The socialization of adjunct faculty into the academic culture of a public community college campus

This study investigated the socialization of adjunct faculty into the academic culture of a community college campus. Because of the increased utilization of adjunct faculty, the need to socialize them to effectively function within the organizational culture has become more acute. A review of the literature revealed that when employees are socialized, they are more committed to the goals and welfare of the organization, are less likely to leave the organization, and are more productive and innovative. Therefore, it is important that administrators have programs and practices in place that would help to integrate adjunct faculty into the academic culture. The model of organizational socialization (Chao, O'Leary-Kelly, Wolf, Klein, & Gardner, 1994) formed the framework for this study, which was guided by the following research questions: How do adjunct faculty members describe their socialization into the culture of their college campus? How do administrators describe their roles and that of the organization in the socialization of adjunct faculty members? What organizational programs and activities are in place for the socialization of adjunct faculty? The North Campus of Miami Dade College was the site for this study, as it is a campus with a long history of utilizing adjunct faculty members and one that has a clearly-stated mission of adjunct faculty socialization. A qualitative case study method was used, and data collection included interviews and the review and analysis of institutional documents. The participants included 11 adjunct faculty members, 4 department chairpersons, the campus president, and the college training and development coordinator. The study revealed that there were structured and consistent professional development programs, but these conflicted with the schedules of adjunct faculty. Overall, adjunct faculty found support from the leadership; however, they revealed a need for more mentoring, more interactions with full-time faculty, and more input in decision making concerning textbooks and curricula. Implications and recommendations for practice include making professional development more accessible and relevant to adjunct faculty, developing a formal mentoring program where full-time faculty and veteran adjunct faculty mentor novice adjunct faculty, and involving adjuncts in decisions regarding curriculum and textbook selection.

How employees with different national identities experience a geocentric organizational culture of a global corporation: A phenomenological study

A global corporation values both profitability and social acceptance; its units mutually negotiate governance and represent a highly interdependent network where centers of excellence and high-potential employees are identified regardless of geographic locations. These companies try to build geocentric, or “world oriented” (Marquardt, 1999, p. 20), organizational cultures. Such culture “transcends cultural differences and establishes ‘beacons’ – values and attitudes – that are comprehensive and compelling” (Kets de Vries & Florent-Treacy, 2002, p. 299) for all employees, regardless of their national origins. Creating a geocentric organizational culture involves transforming each employee’s mindset, beliefs, and behaviors so that he/she can become “a world citizen in spite of having a national identity” (Marquardt, 1999, p. 47). The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how employees with different national identities experience a geocentric organizational culture of a global corporation. Phenomenological research aims to understand “how people experience some phenomenon—how they perceive it, describe it, feel about it, judge it, remember it, make sense of it, and talk about it with others” (Patton, 2002, p. 104). Twelve participants were selected using criteria, convenience, and snow-ball sampling strategies. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect data. Data were analyzed inductively, using Moustakas’s (1994) Modification of the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen Method of Analysis of Phenomenological Data. The participants in this study experienced a geocentric organizational culture of a global corporation as on in which they felt connected, valued, and growing personally and professionally. The participants felt connected to the companies via business goals and social responsibility. The participants felt valued by the company because their creativity was welcomed and they could contribute to the corporation certain unique knowledge of the culture and language of their native countries. The participants felt growing personally and professionally due to the professional development opportunities, cross-cultural awareness, and perspective consciousness. Based on the findings from this study, a model of a geocentric organizational culture of a global corporation: An employee perspective is proposed. Implications for research and practice conclude this study.

The (ab)use of politics and eroticism in the culture of the Spanish Transition to democracy (1975–1982)

This dissertation analyzes the (ab)use of politics and eroticism within the framework of the Transition to democracy in Spain, its social and cultural impact—on literature, film, music, and popular media—, and its consequences. After a period of nearly four decades, when the country was subjected to a totalitarian regime, Spanish society underwent a process of democratic restoration. As a result, the two topics considered taboo during almost forty years of repression—i.e., politics and sexuality/eroticism—, gushed out fiercely. Every aspect of culture was influenced by and intrinsically linked to them. However, while we have been offered a more or less global approach to the Transition—the Transition as a whole—, and some studies have focused on diverse areas, no research to date has covered in depth the significance of those issues during that historical moment. Considering the facts stated above, it was imperative to conduct a more detailed analysis of the influence of both eroticism and politics on the cultural production of the Transition from different perspectives. Although the academic intelligentsia has often rejected them as expressions of mass culture, we must consider Pierre Bourdieu’s theories—in line with the tradition of classical sociology, that includes science, law, and religion, together with artistic activities—, Michel Foucault’s ideas on sexuality, and New Historicism, examining texts and their contexts. This work concludes that the (ab)use of both subjects during the Spanish Transition was a reaction to a repressive condition. It led to extremes, to societal transgression and, in most cases, to the objectification of women because of the impositions of a patriarchal society. It was, however, part of a learning and, in a sense, cathartic process that led, eventually, to the reestablishment of the status quo, to a more equitable and multicultural society where men, women, and any political or sexual tendencies are respected—at least, in theory.

A Geocentric Organizational Culture of a Global Corporation: A Phenomenological Exploration of Employees’ Experiences

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how employees with different national identities experience a geocentric organizational culture of a global corporation.

Creating a Culture of Thinking that Cultivates the Perspective-Taking Disposition

Through action research, the researchers engaged a group of third grade children in a project that offered a variety of learning activities to develop the children’s perspective-taking ability. As a result the teachers found a significant increase in the emotional connection of the students to the characters in the literature.

(Table 1) Main parameters of consumption of inorganic nitrogen compounds by microplankton in the western Black Sea in April 1993

Parameters of provision of the phytoplankton community with inorganic nitrogen compounds in the western Black Sea in April 1993 are analyzed (specifically, dependence of rates of uptake of nitrates and ammonium by microplankton on substrate concentration, diurnal dynamics of assimilation of mineral nitrogen, values of f-ratios, and proportions of carbon and nitrogen fluxes). In most cases all the parameters of degree of phytoplankton provision with mineral nitrogen are shown to vary unidirectionally, both at the surface and in the photosynthesis zone. Individual areas of a relatively small region studied differed markedly in their level of provision of algae with inorganic nitrogen compounds - from complete saturation to high degree of limitation of phytoplankton development due to nitrogen deficiency in the environment. Obtained results allow to estimate provision of Black Sea phytoplankton with nitrogen in terms of limitation of rates of uptake of its inorganic compounds.

Cage culture of Nile Tilapia

Nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) a fish introduced into Lake Victoria to boost the fishery industry after the Nile perch lates niloticus fed on the native tilapiine oreochromis esculentus and Oreochromis viabillis to almost extinction has been proposed to be cultured in the Lake Victoria. The fact sheet explains the culture of Nile tilapia in cages in Lake Victoria, Uganda.

Close encounters: international exhibitions and the material culture of the British Empire, c.1880-1940

Apparitions of empire and imperial ideologies were deeply embedded in the International Exhibition, a distinct exhibitionary paradigm that came to prominence in the mid-nineteenth century. Exhibitions were platforms for the display of objects, the movement of people, and the dissemination of ideas across and between regions of the British Empire, thereby facilitating contact between its different cultures and societies. This thesis aims to disrupt a dominant understanding of International Exhibitions, which forwards the notion that all exhibitions, irrespective of when or where they were staged, upheld a singular imperial discourse (i.e. Greenhalgh 1988, Rydell 1984). Rather, this thesis suggests International Exhibitions responded to and reflected the unique social, political and economic circumstances in which they took place, functioning as cultural environments in which pressing concerns of the day were worked through. Understood thus, the International Exhibition becomes a space for self-presentation, serving as a stage from which a multitude of interests and identities were constructed, performed and projected. This thesis looks to the visual and material culture of the International Exhibition in order to uncover this more nuanced history, and foregrounds an analysis of the intersections between practices of exhibition-making and identity-making. The primary focus is a set of exhibitions held in Glasgow in the late-1880s and early-1900s, which extends the geographic and temporal boundaries of the existing scholarship. What is more, it looks at representations of Canada at these events, another party whose involvement in the International Exhibition tradition has gone largely unnoticed. Consequently, this thesis is a thematic investigation of the links between a municipality routinely deemed the ‘Second City of the Empire’ and a Dominion settler colony, two types of geographic setting rarely brought into dialogue. It analyses three key elements of the exhibition-making process, exploring how iconographies of ‘quasi-nationhood’ were expressed through an exhibition’s planning and negotiation, its architecture and its displays. This original research framework deliberately cuts across strata that continue to define conceptions of the British Empire, and pushes beyond a conceptual model defined by metropole and colony. Through examining International Exhibitions held in Glasgow in the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods, and visions of Canada in evidence at these events, the goal is to offer a novel intervention into the existing literature concerning the cultural history of empire, one that emphasises fluidity rather than fixity and which muddles the boundaries between centre and periphery.

La mediación como política social: una vía eficaz para el logro de la cultura de paz = Mediation as social policy: an effective way of a culture of peace

La presente investigación surge como resultado de la tesis para la obtención del grado de Doctor y pretende contribuir al fortalecimiento de una cultura de paz en México, proponiendo implementar estrategias de resolución pacífica de conflictos como la mediación, considerándola como una política social que incida en la transformación positiva de los conflictos. La herramienta idónea, el diálogo y los valores: tolerancia, cooperación, participación activa de la sociedad, solidaridad y el acercamiento de la justicia a la ciudadanía, serán los elementos indispensables para solucionar de manera efectiva, pronta, económica y equitativa los conflictos la sociedad del siglo XXI. La mediación cumple satisfactoriamente los requisitos para poder ser contemplada como una política social que incentive la participación activa de la ciudadanía en la solución de sus conflictos, auxiliando a socavar la crisis de los sistemas de impartición de justicia. Abstract: This research arises as a result of the thesis for obtaining the degree of Doctor, and aims to contribute to the strengthening of a culture of peace in Mexico, by proposing to implement peaceful conflict resolution like mediation strategies, considering it as a social policy that affects the positive transformation of conflicts. The ideal tool, dialogue and values: tolerance, cooperation, active participation of society, solidarity and justice approach to citizenship, will be the essential elements to solve conflicts of the 21st century society in effective, faster, economical and equitable manner. Mediation satisfactorily meets the requirements to be able to be considered a social policy that encourage the active participation of citizens in the solution of their conflicts, helping to undermine the crisis of justice systems.

‘DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF HIS RACE’: BLACK OFFICEHOLDERS AND THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF FREEDOM IN WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA, 1865-1877

This dissertation examines black officeholding in Wilmington, North Carolina, from emancipation in 1865 through 1876, when Democrats gained control of the state government and brought Reconstruction to an end. It considers the struggle for black office holding in the city, the black men who held office, the dynamic political culture of which they were a part, and their significance in the day-to-day lives of their constituents. Once they were enfranchised, black Wilmingtonians, who constituted a majority of the city’s population, used their voting leverage to negotiate the election of black men to public office. They did so by using Republican factionalism or what the dissertation argues was an alternative partisanship. Ultimately, it was not factional divisions, but voter suppression, gerrymandering, and constitutional revisions that made local government appointive rather than elective, Democrats at the state level chipped away at the political gains black Wilmingtonians had made.

Alcohol consumption among university students: a typology of consumption to aid the tailoring of effective public health policy

Objective: Elevated levels of alcohol consumption among university students are well documented. Policymakers have attempted to combat this issue at a university, national and international level. Tailoring public health policy to effectively tackle alcohol use is crucial. Using Q-methodology, the current study aims to develop a typology of alcohol consumption in the Irish university student population. Setting: A large Irish university. Participants Hundreds of possible statements on types of consumption were generated from a systematic review and a set of one-on-one interviews. These were reduced to 36 statements, 6 statements which define each of the 6 previously defined consumption types. Participants were advised to scan through the 36 statements and fill the statements into a ‘forced choice, standardised distribution’. Following this, a 45–90 min interview was conducted with students to illuminate subjectivity surrounding alcohol consumption. Analysis was conducted using PQ Method and NVivo software. Principal component analysis, followed by varimax rotation, was conducted to uncover the final factor information. Results: In total, 43 students completed the Q-study: 19 men and 24 women. A typology describing 4 distinct groupings of alcohol consumer was uncovered: the guarded drinker, the calculated hedonist, the peer-influenced drinker and the inevitable binger. Factor loadings of each of the consumer groupings were noted for type description. Conclusions: This is the first study to propose ideal types of alcohol consumption among a university student population. Further research is required to investigate the degree to which each of these ideal types is subscribed. However, this typology, in addition to informing public policy and strategies, will be a valuable analytic tool in future research.