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Elizabeth Sommers's avatar

#PublicHealthHaiku

Spark of new questions

Quest for knowledge ongoing

Always curious.

Stifle this impulse

Goes to root of questioning

Stunting mental growth.

Science will prevail

Against all odds and challenges

Wounded, surviving.

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farmville's avatar

Pardon me, Professor, BUT IF - IF elite higher education has, over the past 30-40 years invested in ensuring local rural and other working class students had better and best tools and experiences with learning STEM, and had invested in ensuring that the entered career ladders that increased their learning, expertise, and practice in STEM ... we'd have a MUCH different America, and a very different NARRATIVE ... of SUCCESS and purposeful deployment of STEM throughout rural and other working class America. BUT INSTEAD elite higher education EXPANDED its GREEDY SELF INDULGENCE to increase their 'prestige' profile, increase VP and other administrative roles and jobs - with high and higher compensation and assets (very often to SPEND on their VANITIES and to WASTE), raise tuitions and fees (putting access to working class students even farther away and behind), and remove themselves from rural America. THAT is ON higher ed. NOT on working class and rural Americans, who rightfully were disgusted, disillusioned, and distrustful. THAT is ON higher ed. WHAT now will higher ed do for/with rural and other working class communities?

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David Bishai's avatar

Wouldn't it be nice if ALL countries tried to host friendly and supportive universities and work environments so scientists could be at home anywhere. Why call out China for actually presaging the advice in this column? US universities have filled their ranks for decades with highly productive immigrants who saw that US was more supportive to science than their home countries. A world with 180 countries that want to attract talented scientists will be better than a world with 30. Now 2025 might bring us one step closer to a rebalance and a correction for brain drain. If we do this right there is a net gain to the planet, but a loss to US elite's command over (and patent restrictions to) the inventions of the world's most creative people.

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Dr. Chad Swanson's avatar

Of course, the United States didn’t always lead in biomedical research https://open.substack.com/pub/otherpossibilities/p/scene-25-incessant-efforts?r=302vvs&utm_medium=ios

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