Read Johns Hopkins and Slaveholding: Preliminary Findings, December 8, 2020 by Martha S. Jones, Director (Hard Histories at Hopkins | hardhistory.jhu.edu)
Our research began when a colleague brought to the university’s attention an 1850 US census return for Johns Hopkins: A “slave schedule” that attributed the ownership of four enslaved men (aged 50, 45, 25, and 18) to Hopkins. Preliminary research confirmed that the “Johns Hopkins” associated with this census return was the same person for whom the university was later named.
This evidence ran counter to the long-told story about Johns Hopkins, one that posited him as the son of a man, Samuel Hopkins, who had manumitted the family’s slaves in 1807. Johns Hopkins himself was said to have been an abolitionist and Quaker, the implication being that he opposed slavery and never owned enslaved people.
The details of the 1850 census slave schedule for Johns Hopkins have generated new research along four lines of inquiry. How had the university for so long told a story about Hopkins that did not account for his having held enslaved people? Which aspects of the Hopkins family story can be confirmed by evidence? What do we learn about Hopkins and his family when we investigate their relationship to slavery anew? And, who were the enslaved people in the Hopkins households and what can we know about their lives?
I’d read the news items and the op-ed earlier in the month when they were released. After a bit of digging I found this .pdf file that has more details about Johns Hopkins slave ownership. Interested to see what other details historical research reveals.
Read Johns Hopkins, benefactor of namesake hospital and university, was an enslaver by Nick Anderson, Lauren Lumpkin, and Susan Svrluga (Washington Post)
Johns Hopkins, the 19th-century businessman who bequeathed a fortune to found the hospital and university in Baltimore that bear his name, and who on scanty evidence was long heralded as an abolitionist, enslaved at least four Black people before the Civil War, school officials disclosed Wednesday.
Sad and disappointing news to hear given what I was always told as a student. I’m glad that they appear to be addressing it directly and fixing some of the erased history. Hopefully they may be able to uncover more and come up with some reasonable ways to address it in the present.
Read Revelations About Johns Hopkins, The Man (wypr.org)
The story passed down for generations was that the wealthy Quaker merchant Johns Hopkins was also an abolitionist. After he died in 1873, his multi-million-dollar bequest for the university and hospital bearing his name seemed an extension of an enlightened vision. So the discovery of census records that Hopkins owned enslaved people—one in 1840, four a decade later … is shocking. Hopkins president asked Professor Martha S. Jones, an authority on African-American history, to lead continuing research about the founder’s links to slavery. We ask why it’s important.
I’ve bookmarked the audio file to listen to shortly. Depressing that after all these years of thinking of him as an abolitionist that he apparently had slaves. Can’t wait to hear Dr. Jones’ research and thoughts.
RSVPed Attending The Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on the Healthcare Industry: A Panel Discussion

Sponsored by the Healthcare Affinity & Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

At a time when the nation is looking to the healthcare industry for leadership and service, the pandemic has led to a significant impact on the U.S. healthcare job market. Historically, the healthcare industry has been relatively immune from recessions. However, as services have been cut, income streams have been lost. Join us as our panel of speakers discuss the economic impacts of the pandemic on the healthcare industry. This event will be presented on Zoom.

September 16, 2020 at 03:00PM - September 16, 2020 at 04:00PM

RSVPed Attending Black Every Day: A Focus on Policy and Policing

Sponsored by the Hopkins in Law Affinity

Tune in on Tuesday, August 25 at Noon EDT.

As the United States examines the ways in which existing criminal justice and policing policies at the local, state, and federal levels affect Black Americans and communities of color, many of us are left wondering about the role of our legislators. Following nearly a week of civil unrest following the death of George Floyd, Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Chairman William C. Smith, Jr. initiated legislation to address officer training, use of force, militarization, prosecutorial intervention, liability caps, the disclosure of personnel records, and The Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights. During this hour, engage with our panelists as they discuss Sen. Smith’s proposed legislation and the impact of George Floyd’s death as it relates to police, policy, and politics in Maryland and beyond.

August 25, 2020 at 09:00AM - August 25, 2020 at 10:00AM<

RSVPed Attending How Legal Decisions and Policy Making Impact Reproductive Rights in 2020 and Beyond: A Panel Discussion

Sponsored by the Hopkins Alumni in Law, Women of Hopkins, & Healthcare Affinities

Polls show that the majority of Americans believe that birth control is a basic part of women’s health care and an important public investment. Young people have more opportunities to be mentally and physically healthy when they have control over when and under what circumstances they get pregnant and have a child. Join our panel of experts for a discussion about birth control access, federal and state policies, and case law. This panel will be presented on Zoom. 

August 27, 2020 at 12:00PM - August 27, 2020 at 01:00PM

Thoughts on open notebooks, research, and social media

I remember thinking over a decade ago how valuable it would be if researchers kept open notebooks (aka digital commonplace books) like the one Kimberly Hirsh outlines in her article Dissertating in the Open: Keeping a Public Research Notebook. I’d give my right arm to have a dozen people in research areas I’m interested in doing this very thing!

The best I could hope for back in 2008, and part of why I created the @JohnsHopkins Twitter handle, was that researchers would discover Twitter and be doing the types of things that some of the Johns Hopkins professors outlined in this recent article The Promise and Peril of Academia Wading into Twitter are now finally doing. It seems sad that it has taken over a decade and this article is really only highlighting the bleeding edge of the broader academic scene now. While what they’re doing is a great start, I think they really aren’t going far enough. They aren’t doing their audiences as much service  as they could because there’s only so much that Twitter allows in terms of depth of ideas and expressiveness. It would be far better if they were doing this sort of work from their own websites and more directly interacting with their colleagues on the open web. The only value that Twitter is giving them is a veneer of reach to a broader audience, but they’re also opening themselves up to bigger attacks as is described in the article.

In addition to Kimberly’s example, another related area of potential innovation would be moving the journal clubs run by many research groups and labs online and opening them up. Want to open up science?  Then let’s really do it!  By bookmarking a variety of articles on their own websites, various members could be aggregated to contribute to a larger group, which could then use their own websites with protocols like Webmention or even simple tools like Hypothes.is to guide and participate in larger online conversations to move science communication along at an even faster pace. Greg McVerry and I have experimented in taking some of these tools into the classroom in the past.

If you think about it, arXiv and other preprint servers are really just journal clubs writ large. The problem is that they’re only communicating in one direction by aggregating the initial content, but they’re dramatically failing their audiences in that they aren’t facilitating or aggregating any open discussion around that content. As a result, the largest portion of their true value is still locked away in the individual brains of their readers rather than as commentary or even sentence level highlights and annotations on particular pieces out in the open. Often is the time that I’ll tweet about an interesting article only to receive a (lucky) reply that the results have been debunked, yet that information is almost never disclosed in or around the journal article (especially online) where it certainly belongs. Academic publishers are not only gouging us financially by siloing their content, they’re failing us far worse than most realize.

Another idea: Can’t get a journal of negative results to publish your latest research failure? Why not post a note or article on your own website to help out future researchers? (or even demonstrate to your students that not everything always works out?)

Naturally having aggregation services like indieweb.xyz, building planets, using OPML subscriptions, or the coming wave of feed readers could make a lot of these things easier, but we’re already right on the cusp for people who are willing to take a shot for doing this type of research online on their own websites and out in the open.

Want to try out some of the above? I’m happy to help (gratis) researchers who’d like to experiment in the area to get themselves set up. Just send me a note or give me a call.

👓 The promise and peril of academia wading into Twitter | Johns Hopkins Magazine

Read The promise and peril of academia wading into Twitter by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson (The Hub)
Increasingly, scholars are turning to Twitter for sharing research and engaging with the public

👓 Opinion | Michael Bloomberg: Why I’m Giving $1.8 Billion for College Financial Aid | New York Times

Read Opinion | Michael Bloomberg: Why I’m Giving $1.8 Billion for College Financial Aid (New York Times)
Let’s eliminate money problems from the admissions equation for qualified students.
God bless you Michael Bloomberg for putting your money where your mouth heart is. We could use more serious leadership and thought like this in the world.

👓 Bloomberg gives Johns Hopkins a record $1.8 billion for student financial aid | Washington Post

Read Bloomberg gives Johns Hopkins a record $1.8 billion for student financial aid (Washington Post)
Former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced Sunday he is giving a record $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University to support student financial aid at his alma mater and make its admissions process “forever need-blind.” The gift, believed to be the largest private donation in modern times to higher education, is a landmark in a growing national movement to make elite universities more accessible to students from low-to-middle income families.

👓 Michael Bloomberg donates $1.8 billion to boost financial aid for low-income students | CBS News

Read Michael Bloomberg donates $1.8 billion to boost financial aid for low-income students (cbsnews.com)
Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York and one of the world's richest people, is donating $1.8 billion to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, in an effort to boost financial aid for low- and middle-income students. The university said the contribution — the largest ever to any education institution in the U.S. — will allow Johns Hopkins to eliminate student loans in financial aid packages starting next fall. The university will instead offer scholarships that don't have to be repaid.

👓 Hopkins faculty promote better climate in machine learning | Hopkins CSW

Read Hopkins faculty promote better climate in machine learning (Women Faculty Forum at Homewood)
Today, 122 Hopkins faculty, post-docs, and grad students make a call to promote welcoming environments for women at machine learning conferences. In recognition of egregious behavior at recent conf…
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