Keep a dictionary and thesaurus at hand at all times. Make it a habit of looking up the meaning of words.  Words are power and the right word is a sign of right thinking. Be your own leader.  Do not follow the crowd if you sense they engage in actions contrary to your beliefs.  For example:  doing drugs or binge drinking. Be reflective.  Reflection means going below the surface of an experience, an idea, a purpose, or a spontaneous reaction to discover its meaning to you.   Find an older mentor, not necessarily a professor, but someone whom you have observed has wisdom and common sense.  Place your confidence in this person as your unofficial adviser. Remember:  Your college life is an open book.  Whatever you do or avoid doing becomes common knowledge—quickly.     Every College Has its Own Soul

Every college builds its own identity, its own reputation. Some colleges are known for the seriousness with which they pursue academics.  Some are known as “party” schools.  Still others are best known for their sports prowess.

According to John Henry Newman, the ideal university is comprised of a community of scholars and thinkers, engaging in intellectual pursuits as an end in itself.  Only secondarily, does it have a practical purpose, for example, finding a job.  Today, most people would scoff at this assertion.  For them, today’s goal of education is to find a job.   The facts however don’t lie.  Those with intellectual pursuits as an end are the most likely to secure the best positions. 

A university is a place where one looks out toward everyone and everything … without boundaries.  A university is a place where one discovers and studies truth. A person of faith holds sacred this belief.

According to Newman, knowledge alone cannot improve the student; only God is the source of all truth; only God can impart truth. Today, this notion alienates students at secular colleges and universities.  

By Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J.

Matteo Ricci College (MRC) is one of eight schools and colleges that form part of Seattle University, a Catholic institution conducted by the Society of Jesus. 

With the Humanities as its core, MRC offers three degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities (BAH), a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities for Leadership (BAHL), and a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities for Teaching (BAHT). 

Mission of MRC

MRC educates teachers and leaders for a just and humane world. The study of Western culture is the surest place to begin. Pseudo-educators claim it’s a waste of time.   Yet, the facts don’t lie.  We are the beneficiaries of Greco-Roman culture preserved, reinterpreted, and handed down through the Catholic Church’s medieval monastic tradition and continued through the Italian Renaissance. To be human is to be in a story, and to forget one's story leaves a person without a present identity, without a past and without a future.  At MRC, cultural history is taught so that students can draw moral lessons from it.  Those who don’t learn from these lessons are condemned to repeat and relive them.    

With the small class size at MRC, professors can take a personal interest in each student.  In this environment conducive to learning, a close collaboration between student and professor is pursued.   This encourages greater participation in class. Shouldn’t MRC be the envy of most serious students?  You would think so. 

What’s in a Name? 

MRC is named after the 16th - century Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) who spent his adult life as an educator and missionary in China.  At that time, the doors of the Chinese empire were closed to foreigners from the West.   It was Ricci who brought Western civilization to China, and Chinese literati reciprocated by sharing with him their ancient and venerable culture.  For him, inculturation was a reality centuries before the term was invented. He founded the modern Chinese Catholic Church.  

Ricci astonished the Chinese because he loved them. An authority on so many subjects and disciplines—mathematics, astronomy, apologetics, literature, popular catechesis, poetry, art and music—he brought this treasury of gifts to his mission. His intellectual gifts were prodigious: a photographic memory, linguistic ability to speak flawless Chinese, ingenuity to write maps, assemble clocks, read the stars.  As if this weren’t enough, Ricci had a keen ear for music and reportedly sang with great sweetness.   This “wise man from the west” is recognized as “the most cultivated man of his time and one of the most remarkable and brilliant men of history.”  

Known throughout the realm as Li-Ma-T’ou, this missionary scholar remains the most respected and beloved foreign figure in Chinese culture. Some in the Chinese government view him as the “Second Founder of Modern China.”  

This is the man after whom MRC is named.  He is its model of a complete liberal arts education cast in the Jesuit mold.

Student Protest against the Curriculum of MRC

In May, some two hundred enrolled students at (MRC) staged a week-long sit-in objecting to the core curriculum: The focus on Western culture and values was declared irrelevant. Studies in Western Civilization had failed to serve the academic interests of these students. 

The students demanded of the administration that the classic core curriculum in the Humanities be discarded in favor of a new program of studies to reflect special interest groups of race, class, gender, and disability.  Additionally, they demanded that only qualified faculty be hired to teach courses that reflected their interest in identity group studies of race, class, gender, and disability. The Dean of the MRC was to be fired.

Student demands focused on “dissatisfaction, traumatization, and boredom,” that is, “the Humanities program as it exists today” which “ignores and erases the humanity of its students and of peoples around the globe.”  . . . “We are diverse, with many different life experiences, also shaped by colonization, U.S., and Western imperialist, neo-politics, and oppression under racist, sexist, classist, heteronormative and homophobic, transphobic, queerphobic, ableist, nationalistic, xenophobic systems which perpetuate conquest, genocide of indigenous peoples, and pervasive systemic inequities.”

Students spoke of oppression perpetrated by the Administration:  “The first manifest demand is a complete change in the curriculum from a Whiteness-dominated curriculum to a non-Eurocentric interdisciplinary curriculum.  If the (MRC) is unable to tackle these requirements, we demand that it be converted into a department so as to be accountable to another college.”   

What Students at MRC Seek

If MRC students are seeking social justice and equality for all, if they are to make sense of this complex world, they ought to study the Humanities. If they are curious about how other cultures have learned to develop feelings of compassion, tolerance, respect, empathy, they ought to study the Humanities. If they are curious about how creative other people can be, if students are determined to live in a democracy of free citizens, the Humanities should be studied. Without the Humanities, democracy would not exist.  

The Crisis of Higher Education

In this country, we are experiencing an intellectual crisis that has already affected our work force, our politics, and our culture.  Western civilization, the human culmination of centuries of learning is under attack by an identity-driven student population exemplified by the protesters at MRC.  Whereas many academic leaders fail to uphold the purpose of teaching Western civilization, the faculty at MRC values it.  Whereas academic leaders don’t believe that the Humanities have any fundamental influence on their students, the faculty at MRC is invested in it.  Shared values—this is what brings the world together.  

MRC is not alone in promoting a Humanities core curriculum. Many non-sectarian and private colleges proudly offer a core curriculum around which other subjects are framed. At least twenty-five colleges and universities in the United States offer the Great Books tradition to their undergraduates. These books are part of the great conversation about the universal ideas of cultures and civilizations, always related to ethical and religious values. 

Many educators believe that nearly half of college graduates show no measurable improvement in knowledge or critical thinking. They speak and write incorrectly; they do not read.  Their constant companions? Electronic devices with accompanying head sets. Weaker academic requirements, greater specialization in the departments, a rigid orthodoxy and doctrinaire views on liberalism are now part of the university’s politics and cultural life.  

Clash of Goals

If the demands of these special interest groups—race, class, gender, and disability, were met, MRC would cease to exist. A program of identity studies clashes with the raison d’être of a college named after Matteo Ricci, a name synonymous with the richest of classic studies.   

The student protesters are demanding to be extricated from the program that distinguishes itself in the pantheon of Catholic higher education.  

Who would be so foolish as to look down on, much less protest, such a rich curriculum that prompts the most influential employers to hire MRC’s crême de la crème? 

Let the disgruntled students go elsewhere with their partisan interests and narrow viewpoint.  They lose.

Ricci Speaks to College Students

Matteo Ricci has left us several proverbs that can inspire college students.  But not just college students:  

 “Man is a stranger in this world.”

 “The virtuous person speaks little.”

“Time past must be thought of as gone forever.  Don’t waste time.”

“True longevity is reckoned not by number of years but according to progress in virtue.  If the Lord of Heaven grants me one day more of life, He does so that I may correct yesterday’s faults; failures to do this would be a sign of great ingratitude.”

The canonization of Father Matteo Ricci, S.J. ranks high on the ‘to-do list’ of Pope Francis whose high regard and love for him are well known.  This is the Servant of God, Matteo Ricci, S.J.

The good news is that AMD has confirmed a third-generation Threadripper chip is also arriving in November. However, it'll land with 24 cores, not 32, as some might have hoped.

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The Big O is two gaming machines in one: either an Xbox One or a PS4, broken down and attached to the same liquid cooling system as a fully customized gaming PC.