Reporting on foreign affairs
The day after the Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl, when many newspapers nationwide had the image of a smiling John Elway splashed across their front pages, the Philadelphia Inquirer showed a photograph of a Chinese peasant riding a bicycle over a dry riverbed.
   The caption stated that the Yellow River, the nation's second largest waterway, has dried up in five of the last six years and is imperiling millions of acres of farmland. The accompanying article told the story of a decade-long drought, which, compounded by industrialization and poor management, had reduced the once proud Yellow River into a dwindling stream, thus threatening the lives of those who lived in the river's basin.
   Rena Singer, who wrote the story, was no stranger to China. She had lived there for two years, teaching English at a college and hospital in Kunming. During her stay there, she also filed stories as a foreign correspondent and had acquired a taste for that type of journalism. When she moved back to the States to write for the Inquirer, however, she realized that the paper's budget for international stories was limited. In her efforts to get back to China, Singer learned of the Pew Fellowships in International Journalism, a four-month program offered at the School of Advanced International Studies. The selective program, which accepts seven or eight fellows each semester, began in fall 1998. Full story...

Homewood master plan is under way
Thomas Jefferson once referred to a college campus as an academic village, a place that both facilitates the learning process and exists in harmony with its surroundings.
   In past years, however, many college campuses have veered away from that ideal as unbridled growth has stretched some campuses well beyond their original form and function. Where once was a field and row of trees, for example, now stands a large asphalt parking lot.
   The Homewood campus is now positioned for a period of growth, as no fewer than four buildings are slated for construction and the school's borders continue to stretch east of Charles Street.
   In order to guide the evolution of Hopkins, now 123 years old, Ayers/Saint/Gross, a Baltimore-based architectural firm, has been selected as the consultant to create a new master plan. Full story...

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