News Sources: God and the Capitol Flags

The acting Architect of the U.S. Capitol has decided to overturn a policy that banned political and religious statements on certificates included with flags flown over the U.S. Capitol. His action follows complaints from House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, numerous Republican members of Congress and citizens across the country who said the separation of God and country had gone too far. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including (click on names for contact information):

William C. Placher - Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Wabash College - Placher is the author of The Domestication of Transcendence: Where Modern Thinking About God Went Wrong. He is recognized as one of the great contemporary theologians.

Lief Carter - McHugh Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Colorado College - Carter's areas of expertise include constitutional law, legal theory, courts and politics, administrative law and politics, contemporary Supreme Court, and religion and law. He is the author of five books, including Contemporary Constitutional Lawmaking: The Supreme Court and the Art of Politics, and The Limits of Order.

Paul Apostolidis - Assistant Professor of Politics, Whitman College - Apostolidis has extensively researched the politics of U.S. evangelical conservatism, including analyzing radio broadcasts of Focus on the Family, a leading Christian right organization. He published his findings in "Stations of the Cross: Adorno and Christian Right Radio"

Touting the Affordability of College

Dreams of attending are accessible and affordable - whether you’re hoping to attend a $40,000-a-year private college, or $2,000-a-year community college. That's the message of a public service series of financial aid seminars for high school guidance counselors put together in a unique partnership between Davidson College and North Carolina’s state agency that helps students in their college quest.

Rethinking the Blackwater Approach to Security

Private military contractors, which are widely used around the world, often contribute to the very insecurity they've been hired to end, says Katie Carmola, a professor of political science at Middlebury College. But Carmola, who has written a book about the wartime use of private security contractors, says it's time to look beyond improved State Department oversight of such firms. Instead, she wants to find ways to use market forces to regulate a market-driven field - like rewarding bonuses for creating lasting security.

Global Warming Changes the Northern Landscape

The hot breath of global warming has now touched some of the coldest northern regions of world, turning the frozen landscape into mush as temperatures soar 15 degrees C. above normal. Entire hillsides, sometimes more than a kilometre long, simply let go and slid like a vast green carpet into valleys and rivers on Melville Island in Canada's northwest Arctic region of Nunavut this summer. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including (click on names for contact information):

Stephanie Pfirman - Associate Professor and Chair of Environmental Science, Barnard College - Pfirman has served as an oceanographer with the U.S. Geological Survey, a staff scientist with the U.S. House of Representatives, and a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund. She coordinated the exhibition "Global Warming," developed by the American Museum of Natural History and the EDF.

Kevin Harrison - Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy, McDaniel College - Dr. Harrison is an expert in global warming, climate change, environmental policy, air quality, water quality, and pollution.

Richard Wallace - Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences, Ursinus College - Wallace's research interests include federal policies and programs for the protection of biological diversity in the U.S. and the behavior of governmental and nongovernmental organizations under conservation mandates. Currently, he serves as vice president of the Social Science Working Group of the international Society for Conservation Biology, on the executive council of the Society for the Policy Sciences and on the editorial board of the journal Policy Sciences.

One Active Campus

Rollins College has been named the most engaged campus in Florida. The school was selected by the Florida Campus Compact from 51 schools across the state.

A School Full of Smart Athletes

Athletic teams at the College of the Holy Cross have posted one of the best graduation rates in the NCAA. Twenty teams have achieved a perfect 100 percent graduation rate. The lowest graduation rate for any Holy Cross team was 92 percent - still far above the NCAA Division I average of 77 percent for all sports.

News Sources: Blackwater Controversy in Iraq

Iraqi authorities want the U.S. government to sever all contracts in Iraq with the Blackwater USA within six months and pay $8 million in compensation to each of the families of 17 people killed when the private security firm's guards sprayed a traffic circle with heavy machine gun fire last month. They also called on U.S. authorities to hand over the Blackwater security agents involved in the Sept. 16 shootings to face possible trial in Iraqi courts. The tone of the Iraqi demands appear to signal further strains between the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the White House, and raised questions over the use of private security contractors to guard U.S. diplomats and other officials. Reporters looking for experts to comment on this situation can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Robin Wagner-Pacifici - Professor of Sociology/Anthropology, Swarthmore College - Wagner-Pacifici is an authority on society's response to terrorism. She is the author of The Art of Surrender, about the history of military surrender and conflict resolution, and Theorizing the Standoff, about destructive confrontations such as those at Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Fred Thompson - Goudy Professor of Public Management and Policy, Willamette University - Thompson is the author of Reinventing the Pentagon, which looks at defense reform efforts. He is a consultant to the Air Force Materiel Command and the Office of Performance Improvements and Management Reengineering. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Society of Military Controllers as editor of the Handbook of Public Finance in 1998.

Bob Snyder - Professor of Political Science, Southwestern University - Professor Snyder can discuss Middle East politics, U.S. foreign policy and Islamist terrorism. He is the author of Hating America: Bin Laden as a Civilized Revolutionary and The Myth of Preemption: More than a War Against Iraq.

What Would Socrates Say?

A new book edited by Alexander George, professor of philosophy at Amherst College, brings together some of today’s most esteemed philosophers to answer real questions from real people. The book, entitled What Would Socrates Say?, draws from AskPhilosophers.org, a popular Website created by George in which modern day philosophers use their their knowledge of the arguments laid down by Aristotle, Camus, Locke, Socrates, and others to answer questions submitted to them by the public.

Kennedy Blasts Administration, Media

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accuses the Bush administration of overseeing more than 400 major environmental rollbacks "as part of a deliberate, concerted effort to eviscerate 30 years of environmental law." In a recent speech at DePauw University, Kennedy - who is senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance - also lambasted the media for giving the public more information about Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan than about global warming.