In the Loop

Today on Morning Shift:It’s that time of year for college-bound high school seniors and their parents- waiting for those college acceptance letters. Will the four years of the hard work, club memberships, volunteering, college app essay writing and the test prep classes pay off? That'll be up to the college admissions officer. An added element to the police brutality narrative: disability. While the bulk of the fatal encounters have involved African American victims, a new paper argues that a person’s disabilities are also a factor. We hear from one of the authors. And we take a look some new research that aims to bring a more personal approach to medical treatment...by studying the bacteria in our bodies.

Parents of high school seniors are currently in limbo stage of finding out if their child is accepted, waitlisted or denied admission to a college or university.And those with juniors, you’re next. In this week’s segment of the Working Shift, we talk to a college admissions officer about how the admissions process and what your child needs to know to make their application packet stronger than the next student’s.

About a year ago the White House announced a plan to make medical coverage more personalized. Last week, President Obama revealed the details of the research projects that will be part of the initiative.  One of them is lead by Jack Gilbert who is a group leader for Microbial Ecology at the Argonne National Laboratory in suburban Lemont, and a University of Chicago professor. He and his team will follow up on preliminary research that shows people’s microbiomes — the bacteria in their bodies — can affect how susceptible they are to post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. He’ll be working with African American communities on Chicago’s South Side, in Baltimore, and in other cities as part of the project.

Many recent victims of police violence, it turns out, have had disabilities. Eric Garner was asthmatic and had other health issues. Freddie Gray suffered from the effects of lead poisoning, which may have influenced how he responded to police as they tried to arrest him. Other examples abound. But the conversation around these cases rarely consider these disabilities. We talk with David Perry, a history professor and advocate for people with disabilities about his new report Disability: The Missing Word When We Talk about Policing and Violence.

Northwestern University announced yesterday that students who receive financial aid will no longer have to take out loans to cover the remainder of the cost of their education. Instead, they’ll receive grants and scholarships. We analyze the move and talk about the current state of the student loan debt crisis in this country with Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, and economics professor at the Ohio University.

States across the country have been taking money away from their public universities since the 1980s, and the recent Great Recession accelerated the pace of disinvestment. We spoke with Washington Post higher education finance reporter Danielle Douglas-Gabriel about how Illinois’s struggling public universities fit into the national picture.

Author Irvine Welsh gained international recognition when his first novel Trainspotting was published in 1993 to critical acclaim. Writing is now his full time job; having written ten novels since Trainspotting. The latest is American release is “A Decent Ride” which resurrects a character from other Welsh stories. “A Decent Ride” is a dark and funny ride, both figuratively and literally through Welsh’s hometown of Edinburgh. We talked to him about writing, comedy and fame.

Illinois’ budget impasse continues to leave students at many higher education institutions in a tough place. The state’s community colleges and nine public universities have been without a state funding since July, and yesterday the House failed to override Governor Rauner’s veto of the College Spending Bill. John Miller, President of University Professionals of Illinois - Local 4100, gave us an update on how the schools plan to survive the remainder of the year without the funding.

Today on Morning Shift: The world was introduced to the dark, funny, and profane world of author Irvine Welsh in 1996 through the film version of his novel Trainspotting. It’s the story of a group of 20-something junkies living in Welsh’s hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland quickly became a cult classic. His latest American release takes us back to Edinburgh- it’s called A Decent Ride. We talk with him about that story, an upcoming film sequel to Trainspotting, and his life as a Chicago resident. College grads in this country owe more than a trillion dollars on their student loans, and that amount has been rising rapidly for decades. We talk about some innovative solutions to the problem, including an effort announced yesterday by Northwestern University.Many public universities in Illinois are struggling to pay the bills. The budget stalemate in Springfield means they haven’t gotten state funding in more than nine months, and some schools are reaching the breaking point.

Today on the Morning Shift: Preservation Chicago has just released a list of endangered buildings around the cityAn exhibit that was inspired by women living with HIV that shows how those women have moved from the margins of what was once a deadly epidemic to becoming survivorsThe band behind the Morning Shift theme song that kicks off our show everyday joins us for an in-studio performanceYour thoughts on Super Tuesday results