Take a Closer Look at Policy

Spring cleaning isn’t just for your garage. That “refresh-renew-re-think” energy you get when the temperatures begin to rise and the daylight hours get longer? Don’t leave it at home. It’s important to carry it with you into the workplace. The beginning of the year is...
Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952)

Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952)

The decade after World War II is often looked back on by nostalgic Americans as an era of peaceful prosperity, a time when people had more to be happy about than ever before in history. There is some truth to this rosy-eyed image, but it’s far from a complete picture....

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795)

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795)

In 1773 Catherine the Great of Russia placed an order for a 944-piece ceramic dinner and dessert service from an English pottery firm. Ordering new china was something monarchs did all the time, but there was one thing that made this case unusual. Instead of...

The Code Talkers (Active 1942-1945)

The Code Talkers (Active 1942-1945)

It was at the Tehran Conference between the Allied forces in 1943, during one of the most pivotal moments of World War II, that British prime minister Winston Churchill famously declared, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a...

Elizabeth Jane Cochrane (1864-1922)

Elizabeth Jane Cochrane (1864-1922)

Of all the difficult tasks that people are sometimes called upon to perform during their careers, speaking unpleasant truths to the privileged and powerful is one of the hardest. It carries with it the social stigma of being associated with an organization’s problems,...

Vivienne Malone-Mayes

Vivienne Malone-Mayes

The pursuit of higher education is one of those personal milestones, like owning a house and becoming financially independent, that has traditionally been associated with the good life in America. Over the last century, going to college essentially replaced the...

Norman Borlaug (1914-2009)

Norman Borlaug (1914-2009)

In the United States today, the idea of “famine” is something we tend to associate with fiction and the distant past, not our own lives. News stories warn us of housing troubles, poverty and homelessness, but not of nationwide food shortages that endanger human lives....

Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993)

Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993)

It’s a sad irony of life that many people who spend their careers making others laugh have little to laugh about themselves. In recent decades many comedians have publicly discussed their struggles with depression, but the relationship between professional humor and...

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

When we discuss the various kinds of adversity that our Achievers have had to overcome in their lives, we run the risk of overlooking one considerable advantage that many of them had in common: that of living in a society where individual rights were respected and...

Miguel Ondetti (1930-2004)

Miguel Ondetti (1930-2004)

Not all the harmful prejudices that hold us back from mutual respect and cooperation are based on visually apparent traits like race or sex. The fine gradations of polite society have given most of us an abundance of criteria that we use to judge people based on their...