Rediscovering the West Autumn 2015

Editor’s note: Gather ’round
Features
Rediscovering the West
A great American road trip takes students where the past is present and the land beckons scientific exploration.
Milk River
Learning Environment
Imaginary Friends
Childhood is peopled by toys and things — objects as real and as companionable as the hearts and minds in which they live.
Assessing the Damage
Scientists investigate the impact on brains, while educators, players and football watchers question the long-term health of the game itself.
Fighting Irish Plaintiffs
Anything You Want to Be
I was taught to pursue my dreams, but I wasn’t told that every woman must weather something like gravitational resistance if she is to make what she wishes out of her one life.
The Pusher and Puller
Sara Gruen ’13J.D. has helped a good many women rewrite their lives, turning haunting tales of abuse, addiction and prostitution into success stories of courage, strength and — quite possibly — deliverance.
A Canticle for Planet Earth
In his encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis calls upon the human race to see creation as a gift of God and to treat it accordingly.
Matters, in Black and White
Some straight talk about America’s deep, dark and difficult racial divide.
My Mission to Sierra Leone
People were dying and I wanted to help. But no one was safe from the plague that had no cure, not even the doctors and nurses who flew into West Africa to battle death and disease.