A great paradox in modern American culture is how politically divided we are as a nation but how ideologically similar our friendships have become.

It’s hard to get a sense of how people feel about an issue when those around you feel the same way. Polls can provide an educated guess, but can also be easily skewed.

Elections, though, offer more solid insights. So it was fascinating to see the results of a recent faculty vote at a university embroiled in controversy about student protests and the subsequent police crackdown.

Washington University in St. Louis resides in a blue bubble in a deep-red state. The campus has historically had a high percentage of Jewish students, with 24% of current undergrads identifying as Jewish. The Anti-Defamation League ranked it as better than most universities at combating antisemitism on campus. On college boards frequented by parents and applicants, it is often mentioned as a place Jewish students should consider transferring if they feel unsafe at their universities.

WU’s full-time faculty considered two resolutions focused on the protests against the university’s ties to Boeing, which sells warplanes and munitions to Israel for use in the war in Gaza. Police arrested 100 people at an April 27 protest, with several students and faculty suspended by the university administration.

The first resolution called for the university to decline to pursue all charges and rescind suspensions against the students and employees. A second resolution sought to create a faculty-led committee to investigate the protests and the administrative policy involved.

The first resolution failed with a vote of 550 in favor, 552 against and 52 abstaining. The second overwhelmingly passed.

The vote breakdown by the various schools within the university revealed a more nuanced picture that also reflects broader societal attitudes.

For the schools on the main Danforth campus, where undergrads and most graduate departments reside -- and where the protests took place -- the voting wasn’t close at all. Among the Arts and Sciences faculty, 210 members supported dropping penalties for pro-Palestinian protesters versus 80 opposed, with 17 abstaining. Similarly large majorities of faculty in the Brown School of Social Work, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts and the law school supported the first resolution. These disciplines also tend to attract more liberal thinkers.

The faculty from the schools of engineering and business overwhelmingly voted against dropping the penalties. The medical school faculty, who are located a few miles away, voted 327 against to 245 in favor, with 31 abstaining. These occupations tend to vote more conservatively.

Like the rest of America, political beliefs likely colored the way professors viewed the protests and the administration’s response to them. But the faculty members most heavily involved with teaching undergraduates, and those closest to the protests, largely rejected the narrative that the protesters were violent or “pro-Hamas,” as critics have tried to portray them.

They know their students and colleagues.

By and large, faculty I’ve spoken to believe students have the right to protest and express their opinions on how the university invests its money and their tuition dollars.

The faculty voted to create a new committee charged with compiling evidence and testimonials about the protests and looking at the university’s policy for “demonstrations and disruptions.” The vote of 745 to 397 approving this signals significant faculty concern over the administration’s handling of the protests. The committee would have faculty representatives from each of WU’s schools, along with representatives from the student body and administration.

An email from Chancellor Andrew Martin to faculty in response to the votes said the board of trustees would need to respond to any formal inquiry about university operations. He offered to share the results of a board-led review, as deemed appropriate by the board, and possibly answer specific questions rather than agreeing to participate in a faculty-led review.

Andrew Burksy, chair of the board of trustees, sent a follow-up letter stating the university would not participate in any faculty inquiry. He said the board had initiated its own review and that a parallel faculty-led review would be “counterproductive” and “inconsistent” with seeking clarity and understanding around the issues.

Unlike the silos in which many of us live and work, this faculty effort had been an attempt to bring together those with meaningful disagreements on these contentious and sensitive issues. A faculty-led report could have shed light on the facts rather than perceptions and spin.

The faculty may decide to move forward with some sort of inquiry regardless of the board's position. Given the tumultuous political landscape and the prospects for renewed protests when students return in the fall, there’s some urgency to this work.

It is revealing that the chancellor punted to the board, and the board shut down the overwhelming faculty vote.

We’ve seen how much students’ voices matter to the administration on this issue.

Now the faculty has found out about their own.

When Apple released an inexpensive tracking device called an AirTag three years ago, I thought my days of chronically losing stuff might be over. The AirTag was designed as an easy way to keep track of valuables that are often misplaced -- luggage, keys, purses and wallets.

It’s also become a way to stalk and track humans.

The quarter-sized Bluetooth device costs $29 and can be hidden in a car, clothing or accessory surreptitiously. Using an AirTag to track an adult without their consent can be a crime, but it’s become an increasingly common way for parents to keep tabs on their children.

In a recent online discussion in a moms’ group, a parent shared her anxiety about her young child attending an all-day summer camp for the first time. Several moms commented that they drop their children off at day camp with an AirTag on them.

There are tons of wearable tracker holders on the market for kids -- wristbands, keychains, lanyards and pins. Some parents simply tie one to a child’s shoe or place it in a backpack. They see it as a bridge between the time when children are old enough to attend camp but too young to have a smartphone.

This advice left me with mixed feelings. On one hand, I see how it would be reassuring for concerned parents to know where a young child is while outside of their care. But it also feels strange that we’ve become so accustomed to being surveilled and surveilling others.

It’s such a normal part of our society that we’ve stopped talking about the possible drawbacks.

When our children were young, we didn’t have access to this technology, so I have no idea whether I would have used it. But when our children first started driving, all of us added the Life360 app, which tracks the location of every family member, to our phones. We figured it would give us peace of mind, especially since we had told our children not to text while driving.

Thankfully, we never had any real emergencies that necessitated relying on this app. But it was helpful if a teenager was late to arrive home: We could glance at our phones to see if they were headed back.

Strangely, once they went off to college, none of us deleted the app. It had become a normal part of the invasive tech in our lives.

We don’t question the whereabouts of our young adult children. But if a week goes by and I haven’t heard back from one of them, it does ease my worry to look at the app and see their location on campus. They can see our locations, too, so it feels almost like a mutual safety measure, albeit a limited one.

AirTags, too, can provide a false sense of security: The tags can be unreliable in certain situations or run out of battery.

Is this simply technological progress? I’m not sure.

From an increasingly young age, we’ve become conditioned to accept being monitored and watched. Like any technology, it can become dangerous in the wrong hands.

The bigger question is how and why we’ve become so much more anxious over the past few decades, which is fueling the demand for such products. If you’re middle-aged or older, you likely had more unmonitored time as a child than younger generations have.

Unlike our parents, we raised our own children in a 24/7 news cycle with the advent of social media. We have been exposed to so much secondhand cruelty and fearmongering online and in the media. Events that are relatively rare, such as kidnappings and mass shootings, are shown to us repeatedly in graphic, searing detail.

Our culture imprints fear in our consciousness.

So it makes sense that we resort to tracking devices to soothe our own sense of powerlessness and anxiety.

It’s easier to drop an AirTag in a backpack than to think about why we feel compelled to do it.

Lisa Wells heard that tributes to her family’s kitty, Newt -- who had spent most days lounging along a bike trail in Edwardsville, Illinois -- had taken over the 9-foot-tall orange cat sculpture dedicated to him.

As she biked up to a makeshift shrine of flowers, stuffed animals, handmade crafts and photos, she noticed a woman holding a piece of paper in a plastic sleeve.

The woman was planning to add her letter to the pile of mementos at the memorial. Instead, she handed the printed page to Lisa.

“Dearest little Newt,

"Through losing a parent, COVID, and a cancer diagnosis and treatment, getting out on the trail and visiting with you always made things better. You brought pure and simple joy and made us better humans. Thank you for the impact you made on us as individuals and as a community. The trail will never be the same without you. We love you, little friend. You will live on in the hearts of so many.”

Lisa hugged the stranger and cried.

She and her husband, Chris, say they have been stunned by the overwhelming response to their cat’s death. Unlike other celebrity pets whose owners cultivate large social media followings and sell merch emblazoned with their images, the Wellses never sought fame for their cat. Newt remained a free spirit until the end.

“We really weren’t his owners,” Chris says. “He was a community cat.”

About seven years ago, the Wellses agreed to get their sons a pet. Lisa had grown up on six acres, and her family had had outdoor cats; she persuaded Chris that it could work in the suburbs, too.

Chris would regularly check with the Metro East Humane Society (MEHS) for adoptable cats, and called his wife when he discovered some kittens available.

“I thought they were absolutely adorable,” said son Zeke, then 4. Zeke picked out one of the kittens and named it Fluffy. Older brother Thad, then 12, claimed Newt.

In the garage, they made a space with a cat bed, kitty tower, food and water bowls and a litterbox. The area was insulated and had a heater for the winter, as well as a cat door so the kitties could easily go into the backyard when it was hot. The boys would play with them in the garage and backyard.

About a year later, the family took the cats camping with them.

“That’s when (Newt) got a taste of the outdoors,” Chris says.

After that trip, Newt would stay outside all day, only returning home late at night for food. Newt would catch small lizards or birds and leave them as gifts for his family, but he loved his freedom.

When Lisa and Chris would bike to the nearby Nickel Plate Trail, both cats would follow along. Newt found an alcove on the trail and would hang out there until people came by. Then, he would appear and demand attention.

Defying typical cat behavior, Newt was aggressively friendly. He would jump on a bike seat, crawl up a friendly visitor’s leg or simply lie in the center of the trail, demanding to be petted.

As the pandemic led more people outdoors, his popularity rose. People created at least two social media pages for him: Trail Kitty and Newt for Mayor. A student started a Newt Club in a local elementary school. After the local parks department unveiled a series of animal sculptures along public trails, including an orange cat piece called "Nelson," a petition circulated to rename it after Newt. (It succeeded.) The MEHS received at least $4,000 from sales of Newt-related merch.

At first, Thad said he felt a little betrayed that Newt was no longer just "his" cat. He developed a special whistle to call Newt home, and it almost always worked.

The average life span of a domesticated indoor cat can range from 12 to 18 years. For an outdoor cat, the life span is a fraction of that. The Wellses were aware of the dangers. The biggest challenge may have been convincing concerned bystanders that Newt really did want to stay outside. Even though Newt’s collar said, “I like to roam,” about once or twice a week, someone would call asking if they had lost their cat. (Newt was chipped.)

A month ago, the Wellses noticed that Newt hadn’t returned home for several days. They went to the trail to search for him, and came across several others doing the same.

A neighbor eventually found Newt's remains on May 26 in a drainage area. He likely met up with another animal that led to his demise. The news of Newt’s death sent waves of grief through his legion of fans.

That’s when the outpouring of tributes and condolences started flooding in.

An exercise group did a memorial workout. A local youth sold 3D-printed "mini Newts" -- replicas of the orange sculpture -- and donated part of the proceeds to the MEHS. Cards and gifts keep arriving for the Wellses from people they don’t know, but who knew and loved their cat.

Chris says he believes that in such divided times, Newt gave people something to rally around.

Lisa Vargovcik, a licensed clinical social worker, said Newt’s life and death have been a reminder of the profound positive impact of pets, including Newt’s unconditional love and him feeling like a family member to many.

The Newt for Mayor page has now become the Newt Memorial Page.