Yale University didn't wait for federal civil rights officials to determine whether the presence of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity was contributing to a hostile sexual environment. The University has banned George W. Bush's old frat from the campus for five years.
In October, members of DKE and pledges gathered at night, near the women's freshman dorms and chanted "No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal!" and "My name is Jack, I'm a necrophiliac, I fuck dead women and fill them with my semen."
This was one of a series of incidents involving frats using misogynistic rituals in their initiation rites. A group of Yale students and alumni alleged in a confidential report to the Department of Education that these and the university's failure to address complaints about sexual violence on campus constituted a hostile sexual environment. The investigation is ongoing.
[Photo credit: Yale art and architecture building, no particular relation to the DKE debacle, but a very cool image of the Yale campus. Lauren Manning, Creative Commons.]
Why practicing empathy matters, and how VR can help
VR's coolest feature? Boosting compassion and empathy.
- Virtual reality fills us with awe and adrenaline — and the technology is only at a crude stage, explains VR filmmaker Danfung Dennis. It's capable of inspiring something much greater in us: empathy.
- With coming technological advancements in pixel display, haptics, and sound tracking, VR users will finally be able to know what it's like to really take another person's perspective. Empathy is inherent in humans (and other animal species), but just as it can be squashed, it must be practiced in order to develop.
- "This ability to improve ourselves to become a more empathetic and compassionate society is what I hope we will use this technology for," Dennis says.
- Constantly being busy is neurologically taxing and emotionally draining.
- In his new book, Jon Kabat-Zinn writes that you're doing a disservice to others by always being busy.
- Busyness is often an excuse for the discomfort of being alone with your own thoughts.
Study: 50% of people pursuing science careers in academia will drop out after 5 years
That's a sharp increase from the 1960s when it took the same share of scientists an average of 35 years to drop out of academia.
- The study tracked the careers of more than 100,000 scientists over 50 years.
- The results showed career lifespans are shrinking, and fewer scientists are getting credited as the lead author on scientific papers.
- Scientists are still pursuing careers in the private sector, however there are key differences between research conducted in academia and industry.
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