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Published September 2, 2020

As the new academic year begins, Rutgers students face a more challenging and uncertain Fall semester than their predecessors ever encountered. This is an opportunity for the entire university community to come together in a quest for answers to complex questions. A wealth of guidance and insight comes from Rutgers experts who appear in the media every day, providing fresh perspective on healthcare, politics, and countless other areas of public concern.

One of the most noteworthy examples of Rutgers insight from recent days is President Holloway’s Convocation address on August 31. Speaking to the Class of 2024, nearly a third of which is comprised of first-generation students, Holloway drew upon his training as a post-emancipation historian “to illuminate your role in this place at this fraught moment.” He also acknowledged his audience as “part of a generation that is demonstrating a willingness to think in new ways about a society and a planet starving for solutions.”

rutgers.edu | President Jonathan Holloway

Fear of COVID-19 should not delay cancer patients from undergoing radiation therapy, a Rutgers study suggests. U.S. News & World Report interviews Bruce Haffty, chair of radiation oncology at Cancer Institute of New Jersey, whose team tested surfaces at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital over six days during the height of the pandemic. “Cancer care should and must continue in a COVID pandemic,” says Haffty, “and it can be delivered safely and effectively with minimal risk…provided routine measures like mask-wearing, hand-washing, distancing, and screening are in place and adhered to.”

U.S. News and World Report | Cancer Radiation Can Safely Proceed During COVID-19 Pandemic: Study

Nanowerk, an online portal dedicated to nanoscience and emerging technologies, reports on cutting-edge cosmological research in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences. “Our supercomputer-generated simulations provide the highest-ever resolution of a Milky Way-type galaxy,” says associate professor Alyson Brooks. “The high resolution allows us to simulate smaller neighbor galaxies [better] than ever before—the ‘ultra-faint’ dwarf galaxies. These tiny galaxies are mostly dark matter…and this is the first time that they have ever been simulated around a Milky Way-like galaxy.”

nanowerk.com | Galaxy simulations shed light on Milky Way’s origins

According to the American Psychological Association, only 16 percent of psychologists in the U.S. identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian, or multiracial. That statistic, reports the Asbury Park Press, underscores an alarming need for more therapists of color in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, America’s racial reckoning, and the trauma of the pandemic. The story features Jeannine Adams, a mental health clinician with Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, who also maintains her own practice and whose clients are mostly African Americans and other people of color.

app.com | Pandemic, social unrest increase need for therapists of color, accentuate shortage

Young voters are feeling less than enthusiastic about their choices for president: two white male septuagenarians, says Susan J. Carroll, a professor at Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics. But she tells PBS News Hour that Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate may have boosted his appeal among female voters. “I think the symbolism will create more activism and energy around the ticket, and in the Black community more generally,” Carroll says.

PBS News Hour | Isolation and frustration are keeping some voters from election excitement

Shopping for back-to-school clothes will probably be more subdued this fall, a Rutgers professor who studies consumer psychology tells CNBC. “Everyone, including kids and parents, are aware that this is when so many in the world are struggling and you want to be more understated in how you dress,” says Ashwani Monga, who is also provost and executive vice chancellor at Rutgers University–Newark. “This is not the time to make an entrance.”

CNBC | Forget back-to-school bargains: Retailers waiting it out as parents postpone purchases

The death of actor Chadwick Boseman was a blow for his many fans, especially in a year that has seen so much struggle and loss, says Brittney Cooper, associate professor of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers. Los Angeles Times quotes her comments in an appearance on MSNBC: “Black Panther was not just a movie,” Cooper says. “All of the roles he played were not just movies, they were cultural experiences that affirm the depths and possibility of our humanity. What it feels like in 2020 is that we are losing the people that help us to get up every day and fight again because they show the best of us.”

Los Angeles Times | Posthumous Chadwick Boseman tweet is ‘most liked’ in Twitter history