Advancement, Spring 2003

Advancement, a supplement to Bostonia magazine, provided updates on BU development activities, including major gifts and projects

Advancement, Spring 2005

Advancement, a supplement to Bostonia magazine, provided updates on BU development activities, including major gifts and projects

Outlook: Fall 2001

Alumni publication of the Boston University School of Dental Medicine

Aircraft System Design Graduate Curriculum: A Lifecycle Focus

Aircraft system design encompasses technical, social and lifecycle topics, and is suitable for graduate studies at the masters level and beyond. Several degree programs in MIT’s School of Engineering offer opportunities for students seeking subjects and degrees in this area. These programs are summarized, and one subject on Aircraft Systems Engineering is introduced as an illustration of content and pedagogy addressing lifecycle topics. Based upon several years of experience of participation in these programs and in offering curriculum, the authors put forward seven observations to stimulate further dialog and progress on this topic

Assessing medical student knowledge and attitudes about shared decision making across the curriculum: protocol for an international online survey and stakeholder analysis

Introduction: Shared decision making (SDM) is a goal of modern medicine; however, it is not currently embedded in routine care. Barriers include clinicians’ attitudes, lack of knowledge and training and time constraints. Our goal is to support the development and delivery of a robust SDM curriculum in medical education. Our objective is to assess undergraduate medical students’ knowledge of and attitudes towards SDM in four countries. Methods and analysis: The first phase of the study involves a web-based cross-sectional survey of undergraduate medical students from all years in selected schools across the United States (US), Canada and undergraduate and graduate students in the Netherlands. In the United Kingdom (UK), the survey will be circulated to all medical schools through the UK Medical School Council. We will sample students equally in all years of training and assess attitudes towards SDM, knowledge of SDM and participation in related training. Medical students of ages 18 years and older in the four countries will be eligible. The second phase of the study will involve semistructured interviews with a subset of students from phase 1 and a convenience sample of medical school curriculum experts or stakeholders. Data will be analysed using multivariable analysis in phase 1 and thematic content analysis in phase 2. Method, data source and investigator triangulation will be performed. Online survey data will be reported according to the Checklist for Reporting the Results of Internet E-Surveys. We will use the COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research for all qualitative data. Ethics and dissemination: The study has been approved for dissemination in the US, the Netherlands, Canada and the UK. The study is voluntary with an informed consent process. The results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and will help inform the inclusion of SDM-specific curriculum in medical education worldwide

Outlook: Summer 2003

Alumni publication of the Boston University School of Dental Medicine

Financialising the State : Recent development in fiscal and monetary policy

Understanding the nature of state financialisation is crucial to ensure definancialisation efforts are successful. This paper provides a structured overview of the emerging literature on financialisation and the state. We define financialisation of the state broadly as the changed relationship between the state, understood as sovereign with duties and accountable towards its citizens, and financial markets and practices, in ways that can diminish those duties and reduce accountability. We then argue that there are four ways in which financialisation works in and through public institutions and policies: adoption of financial motives, advancing financial innovation, embracing financial accumulation strategies, and directly financialising the lives of citizens. Organising our review around the two main policy fields of fiscal and monetary policy, four definitions of financialisation in the context of public policy and institutions emerge. When dealing with public expenditure on social provisions financialisation most often refers to the transformation of public services into the basis for actively traded financial assets. In the context of public revenue, financialisation describes the process of creating and deepening secondary markets for public debt, with the state turning into a financial market player. Finally, in the realm of monetary policy financial deregulation is perceived to have paved the way for financialisation, while inflation targeting and the encouragement, or outright pursuit, of market-based short-term liquidity management among financial institutions constitute financialised policies

School-based management : conditions for implementation.

This study in the field of School-Based Management was initiated to determine under what conditions a School-Based Management/Shared Decision Making (SBM/SDM) Organization might be considered a viable alternative to a traditional (top-down) school structure. The primary focus of this study sought to discover the extent to which school principals and teachers can and should participate in making educational decisions within an urban school system. To ascertain this information, open-ended structured interviews were developed and conducted with five randomly selected principals. In addition, a close-ended questionnaire was designed and distributed to teachers. In order to ensure broad-based definitive conclusions, participants represented all four school zones and each educational level. Methodological limitations include a survey of two hundred and sixteen school-based teachers with a response rate of fifty-three percent. Findings identify six key elements to be considered when implementing a SBM/SDM structure. The six key elements are money, trust, training, accountability, participative decision making, and union involvement. Recommendations involving the implementation of School-Based Management are offered in addition to suggested future studies. Results of this study indicate that both principals and teachers have a strong desire to actively participate in budget, personnel, and curriculum decisions effecting their schools

Reports to the President

A compilation of annual reports for the 1999-2000 academic year, including a report from the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as reports from the academic and administrative units of the Institute. The reports outline the year's goals, accomplishments, honors and awards, and future plans