Nick Capo

I recently read In the Combat Zone by Leslie Marmon Silko, a Native American writer and activist. Published in 1995, the essay contains this sentence: “As the U.S. economy continues to ‘downsize,’ and the good jobs disappear forever, our urban and rural landscapes will include more desperate, angry men with nothing to lose.” The sentence […]

In early November, I traveled with a colleague from Jacksonville to Mobile, Ala., to present a paper at the National Symposium on Student Retention (NSSR). Mobile is a proud city that has endured cycles of decline and prosperity. Beautiful historical buildings sit beside crumbling commercial properties. Wealthy people share sidewalks with impoverished addicts. Academic events […]

Many of our political leaders are acting like children playing with fire. A more incendiary simile might compare them to children playing in a sandbox with no minds focused on the future. Pick your problem – unemployment, global warming, debt, the looming revenue shortfall for entitlement programs, trade with China – and you can find […]

Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals went viral on the Illinois College campus early in 2010. At least eight faculty members read it, and many others read about it. A Spanish professor paused to cry midway through the book. My wife, a professor of American literature then teaching on a Fulbright in Japan, dramatically reduced […]