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Week in Review

Ali Lincoln

The TVP Comms team welcomed strategist Bobby Mathews to the team on Monday—and he survived the whole week! We’ve got all the dirt you’ll need on him right here, and be sure to give him a follow on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn!
What’s new this week:
Congrats to Farmer School of Business professor Leslie Stoel for having her article from the Conversation on the future of American Apparel end up in Fortune.
A big congratulations to Drake University professor Anthony Gaughan, who officially became a columnist for The Conversation this week! His piece on the Benghazi Committee and Hillary Clinton ran in Newsweek as well. Additionally, Gaughan weighed in on the Democratic debate for the Conversation, and the commentary was also picked up by Newsweek.
Don’t forget to check out Inside Higher Ed’s Call to Action blog, which features guest posts from David Baker at Oregon State University and Paul Redfern at Gettysburg College this week.
What we’ve been talking about:
With her due date rapidly approaching, Ali Lincoln shares her tips for preparing for maternity leave and being out of the office without too much anxiety.
Erin Hennessy is headed back to school in January—as a professor! She’s already got her course description and learning objectives nailed down for her media relations class at Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies’ Public Relations and Corporate Communications. Stay tuned for more insight and hopefully an awesome professorial ensemble complete with a sassy tweed blazer!
What we’ve been reading:
Erin Hennessy
As a New Jersey native, I’ve spent more time than most sitting in a diner, considering an oversized, multi-page menu, paralyzed by choice. Burger? Omelet? Grilled cheese? Pancakes? Cheese fries? (Trick question: cheese fries are ALWAYS a must.) It turns out that I’m not alone in being overwhelmed by too many choices. As this article explains, though it may feel counter-intuitive, too many choices can make us miserable, stressed out, and less satisfied with our eventual decisions.
Bobby Mathews
Payday lending is a predatory practice that helps keep poor people poor. Sanders’ plan to use post offices to do some basic banking (including small loans) does a couple of things: 1) It could allow poor people to keep more of their money and not go into potentially ruinous debt; and 2) it could make the U.S. Postal Service relevant again in a post-snail mail world. Many other countries use their post offices in the same way, so maybe it’s time we caught on here in America, too. 
Ali Lincoln
I’ll be honest: aside from the latest issue of Cooking Light and this fantastic Boston Globe magazine article on food preferences versus allergies (shocking that what little I’ve managed has been food related), my reading has been next to zero this week. Instead, I’ve done a whole lot of sitting and TV watching. My husband and I have been beefing up our Netflix queue for post-baby, and this week, he convinced me to start The Blacklist. MISTAKE. While I love Netflix and other video streaming services, I get sucked into binge-watching sessions and am left to regret my poor choice to click “Still Watching.” At this rate, I’ll be able to watch it live next week…whoops.
Kyle Gunnels
Grammar is important. Many people incorrectly think that grammar is a catchall term for punctuation and spelling things correctly, however that’s not the case. Grammar encompasses ALL structural rules for the composition and development of sentences—grammar is the foundation for all communication. And it can be used to change meanings and subtly shape perceptions. This commentary piece from the New York Times details how Texas has used grammar to reshape history in textbooks to be used at schools across the state. 
Kristine Maloney
This Goats and Soda story examining gender inequity across the globe had some pretty staggering numbers about the value some countries place on women and girls and the opportunities available to them. Looking at everything from education to babies to marriage to work to politics and to leadership, the general outlook for girls isn’t great, even in the U.S. There are some small signs of progress though, which gives me hope that my daughter will see much improved conditions for women across the world during her lifetime.
And, do yourself a favor and check out National Geographic’s annual photo contest entries. They tell their own stories—stunningly amazing ones.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Proactive work on race and inclusion on campuses is becoming a bigger and bigger focus for our team, which is why I initially clicked on this article. But I quickly realized that The Atlantic piece was much bigger and even better than I had hoped. “History Class and the Fictions About Race in America” talks about the teaching resources used to portray race when telling America’s story, biases in how we portray history, and a summary of the decline in the number of teachers interested in teaching history, much less American History. It’s well worth a click.
Follow us on Twitter!
Here’s a look at what we were tweeting this week:


https://twitter.com/bwmathews/status/656503583341281280


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