At the Philadelphia-area manufacturer GGBearings, employees representing every corner of the plant--from the company president to machinists, engineers, and finance staff members--have assembled in the conference room. The balanced mix of men and women varies in age, race, and background. Some are in uniform, others in business-casual dress. A few…

Three academics reflect on how to stay positive during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sarah Higginbotham finds that some of her most heartening experiences during this time have been while enacting unrehearsed Zoom Shakespeare plays with colleagues and students. She usually experiences telepresence events as rather flattened interactions, while insulated…

In this article, Roy Rosenstein shares the events that occurred during his first day of teaching the Dante and Medieval Culture course in the fall semester of 2001 at the American University of Paris (AUP). On, September 11, 2001, immediately following Rosenstein's opening statement of "Welcome to hell," the class was alerted to the…

Each summer, faculty and academic deans from institutions across the country make their way to the Wye River campus of the Aspen Institute on the Eastern Shore of Maryland for a weeklong seminar. Described as professional development, it often turns out to be much more. The Wye Seminars have at their core a collection of classic texts--from Plato…

A key element of a liberal education is engagement with "classic" texts, texts that often present views in conflict with our commitment to diversity and inclusion. This article will ask, although not necessarily answer, a number of important questions: Do classic texts perpetuate long-refuted and harmful ideas? Can a racist, sexist,…