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Grand Valley Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 3 Winter 2011, Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley Magazine

Grand Valley Magazine is a quarterly publication about Grand Valley State University produced by University Communications since 2001.

Mentoring For A Public Good, George Kawamoto

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

Even into the 1970s, Asian American attorneys faced significant discrimination and difficulty finding work in law firms. Because of these injustices and a desire to right them, social justice lawyering became a hallmark of that generation of Asian American lawyers. Litigating civil rights violations in cases such as Korematsu v. United States allowed senior Asian American attorneys to mentor a younger generation of lawyers. Although more minority attorneys now are offered work in firms and the appearance of racism has diminished, social justice mentoring remains vital to today's Asian American legal community. Teaming minority law students and young attorneys with …

Social Dimensions Of Lake Ecology: Stakeholder Perception Surveys Used To Design Effective Lake Management Plans, Laurie Nannini

Masters Theses

Lake conservation management plans have exhibited varying levels of success through out Illinois. Recent research, in eutrophic lakes shows that pollution at any level stabilizes when stakeholder cooperation is enhanced by high conformist tendency and social concern. Involving stakeholders in preliminary stages of lake management plans creates more legitimacy and connectedness with the local government as well as stakeholder involvement with management plans. Public opinion data also allows policy makers to sustainably involve stakeholders in management plans. Members of the Illinois Lake Management Association were surveyed on their perceived threats to lakes, preferences on lake facilities and activities. Responses were …

Making Ecodistricts: City-Scale Climate Action One Neighborhood At A Time, Ethan Seltzer, Ellen M. Bassett, Joseph Cortright, Vivek Shandas, Timothy W. Smith

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

As part of its approach to meeting Climate Action Plan goals, the City of Portland has joined with the Portland Sustainability Institute to create "EcoDistricts" in Portland neighborhoods to seek neighborhood engagement on behalf of city climate action goals. EcoDistricts, like neighborhoods, offer a scale at which individuals can be affective and empowered to make climate-positive choices, but in a manner that can scale up to make citywide climate action real.

Wglt Program Guide, January-February, 2011, Illinois State University

WGLT Program Guides

This guide details programming for WGLT, a public radio station owned by Illinois State University.

Marco, Micro, Structure, Agency: Analysing Approaches To Engineering Ethics, Eddie Conlon

Conference papers

No abstract provided.

Spiritual Capital: The Relationship With Civic Engagement Among Faith-Based Leaders, Sylvia W. Burgess

Dissertations

The current status of America in relationship to civic engagement is one of steady decline. The available research examines the decline from the viewpoint of the role religion plays in engagement, the role of volunteerism, and voting, social networking, and memberships. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between spiritual capital, civic participation, and civic engagement. An in depth analysis of relationship between spiritual capital and types and levels of civic engagement was investigated. The research sample included faith-based leaders from five churches in North Carolina and Virginia who were identified by the senior pastors as leaders …

Designing Communitas, Kevin Tyler Bates

Doctor of Ministry

No abstract provided.

Salt Equalizer, Vol. 2011, Issue 1, Society Of American Law Teachers

SALT Equalizer

Contents of This Issue:

Raquel Aldana & Steven W. Bender, Co-Presidents’ Column, at 1.

Hazel Weiser, Executive Director’s Column, at 1.

Ruben Garcia, 2011 San Francisco Dinner Is a Great Success; D.C. Is Next in 2012, at 5.

Ngai Pindell, SALT’s Teaching Conference a Tremendous Success, at 6.

Hazel Weiser, Have You Bought Your Copy of Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader?, at 7.

Hazel Weiser, Breaking In: How to Get a Job in the Legal Academy, at 7.

Holly Maguigan, Leaders Sought to Serve on SALT’s Board of Governors, at 8.

Olympia Duhart, Membership Matters, …

Strictly Business: Teacher Perceptions Of Interaction In Virtual Schooling, Charles R. Graham, Abigail Hawkins, Michael K. Barbour

Faculty Publications

This study explored the nature of teacher-student interaction from the perspective of eight virtual school teachers in an asynchronous, self-paced, statewide, supplemental virtual high school. Using intensity sampling, eight teachers who varied across discipline, grade level, and course completion rates were student-initiated and instructional in nature. The main procedural interactions focused on notifications sent to inactive students. Social interactions were minimal and viewed as having little pedagogical value. Institutional barriers such as class size and an absence of effective tracking mechanisms limited the amount and types of interaction teachers engaged in. Study implications and future research are discussed.

Business School And Business Ethics: Responsibility And Response, H. James Williams

Seidman Business Review

No abstract provided.

Using Brownfields To Think Green: Investigating Factors That Influence Community Decision-Making And Participation, Charissa Ruth Stair

Dissertations and Theses

Brownfield restoration and remediation is a growing concern across the United States. Brownfields are vacant or abandoned properties with real or perceived contamination. Successfully restoring these properties requires strong stakeholder collaboration, including the local community. The purpose of this study was to explore the complexities of creating a community garden on a residential brownfield site located in a low-income, high-minority neighborhood and to gain a better understanding of how a community based project develops and impacts individuals from the community. Specifically, the study investigated who chose to participate in the project, what motivated individuals to become involved and remain committed, …

Transforming The Soul Of Education: Sustainability At The Center Of Teaching And Learning In Secondary Schools, Thomas Eugene Kane

Dissertations and Theses

Humanity is facing problems on a scale never before encountered. This dissertation traces the roots of modern culture's destructive relationship to the planet with its habits of over-consumption and exceeding the limits of the planet's ecological systems. Educational institutions are embedded in and replicate an unsustainable culture. As educational leaders, we need to challenge a system that is morally and ecologically bankrupt while providing a path toward sustainability at the center of teaching and learning. Using a narrative scholarship approach and theoretical frameworks drawn from ecological thinking and place-based learning, this dissertation provides models for transforming secondary education. While critiquing …

Exploring Traffic Safety And Urban Form In Portland, Oregon, Kristie Werner Gladhill

Dissertations and Theses

Street layout and design, once established, are then not easily changed. Urban form affects community development, livability, sustainability, and traffic safety. There has been an assumed relationship between urban form and traffic safety that favors designs with less through streets to improve safety. An empirical study to test this assumed relationship was carried out for crash data for Portland, Oregon. This thesis presents an empirical methodology for analyzing the relationship between urban form and traffic safety utilizing a uniform grid for the spatial unit. Crashes in the Portland, Oregon city limits from 2005-2007 were analyzed and modeled using negative binomial …

Prediction Of Soil Layer R-Value Dependence On Moisture Content, Ziyang Liu

Dissertations and Theses

This study focuses on how green roof thermal performance is affected by the soil moisture in summer condition. It aims to determine whether moist soil is a better insulator during the summer months than dry soil. A soil model is developed to predict simultaneous conduction, convection, and surface evaporation for a layer of moist soil representing a green roof. It used to analyze evaporation process and its affect on the soil resistance. The model considers only bare soil without vegetation on the roof. The model predicts the soil surface temperature as it is affected by soil moisture content, which can …

Forging Theatre And Community: Challenges And Strategies For Serving Two Missions, Dan L. Balfour

Peer Reviewed Articles - Public, Nonprofit, and Health Administration

At the age of personal computers, the Internet, cell phones, video games, and I-pods, how can individuals be enticed to emerge from their electronic silos and actually engage others in meaningful discourse as members of a community with common interests and problems? One organizational response to this challenge is the activities of community-based organizations. Such organizations are widely recognized for their ability to promote and facilitate creative face-to-face human interactions that serve as a counterweight to the forces of individuation and declining trust in public institutions, while playing a niche role in the process of building and sustaining community solidarity. …

Three Sisters Exchange: Building Alliances And Promoting Justice From The United States To Ecuador, Ariel Climer

Capstone Collection

This paper presents a proposal for a social justice and action-based study abroad program with foundations in the short-term reality tours of the education and human rights-based NGO, Global Exchange, a far-reaching non-profit with friendships built on solidarity against the spread of elite globalization. The program is called the Three Sisters Exchange to honor the sustainable design of indigenous crop planting prevalent around the world. The design comes at a time when international educators offer few programs with foci in social justice. The international education field needs more sustainable programs that take into account global systems. A propagation of such …

Changing Hearts: The Future Of The Environmental Movement, Emily Casey

Global Tides

For many, the environmental movement is a consumer fad with very little intellectual or emotional investment. Generally, sustainability is deemed a “good thing” but given low priority at both the personal level and the public policy level. In this paper, I argue that environmentalism must be modified to meet the needs of the general populace in order to gain momentum as a contemporary political movement. In other words, I examine how the environmental movement can attract the massive number of active members necessary to change public policy and conclude that this movement will need to adapt to the public in …

An Evaluation Of Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives Implemented By Alcoa, Votorantim, And Vale As A Means To Aid In Poverty Alleviation In The Brazilian Regions These Mining Companies Operate, Emily A. Coleman

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis evaluates the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives implemented by Alcoa, Votorantim, and Vale as a means to aid in poverty alleviation in the Brazilian regions these mining companies operate. Even though Brazil is ranked as the eighth largest economy in the world, 50 million Brazilians are living on less than US$1 per day. The presence of large mining corporations in Brazil’s poorest regions represents an opportunity for corporate social responsibility investments to improve social, economic, and environmental conditions in these locations. This research highlights the importance of designing corporate social responsibility programs according to the specific characteristics of …

Community In Exile: German Jewish Identity Development In Wartime Shanghai, 1938-1945, Alice I. Reichman

CMC Senior Theses

Between 1938 and 1940 approximately 18,000 Jews from Central Europe went to the Chinese city of Shanghai to escape Nazi persecution. While almost every nation in the world refused to accept these desperate refugees, thousands found refuge in Japanese occupied Shanghai, which was an open port and one could immigrate there with no visa or passport. In an incredibly short period of time the refugees were able to develop a vibrant Jewish community. Relying primarily on the testimony of former refugees, this thesis seeks to address three main questions: What did exile in Shanghai feel like for the refugees? How …

Board Member Perceptions Of Nonprofit Organization Effectiveness, Laura Levy Maurer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In contemporary American society, the nonprofit board is accountable for ensuring that an organization has sufficient resources to carry out its mission. Filling the gap between demands for services and the resources to meet them is often a struggle for small, local nonprofit organizations. This hermeneutic phenomenological study examined how board members of small, local nonprofits in the focal community perceive organizational effectiveness. Understanding the nature of nonprofit organization effectiveness according to board members contributes to understanding how those accountable meet their organizational objectives. A review of the literature revealed that nonprofit effectiveness involves the action of contributing and the …

Moments Of Despair: Suicide, Divorce, & Debt In Civil War Era North Carolina, James Marten

Civil War Book Review

Understanding Social Change and Continuity

Historians have from time to time interested themselves in the extent to which the Civil War fired a crucible of change in the South or, on the other hand, led to remarkable continuities. Political and economic historians often found more simi....

In Search Of Best Practices: A Case Study Of A Volunteer-Led Nonprofit Organization's Failure To Deliver Aid, Leah Weiner

Theses and Dissertations

Across the globe, many long-term social service and infrastructure projects of nonprofits are managed by volunteers who freely donate their time to provide aid. Some of these organizations are referred to as voluntary nonprofit organizations with membership being voluntary. As a result, turnover impacts the ability of many volunteer-led nonprofits to achieve their goals. The unique characteristics of volunteers combined with volunteer turnover requires a volunteer-led nonprofit to use organizational models and best practices that align with the needs of a volunteer membership. Unfortunately, current research on the nonprofit sector focuses primarily on paid-staff nonprofit organizations as oppose to volunteer-led. …

Knowns, Unknowns, And Impacts, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Jouke van Dijk opened the most recent issue of Papers in Regional Science with “Long lasting knowledge in Regional Science,” an editorial highlighting the role that the Association”s journal has played in documenting much of the key regional science research since its inception. Publications obviously provide a long lasting chronicle of research in regional science, but I had rather hoped to find in his editorial an actual identification and enumeration of examples of specific long lasting knowledge gleaned from the regional science record. My hopes stemmed from having spent the past year contemplating appropriate content for this Presidential Address on …

What's Stalling Learning? Using A Formative Assessment Tool To Address Critical Incidents In Class, H. Brooke Hessler, Amy Rupiper Taggart

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

We report on the use of Brookfield’s (1995) formative assessment tool, the “Critical Incident Questionnaire” (CIQ) to help students and teachers identify and discuss key factors affecting learning. We offer insight into two major areas: 1) testing and adapting the existing tool to improve teaching and learning and 2) identifying moments of potentially productive tension between the learner and the learning process—moments that, once named, we can address more directly. We call these moments stasis points. Our research questions were: “Based on insights emerging from regular use of the CIQ, how might the tool be better worded to encourage productive …

Plans To Live On A Reservation Following College Among American Indian Students: An Examination Of Transculturation Theory, Terry Huffman

Faculty Publications - College of Education

This paper focuses on American Indian college students and uses transculturation theory to examine factors related to self-reported plans to live on a reservation following completion of college. Transculturation theory assumes a strong cultural identity is fundamental to academic success. The author uses the basic premise of this perspective to consider an extension to its assumptions. Findings indicate that an implied assumption of the transculturation perspective is that American Indians closely aligned with traditional culture tend to seek careers in which they serve Native communities and more likely plan to live on a reservation after college.

Moving Forward, Public Transportation In Tennessee, Part I, Land Use And Transportation Planning, Tennessee. Advisory Commission On Intergovernmental Relations.

Land Use Reports

No abstract provided.

Developing A Drought Planning Evaluation System In The United States, Mark D. Svoboda, Zhenghong Tang

Community and Regional Planning Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Drought is a normal part of the climate cycle, affecting every climate regime on the planet. Drought indicates a special period in which an unusual moisture scarcity causes a serious hydrological imbalance. Drought is related to the timing and effectiveness of the rains, high temperature, high wind, and low humidity. The typical impacts of drought may include dry lands, low or empty water-supply reservoirs, low groundwater levels (dried up wells), crop damage, and ensuing environmental degradation. In the United States, drought accounts for losses in the billions of dollars. In fact, a FEMA (1995) report estimates the average annual losses …

Local Public Health System Partnerships: A Mixed Methods Multi-State Study, Priscilla A. Barnes

Dissertations

The purpose of this three-paper dissertation was to conduct a mixed methods multi-state examination of specific partnership-related activities among local public health systems (LPHSs) as well as to explore perceptions of LPHS practitioners regarding partnership practices.

In the first paper, secondary data analysis of questions from the National Public Health Performance Standards Program (NPHPSP, n = 110) was used to determine the frequency that partnership activities were conducted optimally (> 75% of the time) and whether any associations existed between three different partnership capacities. Activities were matched with relational, organizational, and programmatic capacities from the Collaborative Capacity Framework. Overall, 86% …

(Be)Coming Home: The Complexity Of Home As Revealed In Young Adult Novels Of Disaster, Charity Elise Cantey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Inspired by the researcher’s work with five displaced New Orleans teenagers in the months after Hurricane Katrina, this research examined twelve young adult novels in which characters face a loss of or damage to home in the wake of a natural or humanly-caused disaster. The study sought ways in which home is represented in young adult literature of disaster by analyzing passages in which characters discuss, remember, imagine, and rebuild or reestablish home after its damage or loss. A phenomenological approach was used to examine these fictional experiences of home in order to discern their contribution to an understanding of …