Dec.25 School of Medicine Public Affairs Campaign Plan

Overview of the College of Medicine's proposed Public Awareness Campaign to garner support for FLorida International University 's School of Medicine.

Urban Education Research: A Paradigm Shift

Significantly due to the institutional separation of theory and practice, the gap between academia and society continues to broaden, arguably pointing towards the failure of traditional educational research and, to an extent, the university’s neglect to authenticate alternate epistemologies and methodologies that seek to elicit mobilization, activism, and reform.

S Corporations Can Benefit Many Closely-Held Hospitality Firms

In his discussion - S Corporations Can Benefit Many Closely-Held Hospitality Firms - by John M. Tarras, Assistant Professor, School of Hotel, Restaurant & Institutional Management at Michigan State University, Assistant Professor Tarras initially offers: “Organization as an S corporation has many advantages for hospitality firms since passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The author discusses those advantages and lists the disadvantages as well.” In the opening paragraphs Tarras alludes to the relationship between hospitality firms, S corporations, and the Tax Reform Act of 1986, and then defines what an S corporation is. “An S corporation is a form of business entity that combines many of the tax advantages of partnerships with the legal attributes of a corporation, including limited liability for its shareholders. Its name is obtained from a subchapter of the Internal Revenue Code. Except for tax purposes, the S corporation is treated in the same manner as any regular corporation. Like a partnership, income and losses for an S corporation are generally passed through directly to shareholders for inclusion on their individual returns. An S corporation thus avoids the double tax problem facing regular corporations.” There are certain criteria to be met and caveats to be avoided in qualifying for S corporation status. Tarras lists and cites these for you. “Due to the complicated nature of S corporations, the election may be inadvertently terminated if the eligibility requirements are violated,” Tarras expands and cites. As the article suggests at the outset, there are advantages and disadvantages to S corporation status; the author outlines some examples for you. “Traditionally, the S corporation has been used by hospitality firms wishing to avoid the "double tax" problem of a regular corporation,” Tarras informs you. “Regular corporations are taxed once at the corporate level, and again at the shareholder level when income is distributed to shareholders in the form of dividends.” Tarras advises you as to why an S corporation is an advantage in this situation. “Since the S corporation generally is not subject to any corporate taxes, it generally makes no difference whether distributions to shareholders of S corporations are characterized as compensation or dividends,” thus the double tax is avoided. This is just one such positive illustration. Assistant Professor Tarras wants you to know: “Perhaps the most important reason to consider the S corporation has to do with the downward revision of tax rates for both individuals and corporations.” He highlights a case study for you. Some of the disadvantages of S corporation affiliation are the caveats alluded to earlier. They include, “the limitation of an S corporation of 35 shareholders,” Tarras cites. “Also, there are limits as to who may own stock in an S corporation.” These are but two of the limitations of an S corporation. Tarras closes with a further glimpse of the down-sides of an S corporation.

The Beacon, November 13, 2006

Vol. 19, Issue 29, 12 pages

La utopía interior: superación del dualismo en los ensayos de Ernesto Sábato

My research attempts to demonstrate how Sábato’s essays have pursued a progressive path that reflects the evolving process of his vision. In light of his essays, I will delineate the themes of solitude, death, desperation, robotization of man, and finally, hope as the antithesis. In my analysis I examine the model created in Sartre’s Existentialism. I also visit the model followed by Nicholas Berdyaeff, who at least offers the possibility of salvation in a world conceived by and for Nothingness. I investigate how these and other tendencies had an initial influence on the essays studied in my research. I concentrate on those essays whose discourse is conditioned by the philosophical foundations of a being that inquires and discerns, discovers and denounces, and finally struggles with the impossibility of reaching the absolute. This foresight, at times apocalyptic, at times utopian, is already present in Sábato’s early works. In my study I attempt to establish how Sábato, in oscillating between the demonic and the romantic, the infernal and utopian, constructs his vision of the world through the symbiotic intertwining of both the fictional and essayistic genres. I focus on an author compromised by a constant debate with the paradoxes and dichotomies that, according to Sábato himself, define Modernity.

The effects of an augmented art curriculum on the attitudes of high school art students toward diversity in art

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an augmented art curriculum on high school art students to determine if those receiving it had more positive attitudes toward diversity in art and used diversity in their art more than students receiving traditional instruction. This study was conducted in a South Florida public high school, with beginning art students. Using a posttest-only control group design and ANOVA (a = .05), it was found that students (n = 54) receiving an augmented art curriculum did not have significantly higher scores on the Attitudes About Art questionnaire than students (n = 57) receiving traditional instruction F (1, 91) =.00, p > .05. However, using the Checklist of Cultural References in Student Art to evaluate student work it was found that there was a significant teacher effect F (1, 30) = 14.14, p

Left to right: Mike Ross and Nilesh Timilsina measuring mangrove tree height after Hurricane Wilma, Harney River

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research program under Cooperative Agreements #DBI-0620409 and #DEB-9910514. This image is made available for non-commercial or educational use only.