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Shifting Students’ Perceptions About Homelessness: Quantitative Assessment of a Project-Based Approach
No full textAlthough engineering institutional bodies uphold public welfare and the impact of engineering on people and society, engineering curricula rarely scaffold students to connect their technical learning with sociotechnical perspectives. This paper describes a project-based learning approach where engineering students engaged with issues faced by people experiencing homelessness to better understand the sociotechnical nature of effective, user-centered, engineering design. We conducted a quantitative assessment to de- termine how well and in what ways the project-based learning curriculum shifted students’ perceptions about homelessness. We collected pre-/post-survey data from students on 21 statements about their perceptions and attitudes about homelessness prior to and after an engineering project with a focus on homelessness in San Diego, CA, USA. The study aimed to measure the effectiveness of the course/project on shifting students’ perceptions from myths about homelessness towards reality, which supported the course objectives re- garding diversity, inclusion, and social justice. We found that, from data from 166 students over 8 semesters, students’ perceptions had statistically significant (p \u3c 0.05) shifts in five survey statements, which regarded beliefs about the personal choices or perceived moral decisions of those experiencing homelessness, and that students were able to more strongly identify with an engineer’s duty to care for those experiencing homelessness
Amplifying Extremism: Small Town Politicians, Media Storms, and American Journalism
No full textWithin a week, a no-name Republican state representative from a town of 384 people in Illinois catapulted from obscurity to a prime-time appearance on Fox News\u27 Ingraham Angle. This newly empowered politician, Darren Bailey, would go on to steer the pro-business Republican party in Illinois toward extremism. Democratic backsliding emerges across all levels of politics, but the threats posed by small-town politicians have been overshadowed by national-level politicians. This microstudy of a single politician\u27s debut in the public eye showcases a novel approach to media corpus construction that combines proprietary and open databases, aggregated search tools, and targeted searching, and includes local, regional, and national news across digital-first, radio, news publishers, broadcast and cable television, and social media. The Element provides unique insights into how American journalism creates space for small-town extremists to gain power, especially given declines in local news
Beyond Brotherhood and Sisterhood: Leading with Awareness to Forge Inclusive Relationships in FSL
Get PDFThe purpose of my study was to explore strategies that enhance fraternity and sorority members’ capacity to build relationships across identity differences at the University of San Diego (USD). The research question that guided my study was: How can I help USD’s Fraternity and Sorority Life Office provide a capacity-building model for fraternity and sorority members to cultivate relationships across identity differences? My research utilized three cycles of workshops, surveys, and interviews. Key findings highlight the essential role of identity work in fostering self-awareness and social awareness, the challenges of discussing identity in FSL, and the need for dedicated spaces where students can engage in identity exploration. Based on these insights, recommendations include the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life (OFSL) expanding opportunities for identity-focused programming to deepen students’ self and social awareness. These efforts can cultivate more inclusive leadership and meaningful connections in USD’s fraternity and sorority community
Constructing Portraits of Elementary Teachers of Ethnic Studies: Examining the Narratives of Anti-Racist Educators in an Era of Common Core Curriculum and Instruction
Get PDFThe emergence of policies requiring ethnic studies courses in California’s secondary and higher education institutions amplified calls for anti-racist pedagogy and content in all K-12 grade levels. Currently, little empirical research exists on how ethnic studies is taught in elementary school classrooms. This absence is significant because instruction in these settings tend to focus heavily on meeting state content standards (i.e. Common Core), frameworks which have been critiqued as ignoring communities of Color epistemologies and promoting color-evasive ideologies, among other concerns. Through interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis, this qualitative multiple-case study explored how anti-racist and ethnic studies pedagogies are conceptualized and implemented by three elementary teachers who identified as anti-racist educators and women of Color. By employing portraiture and critical race theory methodologies, this study centered the experiences of these teachers as counternarratives to mainstream classroom practice by capturing challenges, strategies, and successes associated with navigating standardized curriculum while maintaining a commitment to anti-racist education. Findings suggested that these elementary teachers engaged in dynamic cycles of critical consciousness (critical analysis and awareness, political agency, and critical action) to resist institutional challenges and enact anti-racist curriculum in their respective contexts. The findings revealed that the teachers’ employment of anti-racist curriculum and pedagogy aligned with community responsive pedagogy, essential to ethnic studies praxis. Distilling these aspects of their work informed recommendations on how schools and teacher preparation programs can center the development of critical consciousness and community responsive pedagogy to ensure transformative and humanizing ethnic studies experiences for elementary students
Latinas Leading with Latinidad: Incorporating the Latina Identity into Leadership
No full textThe Latinx student population has emerged as the fastest-growing demographic in the United States. Despite the increasing number of Latina students in higher education institutions, the administrative leadership does not reflect the student demographics. This qualitative study investigates the lived experiences of Latina directors within public four-year higher education institutions. Guided by two research questions: In what ways do Latinas, in higher education leadership positions incorporate Latinidad into their leadership identity and style? What factors (if any) support or challenge Latinas leading in culturally authentic ways in higher education? This study employs decolonized research methods by partnering with Latina participants as co-researchers in pláticas and testimonios. By centering the participants’ experiences, I honor their history, voice, knowledge, and values.
The main findings of this study reveal, Latinidad is a process wherein the participants develop a sense of cultural pride, a deep honor of their ancestors, and a collectivist approach to leadership. They navigate the white ivory tower by leadership code-switching, adapting traditional methods of leadership to advocate for their programs, communities, and students. The participants modify traditional norms of professionalism to minimize being perceived as threatening.
I explored the pivotal role Latinas play in higher education director-level positions, emphasizing their contributions to decolonizing leadership, community building, and leveraging their linguistic skills for broader institutional impact. The findings underscore the significant benefits of supporting the professional development of Latinas and integrating their leadership into director roles. This research highlights the necessity of adopting decolonized leadership approaches to fulfill institutional missions effectively. This study impacts the social mobility of Latinas and their communities. It empowered Latinas to share their testimonios with others and recognize the strength in their values, wisdom, and knowledge that comes from Latinidad. There is a great need to provide professional development and advancement opportunities for Latinas.
Latinas possess a profound understanding of their identities and values, which often align with the core principles of higher education, such as access to education, social mobility, and equity. This alignment facilitates their development into leadership roles, as they are clear about their aspirations and goals. Latinas are a cultural asset to any institution
Black Parents’ Use of Educational Advocates: Disrupting Structural and Systemic Racism in Education
Get PDFResearch indicates that educators’ deficit perceptions of Black students and their families factor into Black student overrepresentation in disciplinary and special education referrals and underrepresentation in advanced coursework (Annamma et al., 2014; Ford et al., 2023). This prevalence of implicit bias is documented, as is the significance of Black parent involvement in their children’s education (Latunde & Clark-Louque, 2016). Black parents’ awareness of educator racism encourages distrust of educators and interferes with cultivating effective home-school relationships that encourage successful student outcomes. School districts offer the services of educational advocates to provide support to parents whose children are referred for special services. Such services, however, are not provided to Black parents seeking to support their children against inequitable educational resources due to racism. This study delved into experiences and perceptions of Black parents regarding the use of educational advocates to support their children in grades 7-12, where coursework becomes more challenging, special education referrals are more frequent, adolescent behaviors are more concerning, and access to advanced coursework is available. The study involving 12 participants revealed that Black parents support the use of educational advocates to disrupt racism in education. The study’s key findings were: Black parents support the use of educational advocates, Black parent/educators are more adept at navigating school systems to advocate for their children but support the use of educational advocates for those who need them, and Black parents do not specifically consider home-school partnerships and relationships as essential to their children’s educational outcomes
Balancing Risks: The Mortgage Market\u27s Response to Cannabis Industry Employment
Get PDFA potential legal watershed formed in May 2024, as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) proposed rescheduling cannabis. However, these efforts will likely prove insufficient to address the current and ongoing exclusion of those in the cannabis industry from accessing mortgage lending or participating in government-backed home loan programs (GHLPs), without which those in the industry are effectively denied the opportunity of homeownership. To promote the full inclusion of the cannabis industry in mortgage lending while preserving financial stability, a balancing adjustment must be made to the current mortgage regulation calculus.
While cannabis and access to mortgage lending have each been the subject of significant scholarship, this is the first to consider the interaction of these two areas in depth. Where existing research on exclusions to credit access focuses on wealth or racial categorizations, this Article provides a new example of how credit exclusion can be industry-based. This Article further contributes to a continuing discussion of the efficacy of the ability-to-repay (ATR) requirement by providing a thoroughly documented example that ATR is indeed driving lender behaviors.
Consideration of this phenomenon raises new questions of normative assumptions and legal doctrine—is it desirable to value financial stability over the financial inclusion of a given industry? How should the law balance those competing interests? This Article provides a novel assessment of those questions and their potential ramifications and proposes potential solutions
Deconstructing Ancient Allegories: Eleanor Antin’s \u27Historical Takes\u27 on Subverting Classical Motifs and Typologies
Get PDFThe New York-born artist Eleanor Antin erupted into the male-dominated American conceptual photography art scene in the 1960s and 70s with feminist works that reimagined the female body in terms of representation and history. In congruence with the feminist and civil rights movements, conceptual photography represented a shift in how art was utilized to criticize the social and political institutions in which it is rooted. Antin and other feminist artists engaging in conceptual photography and video played with the embodiment of characters, performance of the body, and an intrinsic “self-reflexivity” of subject, viewer, and artist. However, Antin pivoted her work in the early 2000s to reflect on deeper connections to the art historical world that she belongs to.
The artist’s epic photographic series Historical Takes stages luscious scenes in the affluent hills of La Jolla, California, blending interpretations of ancient Roman allegories with 18th and 19th-century Neoclassical painting conventions. In an attempt to separate from the absurd salaciousness, excess, and effeminate nature of the 18th-century Rococo period, Neoclassical artists returned to a sense of order through historical painting and the intellectual discipline of art. However, Antin mimics this need for order in a perfectly satirical way by revising the Neoclassical differently than the Rococo; while Neoclassical motifs are flipped to be made absurd, the Rococo motifs are overtly saturated, begging for more interpretation. The visual arts have used allegories and motifs as evidence of our cultural and historical conjectures, but Antin touches on this essential idea of what happens when these conjectures break, and where we must go from there.
Through Antin’s Historical Takes series, I will examine how Western artistic culture eroticizes historical narratives, and how Antin’s performance photography constructs lascivious narratives from Western art historical roots. In comparing the iconography and pictorial arrangements of two photographs from this series — A Hot Afternoon (2002) and The Death of Petronius (2001) – I will analyze how Antin’s photographs deconstruct (and thereby demystify) eroticized allegorical conventions of an invented historical trope of Roman antiquity. Moreover, I will seek to understand what happens not only when Antin appropriates visual motifs from the dominant narratives of Neoclassicism and Rococo, but also how she puts the viewer in a position to create new contemporary, allegorical narratives. I strive to further expand on the discourse around Antin by pulling apart the methodology of Antin’s photographs; how these works enact a critical yet satirical study of history by deconstructing art historical typologies; and why it is important to address this false connection to stories of antiquity in a broader cultural and global context
Balancing Sustainability and Profitability
Get PDFBig corporations tend to prioritize profitability and cost-cutting practices. However, this Chapter will explore companies that demonstrate the benefits of balancing ethical and sustainable sourcing with long-term profitability. These companies are Patagonia, Unilever, Danone, and ThredUp. By implementing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), good labor practices, and eco-friendly policies, big corporations can strengthen brand loyalty, drive innovation, and obtain long-term profitability in global supply chains. Prioritizing ethical and sustainable business practices will improve environmental well-being and long-term sustainability. The global supply chain faces pressure to endure sustainable practices while balancing and maintaining profitability. The fashion industry uses low-cost workers to produce their products. CSR leads to good ethics as it encourages workers\u27 rights by promoting fair wages and reducing environmental impact. By integrating strong corporate governance and sustainable measurement frameworks, the Chapter argues that businesses can redesign supply chains to align ethical practices with profitability, driving meaningful change for people and the planet