Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Minerva 2006, The Honors College

Minerva

This issue of Minerva includes an article on the course "Honors for All Ages," an Honors course offered at Penobscot Valley Senior College; an interview with notable Honors alum, Bernard Lown; and a celebration of the life of former Honors Program Director, Ulrich Wicks.

The Future Of Learning, Robert B. Reich

New England Journal of Public Policy

As part of UMass Boston’s recent celebration to mark the inauguration of Chancellor Michael F. Collins, M.D., the Division of Corporate, Continuing and Distance Education (CCDE) hosted a “virtual symposium” featuring Robert B. Reich. Between April 24 and May 8, CCDE posted a streaming video and a downloadable audio file of a presentation that Professor Reich had delivered on April 11, 2006 at the national conference of the University Continuing Education Association. This talk was supplemented, on May 3, by a live teleconferencing Q&A session with Professor Reich and about fifty UMass Boston graduate students.

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

The editor's note at the beginning of this journal briefly speaks about each article within. The author touches upon learning, the challenges to an education, the effects of the growth of technology, how world politics interfere with economy, and how employment is affected by technology.

Teaching Information Literacy At Delta State University, Michael Mounce

The Southeastern Librarian

LIB 101: Fundamentals of Information Literacy is a one credit hour course which has been designed at Delta State University to provide DSU students with information literacy skills needed for conducting research. Information literacy skills taught in this course include skills such as performing effective searches and evaluating resources. This course is a general education requirement elective. Although it is an elective course, it is highly recommended by DSU reference librarians to students, since information literacy skills are necessary for research.

In the Fall of 2004, the LIB 101 course began to be taught at DSU. During the fall 2004 …

A Simple Gift? The Impact Of The Kalamazoo Promise On Economic Revitalization, Michelle Miller-Adams

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Program Development During Fiscal Crisis: A Community/University Response, Dianne Rush Woods, Phu Tai Phan, Terry Jones

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article discusses the often difficult and challenging process of setting up a new academic department, especially during a time of budget crisis. Furthermore it examines the role and purpose of the university, the place of so-called applied programs within the university, curriculum development of a new program, racial and cultural diversity at the university, and the overall relevance of the university as a vehicle for addressing community needs. The paper concludes with a discussion on how a Social Work faculty was able to use the university's mission to persuade its leadership into setting up a Social Work Department.

Promoting Your School Library’S Services With An E-Mail Newsletter, Roxanne M. Spencer

The Southeastern Librarian

In this age of competing services and resources, school libraries constantly look for ways to promote their services and engender excitement among students. From book fairs to literature circles to guest lecturers, the evolving school library media center must continually showcase its services. Librarians have often been hesitant to promote their services, but necessity has forced us all to become more marketing oriented. The library newsletter offers one inexpensive, non-aggressive, but effective way to reach out to fellow teachers, administrators, and students and parents.

Small Select Library Or Miserable Excuse: Antebellum College Libraries In The American Southeast, Patrick M. Valentine

The Southeastern Librarian

What role did antebellum college libraries play in the development of the South? National studies rarely mention southern institutions, while institutional histories neglect the role of the library. Yet the history of southern antebellum college libraries should be of special interest because this was often their initial formative period. There were few college libraries in the South prior to 1800 but many were founded in the following decades. It was in the last decades before the Civil War that the South first became really aware of the need for widespread education. At the same time, southern colleges were in many …

Searching For The Holy Grail Of International Education: Feedback From Hospitality Management Study Abroad Participants, Hubert B. Van Hoof

Hospitality Review

This article reports on a study done among hospitality management students who participated in study abroad programs between January 2001 and May 2003. The participants in the study were both incoming students to the US and outgoing students from the US. The study investigates, among other things, why they had decided to study abroad, why they had selected a particular institution, how their home institution compared to the partner institution abroad, and what they perceived to be the benefits and relevance of their international experiences. It was found that respondents were generally very positive about the study abroad experience. Some …

Front Cover

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Editorial Board

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Contents And Abstracts

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Connected Classroom Climate And Communication Apprehension: Correlations And Implications Of The Basic Course, Robert E. Carlson, Karen Kangas Dwyer, Shereen G. Bingham, Ana M. Cruz, Marshall Prisbell, Dennis A. Fuss

Basic Communication Course Annual

Although scholars have recommended increasing relational variables in the classroom such as familiarity, acquaintance level, and collaboration to help students moderate communication apprehension (CA), few, if any, academic studies have investigated the relationship between CA and a supportive climate among students in the college classroom. Self-report data were collected from 523 undergraduate students from a Midwestern university who participated in a large curriculum assessment program using the Connected Classroom Climate Inventory (CCCI) and the PRCA-24. Results showed significant relationships between student perceptions of connected-classroom climate and CA levels throughout the course.

Undergraduate Teaching Assistants And Their Use Of Nonverbal Immediacy Behaviors In The Basic Communication Course, Wesley T. Durham, Adam C. Jones

Basic Communication Course Annual

Over the past two decades, perhaps no instructional communication topic has been researched as thoroughly as teacher immediacy. However, one important area of the existing teacher immediacy literature that remains underdeveloped is how undergraduate teaching assistants enact immediacy behaviors, and how, if at all, students respond to these teaching assistants differently based on the enactment of these behaviors. Thus, the purpose of this investigation was to gain a clearer understanding as to what, if any, immediacy behaviors are used by undergraduate teaching assistants in the basic communication course at a large Midwestern university. The researchers conducted 50 hours of observation …

Speaking Assignment Options: Enhancing Student Involvement In The Learning Process, David E. Williams, Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter

Basic Communication Course Annual

This article reports on the use of speaking assignment options implemented at Texas Tech University. Students in the public speaking classes were given the option of delivering a manuscript speech or a reasoned response. The rationale for the assignment options is that students will be more motivated to perform an assignment that they have a choice in and seen more personal benefit in. The paper will address each assignment, how the speaking assignment options were implemented and some results from a survey administered to the students who completed the speaking assignment options exercise.

Instructors, Students, Managers, And The Basic Organizational Communication Course: Are We All Working Together Or Working Apart?, M. Sean Limon, Philip J. Aust, Lance R. Lippert

Basic Communication Course Annual

Three studies were conducted to determine the extent of overlap between basic organizational communication textbook content (1990-2002), student perceptions of basic organizational communication knowledge and skills important for the workplace, and managerial expectations of communication knowledge and skills for graduates. Overall, findings indicate overlap on assigning importance to group/team communication, leadership, verbal communication, and conflict management; however, there were differences on a range of topics addressed in the basic organizational communication course deemed essential for job success. Implications of the studies’ findings indicate that organizational communication textbooks could emphasize more “soft skills” such as interpersonal relationships, listening, dealing with conflict, …

The Use Of Professional Seminars To Prepare Future Faculty For Teaching Basic Communication Courses, Lynn M. Harter, Elizabeth Graham, Stephanie Norander, Daniel E. Rossi-Keen

Basic Communication Course Annual

We focus in this essay on three substantive accomplishments of professional seminars that merit attention because of their ramifications for how we teach and learn in basic communication courses: (1) accomplishing teaching, research, and service as inter-related scholarly acts, (2) interlacing stories of our discipline with stories of learners’ lives, and (3) providing institutionalized support for teaching and learning. Additionally, we offer example reading lists and assignment sheets (see Appendices A, B, and C) in hopes that such resources might prove useful for other graduate programs committed to holistic preparation for students entering the academy.

Back Cover

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Index Of Titles And Authors, Volumes 1-17

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Suppressing Cultural Sensitivity: The Role Of Whiteness In Instructors' Course Content And Pedagogical Practices, Laura C. Prividera

Basic Communication Course Annual

Research indicates that students of color often experience marginalization in their academic pursuits at predominantly white institutions. This study utilized critical whiteness studies to examine how communication teachers who instructed basic courses enacted cultural sensitivity in their course content and pedagogical practices. Fifteen faculty at seven academic institutions were interviewed about their teaching practices. Three recurring themes emerged in the data analysis: (a) culture and absence, (b) culture and the marginal, and (c) culture and conflict. These themes revealed how whiteness functioned implicitly to place cultural and diversity issues outside of my participants’ knowing and thus outside of their basic …

Title Page

Basic Communication Course Annual

No abstract provided.

Cover - Table Of Contents

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Changes In Land Cover And Breeding Bird Populations With Restoration Of Riparian Habitats In East-Central Iowa, Thomas J. Benson, James J. Dinsmore, William L. Hohman

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Conversion of Midwestern riparian areas for agricultural production has greatly altered their function and suitability for birds and other wildlife. Recently, however, restoration of riparian functions has been a major focus of land management agencies in the Midwest. We used historic land-use data to describe land-cover changes since European settlement and the subsequent effects of habitat restoration efforts on the landscape along a section of the Iowa River in east-central Iowa. We then used bird-density data collected in a subset of the study area in 2001 and 2002 to estimate changes in breeding bird populations of the entire study area …

Winter Bird Use Of Conservation Reserve Program Fields Harvested For Biomass, Les D. Murray, Louis B. Best

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

As Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts expire, many fields may be returned to agricultural production. Growing switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) as a biomass fuel is an alternative to returning fields to rowcrops. CRP fields provide winter cover for birds, but the harvest of biomass would remove most of the cover and affect bird use of the fields. We estimated winter bird abundances in nonharvested, total-harvested, and partially (strip) harvested switchgrass fields in southern Iowa. Song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) were observed only in strip-harvested fields and ring-necked pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) were observed only in nonharvested fields and uncut areas of strip-harvested fields. …

Artists' Depictions Of Catsteps In The Loess Hills Of Iowa: Evidence For Mid-Nineteenth Century Climate Change, Kimberly R. Dillon, Steven H. Emerman, Pamela K. Wilcox

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Catsteps are the staircase-like features common on hillslopes of the Loess Hills of western Iowa. The record of artistic depictions of the Loess Hills was examined to determine when catsteps appeared. George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, and John James Audubon traveled up the Missouri River m 1832, 1833 and 1843, respectively, and between them, produced 31 works of art depicting either the Loess Hills or the loess bluffs on the Nebraska side of the river. Only three works by Bodmer of Blackbird Hill on the Nebraska side possibly show catsteps. The Assistant State Geologist, Orestes St. John, produced six sketches of …

Silicification Of Corals, Stromatoporids, And Brachiopods At The Weathered Surface Within The Devonian-Age Little Cedar Formation (Solon And Rapid Members) In Eastern Iowa, Adam L. Majeski, Paul L. Garvin

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Diagenesis of fossils contained in middle-Devonian limestones was studied at the Troy Mills and Robins quarries in Linn County, Iowa and at the Four County and Ernst quarries in Johnson County, Iowa. Fossils located at weathered bedrock surfaces were preferentially silicified, and the silicification affected corals, stromatoporids and, to a limited extent, brachiopods, but not other fossils or the host rock. The siliceous horizon extends no more than a few centimeters below the weathered surfaces, suggesting that silicification was constrained by them. Silica for silicification might have come from a variety of sources, including sponge spicules or radiolarian tests, insoluble …

Editorial Board & Iowa Academy Of Science Officers And Directors

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Back Cover

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Revising Pedagogical Strategies In Large Enrollment General Education Courses, Deborah Craig

Basic Communication Course Annual

The goal of this paper is to describe and present initial findings of a pilot research project conducted spring semester 2005 and funded through a fellowship from the Academic Development Center at the author’s university. The pilot project focuses on the pedagogical strategy of speaking themes and how the use of themes can facilitate the goals of the AACU, address student intellectual development and increase motivation through student autonomy. This paper identifies a problem, briefly reviews communication education literature, presents a theoretical perspective from which to view the problem, presents initial findings, and discusses implications of theory application and initial …

The Basic Course As Social Change, Mark Leeman, Arvind Singhal

Basic Communication Course Annual

Working as an agent of social change calls for perseverance and determination. In our work as, and with, change agents all over the world we have seen many well-meaning people working to serve populations that are often hopeless about the future, demoralized, and/or seeking quick solutions that may not address the real issues or causes of problems. At our university we often see similar characteristics in students enrolled in the basic course. That population can be similarly hopeless about the future (at least in the course), de-motivated, and dreaming of escape through the attainment of a passing grade via the …