Pope Francis

I'll admit, Francy boy is a bad pope. Sure, there are many who have returned to the faith because of his approachability, but overall he does nothing that strengthens the faith. When socially left clerics and religious members like him you can take that as a sign of complete mediocrity. 

Education: Institution Prestige & POCs

 Particularly African-Americans born post 1975. I tend to find them lacking in actual intellectual vigor - not all of course. I can't seem to remember but maybe I addressed it in a past post, but I remember two African-Americans, one whom I believe was half-white, where just based on their CV that their degrees that they sought out were mainly based on public perception of the institution. Case in point of the following two examples.

Case #1

• African-American female
• Attended an Ivy for undergraduate
• Attended an Ivy for doctoral degree 
• After completing her doctoral degree, she lamented that her first academic job, a tenured track job to be exact,  at a small liberal arts college out West wasn't seen as prestigious as the institutions she received her formal education. The college? Colorado College. 

This was, I guess in mid-2015. I checked the department page to see if she was still there but it turns out she wasn't listed. I suppose she used it as a stepping stone for a few years and moved on to a more known institution.

Case #2

• African-American female
• Attended non-Ivy, non-prestigious university for undergrad (DI volleyball scholarship)
• Attended masters at an Ivy (field in which masters was received the wide spread wisdom is to get it at the cheapest program; Ivy name has no real pull)
• Attended doctoral degree at an Ivy (filed in which Phd was received the best schools for it tend to be public institutions)
• Was employed by Ivy institution for first tenured track job; no longer at Ivy institution
• Research interests are equally or better suited within non-Ivy league institutions (i.e. public institutions)

This same prestige/name-brand hunting could be said to be present amongst African-Americans when it comes to medical schools and post-grad residency/fellowships. I think a decent indicator of whether or not the POC (i.e. African-American) is academically sound is if they get into AOA, the medical school  version of Phi Beta Kappa. In places like University of Chicago (Pritzker) med school the African-Americans who have attended in the past four years, only a minority of them were inducted in AOA. Arguments for the lack of POCs, especially African-Americans, is, of course, racism. Unlike that Northwestern study, AMA's own survey is more interesting.