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This Former Pastor Is Changing Evangelicals’ Minds on COVID Vaccines Mother Jones – Mother Jones

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

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When Curtis Chang heard that many evangelical Christians were reluctant to get vaccinated against COVID-19, he suspected he could help. A former pastor who now consults on strategy and planning for governments and nonprofits, Chang knew he could mobilize pastors to educate and encourage their congregations. So earlier this year, Chang, who also serves on the faculty at Duke University Divinity School and at American Universitys School of International Service, launched a project called Christians and the Vaccine to change more minds.

His group produces videos that dispel some of the myths that circulate widely among evangelicalssome believe the vaccine is a form of government control or that it contains fetal tissue and is therefore pro-abortion. The group works with organizations including the National Association of Evangelicals and the Ad Council to distribute videos to churches and through social networks. His technique seems to be working: Researchers at Columbia University and the Stanford Polarization and Social Change Lab conducted a study on vaccine-hesitant Christians using a video featuring Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and a devout Christian. Two groups were shown videos of Collins and an essay about medical experts endorsing vaccinations. In one group, the content was altered slightly to highlight the Christian identity of Collins and other medical experts. That group reported greater intentions to get vaccinated and an increased willingness to encourage others to get vaccinated, suggesting that shared values can help medical experts bridge the gap with vaccine-hesitant Christians. I talked to Chang about why its difficult for religious leaders to encourage vaccination, how to reach religious people who are vaccine-hesitant, and the dangers of American Christians exporting anti-vaccine beliefs abroad.

On evangelical distrust of institutions: There is not any one reason that is true for all evangelicals about why they are vaccine-hesitant. The key insight is that underneath those specific questions and fears is a pervasive distrust of institutions, especially secular institutions. Thats critical to realize here, because all of us, Christian or non-Christian, we only take the vaccine to the extent that we trust institutions. None of us, except for very few elite scientists truly understand in depth all the studies, all the details of the vaccine. The vast majority of people are taking the vaccine because they trust the CDC, the FDA, the federal government, and the state and local public health officials. Whats happened with American evangelicals is that the level of distrust of institutions has skyrocketed in the last five to 10 years. Thats why youre seeing so much pervasive distrust of the vaccine. Over 50 percent of white evangelicals in particular say theyre not getting the vaccine.

On the forces driving vaccine hesitancy among evangelicals: Historically, the evangelical movement has baked into it a certain wariness of dominant secular institutions. And this can be captured in the saying that Jesus called us to be in the world, not of the world. Were not of the world in the sense of just conforming automatically to the assumptions and beliefs the world. But whats happened is that this orientation of being being wary has gotten weaponized.

Theres been three main forces that I think have done that: One is that you can actually gain a lot of ratings by playing up those fears of what Washington is doing or what the left is doing. Christians are bombarded by so much conservative media that they automatically just assume theyre out to get us. Another one is that conservative politicians have realized that you can gain a lot of votes by playing up these fears. And then the third is sort of outside conspiracy movements. QAnon, the anti-vaxxer movementthey have realized that evangelicals are fertile hunting grounds for their theories, because they are already primed to be distrustful of institutions, and so they can be easily kind of recruited into their deep conspiracies of distrust.

On vaccine persuasion through biblical and spiritual grounds: Whats happening in these churches is that the pastors are under enormous pressure. Theyve already been caught in the sense of their congregation being more radicalized than they arethe polls show that the majority of evangelical pastors are pro-vaccine. But they realize that if they go up and speak very strongly about this Sunday morning, on Monday morning, theyre getting a raft of angry emails from people who have been listening to Tucker Carlson seven days a week. You talk to many evangelical pastors, theyre treading a fine line with realizing that they cannot go too far in the direction of masking or vaccines, even if they personally believe that thats the right thing to do, for fear of the backlash.

Were trying to put that message out there and not put all the burden on a local Christian pastor. If somebodys gonna get mad, theyll get mad at me, they wont get mad at a pastor. But because these are short, shareable videos, they can get injected into actually where I think a lot of this battle is being fought. Its not going to be fought on Sunday morning, because again, pastors are going to be too disincentivized to preach on this. Its being fought on social media and in social networks, between somebody in the church is willing to share some information about the vaccine that counters the mark of the beast fear or that theres a tracking chip, or this is a form of government control, and so forth. Its the extreme anti-vaxxers that really get a lot of publicity, but I think theres a large percentage of evangelicals that are still movable, and they are increasingly movable, because of what theyre theyre seeing with Delta and the increasing rates.

On coercion tactics to convince the unvaccinated: I understand people are frustrated, theyre losing patience, they just want to make things via mandate and give up trying to persuade people. I think thats short-sighted for a couple of reasons. If you just resort to sheer coercion, it confirms the narrative that theyre out to get us, that theyre shoving things down our throat. Youre just laying the groundwork for a deepening divide. The second reason is were still in the first or second inning of vaccine outreach globally. Parts of Africa and Asia are heavily influenced by Christian culture. A country like Uganda is like 90 percent Christian. Those churches, those places in Africa, they actually take their cultural cues to a great extent from American evangelicals, especially leading white evangelical voices. So America isunfortunately, through evangelical cultureexporting its vaccine hesitancy. A lot of the same conspiracy theories and doubts and fears that weve been battling here, we are definitely seeing emerge and being replicated in the rest of the world. Changing American culture is not just about getting more American evangelicals to take the vaccine, its going to be critical to getting the rest of the world vaccinated. And ultimately, for all of us, if we dont get the entire world vaccinated, were all at risk.

On the next phase of the pandemic: Whats going to be really important is for Christians to convey to other Christians is that its okay to change your mind. The virtues of grace and acceptance are going to be paramount here because people are going to be even more resistant if they think that in changing their mind they are going to be shamed.

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This Former Pastor Is Changing Evangelicals' Minds on COVID Vaccines Mother Jones - Mother Jones

Modern sophistry: how to debunk politicians and self-help books – Big Think

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

According to market research, U.S. self-help book sales have nearly doubled over the last five years. There are books offering advice on any aspect of our daily life, but the highest grossing tend to make bold claims like improving your sexual desirability in the eyes of others or helping you lose weight on a diet of soaked nuts. Self-help books are often criticized for exaggerating their own effectiveness, and while we often pick them up with some reserve, we keep reading because we are in need of assistance.

Before self-help books became a separate, mass-marketable literary genre, readers turned to philosophers for answers to life's most burning questions. Though philosophical texts are typically constructed with greater scrutiny than your average assertiveness training guidebook, not all are equally reliable. In many cases, philosophers have also cherry-picked evidence or employed elevated language to get a certain point across more efficiently, usually at the cost of their followers.

While ideas evolve with each subsequent generation and differ from culture to culture, human emotions stay more or less the same across space and time. As such, it should come as no surprise that the practice of shuffling words around is as old as language is itself. In Ancient Greece, practitioners of this powerful but dangerous artform were called sophists. Sophists were rhetoricians who sold their service to politicians, helping them to persuade or deceive their colleagues and constituents.

Developing alongside the art of word shuffling was the science of detecting false premises in everyday discourse. This can be easy and straightforward if you are dealing with a short speech but difficult when analyzing academic writing, which often features long, complex arguments that offer more opportunities for the author to cloak their incorrect propositions. In today's age of fake news, recognizing sophistry is more important than ever and these thinkers show you exactly how to do it.

In Plato's Gorgias, Socrates manages to score a one-on-one with the titular sophist. Getting it was not easy; Gorgias is one of the most eloquent and, as a result, popular speakers in all of Athens. But while most of his countrymen readily accept whatever proposition comes out of Gorgias' mouth, Plato believes he has more in common with a magician or a snake oil salesman than he does with a thinker. Consequently, Socrates uses his own philosophical tactics to see through Gorgias' elaborate act.

For starters, Socrates asks Gorgias to conduct their discussion in the form of a dialogue. Initially, Gorgias refuses. As an orator, he is used to delivering long and uninterrupted monologues to large crowds of anonymous onlookers. Up on his stage, Gorgias relies on charisma, pathos, and fancy world play to reinforce the weaker sections of his arguments. In dialogue, Socrates can pause Gorgias whenever he wants, forcing the orator to rely only on logic.

Consequently, Plato is able to plant several red flags regarding Gorgias' credibility. Judging by his character alone, Gorgias hates to be proven wrong and never forfeits a debate until he achieves victory. The orator cannot be blamed for his insistence on winning; it is drilled into every sophist's skull in school. Still, it stands in contrast to Socrates, who tells Gorgias that he would love nothing more than for his interlocutors to prove him wrong, thus bringing him closer to his ultimate objective: the truth.

Gorgias calls Socrates' incessant questioning of society's most basic and widely accepted concepts childlike and disruptive. The orator does not see his interest in the abstract as being in service to his community; truth and logic neither sway elections nor destroy invading armies. Socrates, for his part, serves the truth in the way that other men might serve the woman that they are in love with hence, his famous statement, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Socrates also points out flaws in Gorgias' reasoning. Instead of using logic to build up propositions, orators reinforce their arguments with anecdotes. When discussing the importance of virtue, a follower of Gorgias recounts the life of a slave who, by immoral means, became a ruler. As moving as the stories of individual people can be, Socrates reminds us that they can never be perfect distillations of universal human experience, making them essentially worthless to the honest philosopher.

Credit: Markus Spiske via Unsplash

Unfortunately, recognizing a sophist is not as easy as it was in Ancient Greece. Across history, the term has not only become irrelevant to the general public, but within academic circles, it has actually acquired a negative connotation comparable to words like "populist" and "demagogue." In other words, no self-respecting thinker (or self-help book writer) would ever call themselves a sophist. To make that link, we have to look even closer at their preferred rhetorical strategies.

Sophists are fond of strawmanning, which is when someone formulates a weak or imaginary version of their opponent's argument to make their own appear stronger. In 2019, clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson took on the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj iek in a heavily televised debate titled Happiness: Capitalism vs Marxism. The pro-capitalist Peterson, rather than tackle a substantial portion of the diverse literature on Marxism that is out there, limited himself to one short text: The Communist Manifesto.

Despite reinvigorating socialist movements around the globe, The Communist Manifesto cannot be considered representative of the communist nations that arose during the last century. Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, it was conceived as a political pamphlet, making it incomparable to true academic works such as Marx's magnum opus, Capital. By refusing to acknowledge any text other than the manifesto, Peterson hinted at his inability to debate iek head-on. This is not to label Peterson a "sophist," but to indicate that he was debating a strawman.

Sophists frequently use high-brow language to distract from any discrepancies in their logic and appear more authoritative than they are. Within academia, this practice got so out of hand that the British writer George Orwell decided to write an essay about it. "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity," he wrote in Politics and the English Language. "When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns to long words and exhausted idioms, like cuttlefish spurting out ink."

That, however, is not to say that simplicity is always better. Inspired by the same sentiment that moved Orwell, a number of public intellectuals have built entire careers out of simplifying complex social, cultural, and economic phenomena. Like the aforementioned cuttlefish, these individuals are ostracized by the academic communities in which they were trained for leaving out crucial but contradictory details in their efforts to construct big pictures.

Even with all these methods in mind, recognizing a sophist remains challenging because of the way certain ideas grow and take root. For an easy-to-understand explanation, look no further than Denis Diderot's 1805 novella Rameau's Nephew. Set in Paris during the dawn of the French Enlightenment, it describes the conversation between an unnamed philosopher and the embittered, cynical, hedonistic nephew of a famous composer named Jean-Franois Rameau.

The French Enlightenment revived European interest in ancient Greek culture and ideas. Democracy, metaphysics, and the belief that reason leads to happiness and progress were all back in swing, but the nephew refused to join the party. "People praise virtue," he tells the narrator. "But they hate it. They run away from it, because it makes them freezing cold, and in this world one has to have warm feet. Why else do we so often see devout people so hard, so angry, so unsociable?"

While favoring the easy way over the hard one has always been a telling characteristic of demagogues, Diderot implies that there is more to the nephew than meets the eye. "Talent hits a target no one can reach," Arthur Schopenhauer wrote in his book The World as Will and Representation, "but genius hits a target no one can see." Academic and artistic breakthroughs are rarely appreciated in their own time; neither Socrates nor Schopenhauer became well-known until after their deaths.

Applying this parable to Rameau's Nephew, we find a quintessential man of talent in the form of Rameau himself, a composer who according to his own family members found quick success catering to contemporary tastes but whose music would surely be forgotten in the future. Though the nephew will not refer to himself as the genius of this story, he has a few things going for him. Like Socrates, he has repeatedly clashed against the established order over his unpopular, anachronistic values.

Given how familiar the nephew's cynicism and existential dread are to us today after they were further developed by the likes of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, this is likely no coincidence. Rameau's Nephew teaches us that, while we should always be skeptical of people claiming to have knowledge that could change our lives for the better, we should not ignore them just because they are being criticized by the academic community. Years from now, their ideas may well become commonplace.

Sophists are not defined by any lack of skill or intellect so much as their motivations. Writing or speaking for personal gain rather than the gratification of philosophic inquiry alone, they sell their soul to the highest bidder, claiming one thing one day, only to advocate for its exact opposite the next. A reliable philosopher does not just make arguments that are consistent across their career, but they also tend to argue against things rather than for them.

Dissatisfied with the amount of personal bias that influenced studies in the academic community, Karl Popper set out to formulate a new code of ethics for his colleagues. Popper, a philosopher, claimed researchers were better off trying to reject their hypotheses rather than affirm them. Since many public figures have a personal stake in trying to convince others they are right, empirical falsification as Popper called it in The Logic of Scientific Discovery tended to produce more accurate results.

While writing his book, Popper developed an almost religious trust in this idea. "What characterizes the empirical method," he claimed, "is its manner of exposing to falsification, in every conceivable way, the system to be tested. Its aim is not to save the lives of untenable systems but to select the fittest one by exposing them all to the fiercest struggle of survival." The Logic of Scientific Discovery left a strong impact on academics, establishing the philosophy of science as an independent discipline.

Knowing what we do now, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Popper was greatly influenced by the character of Socrates, who in Plato's earliest dialogues never produced any ideas of his own but only occupied himself by questioning the beliefs of others. Not until later dialogues like Republic and Symposium did Plato begin to use his protagonist as a mouthpiece for his own all-encompassing worldview. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper called this act of Plato's a "betrayal."

"Not even to himself did he fully admit that he was combating the freedom of thought for which Socrates had died," Popper wrote of the Greek thinker, "and by making Socrates his champion he persuaded others he was fighting for it. Plato became, unconsciously, the pioneer of many propagandists who, often in good faith, developed the technique of appealing to moral, humanitarian sentiments, for anti-humanitarian, immoral purposes."

By applying these lessons from great thinkers, we make life harder for modern sophists, often politicians and self-help gurus. That is a righteous thing to do.

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Why Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School failed to change the world – New Statesman

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

Shortly before the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, Donald Trump Jr handed his father a memo entitled Potus & Political Warfare. The memo blamed the German Jews of the Frankfurt School for starting the culture wars that destroyed American values. [C]ultural Marxism, wrote the memos author, National Security Council official Rich Higgins, relates to programmes and activities that arise out of Gramsci Marxism, Fabian socialism and most directly from the Frankfurt School. The Frankfurt strategy deconstructs societies through attacks on culture by imposing a dialectic that forces unresolvable contradictions under the rubric of critical theory.

Higginss memo suggested that groups opposed to Donald Trump, including the Occupy movement, Black Lives Matter, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, academics, the media, Democrats, globalists, international bankers, late-night TV comedians and moderate Republicans, are all Frankfurt School puppets: attacks on President Trump operate in a battle-space prepared, informed and conditioned by cultural Marxist drivers.

Its a conspiracy theory and an anti- Semitic one suggesting that these German Marxist Jews who lived in exile in the US during the Third Reich had been an enemy within, corrupting the land that gave them shelter. Martin Jay, the great American historian of the Frankfurt School, revels in its absurdity in his book of essays. Here we have clearly broken through the looking glass and entered a parallel universe in which the normal rules of evidence and plausibility have been suspended. In our post-truth era, even dead Marxists get charged with having political power beyond their wildest dreams.

The irony is that the Frankfurt School had negligible real-world impact. The Institute for Social Research, the schools headquarters, was founded in the early 1920s to account for the failure of revolution in Germany in 1919. The Marxist theorists conclusion was that an economic account of history was inadequate; what was needed was a cultural analysis of authoritarianism, racism and the role of mass entertainment in seducing the masses into desiring their own domination.

Accordingly, in Europe and during exile in the US, the Frankfurt School studied everything from astrology columns to Hollywood cinema and popular music, radio demagogues to consumerism. The masses had been diverted from overthrowing capitalism by what the schools leading thinkers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer called verblendungzussamenhang, a total system of delusion.

***

The Frankfurt conspiracy theory, which has captivated several alt-right figures including Trump, Jordan Peterson and the late Andrew Breitbart, founder of the eponymous news service, turned this history on its head. Rather than impotent professors issuing scarcely comprehensible jeremiads from the academy, the likes of Adorno, Horkheimer, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse were a crack cadre of subversives, who, during their American exile, performed a cultural takedown to which Make America Great Again is a belated riposte. (Walter Benjamin never reached the US fearing repatriation to Nazi Germany, he killed himself in Spain in 1940.)

But it is not just alt-right rubes who have been fooled into believing the Frankfurt School harboured masters of subversion. In 2010, Fidel Castro wrote that the exiled Marxist academics worked with the Rockefeller family in the 1950s to develop mind control, deploying rock music as the new opium of the masses hence, Castro suggested, the invasion of the US by the Beatles who, he claimed, were tasked by the Frankfurt School with weaponising Merseybeat to destroy liberation movements.

[see also:Living in Fernando Pessoas world]

Jay finds the notion risible, ironically suggesting that it explains John Lennons quiet lyrics in one of the bands hits: You say you want a revolution. You know you can count me out Dont you know its gonna be all right? In the late 1930s, Adorno took part in a Rockefeller Foundation-funded research project at Princeton on radio content not mind control and certainly understood the Beatles as instruments of a culture industry by which late capitalism thwarted revolution. Adorno, however, was not the minence grise behind mop-topped world domination.

The truth of the Frankfurt School is that it failed to grasp Marxs dictum: The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. Jrgen Habermas, the schools second-generation leader, called his predecessors retreat from political action a strategy of hibernation. The time was not right for taking to the streets, Adorno told students in the late 1960s; for their part, his students saw their professor as a tool of oppression. They had a point. When students occupied the Institute for Social Research in 1969 Adorno called the police to evict them. One lecture by Adorno was interrupted when a student wrote on the blackboard, If Adorno is left in peace, capitalism will never cease.

That same year, Jay told a fellow grad student at Columbia he was writing a dissertation on the Frankfurt School. The result would be his still seminal history of critical theorys early years, The Dialectical Imagination (1973). His friend a member of the militant left-wing organisation the Weather Underground was dismissive. Didnt Jay realise those Frankfurt jokers were craven sell-outs and Adorno in particular was contemptible for changing his surname from the Jewish-sounding Wiesengrund during his American exile?

Jay was not dissuaded. Thirty years later, though, he made a terrible discovery. In a cache of Adornos correspondence, Jay found a character assassination of himself. Adorno accused Jay of being a sensation-seeking money-grubber and warned everybody off talking to him. Jay wrote an essay called The Ungrateful Dead about how it feels to spend your career promoting the intellectual legacy of someone who then stabs you in the back from beyond the grave.

***

In 2021, then, surely we would do well to ignore the Frankfurt School? Jays new book suggests otherwise. In elegant essays on subjects ranging from Benjamins stamp collecting to the schools engagement with emerging psychoanalytic thought, Jay shows that its writings are not only historical curios, but indispensable for understanding our own age. Their analyses of authoritarianism, for example, especially the parallels they drew between Americas mid-century culture industry and Joseph Goebbels totalitarian use of propaganda in enforcing conformity and silence, not only remain relevant but to some seem prescient: The Frankfurt School knew Trump was coming, read a fanciful New Yorker headline in 2016.

Their insights into consumerism and human sacrifice on the altar of shopping have if anything become more germane. The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them, wrote Adorno and Horkheimer in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). Since they wrote these words, such self-loathing consumerism has become ubiquitous. We all know that using Amazon Prime makes us complicit in the exploitation of workers, but we carry on regardless. We are virtuosos of consumerist disavowal. Their diagnosis of anti-Semitism retains its critical power too. And so people shout Stop thief! but point at the Jews, wrote Adorno and Horkheimer. They are the scapegoats not only for individual manoeuvres and machinations, but in a broader sense, inasmuch as the injustice of the whole class is attributed to them.

There is something else we need to learn from the Frankfurt School, though something they taught by negative example: the perils of that strategy of hibernation. Jay argues that at heart, his hero Adorno doggedly maintained a utopian hope, against the failure of all efforts to realise it, that the domination of the constitutive subject can be ended. But hope without action led to the aura of ivory-tower smugness that often hangs over the Frankfurt School. I established a theoretical system of thought, Adorno told an interviewer at the height of the student revolts. How could I have suspected that people would want to implement it with Molotov cocktails? Adorno was no doubt right to point out the shortcomings of student uprisings, but he was also exasperating for programmatically retreating from the fray and back into theory.

Bertolt Brecht nailed the Frankfurt School best. For him, the group started as revolutionaries who sought to overthrow capitalism but became disengaged intellectuals. Condemned to live in an idolatrous world with the outlook of Hegels beautiful soul, they spent their lives finessing waspish denunciations of society for like-minded readers rather than striving to transform it. They changed the world too little rather than, as National Security Council lackeys told Trump, too much.

Splinters in Your Eye: Frankfurt School Provocations Martin JayVerso, 256pp, 19.99

[see also:Jeanette Wintersons vision of the future of AI is messianic but unconvincing]

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Why Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School failed to change the world - New Statesman

Women in Computer Science Scholarship Winners Announced | The University of New Orleans – uno.edu

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

Two University of New Orleans students have been selected to receive a Women in Computer Science Scholarship, which was created by alumna Sabrina Farmer, a vice president at Google.

The award covers in-state tuition for the academic year and comes with a mentorship from Farmer who established the scholarship a year after she graduated from UNO in 1995 with a computer science degree.

The UNOs Womens Center administers the scholarship.

This scholarship was created to encourage women to stick with this career because while there are challenges, the rewards are tremendous, said Farmer, now the vice president of site reliability for many of Googles billion-customer products including Gmail, Search, Google Maps, Android and Chrome.

She also oversees reliability of product infrastructure, including Googles authentication, identity and abuse systems.

This years scholarship recipients are Courtney Harris and Lisa Gilmore-Montero.

Harris is a junior who has received numerous awards within the College of Sciences. She spent the summer working on a research project at the University of Central Florida funded by the National Science Foundation. A passionate photographer, Harris is looking for ways to bring her art into the tech space and is looking forward to Farmers guidance on the topic.

Gilmore-Montero is a senior majoring in computer science with a minor in digital media. Also a creative, she is looking forward to attending the Grace Hopper Celebration, the largest conference celebrating women in tech.

Gilmore-Montero would like to use the conferences career fair, as well as the advice of Farmer, to help her secure a job in the visually creative side of technology once she graduates.

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Women in Computer Science Scholarship Winners Announced | The University of New Orleans - uno.edu

Its not too late to learn to code. Start now with this 11-course computer science bundle! – WSLS 10

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

If youre applying for jobs right now, thinking about doing so in the future or looking to get ahead in your current position, one valuable skill set you can pursue is computer programming. Coding skills can be applied to a wide variety of fields from finance to design to marketing and much more. Add programming to your resume and back it up with applicable knowledge by completing the 2021 All-in-One Computer Science Certification Bundle.

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The courses in this bundle are taught by seasoned teachers and computer science experts. Instructors received high reviewsaverages of more than 4 out of 5 stars for their clear-cut, intuitive presentation of information. Immerse yourself in topics and explore tools to build up your skills with practice and relevant applications.

Just because you didnt major in computer science in college doesnt mean its too late to learn. This bundle isnt only for computer nerds. Its for anyone whos interested in the subject and willing to learn. Dive into the vast field of computer programming with an online course bundle that has all you need to hit the ground running and confidently add skills to your resume.

For a limited time, this bundle is on sale for just $34.99, meaning each course costs you less than $4. Take the time to learn the essentials of computer science with the 2021 All-in-One Computer Science Certification Bundle.

Prices subject to change.

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Its not too late to learn to code. Start now with this 11-course computer science bundle! - WSLS 10

Capito, Manchin Announce $3.3 Million from National Science Foundation for Research in West Virginia – Shelley Moore Capito

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

CHARLESTON, W.Va. U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, today announced $3,370,526 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research at three West Virginia universities.

The National Science Foundation provides incredible opportunities for our youth, while giving our higher education faculty the resources they need to inspire students to pursue challenging projects in their respective fields. Im glad to see this funding heading to Marshall University, Shepherd University, and West Virginia University. Im proud of the work that continues to be done at our colleges and universities, and I will continue to advocate for the resources they need to be successful, Senator Capito said.

The National Science Foundation continues to be a strong partner for the Mountain State and our universities, investing in important research and fostering hands-on educational opportunities for students across the state. I am pleased NSF is investing in seven different research initiatives at West Virginia University, Marshall University and Shepherd University, and I look forward to seeing the impacts of these studies. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I will continue to fight for funding to support critical research here in West Virginia, Senator Manchin said.

Individual awards listed below:

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Jeannette Wing Promoted To Executive Vice President For Research – Patch.com

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

BY ZACHARY SCHERMELE AUGUST 18, 2021

Jeannette Wing, the Avanessians director of Columbia's Data Science Institute and a professor of computer science, will become the next executive vice president for research, University President Lee Bollinger announced on Wednesday. She will officially start her new role on Sept. 1.

Wing has led the Data Science Institute since 2017. Under her tenure, she has supported a variety of research initiatives in personalized medicine, the impacts of climate change, wireless technology, and other areas.

Wing is widely recognized for her scholarly leadership and contributions in computer science and data science. Following the publication of her essay "Computational Thinking" in 2006, she is credited with innovating the application of core computer science principles to other disciplines. Her current research focus is artificial intelligence.

"Jeannette will advance the office's mandate to grow our research efforts in ways that align with the challenges and opportunities ahead, building on the University's longstanding strengths, supporting collaborations across disciplines, and encouraging work that takes advantage of anticipated new sources of funding from the federal government," Bollinger wrote in an email to students and faculty.

Wing joined Columbia after working at Microsoft, where she was corporate vice president of Microsoft Research. Prior to that, Wing was the head of the department of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. During that time, she also briefly served at the National Science Foundation as the assistant director for the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering.

The coronavirus pandemic leveled an unprecedented blow to academic research at Columbia and its peer institutions. In spring 2020, research at wet labslabs equipped with the right ventilation, plumbing, and other resources to conduct hands-on scientific experiments that were logistically difficult to conduct remotelywas brought to a standstill, with only COVID-19-related research being conducted. The delay created a backlog of data for some researchers.

The pandemic also brought major financial losses to the Columbia University Irving Medical Center and hit the University's endowment in a way that could have an indirect, negative effect on its research capabilities. But Wing insists that now, over a year after many of Columbia's labs were physically shuttered, research productivity is high again, and she is excited about new federal funding opportunities.

"I don't actually know what the situation will be like in September, but what I can assure you is that wet lab research, where people have to come on campus, has continued throughout COVID-19, and the good news is that anything that was essentially non-wet lab research, that has been able to continuenot a problem," she said.

The announcement of Wing's appointment comes during what Bollinger referred to as an "extraordinary moment in national advancement and funding of university research." In recent months, Congress has introduced significant legislationnotably the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021that, if passed, would make historic investments to further the research capabilities of higher education institutions.

"We're all holding our breath, because you know how Congress operates," Wing said.

The bill was originally introduced in May 2020 as the Endless Frontiers Act, but died in committee in both houses.

The spirit of the legislation was revived this year in the Innovation and Competition Act, which was passed by the Senate in June and, pending House approval, will invest around $200 billion toward advancing the United States' "global research competitiveness." A significant portion of that money would go to higher education institutions like Columbia in the form of grants, which postdoctoral students and researchers rely on to fund their work.

"This is the reason why I'm excited about this new position, because if it does happen, and assuming it will happen, I want to help Columbia be prepared for these new opportunities," Wing said.

While at the Data Science Institute, Wing worked to promote diversity among researchers by creating a task force on and an action plan for racial equity. She also appointed an associate director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and through pipeline and recruitment initiatives, hopes to continue that work in her new role.

"I also, from my own experience as a researcher, have seen the benefits of having a diverse team," she said. "Diversity along all dimensions is very important for advancing science and engineering and all disciplines, in terms of research."

Senior staff writer Zach Schermele can be contacted at zachary.schermele@columbiaspectator.com. Follow him on Twitter @ZachSchermele.

Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.

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Jeannette Wing Promoted To Executive Vice President For Research - Patch.com

WV senators announced over $3 million for research at universities in the state – WBOY.com

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

Charleston, W.Va. U.S. Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Thursday, announced $3,370,526 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research at three West Virginia universities.

Individual awards listed below:

This project will contribute to the preparation of a well-educated workforce in STEM fields by providing financial, academic, social, and career support to a diverse cohort of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need at Shepherd University. The project will apply and strengthen evidence-based student support programs that improve the educational success of a diverse community of 52 students (total of 126 scholarships) majoring in a degree program offered by the Department of Computer Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering (CME): Data Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Information Sciences, Computer Information Technology, Computer Engineering, or Engineering Science.

This project will study complex dynamical behavior in chemical systems to gain insights into new types of dynamical behavior in manufactured and living systems. It will also engage students at West Virginia University giving valuable experience in experimental and computational methods for the investigation of dynamical behavior of chemical systems. The National Science Foundation is investing $395,176 in 2021 and will invest additional funding totaling $580,000 over the next three years until the expected end date of the project 2024.

This project will lead to transformative advances in behavioral science and data-driven computational neuroscience for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) phenotyping. Improved and earlier diagnosis can substantially improve quality of life of ASD individuals and their communities. This project will provide an excellent platform to train both graduate and undergraduate students at the intersection of neuroscience and computer science.

This funding will facilitate the acquisition of a specialized microscope used to visualize samples at very small dimensions. Students and faculty at Marshall University will use this microscope to gain fundamental knowledge in a range of important research projects. These include investigating calcium deposits in blood vessels, detecting toxic nanoparticles in human cells, water treatment to remove contamination and pharmaceutical manufacturing.

This project studies the Dark Energy-driven accelerating expansion of the Universe and will work to develop new radio signal technology and techniques to improve the capability of current instruments to do these experiments and thus enable a better understanding of the nature of Dark Energy. The project looks to expand interaction with school teachers to enhance their knowledge of radio astronomy techniques that can be relayed to students in schools.

This funding will be used to replace and upgrade the existing Applied Biosystems 3130xL genetic analyzer with the ABI 3500xL, allowing enhancements to the current services provided by the WVU Genomics and Bioinformatics Core Facility. Specifically, this replacement will improve turn-around time, result in higher quality output, and create the capacity for multiplexing, all of which will strengthen ongoing local and regional research and teaching efforts.

This project will work to build secure recommender systems against data poisoning attacks in order to protect individuals and companies data. This project will also provide research opportunities for students that are traditionally underrepresented in computing and will be incorporated into classes at West Virginia University.

Jeannette Wing Appointed Executive Vice President for Research | Office of the President – Columbia University

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:

It is a great pleasure to announce my appointment of Jeannette Wing to serve as the next Executive Vice President for Research, responsible for managing Columbias research activities across our New York campuses and abroad, effective September 1, 2021. Jeannette is currently the Avanessians Director of the Data Science Institute and Professor of Computer Science. She brings to her new role the skills of an accomplished scientist and a gifted administrator with a distinguished career in the academy, industry, and government.

Jeannette came to Columbia in 2017, after having worked at Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon University, and the National Science Foundation, to lead the Data Science Institute, where she and her team have embraced the power of data science to transform the Universitys teaching and research capacities. Under her leadership, the Institute has supported important research initiatives such as personalized medicine, understanding the impacts of climate change, and advancing the next generation of wireless technologies. The Institute has also established interdisciplinary research and educational programs for faculty and students, encouraged the growth of and access to real-world datasets, and supported large-scale studies of COVID-19 treatments. Jeannette has also been involved personally in recruiting new faculty and building collaborations within and beyond the University. Further, in recognition of the racial equity gaps in data science research and education, she and her team have created a Task Force on Racial Equity, launched a Racial Equity Action Plan, and appointed an Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Institute.

As Columbias Executive Vice President for Research, Jeannette will advance the offices mandate to grow our research efforts in ways that align with the challenges and opportunities ahead, building on the Universitys longstanding strengths, supporting collaborations across disciplines, and encouraging work that takes advantage of anticipated new sources of funding from the federal government. Importantly, Jeannette is committed to promoting fundamental research with real-world applications in the realms of artificial intelligence, quantum science, semiconductors, robotics, biotechnology, energy technology, cybersecurity, and material science, thereby furthering what I call the Fourth Purpose of the University. She will also expand our partnerships with organizations in the business, nonprofit, higher education, and government sectors. Uniting all of this work is a commitment to increasing the presence of historically underrepresented groups in research fields through various pipeline, recruitment, and advancement initiatives.

I will share details on the search for the next Director of the Data Science Institute as they take shape. I am very grateful to Jeannette for taking on these responsibilities and for her service to the institution, especially so at this extraordinary moment in national advancement and funding of university research.

Sincerely,

Lee C. Bollinger

Making machines that make robots, and robots that make themselves – MIT News

August 22, 2021 | Author: admin

After a summer of billionaires in space, many people have begun to wonder when they will get their turn. The cost of entering space is currently too high for the average citizen, but the work of PhD candidate Martin Nisser may help change that. His work on self-assembling robots could be key to reducing the costs that help determine the price of a ticket.

Nissers fascination with engineering has been a consistent theme throughout a life filled with change. Born to Swedish parents, he spent a decade in Greece before moving to the UAE, and eventually to Scotland for his undergraduate degree. No matter what new school he attended, his favorite subjects remained the same. The idea of using math and physics to build something tangible always clicked with me, says Nisser. As a kid, I had always wanted to be an inventor.

By the time he completed his undergraduate degree, Nisser knew what he aspired to invent. His senior capstone project had drawn upon multiple disciplines and provided the perfect introduction to robotics. We had to sift through all of the different things we learned in college and combine them to do something interesting. Multidisciplinarity is often essential in robotics and part of what makes it so alluring to me, he says.

Designing robots prepared for space

After discovering his love for robotics, Nisser enrolled in a masters program in robotics, systems, and control at ETH Zurich, during which time he met a Harvard professor who directed the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory and invited Nisser to write his thesis there. His thesis involved building robots that could fold to assemble themselves. We used layers of materials including shape memory polymers, which are smart materials that can be programmed to changed their shape under different temperature conditions, says Nisser. This allowed us to program 2D multilayer sheets to fold in particular ways in order to acquire targeted 3D configurations.

The experience brought Nisser to his current interest in exporing how robots can be automatically fabricated using both top-down processes like 3D printing and bottom-up processes like self-assembly. He notes that this engineering goal opens a wide door of academic questions. The multidisciplinarity required to build these engineering systems from mechanical and electrical engineering to computer science means youre always learning something new. Every once in a while, you get to apply a technique youve learned in one discipline to another, in a way it hasnt been used before, he says. Thats usually when something interesting happens.

Prior to beginning his PhD, Nisser also researched reconfigurable robots at the European Space Agency. This project helped him realize he could combine his passion for robotics with his interest in space. Because every system launched into space has to fit within the confines of a rocket firing, space agencies are interested in structures that can self-reconfigure between smaller and larger shapes, he says. I saw a great opportunity to build on what Id learned about self-folding robotics. I developed algorithms that would allow large numbers of spacecraft modules to move together, attach to one another, and then reconfigure together into a target shape.

Now a PhD student in the HCI Engineering Group at MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Nisser has partnered with the MIT Space Exploration Initiative to continue studying self-assembly in space. His team is developing a new kind of 3D printing technique adapted to the space environment, allowing them to create novel structures without the constraints of gravity. He recently tested his work on a parabolic flight, which allowed him to experience weightlessness for several intervals of 20 seconds. This December, the project will be launched to the International Space Station with SpaceX for a 30-day science mission.

Making hardware more accessible

To Nisser, studying self-configuration and self-assembly is also key to addressing important social issues. He is particularly interested in how his research can improve sustainability and make advanced technology more affordable. We typically build systems to perform a specific task, like a chair or a car. However the long-term vision is to be able to create systems from modular, smart components that let the system reconfigure and adjust its functionality to diverse needs, Nisser says. By addressing core challenges along the way, we aim to develop technology for the short term too.

Nisser has already begun to address this challenge by constructing LaserFactory, an add-on device for only $150 that connects to laser cutters and produces custom-designed devices ranging from electronic wearables to functional drones. The fabrication process requires no further instructions to operate finished drones can fly straight off the assembly line. The device has already been featured by the BBC and other outlets for its ingenuity. The ability to print fully functional robots is also important for space, where creating on-demand electromechanical devices without any human intervention is paramount to enabling long-duration missions, he adds.

In his free time, Nisser furthers his goal of democratizing technology by teaching introductory programming to incarcerated women. His lessons are through Brave Behind Bars, a program he and grad student Marisa Gaetz created last year after learning about the U.S. mass incarceration rate. Almost one in a hundred people in the U.S. today are incarcerated, and more than 80 percent of those will return to prison within a few years of release he says. Providing incarcerated people with educational opportunities that promote success in todays digital world is one of the most effective ways to help reduce this recidivism.

After graduating, Nisser hopes to continue teaching and conducting robotics research by pursuing a career as a professor. He looks forward to doing more projects related to space and hardware accessibility. The closer we get toward automating assembly, the sooner we can reduce costs and increase accessibility to all kinds of advanced hardware systems, says Nisser.

Initiatives like One Laptop Per Child helped increase awareness of the tremendous benefits of connecting people to the internet by letting people share and create things digitally. The same analogy translates to hardware, he says. By distributing fabrication via inexpensive printers or self-assembling hardware that remove the need for engineering expertise, we create an opportunity for people to share and create things physically. And thats good for everyone.

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Making machines that make robots, and robots that make themselves - MIT News

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Women in Computer Science Scholarship Winners Announced | The University of New Orleans – uno.edu

Its not too late to learn to code. Start now with this 11-course computer science bundle! – WSLS 10

Capito, Manchin Announce $3.3 Million from National Science Foundation for Research in West Virginia – Shelley Moore Capito

Jeannette Wing Promoted To Executive Vice President For Research – Patch.com

WV senators announced over $3 million for research at universities in the state – WBOY.com

Jeannette Wing Appointed Executive Vice President for Research | Office of the President – Columbia University

Making machines that make robots, and robots that make themselves – MIT News

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