Chris Powell: Judge Jackson flunks the ‘what is a woman’ test; school daze; United Robots’ mystery building

Graphic by F l a n k e r

MANCHESTER, Conn.

President Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court to fulfill a campaign promise to give the court its first Black woman. But this week Jackson told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she can't define "woman" because "I'm not a biologist."

So how could the president have been so sure as to what constitutes a woman? He's no biologist either.

And how could the Democratic senators supporting Jackson, also no biologists, be so sure even as they are trying to push her through the confirmation process before her judicial and political philosophies are explored too much?

When the hearing on Jackson's nomination began, "woman" was in the dictionary, and had been for a long time.

But Jackson's evasion on the woman question was a strong hint that if she makes it to the court she will assist the extreme political left in promoting transgenderism and erasing any recognition of gender differences, particularly in regard to women in sports.

Of course, for many years all Supreme Court nominees have been evasive about their views on legal and political controversies. But this evasion never has been taken as far as Jackson took it this week.

The Senate should not accept such evasion. It should tell the president that if he wants to nominate a Black woman for the court, he should find one who at least isn't afraid to admit knowing what a woman is.

Hamden (Conn.) High School . The school’s main building was built in 1935 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The lobby has murals showing scenes from Hamden's history.

— Photo by Streetsim 

According to a Rasmussen poll this week, 58 percent of likely U.S. voters think that the public schools are getting worse, with only 13 percent thinking that they are improving.

Of course, the virus epidemic's interruption of schooling has damaged education terribly. But education already had been declining for years and is probably even worse than the 58 percent in the poll believe. A report in the New Haven Independent this week may not have been surprising but still should have been horrifying.

Quoting the city school system's data, the Independent reported that the performance of 45 percent of New Haven students is two grades behind where it should be and the performance of another 44 percent of students is one grade behind. Only 11 percent of New Haven students are performing at grade level.

Since most of the city's children are fatherless and impoverished, New Haven is worse in this respect than Connecticut generally, but statewide student performance should horrify as well. The last time Connecticut's high school seniors were formally tested for subject proficiency was in 2013 by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. While Connecticut's seniors performed best in the country, half still had not mastered high school English and two-thirds still had not mastered high school math.

Even so, contrary to the Rasmussen poll, most people in Connecticut seem satisfied with their public schools. At least there is no movement to improve schools academically or seriously examine student performance.

Maybe opinions about schools are like opinions about Congress, where most people think that Congress is corrupt and taking the country in the wrong direction even as most people like their own members of Congress

After all, there's some comfort in thinking that while schools are declining generally, one's local schools are still great and that, as in Lake Wobegon, all local students are above average. Such thinking relieves parents of any responsibility to take note of public education's transition from academic learning to "social and emotional learning" with a dollop of political indoctrination -- schooling without the inconvenience of proficiency-test scores.

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Connecticut's Hearst newspapers this week published a remarkable news item produced by an outfit called United Robots, whose computer programs process raw data and put it into prose.

This particular item, drawn from property records, said a "spacious and historic house" in Bridgeport with three stories, 3,700 square feet, seven bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a detached garage had been sold for a mere $2,000. A photograph showed the house looks intact and secure.

But the "robots" didn't explain the low price, so incongruous amid Connecticut's housing shortage. Bridgeport is a troubled city but residential property there is not worthless. There must be a reason for the giveaway price of that house but the "robots" apparently lack the curiosity of a live reporter.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.

Chris Powell: New Haven police chief retires at 49 to pension bonanza; vaping vs. marijuana

Tony Reyes to go from the mean streets of New Haven to the relatively bucolic precincts of Hamden, Conn. Here we see Quinnipiac University’s Arnold Bernhard Library and clock tower, focus of main campus quadrangle.

MANCHESTER, Conn.

Everyone agrees that Tony Reyes has been a great police chief in New Haven, having been appointed in March 2019 after nearly two decades of rising through the ranks of the police department. But the city will lose him in a few weeks as he becomes police chief at Quinnipiac University next door, in Hamden. This is being called a retirement, but it is that only technically. In fact it is part of an old racket in Connecticut's government employee pension system, an abuse of taxpayers.

Typically police personnel qualify to collect full state government and municipal pensions after 20 years, no matter their age. Reyes is only 49, so he easily has another 15 years of working life ahead of him even as he collects a hefty pension from New Haven.

The chief's salary is $170,000 and so his city pension well may be half of that each year. After a week of requests City Hall was unable to provide an estimate of the pension, but then maybe city officials were too busy helping their Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force figure out how to remove carbon from the atmosphere. In the meantime maybe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can handle New Haven's pensions.

Nor would Quinnipiac disclose what it will pay Reyes, though the university is a nonprofit institution of higher education whose tax exemption comes at the expense of federal, state and Hamden property taxpayers. But since a Quinnipiac vice president is paid nearly $600,000 a year, Reyes probably won't starve there.

In the absence of accountability from city government or the university, here's a guess: Reyes will draw an annual pension from New Haven of $80,000 a year while Quinnipiac pays him $150,000 a year. After 15 years at Quinnipiac, Reyes may get another annual pension of $80,000, plus $30,000 a year in ordinary Social Security, for total retirement income at age 65 of close to $200,000 annually -- as if half that wouldn't be lovely.

Pensions are ordinarily understood to be to support people whose working capacity is ended or substantially diminished. But pensions in state and municipal government in Connecticut often provide luxury lifestyles during second careers and after. Meanwhile mere private-sector workers are lucky to conclude their careers with enough Social Security and savings to scrape by on their way to the hereafter.

This scandal could be remedied easily, with enormous savings and greater retention of the best personnel. State and municipal legislation and contracts could restrict government pension eligibility to the customary retirement age of 65 or to the onset of disability before that. But that would require elected officials who had the wit to alert the public to how it is being exploited and the courage to stand up to the government employee unions.

It also would require news organizations to report the scandal in the first place. But it seems that not even New Haven's own news organizations have inquired about the police chief's pension bonanza.

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The new session of the General Assembly will be intriguing for many reasons, maybe most of all for plans to legalize and tax marijuana while outlawing flavored "vaping" products and prohibiting the sale of tobacco products in stores within five miles of schools, which might limit tobacco sales to kiosks in the middle of a few state forests.

Both campaigns seem to be originating with liberal Democratic legislators. The House chairman of the Public Health Committee, Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D.-Westport, an advocate of outlawing flavored vaping products, says, "There's plenty of documentation about how exposure to addictive products at a young age makes it hard for people to extricate themselves."

Of course, marijuana also can lead to addiction to other drugs. Some people deal with and outgrow dope smoking, but some don't.

Drug criminalization long has failed and probably has done more damage than illegal drugs themselves. But it is silly to pretend that outlawing "vaping" products will protect kids any more than outlawing marijuana has done.

Contraband laws just create black markets that make the law futile. If Connecticut opts for legal marijuana while prohibiting "vaping" products, it will be only because legislators believe that there's much more tax revenue in the former than the latter.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.

Llewellyn King: Polls are setup shots and a plague for democracies

Nov. 3, 1948: President Harry S. Truman, shortly after being elected as president, smiles as he holds up a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune issue prematurely announcing his electoral defeat. This image has become iconic about the consequences of bad polling data.

WEST WARWICK, R.I.

Damn, damn, damn the polls.

My irritation has nothing to do with how they botched this election, or how they botched the last two British elections or the Brexit vote.

It is not a matter, to my mind, of whether the polls get it wrong. It is a matter simply that they are taken at all. I have been railing against them for years.

I have found pollsters on the whole – I have interviewed quite a few -- to be decent, honest people who believe that they are taking the voters’ temperature scientifically; that their work is helpful, contributing to the national or regional understanding.

But polls are far from the benign things they purport to be. They are a setup shot that becomes the movie; a snapshot that changes the course of events, a contrived intrusion into the public discourse that then monopolizes it.

Polls sideline good people, bring into favor the known over the unknown, and promote a kind of national continuation. They begin to write the narrative, not to reveal it. They terrify timid leaders and office aspirants.

These same arguments can be made against a lot of market research. Ask people what they like, and they will tell you they like what they know.

Imagine if Harold Ross, the genius who was founding editor of The New Yorker magazine, had polled the public about the magazine he was about to start in 1925, and had asked, “Do you want a magazine in which the articles are long, the bylines are at the end of the articles, the headlines are in squiggly type, and there is no table of contents?” Do you think that there would be The New Yorker (it still has long articles, but the bylines are at the beginning, and it has a table of contents) today?

The most blame in the plague of polls that now distorts our elections belongs with the news media.

They commission polls relentlessly and then publicize the results, as though they have been allowed to see the face of God. This synthetic news.

Polls are not the revealed truth. They are an imperfect peek into the national thought portfolio. But once they become part of that portfolio, they corrupt the momentum of events.

Worse, polls sway the politicians. They turn the Pied Piper into one of the rats, getting in line with the rest.

In his Sept. 30, 1941 review of the war to the House of Commons, Prime Minister Winston Churchill chose to address the subject of opinion and leadership. He said, “Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling one’s pulse and taking one’s temperature. I see that a speaker at the weekend said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.”

Quite right.

The damage is that polls have proliferated in recent years, and they perform various functions for various people. Universities and colleges have found, as in the case of the Quinnipiac University Poll, that polls are a branding asset. The Quinnipiac poll is run by a small college in the rolling hills of Hamden, Conn., with great professionalism and objectivity, which has given it considerable standing in the world of polling. It also has enhanced the standing of the college which runs it.

My quarrel with the polls will be partly assuaged if they continue to get it wrong. That way they will take their place in the background clutter, not the breathtaking political snapshots that undermine elections.

Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com and he’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C

Web site: whchronicle.com

Michael Tyre: Colleges must make physical campuses foster students' affinity

On the campus of Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Mass. It’s considered one of the loveliest campuses in America, which may help explain the high rate of alumnae donations to the women’s college.

Quinnipiac University’s Lender School of Business, with dome, with Sleeping Giant in background, in Hamden, Conn.

From The New England Journal of Higher Education, a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)

The brand of a college or university is more than its logo or tagline. It’s an accumulation of experiences for students, staff, faculty, alumni and community members. Marketing is part of it, but every time someone sets foot on your campus, they are walking into your brand.

This fall, fewer students will be on campuses and they may be there with less frequency. COVID-19 won’t last forever, but in a way, this year is a glimpse into the online learning future that was coming with or without a pandemic. It’s more important than ever that the physical campus foster in students a strong affinity for the school to keep enrollment, retention and alumni engagement numbers high. Without a deep connection to the physical place, students may fall into a commoditized mentality, enrolling in online courses where the prices are lowest and not thinking of themselves as an Owl, Bobcat or Camel.

There are four areas on a campus that can be designed or used in expressing the institution’s brand: interior spaces, buildings, outdoor spaces and the environment surrounding the campus. Below are one or more well-executed examples from each category, one of which I was involved in directly.

Walking inside your values

One way to more affordably and quickly align the brand of a particular college or program with its physical space is to work within the walls you already have. My team at Amenta Emma Architects and I recently redesigned the interior of the Lender School of Business at Quinnipiac University, in Hamden,Conn., to bring it in line with the school’s refocused identity.

With a glass dome against the backdrop of Sleeping Giant State Park, the exterior is an iconic part of the university’s brand. However, the interior, with muted colors and dim lighting, hailed from a Wall Street era of student aspirations and university curriculum. As with many business schools, there has been a shift in emphasis toward innovation and entrepreneurship, and the interior of the Lender School of Business had yet to catch up. The goal of our update was not just to reset the tone to reflect the work being done there currently, but also to change student expectations about the qualities they will be developing in themselves in this space.

The transformation used exposed ceilings, light colors and transparent materials to energize the programming. Colors and furniture play a central role in creating an impression that is contemporary in the App Development Center. The Financial Trading Center was given a refresh by way of accent colors and lighter colors on the ceiling to create a brighter space. To accommodate a change in pedagogy toward active learning, three small, traditional classrooms were converted to two collaborative classrooms with technology integrated into custom furniture and reconfigurable writing surfaces. The school’s history meets its future in wood wall panels with a cutout pattern that creates a “digital” impression that’s at once warm and forward-looking.

Start with words, then build from there

In our redesign of the interior of the Lender School of Business, words like “innovation,” “entrepreneurship” and “collaboration” fueled the process. When colleges and universities begin thinking about adding or replacing buildings on campus, I recommend that they start with words.

While it’s tempting to begin picturing the actual building (“It should be three stories and we want lots of glass,” or something similar) start by asking how the building relates to your institutional values and mission. What does it need to say or express about the university or a particular college? How should the space feel? When students approach the building and enter it, what words should describe their first impression? What will students feel empowered to do in this space?

When I think of a university using a campus building to differentiate itself, I go all the way back to 1826. That’s the year the University of Virginia (UVA) completed construction of the Rotunda at the head of its lawn. It’s a beautiful building, but what makes it unique isn’t so much its appearance, but the simple fact that it houses a library as the focal point of the quad, where other campuses may position a student center or church. UVA describes the Rotunda as the “architectural and academic heart of the university’s community of scholars,” and from day one, that’s the word it has embodied: scholarship.

For a more recent example, look to the University Center at the New School, in New York City. Transparent, crystalline stairwells are exposed to the Manhattan streets and a sign set against a red background inside the building and visible through windows seems to suggest, “Things are different and exciting here.” This overtly contemporary building reflects the school’s dedication to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and telegraphs that this is a home for progressive thinkers.

Living out your campus identity

The Low Steps and Plaza at Columbia University are remarkable for the variety of activities that take place there. This plaza hosts open markets, concerts and the occasional demonstration. Located in the center of campus, it is a natural gathering place for students, faculty, staff and alumni and is infused with history and campus culture.

Not every campus has a Low Plaza or Harvard Yard, but most have an outdoor space which can be leveraged to promote community and a shared sense of identity. Central outdoor spaces often focus on a particular element—such as a bridge, clock or statue. It can even be a big rock if that says something about who you are. Embellishments such as paving, planting, furniture, lighting and graphics can create central spaces on campus in areas that may be lacking or underused. Repeating these elements on multiple campuses can unify the brand message within an institution that spans many locations within a city or even around the world.

These spaces come to life when students feel empowered to make them their own through scheduled events as well as impromptu activities. You don’t always need a big plaza-type formal space; something as simple as a porch with moveable chairs can be a welcome contrast to all of the restrictions students have to contend with right now due to COVID-19. With the design of the Middlesex Community College Dining Pavilion in Middletown, Conn., Amenta Emma aimed to create a campus living room. Adirondack chairs and picnic tables line a protected porch overlooking a large lawn banked by forest. The space reflects the open character of the college with community members, students, faculty and staff using it for events, meetings or individual study.

Inviting environs

The brand experience of a campus doesn’t begin and end with the property line. Views and surroundings shape the brand as well. Savvy institutions lean on their environs as a differentiator.

The homepage of the Web site for College of the Atlantic, in Bar Harbor, Maine, doesn’t show the campus. Online visitors are greeted with images of the countryside and the water. The campus has some iconic and historic architecture, but the institution recognizes that its identity and brand are explicitly tied to the location. The college focuses on the relationship between humans and the environment. By underscoring that nature is part of its campus, College of the Atlantic aims to attract students who are a good fit for its programs.

In stark contrast to College of the Atlantic is New York University (NYU), a campus whose buildings are woven into the fabric of the city. It makes a statement about its brand and the type of student experience it offers simply with its location. For colleges and universities without an obvious natural or urban asset in their surroundings, simply being aware of lines of sight and making sure air conditioners don’t obscure a pleasant view, for instance, can enhance the experience of being on campus.

Unmasking your culture

This year, as administrators look for creative ways to foster a sense of community that may be eroded in the wake of the pandemic and associated social distancing, it may seem like the campus you have is the campus you have. That’s not necessarily the case. Here are a few short-term ideas on how New England colleges and universities can leverage their brands this fall to make sure the campus still feels like home for students.

Our research has shown that students like to see their own faces and those of their peers in imagery associated with their college. Since your students’ faces likely will be obscured by masks while on campus this year, why not make use of otherwise blank spaces in hallways or building exteriors to hang large wall graphics or banners showing the student experience and featuring real, current students?

The pandemic, and its focus on avoiding crowded, indoor spaces, provides something of a license to make unusual use of outdoor spaces. Can aspects of student life or academics move outside? Are there spaces where additional seating can be added to encourage outdoor studying or eating? Could something dramatic with landscaping be done this year that is new, facilitates additional outdoor activities, and celebrates the school culture? Can you add more outdoor programming in the winter months with heaters, bonfires or events that make use of snow?

While use of school colors and logos on campus can be effective in moderation, difficult times like these call for a greater show of unity, which can be temporary. Boldly repainting interior and exterior spaces in school colors can always be undone if it seems over-the-top when the masks come off.

Trying as this academic year is going to be, there’s no better time to sharpen your institution’s brand and explore how it can be expressed on your campus in the long and short term. This year has truly tested what it means to be a student and an institution of higher education. The fact that colleges and universities need a strong value proposition to retain students on the physical campus has never been clearer.

Michael Tyre is a principal at Amenta Emma Architects, with offices in Hartford, Boston and New York City.