Beceasing : onto-pedagogical dis-integration

This project concerns pedagogy and ontology and lies at the intersection of a deep study of two figures, two texts: Calvin Warren’s nihilism/Ontological Terror and Plato’s idealism/Republic. I notice in these works the presence of guardian—which is to say, following the Greek, phulaks—figures. The phulakes of Plato’s Republic, as the philosopher enlists them, find themselves bound to serve and protect the wall being, the boundary between what is and what is not. As such, following Warren, the work that these phulakes do is fundamentally antiblack, inasmuch as it is fundamentally anti-what-is-not. Throughout these pages, I suggest that phulakes as such linger into the contemporary era, at the very least as ‘humans,’ following Warren, and, following Plato and how he introduces them, as onto-pedagogues and onto-mythagogues. I admit this problematic tendency in my self: I am a teacher, I am a storyteller, I am a phulaks figure. And as far as I can tell, I can’t not be. Both Plato and Warren point to and through this ontological deadlock, an ontometaphysically concretized world and inescapably human way of moving in and viewing the world. Humans, pedagogues, storytellers, and phulakes do not have a choice as to whether or not they and their work reifies ontological antiblackness, only how. How am I to respond to this lock, this boundary? I set up this problem that does not have a solution and write as a practice of sitting with the tension that such a conundrum engenders. As the project proceeds, the personal emerges (this project is about ‘me’)—throughout my life, I have noticed patterns regarding how pedagogical and mythagogical figures have pointed me in relation to this antiblack wall and law of being that there is no getting beyond, for me. I wonder, then, in this world full of figures that tell me that I am, and that I become, what might it mean if I admit to my self that I am simultaneously ceasing to be

Sports participation as a protective factor in students that have attended Sherman Indian High School, an American Indian off-reservation boarding school

Many benefits are associated with interscholastic sports participation. These include physical, mental, emotional, social, as well as academic (Logan et al., 2019; Piercy et al., 2018; Trudeau & Shephard, 2010). In California, sports played through the school system are referred to as “education-based” and are regulated through the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF.) These are education-based due to the student’s representation of school, connection to school and their academic requirements for participation. The protective model theory states that a connection to school through extracurricular sports can act not only as a positive influence but also a means in which to steer student-athletes away from negative choices (Moilanen et al., 2014). These are evidenced at Sherman Indian High School (SIHS) an American Indian Off-Reservation Boarding School (ORBS.) The student-athletes that have completed a sport at this ORBS are becoming more physically fit, exhibit fewer behavioral incidents, have higher grade point averages and are returning to school at an increased rate in comparison to those that do not participate in sports. Using a qualitative research design, this study investigated what former student-athletes regarded as factors supporting their sport and academic success. Data was collected through focus groups in the form of Talking Circles (Cook-Sather, 2020; Mayes, 2020; Pierce, 2018; Pranis, 2014). The results indicated that connections were the strongest protective factor that led to the former student-athletes’ athletic and academic success. The participants categorized them as a connection to the sports program, social connection to the coach, and social connection to their peers. The expected outcomes are that these findings will offer insight at the SIHS Athletic Departmental, SIHS administration, and Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) levels when considering interscholastic sports offerings, implementation, sustainability, and maintenance (Colvin & Sugai 2018.

Effects of economic pressure and social support on parental depression and Head Start children’s behavioral problems

The importance of Head Start cannot be understated. This federal program, created out of necessity to address the disparities found in low-income families, has greatly expanded their focus to include the families of the attending children. As low-income families face many stressors, this study seeks to examine how social support could buffer parents from experiencing depression and how it may buffer children from experiencing externalizing behavioral problems. This study aimed to look at the association between parental depression and the interaction of economic pressure by total social support. I hypothesized that parents who live under conditions of high economic pressure and experience higher levels of social support will report lower levels of depressive symptoms. I further expect that children living in the same conditions will experience lower levels of externalizing behavioral problems. This study was conducted as a secondary analysis using a sample (n = 156) children attending Head Start and (n = 134) of their caregivers. Pearson correlations and linear regression models were used in order to test the hypothesis. I created an interaction variable of economic pressure and total social support to test our hypothesis. Results indicated that high economic pressure is associated with higher parental depression, while higher social support was associated with lower parental depression. The interaction between economic pressure and social support, unexpectedly, was not significant. Additionally, child externalizing behavioral problems was not predicted by economic pressure or social support or their interaction. These results highlight the importance of social support and further contributes to the growing literature on Head Start families

Interventions to Increase Osteoporosis Screening in Patients with Seizure Disorder on Antiepileptic Medications

People with epilepsy (PWE) are at above-average risk for fracture due to the biochemical bone changes that result from the use of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Osteoporotic fractures can lead to considerable morbidity and mortality while simultaneously having negative effects on healthcare cost. There is no recommended routine screening for osteoporosis in people who are at high risk for osteoporotic fractures for other reasons except being female and post-menopausal

One work : a rhizomatic treatise on the creative act

This work is a phenomenological and formal investigation into the tensions between the human tendency toward creativity and the institutional structures that control how that work is shared, including museums, galleries, public-art-funding government, social media, and the Academy. It is common for artists to be expected to work between assignments or bodies of work, as it were—artifacts of a creative process with a beginning, middle, and end. In this model, the initial goal is to execute an idea, and the final goal is to publicly display the work when it is finished, often to exchange it for capital. I propose a different model, where one’s artistic life is devoted to the experience of inquiry and experimentation, where artifacts may become secondary to the process, and where the art objects are tools as much as the media that may have made them. These objects are impermanent manifestations of inquiry and may become assembled and disassembled without heartbreak or fuss, always in service to the process of learning. I find points of intersection and departure between my own multiple modalities as an artist, thinker, and educator and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, particularly as they address the concepts of, assemblage, multiplicity, repetition, accumulation, and ritual, and their metaphor for non-hierarchy, the rhizome. In a rhizomatic structure, all points connect through nodes, but removing a node doesn’t destroy the connectivity of every other node. In contrast to arboreal thinking, rhizomatic thinking tends toward weighing the connections between things as more powerful than the things themselves

Development of an explicit bias scale for law enforcement

This study investigated the development and utility of the Explicit Bias Scale for Law Enforcement Officers (EBLEO), designed to measure and quantify explicit racial bias in public safety members as part of a pre-employment battery. This measure was derived largely derived from the Symbolic Racism Scale (Henry and Sears, 2002) and featured new questions, restructured content based on research into the intersection of criminal justice and explicit racial bias, and expanded content drawn from other areas of racial prejudice or discriminatory attitudes such as Intercultural Sensitivity. In this study, the EBLEO was subjected to item level scrutiny and broad measures of internal consistency and performance based on data collected from three separate samples (N = 135). The measure was then compared to the original Symbolic Racism Scale, along with secondary yet related measures and constructs such as Social Dominance, Dark Triad personality traits, Five Factor Model (FFM) personality traits, and Social Desirability. The EBLEO rendered an overall Cronbach’s alpha of .942 and correlated highly with the Symbolic Racism scale. Hierarchical regression identified social dominance, conservative political orientation, the FFM trait of openness to experience, and social desirability as key predictors in the model. Exploratory factor analysis rendered a six-factor model that accounted for roughly 60% of the variance, with the first two factors being the largest. Results and relevance to the study of explicit racial bias and how this relates to law enforcement pre-employment screenings are discussed

Knowledge and use of the therapeutic relationship in physical therapy

Chronic low back pain is a common problem, and the consequences of this condition can affect every aspect of one’s life. Therefore, a biopsychosocial (BPS) treatment model that addresses the biological, psychological, and social factors that can influence low back pain is appropriate for clinical practice. Physical therapy professionals, who commonly treat low back pain, can develop a therapeutic relationship with their patients to effectively implement these BPS-based treatments. With this therapeutic relationship (TR), patients have reported less pain, improved function, and quicker recovery, but physical therapy school and post-professional training to apply TR is inadequate. The purpose of this study is to determine what physical therapy professionals know and how they use the therapeutic relationship when treating patients with chronic low back pain. An online survey was sent to practicing physical therapists and physical therapist assistants in North Carolina to determine their knowledge and use of the therapeutic relationship in their current clinical practice. Therapists reported high levels of use, importance, and confidence in using TR in clinical practice. The findings suggest that physical therapy professionals know what TR is, but may not be applying it appropriately when delivering BPS based treatments. The findings may be used to develop educational materials and resources to help practicing physical therapy professionals implement TR in their clinical practice

Data augmentation based methods for estimating the parameters of the Feller-Pareto Distribution: Theory and applications

In income and wealth data modeling Pareto distribution and its several variants play an important role. Both univariate and multivariate variations of this model have been extensively used as a suitable model for various non-negative socio-economic variables, for pertinent details, see Arnold (2015). In this article, weconsider the most general Feller-Pareto (FP, in short) distribution, which subsumes all four types of Pareto distributions and show that it can be represented as a mixture of a conditional generalized gamma and an unconditional gamma distribution. Using this strategy, we consider a data augmentation based method (under the envelope of Bayesian paradigm) to estimate the parameters of the FP distribution. This mixture representation allows us to easily derive conditional Jeffery’s type non informative priors. For illustrative purposes, one data set is considered to exhibit the utility of the proposed method

Weight training practices and perspectives among cadet women at a senior military college

Weight training (WT) has been consistently shown to improve muscular ability among women, better preparing them to meet the demands of modern military service and overcome certain physiological challenges. Unfortunately, current training methods do not prioritize WT in most military populations, and women typically participate in WT at rates 20-30% lower than their male peers. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence WT participation among cadet women enrolled at a senior military college (SMC) to inform future programming, curriculum, facilities, or policies. First, a survey was administered to cadet women (n = 92) to characterize their WT participation and perceptions. Then, cadet women (n = 11) were interviewed to explore their perspectives on barriers, facilitators, and strategies for participation. Although WT is not often featured in twice per week institute-led physical training, 77% of cadet women reported participating in WT at least 2 days/wk and 49% reported = 3 days/wk. Athletes and women who planned to pursue military service after graduation reported higher rates of WT. Analysis of the interviews illuminated three themes: building reputation, “it’s on multiple fronts,” and “having to adapt.” WT was valued to support military readiness and build reputation in a male-dominated sphere emphasizing physicality. Cadet women’s perceived competence and strength were tied to reputation concerns. Time and space constraints included high academic course loads and extracurricular responsibilities associated with SMCs, coupled with limited facilities and equipment. Based on the views of cadet women in this study and low reported enrollment of women in current WT offerings, it is recommended that the institution provide additional educational resources and opportunities (e.g., workshops or women-only courses) as early as possible in a cadetship

Working in the Liminal Space of Interim Leadership

The two authors of this chapter were in interim leadership roles at the same academic library, overlapping in their interim roles for much of the 2021–2022 academic year. Both at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, an institution that was itself going through major changes at the time, Stephanie was the interim associate director of academic and research engagement from June 2021 through May 2022, and Jason was the interim head of information technology and digital services from October 2021 to June 2022. In this chapter, we attempt to help interim leaders in academic libraries as they navigate through the liminal space of unplanned and unforeseen interim leadership roles with positive outcomes for ourselves as leaders, for our departments, and for the library as a whole. We will address strategies for self- and departmental advocacy, for gaining on-the-job leadership and management experience, for adapting to new relationships with former colleagues and former supervisors, and for negotiating the possible uncertainty of your future role in the library