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College Readiness in the Early College High School Model
No full textAs local, state, and federal educational leaders concentrate on enhancing academic and college preparedness, Early College High Schools (ECHS) are recognized as an innovative educational model. The purpose of this intensive research study at a central Texas community college district was to examine the college readiness of ECHS students from the perspective of the college's teaching faculty. While there is ample outcome-based research on the college readiness of ECHS students, there is limited research on college faculty dual credit teaching experiences. Grounded in the CCCRM, this qualitative content analysis (QCA) study employed semi-structured focus groups and individual interviews to examine faculty perceptions of the essential academic skills and behaviors required for ECHS students to succeed in college-level courses. The analysis revealed that faculty regard ECHS students as enthusiastic and collaborative, but have academic and skill deficits in time management, reading, writing, research, and academic and behavioral maturity that influence success in college courses. The findings of this study are supported by current literature regarding college readiness and may provide insights that could influence educational strategies and policy decisions aimed at improving college readiness initiatives
The Halophilic Microbial Community of Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge
No full textBackground and study goals: Established in 1937, Bitter Lakes Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico is an important oasis in a seemingly barren desert filled with essential wetland and desert species. The Bitter Lakes serve as an essential water source for the local wildlife. The lakes themselves are hypersaline, resulting in a unique biodiverse ecosystem. The salt lakes are home to microorganisms adapted to saline environments. Studying these microorganisms can help gain important insights into the biogeochemical
processes of hypersaline lakes, which are important to understanding the ecology of these lake systems, as well as the evolutionary adaptations associated with saline tolerance. Thus far, no studies have been performed on the halophilic microbial communities found at the Bitter Lakes. This thesis investigates the microbial community of this hypersaline environment by utilizing a combination of culture-dependent and culture-independent
methods in microbiology. Microbial community structure was analyzed using 16S rDNA gene sequence analysis from environmental DNA (eDNA) to reveal how the community structure is influenced by seasonal variations and physicochemical/ environmental parameters such as pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and salinity levels. A total of 32 unique strains were isolated, characterized, and identified using microscopy, molecular methods, and phylogenetic analysis. In addition, the complete genomes of six of these
selected isolates were sequenced and analyzed.
Results: Culture-independent 16S rDNA gene sequence analysis shows that Bacteria dominates across all sampling events and sites, primarily belonging to Proteobacteria, Bacteroidota, and Actinobacteria. These findings are inconsistent with previous studies in other hypersaline environments, which have mostly observed a dominance of archaea. For those studies that did find bacteria to be dominant over archaea, Proteobacteria was the dominant bacterial phylum, which is consistent with this study’s findings. Redundancy analysis (RDA) reveals that the microbiome composition at Bitter Lake
National Wildlife Refuge is largely dependent upon salinity, temperature, and seasonal differences across samplings. Salinity differences between sites showed different levels of biodiversity, and temperature across samplings (seasonal differences) showed differences between biodiversity between samplings. Molecular and phylogenetic analysis of the isolated strains reveals identity with the halophile groups of Salimicrobium, Marinococcus, Salinicoccus, Alkalibacillus, Pontibacillus, and Halobacillus. Isolates were found to display orange to off-white coloration on media, consistent with findings in previous studies of halophilic bacteria. However, most isolates
were coccus-shaped, whereas most bacteria found in other studies were bacillus-shaped. Whole-genome sequencing analysis identified six unique species of halophiles
Housing Voucher Discrimination and Deaths of Despair
No full textWhile housing voucher discrimination occurs throughout the United States, Texas and Indiana explicitly demonstrate this reality. Under Texas and Indiana law enacted in 2015 and effective in 2016, landlords can refuse to accept Section 8 housing vouchers' a vital form of rental assistance, as explained by Walters and Satija (2018). As a result, individuals receiving housing vouchers may be unable to find landlords who will accept them. For instance, Walters and Satija (2018) note that 1 in 4 families receiving a housing voucher in the Houston, Texas area never get to use it. While this source of income discrimination arguably reduces housing accessibility, it could have other effects. Namely, permitting voucher discrimination may produce the unintended consequence of worsening the ongoing opioid epidemic. According to Venkataramani and Tsai (2020), opioid deaths, suicide, and alcohol related mortality constitute deaths of despair and contribute to rising midlife mortality rates. Ashley C. Bradford and W. David Bradford (2020) note that the CDC measures deaths of despair in the context of the substances used such as heroin, benzodiazepines, psychostimulants, cocaine, antidepressants, and alcohol. Allik et al. (2020) attest that the deaths of despair stem from economic pressures and breakdowns in social support structures. Given the economic and social pressures that people can face as a result of housing instability, there is concern that housing discrimination could lead to more deaths of despair. To provide new information on housing policy, we conduct our study to provide the first empirical estimate of the effects of introducing legal source of income discrimination on deaths of despair. We use a difference-in-differences empirical approach to evaluate if legal voucher discrimination leads to higher substance-related mortality rates for all opioids, prescription opioids, synthetic opioids, heroin, cocaine, stimulants, benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and alcohol poisoning. Our results directly address a paucity of research that exists on source of income discrimination and deaths of despair. Our contribution expands the existing body of research, including the A. C. Bradford and W. D. Bradford (2020) study on evictions and housing discrimination. Empirical results from the CDC WONDER database reveal that introducing a legal discrimination policy for Section 8 vouchers in Texas and Indiana in 2016 increases mortality from prescription opioids. Specifically, we report that the source of income discrimination policy increased the prescription opioid mortality rate by 2.438 deaths per 100,000 people. The increase suggests that policymakers should be aware that an unintended consequence of voucher discrimination is higher mortality in the opioid epidemic. As one consideration, stakeholders in Section 8 housing vouchers may wish to make the program and its requirements easier to administer and carry out to help prevent discrimination and its legalization from occurring.
Data for our analysis comes from a collection of sources for the years 2010-2018 at the state level. Our dependent variables are the rates of poisoning from nine substance categories that represent "deaths of despair" . The CDC National Center for Health Statistics National Vital Statistic System originally collects data on the nine causes of substance-related deaths and provides access through the CDC WONDER database. The CDC classifies the nine causes with the standard International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) underlying cause of death codes using 20-underlying cause of death fields including overall opioid use (T40.0-T40.4, T40.6), prescription opioids (T40.2-T40.3), synthetic opioids (T40.4), heroin (T40.1), cocaine (T40.5), stimulants (T43.6), benzodiazepines (T42.4), antidepressants (T43,0-T43.2), and alcohol poisoning (X45, Y15). Due to confidentiality and privacy concerns, the CDC WONDER database only provides public data in cases where a state has at least 10 deaths with a substance-related cause. Our dependent variables contain the number of deaths where a substance is one of multiple possible underlying causes of death. Some deaths include more than one substance (e.g. heroin and prescription opioids together) as possible causes. Therefore, we cannot add the number of deaths in our data to compute a total number of substance deaths because of double-counting. We calculate our nine mortality rate dependent variables by weighting state-level deaths by state population per 100,000 residents. Because our empirical strategy closely follows the approach of Ashley C. Bradford and W. David Bradford (2020), we use independent variables that closely align with them. Our first independent variable is the state-level eviction rate per 100 households. We compute the eviction rate by dividing the number of eviction judgements by the number of renter-occupied houses and multiplying by 100. Data for evictions and renter-occupied houses comes from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. The Eviction Lab extracts data for 46 states and the District of Columbia from partnerships with record-collecting companies, text parsing, web scraping, and court records. The most recent year of available data on evictions is 2018, which is why our sample ends in 2018. The next set of independent variables that we employ serve as demographic controls. The controls include the state population, percent population that is male, percent population aged 18-64 years, percent population that is white, state income per capita, poverty rate, percent population with no health insurance, unemployment rate, and the active physician rate. We collect data for these measures from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ 2011-2021 Area Health Resources Files. The earliest year that our demographic controls have data available is 2010, which is why our sample begins in 2010. As Ashley C. Bradford and W. David Bradford (2020) note and Buchmueller and Carey (2018) attest, the existence of a must-access prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) system in a state can have a statistically significant effect on opioid use. Therefore, our last independent variable is PDMP, where a 1 indicates the presence of a must-access PDMP system in a state and a 0 indicates a lack thereof. Data for PDMP comes from the Prescription Drug Abuse Policy System at Temple University.Housing policy relating to the opioid epidemic is receiving increased scrutiny. Concerns have arisen that rejecting housing vouchers is harming public health. We estimate the relationship between legalizing housing discrimination of Section 8 housing vouchers (VDA) and deaths of despair using state level mortality data on U.S. adults from the Centers for Disease and Control database. Leveraging 2015 legislation in Texas and Indiana that legalizes Section 8 housing voucher discrimination, results suggest the policy increased the prescription opioid mortality rate by 2.438 deaths per 100,000 people. The findings imply that legalizing Section 8 housing discrimination may worsen public health in the ongoing opioid crisis
Examining Factors that Explain the Cyberbullying of University Faculty During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Get PDFWorkplace cyberbullying is an understudied phenomenon amongst university faculty. Past literature has examined cyberbullying among adolescent and university students (Hou, 2023; Sheikh et al., 2023). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the modality of courses shifted from face-to-face to hybrid or online-only, and as a result, faculty spent much of their time using communication technologies to perform their jobs (Tiwari & Mondal, 2022), which made them more vulnerable to become cybervictimized by administrators, peers, students. In this study, we examine the prevalence of cyberbullying across relationship types (i.e., colleagues/peers, administrators, staff, students, and external stakeholders), the gender differences among faculty, and the relationship between the Big 5 Personality Traits and workplace cyberbullying. We conducted a cross-sectional survey using Qualtrics among 179 faculty members. Results indicate that university faculty victims are failing to adequately address cyberbullying. Further, females were more likely to be cyberbullied than males. When examining the personality traits, agreeableness and neuroticism related to workplace cyberbullying. Implications are also provided to guide stakeholders in higher education institutions.
Data collection methodology is survey methods using Qualtrics.During the COVID-19 pandemic faculty were forced to transition their classes from face-to-face to virtual modalities. As a result, faculty spend an increased amount of time communicating using technologies in order to perform their academic jobs. Because of this transition faculty became more vulnerable to become cybervictimized in the academic workplace. This study obtained the perceptions of 179 faculty victims in higher education using Qualtrics. Findings revealed that faculty failed to adequately address cyberbullying incidents across relationship types (i.e., peer, administrative). Females were also more likely to be cyberbullied in comparison to males. Personality traits also played a role in being more likely to become victimized. Implications are also offered to prevent future cyberbullying victimization rates in higher education
Using the Instructional Leadership Framework to Address the Teacher Retention Crisis in Rural Schools
No full textThe Great Teacher Resignation, as it has come to be called, is more than just a talking point for state and district-level administrators. Addressing the teacher turnover crisis in rural environments is especially challenging given that rural schools have historically struggled to fill teacher vacancies. The role of the principal is not only to fill these vacancies but to serve as the school’s instructional leader responsible for supervising teaching and learning. The principal’s position as the instructional leader requires that the principal provide and guide the curriculum, monitor student progress, share strategies with teachers, analyze and share data, and create opportunities for teachers to grow professionally. These instructional leadership practices of principals should elicit the growth of both teachers and the students they teach. In this deliverable, an empirical investigation that used a mixed-methods approach aimed to understand the relationship between the instructional leadership actions of principals and teacher retention. The quantitative phase of this study revealed a limited relationship between the instructional leadership practices of principals and teacher turnover rates in their rural schools. The qualitative phase affirmed the findings from the quantitative phase but did identify three themes that may cause the reduction of teacher turnover rates in rural schools. A case study of a fictional rural school principal and her decision to increase instructional accountability by creating curriculum benchmarks, including a potential effect on teacher retention, is also presented
Preparation of Bio-based Resins from Soybean Oil and Orange Peel
No full textThe data collection methodology was Instrumentation such as FTIR, TGA, DSC, etc.The main objective of this project is to replace petroleum based raw materials with environmental-friendly, agricultural-based starting materials. Plant based starting materials obtained from soybean oil and orange peel were reacted with a Lewis acidic catalyst, tris(pentaflorophenyl)borane or BCF for synthesis of bio-based epoxy resins. Thermal and mechanical properties of thus prepared epoxy resins were analyzed
Perceptions and Priorities: The marketing to an recruiting of rural prospects by rural serving universities in West Texas and New Mexico
No full textIn recent years, the use of market segmentation in higher education recruiting has garnered considerable research. Enrollment data in the form of response rates and yield rates provide vital strategic recruitment information to higher education institutions (HEI) assisting in the modification and development of marketing plans. There are two purposes to this study. The first purpose is to gain an understanding of how admission professionals perceive known barriers to rural student enrollment. While previous research has focused on identifying barriers to enrollment, this study fills a gap in the literature by examining the ways in which barriers shape the perceptions of admission professionals. The second purpose is to examine how universities present content on webpages relative to these same barriers. In essence, this study explores the connection between recruitment interactions and market segmentation by examining the commonly held perceptions of admission professionals and HEI website information in relation to the recruitment of rural student populations. Using both survey and descriptive content analysis, the study examines market segmentation and correlations in recruiter perceptions in the rural context. This study finds that while admission professionals perceive some barriers to higher education enrollment affecting rural students, the perceptions are inconsistent and often do not align with contemporary research. In addition, resources, information, and imagery presented on higher education websites do not reflect a recognition of the unique barriers to enrollment facing rural students. These findings have policy implications showing the need for strategic enrollment planning
Entrevista a Antonio Rodriguez
No full text"Interview with Antonio Rodriguez conducted by Alyssa Elizondo as part of the Oral History Project "Forgotten Frontera."
Entrevista a Antonio Rodriguez realizada por Alyssa Elizondo como parte del Proyecto de Historia Oral "Forgotten Frontera."Center for the Study of the American Wes
Día de los Muertos: Literarias
No full textThis lesson explores calaveras literarias (skull literature) and Mexican satirical writings as a way to teach dramatic literary conventions.
This resource includes materials for a 45-minute class period lesson.
Created for English I.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)
Analyze the function of dramatic conventions such as asides, soliloquies, dramatic irony, and satireThis lesson explores calaveras literarias (skull literature) and Mexican satirical writings as a way to teach dramatic literary conventions