Duolingo is giving users who order in Yiddish a free bagel on the course launch date. (Duolingo)
JTA When Meena Viswanath signed on more than two years ago to help Duolingo, the world’s largest language learning app, create its first Yiddish course, she knew it wouldn’t be easy.
But Viswanath, the daughter and granddaughter of famed Yiddish scholars who speaks Yiddish at home with her children, assumed most of the difficulties would be technical. She wasn’t prepared for the challenge of blending the academic Yiddish she knows with the everyday dialect spoken by her Hasidic colleagues on the project.
Janine Walker Caffrey Named Chief Research Officer at Reading Plus apnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from apnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Soboyejo is an International Scholar, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Respected Materials Scientist and Engineer.
February 10, 2021
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WORCESTER, Mass. - February 10, 2021 – Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Provost and Senior Vice President Winston Oluwole Soboyejo, PhD has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). NAE membership is one of the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.
NAE membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, education, or literature and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.” Soboyejo was honored for his work in two of those categories: his contributions to understanding dynamic behavior of materials, and his leadership in STEM outreach in Africa.
Basic Principles of Democracy Under Attack By John DAmico | February 7, 2021, 12:43 pm | in Columnist
The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 was a shocking reminder that our republic is very fragile. Those who tried to impede the Congressional certification of the 2020 election demonstrated a shocking lack of knowledge of and concern for the basic principles of American democracy.
This event prompted me to recall a question my eleventh grade Social Studies teacher at Red Bank High School asked our class on our first day many decades ago: “What are the basic principles of democracy?”
Of course, we were unable to answer, so a large part of the curriculum for the year involved discussing and memorizing them. At the end of the year, our teacher told us that our final exam would include the question she started the year with. Needless to say, I aced that question, and the answers have stuck with me ever since.