opinion observer.case.edu A&E: Post Animal comes to Mather Memorial for WRUW’s Studio-A-Rama (pg. 6)
the
1
friday, september 13, 2019 volume LI, issue 4
Observer
Marthe Cohn, WWII Jewish Spy, to talk at CWRU
Fall in rankings highlight graduate debt Nathan Lesch Director of Print
French-Jewish spy Marthe Cohn in the 1930s. Courtesy of The Daily
“Anybody can make a difference if they want to do it, you have to be engaged.” Grace Howard News Editor “Do I look like a spy?” Marthe Cohn was accused of espionage almost immediately upon entering Germany for her first mission. She was only 24 years old when she joined the Intelligence Service of the French 1st Army. When she was questioned about whether she was a French spy at her first stop in Germany, this was all she could reply. “Many times, every time I was able to get out of trouble by answering the right thing,” Cohn said. Born in Metz, France, to a Jewish family, Cohn risked her life daily posing as a German nurse to gain information on German military movements and civilian attitudes. The French Army had very little information about what German civilians were doing and how they were responding to World War II, and it needed Cohn to find out. Cohn was one of seven children. Her family had grown up in hiding from the Nazis and were active in the resistance. Cohn’s older sister Stephanie was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz, where she was able to help the children in the camps with her medical background. Though Cohn’s family was planning a rescue attempt, when Stephanie heard about the plan, she refused to leave, saying that she was doing more where she was. After the Liberation of Paris in 1944, Cohn joined the French Army and was assigned to a regiment in Alsace, France. She did not initially join with the intention of becoming a spy, but an officer in her regiment found out she was fluent in German and recruited her into the position. It was not possible to have men pose as spies because in Germany, all males over the age of 12 were recruited into the army, so any men in civilian clothes would draw attention. TO COHN | 2
Marthe Cohn with medals awarded by the French military for her espionage activities against the Nazis in WWII. Courtesy of The Daily
The 2019 Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education (WSJ/THE) College Rankings report saw Case Western Reserve University fall 13 places, from 39th to 52nd. It is alleged that changes in ranking metrics caused this drop. WSJ/THE began considering graduates’ average debt instead of graduates’ default rates. CWRU was not the only university to see a significant drop, as George Washington University, Tulane University and Northeastern University also saw their rankings decrease. In the WSJ/THE rankings, CWRU’s decline due to its higher average graduate debt was partially offset by increases in graduates’ salaries, publications per faculty member and the variety of academic subject offerings. In contrast, the 35th edition of the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings, which was also released recently on Sept. 9, saw CWRU move up two places into the 40th slot. CWRU’s small climb in the U.S. News rankings occurred because of improvements in the academic qualifications of the new class, selectivity, graduation rate and faculty resources. According to President Barbara Snyder, the Student Success Initiative is mainly responsible for enhancing the undergraduate experience and thus contributing to improvements in the U.S. News ranking. The Student Success Initiative includes the navigator advising system, and it came out of research done by the Office of the Provost. “After extensive research regarding comparable efforts on other campuses, leaders within the Office of the Provost presented a proposal to President Snyder and the Board of Trustees,” said Provost Ben Vinson III in an email. “The proposal was so compelling that President Snyder committed the entirety of a leadership award she had received be used to support the effort, and the board directed that all of that year’s commitments to its strategic initiative fund also go to the initiative.” The Student Success Initiative was not created in response to rankings pressures, according to Vinson. The WSJ/THE rankings highlight the growing problem of student debt. Since the changed methodology in the WSJ/ THE rankings was applied to all colleges ranked, dropping 13 places means that CWRU is doing worse in terms of graduates’ average debt than many of its peer institutions. According to Vinson, however, CWRU’s graduates’ average debt is not drastically different from its peer universities, and instead, the ranking’s drop is due to how little separates the nation’s top universities. “The change in methodology has such a significant effect because of how tightly bunched the nation’s leading universities are in terms of their performance on a range of statistical measures,” Vinson asserted. TO VINSON | 3