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I grew up across the street from a ten-acre public park in Chicago; it was always there, just down the steps from our modest house, acting like a baronial front yard. Our Dad figured this would serve the purpose of getting his two pre-school sons out of his hair as we got bigger and more rambunctious…and that’s exactly what happened.
Political scientists are always searching for the “secret” that reveals who’ll be elected President. Traditional speculations are repeated: which way is Ohio going to go? Who’s taller? Which one would you most “like to have a beer with?” It happens every election.
In 2011, a couple of connected things began to happen. That year Barack Obama introduced citizens to the idea of STEM—promoting more education in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. On the grade school level, not much has changed. But at universities, it’s clear that the realms of technology and data are swallowing nearly everything; on U.S. campuses, some 400 different disciplines are listed as STEM-related. Together, our colleges mint more than half a million STEM graduates a year.
It is hard enough to focus more than 6 inches past your face in more normal times. Even in the lifetime that seemed to end a few weeks back, we become reactors more often that we become creators. It seems that’s what our age requires. Efforts to forge change and take the cruel edges off what it means to be modern are governed by the next vote, the next legislative session or the next grant cycle.
