Project Management: Navigating the Complexity with a Systematic Approach, 2nd Edition

This second edition of the OER (Open Educational Resource) book, Project Management: Navigating the Complexity with a Systematic Approach, covers the fundamentals of project management, and aims to guide undergraduate and graduate students to acquire the building blocks of project management. All sections of the first edition were revised. Considering the use of the increasing usage of agile (adaptive) project management frameworks and methods by project teams in various industries, the content of Chapter 12 Agile (Adaptive) Project Management was revised and expanded and a new dedicated Scrum section was added. Due to the unprecedented rise of Generative AI (GenAI) with the introduction of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models, a new chapter on the utilization of Generative AI in project management was also added. This second edition also includes new exercises for students and updated PowerPoint presentations and Blackboard question pools are also available for instructors.https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/msl_ae_ebooks/1034/thumbnail.jp

White Christian Nationalism & Antisemitism: A True Threat

For a short period following World War II, it seemed like the World is aspiring to become a better place. Article I of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights reflected that notion, announcing that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” That was the closest we, as a family of nations, ever came to fulfill the “dream of reason”—a state where we all work together, free from hate and prejudices, towards a common goal: A better world for ourselves and our posterity. This is no longer the case. Dark clouds are hovering over American democracy. Dark forces are aiming to break the institutions and traditions we so carefully labored to establish. For the first time in our history, a President refused to concede his defeat in the general election, causing a (failed) insurrection and an attack on the Capitol. It is in that light that we should examine the threat posed by White Christian Nationalism to the health and safety of American Jewry. We cannot allow images from another century, and another continent, to be repeated here. The legal system has provided us with several tools to prevent at least some of those dire consequences. We should use those tools wisely

You Better Werk: The Viability of a Labor Union for the Cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race

Reality television cast members are poorly compensated, working under tremendously restrictive and controlling contracts. While actors and writers who are members of the Screen Actors Guild of America and the Screen Writers Guild of America have collectively bargained with studios for better wages, terms, and conditions of employment, contestants on reality television series have gone it alone – auditioning for a series and having no choice other than to accept the contract provided by the studios. In December 2024, at the end of the Biden administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint on behalf of the reality television participants on the Netflix hit Love Is Blind. For the first time in American history, the NLRB took the position that reality television contestants on a dating show constituted “employees.” This Article takes the position that the drag queen cast members of RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR), one of the most popular competition reality television series in American history, are also “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The NLRA applies only to “employees” of private, nonreligious employers. Throughout American labor history, courts and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have considered whether American workers across myriad industries constitute “employees” entitled to labor rights under the NLRA or “independent contractors” explicitly excluded from the NLRA’s coverage. Part II of this Article explains how RPDR operates—as a television show and as a workplace, examining a formerly leaked, alleged contract from Season 8 of RPDR. Most of the leaked contract will be discussed in Part IV. Part III of this Article addresses the NLRB’s various interpretations of “employee” under the NLRA, a threshold question that the drag queen cast members of RPDR must address should they choose to seek the protections of a labor union and the Act. While it is unclear how the second Trump administration’s NLRB appointees will handle questions of who is an “employee” and who is an “independent contractor” under the NLRA, this Article assumes that the administration will adopt a similar approach to the Board during Trump’s first term, prioritizing “entrepreneurial opportunity” in its application of the master-servant test under agency law. Specifically, this Article relies on the facts and legal findings of the Trump Board’s SuperShuttle and Centerfold Club decisions. In Part IV, this Article outlines the relevant facts of SuperShuttle and Centerfold, then addresses each of the ten agency factors applied in such cases, first outlining the relevant law, incorporating previous NLRB decisions evaluating the claims of workers in the arts. Each factor is applied to RPDR. Even under SuperShuttle’s conservative approach, the cast members of RPDR are “employees” entitling them to a vote for union representation. This Article will address the strengths and weaknesses of the drag queen cast members’ potential claims. Part V of this Article proposes a new test to examine questions of “employee” status for casts of reality television by reconfiguring existing law into a more appropriate test. Ultimately, I hope that this Article serves as a starting point for the queens associated with RPDR, and other similarly situated reality television personalities on unscripted competition series, to begin the process of collectively bargaining. No Hollywood studio, no matter how entertaining or representatively important its series is, should profit off the culture, images, personalities, art, and work of the barely paid talent necessary to even make a show

Social Support and Career Adaptability: A Meta-Analysis

A univariate meta-analysis using a random effects model was conducted to examine the relationship between career adaptability and social support. A total of 73 studies comprising 48,624 participants were analyzed. There were statistically significant relationships (p \u3c 0.05) between social support and career adaptability, and the four subscales of the CAAS (Savickas and Porfeli, 2012). It was also found that sub-types of perceived social support (i.e., family, friend/peer, significant other, teacher/school, co-worker, supervisory, and organizational) were statistically significantly related to career adaptability. There were no statistically significant moderators. A discussion of the findings and practical implications are provided

Scientific Educations Among U.S. Judges

Should more judges have technical and scientific educations than are currently prevalent in the federal judiciary? This empirical study of the educational background of federal judges reports the undergraduate and graduate majors of active U.S. federal Article III judges. Information on the subject area of study is largely not publicly available, especially for judges appointed decades ago. This is the first and only publicly available research study of the subject areas of study of U.S. judges, collected via phone and email surveys to U.S. judges. The results of this study show that only 7.35% offederal judges have majors in science and technology fields. Although science and technology education can come from many areas of life, the lack of formal education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics among federal judges is worthy of critical examination. This Article also discusses whether and in what circumstances judges might benefit from formal scientific training and what solutions could be implemented to improve the court\u27s ability to understand and fairly rule on highly technical matters such as patent cases, criminal cases requiring evaluation of scientific evidence, or environmental law cases. This Article also recommends that at all levels, especially in district courts handling complex scientific cases, more judges should be appointed who have scientific training. More scientific training programs like the former Science for Judges program should be provided, ideally by nonpartisan groups. This Article also explores countervailing considerations that a push for judges with formal scientific education could negatively affect trends of gender and racial diversity in the federal judiciary, could result in industry capture or over-specialization, or could mean insufficient training in other equally important educational backgrounds in the social sciences and humanities

“Very Little Cause At All”: The Erosion of Job Security for Ohio Teachers

As education becomes an increasingly divisive partisan issue, with teachers caught in the crossfire, it is more important than ever that teachers have protection from unfair or politically-motivated terminations. The Ohio Teacher Tenure Act was enacted 80 years ago to give teachers this essential job security. However, this Note examines the bizarre fact that, after a recent series of state court opinions, the Act now gives Ohio teachers less job security than other unionized public employees. By essentially forbidding adjudicators of teacher terminations from considering proportionality, length of service, and due process, these holdings leave teachers in a far more vulnerable position than other public employees challenging their terminations. This Note argues that these holdings must be rejected not only because they are bad for teachers, but also because they are rooted in faulty legal reasoning, violate the unambiguous legislative intent of both the Ohio Teacher Tenure Act and its amendments, and defy decades of Ohio jurisprudence in favor of granting broad discretion in determining just cause

2025 April

https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/lawpublications_gavel2020s/1023/thumbnail.jp