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How does a parent answer a child’s questions about school shootings? For instance: Why does this keep happening? Will it happen to me? If it does, will I be OK? Writer Meg Conley, a mother of three, describes the agony of not having all the answers:
After the second shooting at East High School, we started talking about homeschooling. It’s not the first time we’ve had the conversation. But my kids love lunchtime, talking in the halls, learning new things from new teachers, school plays and after-school clubs. Being separated from those things during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic affected them in ways I still find frightening to contemplate. Forming community with people who are not part of their household is a vital part of their lives. There are just some things that can’t be replicated in the home.
One night in New York City, I sat in between my two oldest daughters as they watched their first Broadway play, Funny Girl. The play opened with Fanny Brice, played by Julie Benko, sitting in front of a mirror, looking at herself before she says, “Hello, gorgeous.” When she said those words, most of the audience knew what was coming, so they cheered. But my girls didn’t, so they politely clapped. I watched them watch the play, with wide eyes. By the end of the show, they loved Brice. They loved Benko. When she started to sing the reprise of “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” the girls understood what had been and what was coming. They cheered with everyone else. They became part of the community in that room.
We were wandering through the Met museum when my daughter got a text from another friend. It was just a link to a news story. Her middle school principal had gone to the media. There is a child at her school that was recently charged with attempted first-degree murder and illegal discharge of a firearm. That child doesn’t need incarceration; the child needs help. But teachers are not trained to give that help. The district rejected the school’s request that the student be moved to online schooling. Instead, the child goes to school every day and receives a daily pat down from untrained school staff before going to class. This student is on the same safety plan as the student who shot two deans before spring break. My daughter showed me the text and asked again, “What are we going to do?”
My two oldest girls went to see a preview of the new musical New York, New York with their dad that night. I stayed behind with their youngest sister. She’s too young for Broadway, but nearly old enough to be killed at school.
Greg Hart has been named chief technology officer at Washington University in St. Louis. Most recently, he has been vice president of corporate engineering for Faith Technologies Inc. of Lenexa, Kansas. Prior to that, he served for four years as vice president of enterprise project management and performance improvement for Mosaic Life Care, a four-hospital health system in Kansas City.
Dr. Hart earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and technology from California University of Pennsylvania. He holds an MBA from Ashland University in Ohio and a Ph.D. in information technology management from Capella University.
Brenda Murrell is the new associate vice chancellor for research in the Office of Sponsored Programs at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. She has served in the role on an interim basis for the past year. She has been on the staff at the university for 17 years.
Murrell holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Memphis and a bachelor’s degree in management from Lemoyne-Owen College in Memphis. She earned an MBA in finance from Christian Brothers University in Memphis.
Todd Misener was appointed assistant vice president in the Division of Student Affairs at Oklahoma State University. Since 2016, he has been the chief wellness officer at the university. Earlier, Dr. Misener was assistant director of wealth and fitness at Western Kentucky University.
Dr. Misener is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, where he majored in kinesiology. He holds a master of public health degree from Western Kentucky University and a Ph.D. in health promotion from the University of Louisville.
D’Andra Mull will be the next vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Colorado Boulder, effective June 1. Dr. Mull most recently served as vice president for student life at the University of Florida. Prior to her position at the University of Florida, she held leadership positions at Ohio State University.
Dr. Mull is a graduate of Kent State University in Ohio. She holds a master’s degree in adult education and human resource management from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. in educational policy and leadership from Ohio State University.
Khala Granville is the new director of undergraduate admission and recruitment at Morgan State University in Baltimore. She is the former dean of admissions at the College of Charleston in South Carolina and a senior associate director of admissions, diversity recruitment, and outreach at Indiana University.
Granville holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from the University of Louisville. She earned a master of divinity degree from the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis.
In time, infrastructure supporting the electrification of vehicles will become robust, reliable, and a wonderfully mundane reality, an evolution that will undoubtedly coincide with everyday vehicle range that will not only match, but exceed internal combustion engines. But even the most confident long range battery-equipped EV owner today has occasionally felt the twinge of range anxiety while roadtripping beyond your normal routine roads. That is, unless you set beyond city limits equipped with your very own EV-charging batteries doubling up as a teardrop 4-person camper to call your own.
The Boulder by Colorado Teardrops sports an attractive design, one evocative of the offspring of a Tesla paired with a retro teardrop camper your grandparents might have once explored the highways with in tow. The softly angular, Cybertruck-ish design is evidently designed to complement the most popular EV today, down to gull-wing doors and aerodynamic wheels.
The Boulder’s skateboard platform and powder-coated steel trailer design sits on top of a 3500 lb. rated suspension, holding a 75 kWh bank of EV batteries, allowing wanderers of the road to recharge their EV batteries with nary a charging station in site.
Other than being a sizable charging station on wheels, The Boulder offers cozy accommodations for a family of four, equipped with a fully insulated cabin with a seating arrangement during the day that easily converts into a queen-size bed with two additional bunk beds. The rear of the trailer reveals space for all of the necessities of the road camping lifestyle, with the option to upgrade to “glamping” grade accoutrements such as air conditioning, propane heater, patio umbrella mounts, awnings, side counters, espresso machine, and an assortment of optional colors.
The Boulder’s compact size belies its price, which will set you back $67,000, more than the starting price of a Tesla Model Y. But considering the double-duty capabilities of a trailer that can comfortably house four people and offer Level 3 or Combined Charging Standard (CCS1) to add an additional 100 miles of range in just ten minutes, those with electrified hearts stricken with wanderlust might find the price justifiable.
Enlarge / A view of the Colorado River from the Navajo Bridge in Marble Canyon, Arizona on Aug. 31, 2022. (credit: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
In 2007, the seven states that rely on the Colorado River for water reached an agreement on a plan to minimize the water shortages plaguing the basin. Drought had gripped the region since 1999 and could soon threaten Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the largest reservoirs in the nation.
Now, that future has come to pass and the states are again attempting to reach an agreement. The Colorado River faces a crisis brought on by more than 20 years of drought, decades of overallocation and the increasing challenge of climate change, and Lake Mead and Lake Powell, its largest reservoirs, have fallen so low that their ability to provide water and generate electricity in the Southwest is at risk. But reaching consensus on how to avoid that is proving to be more challenging than last time.
“The magnitude of the problem is so much bigger this time, and it’s also so much more immediate,” said Elizabeth Koebele, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno.
When flyers began appearing around the University of Colorado Boulder, announcing that an enrolled student with ties to the white nationalist group Patriot Front, the campus’s independent student newspaper took notice. It secured an interview with the student, Patryck Durham, who admitted to being affiliated with Patriot Front and to publishing social media posts encouraging the killing of immigrants and Black people, but said UC officials were aware of all this before he enrolled and that it was “in the past.” Within hours, the story had taken a turn:
Durham did not definitively say whether he still held the violent beliefs that appeared in his social media posts, which were published in 2021.
“I can’t put an exact date on it because a lot of this stuff is messy. But it’s been, I think, a year or more by now,” since he was last affiliated with Patriot Front, Durham said.
Early Thursday morning, Jan. 26, several hours after Durham spoke with reporters for this story, the University of Colorado Police Department (CUPD) responded to reports of suspicious activity in Durham’s residence hall.
According to police records, officers found Durham with two people that police described as “older friends from Longmont,” just before 2 a.m. Durham failed to clarify to law enforcement how he knew the two individuals in his room, and witnesses told police they felt uncomfortable with the presence of Durham and the other adults.
One of the witnesses told police the pair of older adults were part of the white nationalist group Durham has been affiliated with. The two individuals were “told to leave the building” and did, according to police records.
According to the police report, witnesses also saw Patriot Front messages and propaganda on Durham’s laptop. Witnesses told police Durham was communicating with members of the hate group through the messaging app Telegram.
Sources who described the encounter to the CU Independent and The Bold did so on the condition of anonymity, as they were worried they would be harmed for coming forward. People familiar with the incident said Durham returned to the dorms the next day, Jan. 27, to move out.
Two Colorado libraries – one in Boulder and one in the Denver suburb of Englewood — have had to temporarily close down within the last month to scrub away methamphetamine contamination. Meth residue "exceeded state thresholds," said a city spokesperson, and was found on surfaces in the libraries' restrooms and elsewhere, including in the ducts, on walls, and on countertops. — Read the rest
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