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I have spent the last few months really digging into all sorts of cereals, expanding my milk-soaked palate to include Whole Foods specialties, little weird boxes of fancy cereal from England and Switzerland, and even Wheat Chex. And after all is said and done, here is my definitive ranking of all the important cereals in the world.

I was naĂŻve to the fact that in cities as diverse as Manhattan, distressed communities are continuing to provide minorities with their identities in a colorless way -- allowing the social costs of breaking free to remain high.

Leaving for college is almost always a world-rocking experience for those who go away to school.

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Everyone -- students, parents, high school counselors, teachers and college admissions officers -- were all in agreement last year that the Common Application offered many challenges. Things seem to be much better this year; but here and there, directions are left out, and there are areas that are not explained as thoroughly as they might be.

Much like car title loan companies and paycheck lending companies, for profit colleges prey on poor and minority students, saddle them with debt, and leave them with only debt, as their degree is often worthless in the job market.

We challenge our students to develop life-long skills such as analytical thinking, clarity in written and spoken expression, collaboration, and creativity.

Something very exciting is happening at the number one women's glossy. For the first time Cosmopolitan is endorsing political candidates. Basically, the editors now have your back on what colors are in this fall and what names you should be checking in the voting booths next month.

Free speech has always been the harder road for any society. It isn't always nice and it isn't always civil, but I hope we continue to see both the value in maintaining the right to dissent, joke, and challenge as seen fit, and the real peril of trying to enforce a dreary conformity on our marketplace of ideas.

Here's the problem: Once you get paid, your money has to go several places at once. Bills need to be paid, credit card balances need to be settled, groceries need to be bought, perhaps even some nonessentials, too -- and, in all the shuffle, the money that you should be saving becomes your discretionary income.

When we talk to young people about careers in science, we should emphasize both the awesome aspects of science careers and the importance of internship and service learning to understand if a career in science is really the right match.

A friend of mine in the financial services industry called me the other day to vent about the poor quality of the public discourse concerning the freedom of the marketplace and the obsession with the Almighty Dollar.

We grasp tightly onto our dirty, old habits of prejudice by focusing on the surface issues of race, when instead I believe the world is much more dynamic and simplified if we infuse a larger dose of humanity back into it.

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Today, less than 1 percent serve in the U.S. military. Expanding national service to include more civilian service opportunities would increase the number of Americans who experience putting a mission first and sacrificing for the greater good.

Despite the bad polyester and pompous circumstance, graduation is a big deal. It is the start of our students' adult lives, and the moment for them to begin putting into action all their hard-won truths.

On the weekend of July 26, 2014, more than 90 sisters of Delta Pi Sorority convened at the University of Connecticut to celebrate a 50-year milestone. This was no ordinary reunion and this was no ordinary sorority.

Both academic and culinary, their work is unlike any other student job on campus.

I'm not trying to argue that we shouldn't be fearful of ISIS, but I do think it's important to gauge exactly how much fear is appropriate before we start deciding what to do about it.