The weekend before finals, a murder/suicide occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech that left a campus police officer dead. Campus officials hunted for the killer while the school remained in lock-down for nearly four hours before determining the second body was that of the shooter, a student at a nearby university. While the police…
Category: Opinions
Melting pot or not?
People often say the United States is a melting pot, a place where immigrants arrive and accept a new, “exceptional” identity, that of an American. In this melting pot, people are proclaimed to be equal and their different previous national identities become one. More recently, however, individuals are questioning this assertion, and as Andrew Hacker…
Vitamin D, please
This Letter to the Editors was submitted by Jamie Levine, the Dining Services Nutrition Assistant at Concordia College. For years, vitamin D’s claim to fame has been its role in bone health. But researchers have found even more health benefits. The Institute of Medicine just recently increased the recommended vitamin D intake from 400 to…
Savor the season
Whether it’s Christmas carols, well-known advertisements, or time-honored grumblings about losing the “reason for the season,” December is a time of refrains. Here’s just one to think about: “It’s a busy time of year.” In almost every corner of Western society, December tends to wind up as the time when everyone scrambles to finish pent-up…
Reevaluating teacher evaluations
About this time every semester, faculty members leave their classrooms for a few minutes to allow students to answer questions about their performance and experiences with the course. While the process of evaluating faculty is widespread and encouraged by academic divisions and departments, the instructions and background information about the process provided to students is…
A merry Cobber Christmas
So Cobbers, it is Christmas break. Many of you are like “what do I get my parents… what do I get anyone!?” Do you just go to the bookstore and get some heartfelt Cobber gear and charge it to tuition? Do you lie and say you forgot your gift in your room and then buy…
Christmas time is (almost) here
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always looked forward to the winter holiday season. It seems like each year as the calendar rolls around to December, the atmosphere just becomes electric. People’s moods change, the number of random acts of kindness exponentially increases and there’s an overall sense of optimism that pervades daily…
In support of optimism
In a week and a half, I’ll be a college graduate. Since this will be my last article for the Concordian, I thought I’d break from my usual format to voice a concern that I’ve been carrying with me for a while now: as a culture, it seems like we’ve given up on optimism. Bear…
Six-word memoirs
In our November 11th issue, The Concordian asked the Concordian community to submit their own six-word memoirs in response to the story, Students write life stories in six words or less. Here’s what some of you had to say: I’ll come out when I’m ready – Justin Bertram Found soulmate. Car accident. Age 20. –…
Vegetarian options at Concordia
This Letter to the Editor was submitted by Hannah Tower, Dining Services Nutrition Assistant at Concordia College. There are currently over 7 million people in the United States who follow a vegetarian diet and over 22 million who follow a vegetarian-inclined diet. A 2010 study found that three percent of students at Concordia identify as…