Author Archives: Jacob Koch

Last semester I left Yale to pursue something I couldn’t find here: an education in urban studies. After taking a range of classes relating to cities in my sophomore year and the first semester of my junior year, I was finally fed up with the fact that Yale offered not one single class about non-American »

“This is the most important election of our lifetime.” How many times have you heard that line in the last 18 months? And you’re still sitting there? Hopefully by now you’ve registered to vote and have requested an absentee ballot if you’re voting out of state. Maybe in addition to reading the YDN opinion pages »

It was not that long ago that people said the differences between Republicans and Democrats were negligible. But after watching both conventions these past weeks, it is clear that this dichotomy is no longer true. The Democratic Party spent a week in Denver offering solutions to the nation’s problems and hope for a better future. »

Why do I have to keep listening to complaints that my generation is apathetic? On Tuesday of this week the Harvard Crimson published an article titled “Alums Protest Student Apathy.” The article details how 13 members of the Class of 1967 sent an open letter to Harvard President Drew Faust bemoaning the “widespread apathy and »

The 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” has sparked much debate in the academic and journalistic communities about the meanings and lessons of the Beat opus. David Brooks’ op-ed “Sal Paradise at 50” in Tuesday’s New York Times is the latest installment in the grand search to render the novel »

It’s been a mere five months since Ward 22 voters elected Gregory Morehead as their alderman in a special election. Morehead, a 29-year-old entrepreneur and father of three, won because of his positive vision of unity and change in an often bitterly divided ward. Ward 22 comprises both Yale undergraduates and local residents. One-third of »