Why the Ivy League is Rethinking ROTC

The controversy flared up again this fall when both Presidential candidates endorsed ROTC. Here's why the debate is different than it was in the '60s.

Obama: The Long-Lost Negatives

It was announced this morning: Barack Obama is TIME's Person of the Year 2008. Here is a story I wrote about the photographer behind a series of 36 images of Obama as a college freshman that have never been published before. She was a junior at Occidental College when he was a freshman. Here are the pix, and you can see the story and the photos together in the print mag.

College Credit Crunch 101

For this week's issue, a colleague and I wrote a story about how colleges are grappling with the effects of the financial crisis, through the lens of a small Wisconsin liberal arts school.

Top 10 Underreported News Stories of 2008

This week was our annual List Issue. Here's the one I did; my favorite is probably the fact that the U.S. shipped 6,700 tons of radioactive sand from Kuwait to Boise. What a good use of gas...

"Speed Dating for Churches" in the Shenandoah Valley

Last month I spent the day with students and professors at Shenandoah University who were visiting a monastery as part of a 10-week "religious road trip" to help the students find a spiritual home. Here's the piece I wrote about it for the mag a couple weeks ago.

Under Financial Stress, More Colleges Cap Enrollments

With budget cuts looming, for the first time in its history Cal State may no longer be open to all the qualified students who want to go.

The Biggest Pranks in Geek History

A few days ago, in honor of the Harvard-Yale game--a perennial pranking target--I did a roundup of the best pranks that the rivalry between Caltech
and MIT has given rise to. My favorite might be the one pictured at left, but all of them are definitely cooler than anything I could think of.

Plastic Surgery Below the Belt

This week the New View Campaign, which protests what they call the "medicalization of sex," held a protest in NYC against cosmetic surgery for women where the sun doesn't shine. It was the jumping off point for this piece, which is on Time.com this morning.

Drive-By Flu Shots

In this week's issue (which, by the way, has one of my favorite cover images of late), I have a short piece on the growing number of hospitals offering curbside flu vaccinations, in part to prep for graver outbreaks.

"Change has come to America"

To wrap up a marathon campaign, our cover looks at what Obama's election means to the country; I contributed reporting.

Does Temperament Matter?

Forgot to post this, but I contributed reporting to our cover story on Presidential temperament a couple of weeks back.

College Students Still Face Voting Stumbling Blocks

College students are supposed to be able to vote where they go to school, but it's not always that easy. Today I wrote about why.

Undergrads on the Bread Line

It's all the economy all the time at the moment; here's a piece I did for Time.com this week about undergrads who can't afford groceries turning to food banks instead.

Colleges Getting Hit by the Credit Crunch

Here's a piece I did for Time.com about how universities are getting hit by the financial meltdown.

Unwelcome Visitors at the Ole Miss' Debate: the Ku Klux Klan

McCain has decided to go to tonight's debate at Ole Miss after all, but the controversy isn't over. Here's a piece I did for Time.com about the visit planned by some unwelcome spectators tonight: the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Will Business Schools Learn from Wall Street's Crisis?

Here's a piece I did for Time.com on the financial-meltdown story from my higher-ed vantage point. It's about how business schools are changing the way they teach risk management--and whether it matters.

21 Ways to Serve America

To coincide with "ServiceNation," the national service summit and Presidential candidates' forum that TIME co-sponsored this week, I contributed short pieces on voluntourism and conservation, among other topics, to this week's cover package. (One of the things I found most interesting: the biggest statistical difference between volunteers and non-volunteers is the amount of TV they watch.)

Getting Strangers to Pay Tuition

It's back-to-school time, and for this week's issue (the cover's at left), I did a Q & A with a rising NYU freshman who's asking strangers to pay his tuition $2.50 at a time. (It's actually working!) I also wrote a piece about him for Time.com.

Reading Sarah Palin

Here's a piece I wrote for Time.com about clues in Sarah Palin's own writing to what she might be like as McCain's Veep candidate...

The Clan McCain

For this week's issue (see the cover at left), a colleague and I wrote a graphic tracing John McCain's ancestry back several generations. My favorite part is that when his mother, Roberta, learned that her son had yelled obscenities at his captors in Vietnam, she threatened to wash his mouth out with soap--though by then McCain was more than 60 years old.
The online gallery is a little different from the print version, but click here to view it.

Democrats go to Denver

As part of the walk-up to the DNC, I have a piece in this week's issue (cover at left) about David Gilbert-Pederson, 17, the youngest delegate. He got his start making signs for Walter Mondale when he was 12, and now he's home-schooled to make time for campaigning.