A vision for administering elementary schools : a reflective essay

When I first entered the administration program, I remember thinking that when I finished classes, I would be prepared to become a successful administrator with the wealth of knowledge I had gained. As the time draws nearer, I see that experience, talking to other professionals, and the knowledge that has been afforded me, all balance out as guides for the near future. The knowledge I will have gained from this program will be only a part of my knowledge base. By this I mean, it is important that one does not see oneself as having all of the answers, but rather sees oneself as growing and learning on a continuing basis. Knowledge, skills, and beliefs are equally important components in developing leadership. Knowledge, whether specific bits of information or broad generalizations, are keys to effective decision- making. Knowledge also provides the foundation for the skill development needed to carry out goals. However, it is my values and beliefs that are the most important because decisions are first governed by a person\u27s beliefs and, to a lesser extent, his/her knowledge. Stated differently, I believe that it is one\u27s values and beliefs that drive one\u27s actions, so I continually look for information to help build my foundation for leadership. In doing so, I hope to stay abreast of new trends and methods. It will be important to continually focus on administrative skills, one\u27s vision, leadership style, and role in communication

Practice makes perfect : finding inspiration in art education

Divergences in art are symbolic of the complexities of life. When the trajectory of our lives change so does our work. This thesis project is a reflection of the art making process and how it is affected by the influence the arts has on our lives. Seeking artistic inspirations led me to Rhode Island where there is creativity in everything from the coffee shop atmosphere to the museums. This is a showcasing of my experience during my course of study at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Master of Arts in Art + Design Education program. Through photographic inquiry and creative art making I have collected a visual archive of my time rediscovering the complexities of artistry, the education process, art institutions, and many other art enriched experiences that can be connected to the influence art education has on our society. My learning process was also influenced by academic readings that have informed my understanding on becoming an educator in the arts and participating in better research practices as a graduate student. I feel confident in my position about the impact that art making has on our culture and the importance the education of those art practices has beyond our experiences in school and that is why it is important to include those learning experiences in our education. As an artist I believe that art education should follow us outside of the classroom. Teaching people how to utilize their skills creatively so they may succeed outside of the art classroom and allow their knowledge in art education to inform their lives makes for well informed art makers in our communities. In this thesis I will talk about art education\u27s impact on my artistic process, how I use my education in art as a tool to communicate visually, how art education creates artists in our communities and how one can continue their education outside of school

Tell Me A Story; Hell Hath No Fury: A set of voice recitals on the overlap of Music, Literature, and Classics, and their treatment and depiction of women

Over the past four years, I have had the privilege of answering the question, “what is your major?” My reply exists in various degrees of specificity. I am a Music major. I am a Classical Voice major. I am a voice major who is concentrating in Medieval Studies. Layer upon layer is added. The more specific I am, the more niche it all seems to become. Yet, that which I love exists in these niches, the in-between spaces where different areas of academia come together to create something new. Something that I have always appreciated about art, in general, is its fluidity. Art does not try to exist in a vacuum. Music takes its influence from all aspects of the world: nature, literature, mythology, history, even math. I have loved being able to explore these spaces, bringing together the different aspects of my study as opposed to keeping them isolated from one another. There is, in particular, a strong overlap between music, literature, and Classics; three of my most frequent studies at Bard. This became the prompt for my first concert, as well as an overall guiding theme of my repertoire. Tell Me A Story is a program constructed around the tales of my childhood, the ones that inspired me and guided me to the path I am on. From stealing my mother’s copy of the D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths to trying to read Shakespeare sonnets in Third grade, I have been driven by a love of stories, how they change, and the many ways in which they are told. I was beyond thrilled to discover that pursuing a study of music would allow me to embrace all those in-between spaces, and more so, bring new color and light to the books and poems that brought me so much joy in my youth. Diving deeper still, I am passionate about Early Music. Anything before 1750 AD is where I find my greatest satisfaction. I love the challenge the music gives, often a puzzle one has to put together, whether it is filling in figured bass, determining how to set the verses of your text, or, when all else fails, digging through digital archives to find facsimiles of the manuscripts these songs come from. It is also amazing to see the innovations that occur, the drastic developments to Western music composition, shifting landscapes immensely. It also just so happens that much of Early Music borrows from the Classics in terms of narrative. It also just so happens that all sacred music was composed in Latin. It also just so happens that these topics keep overlapping the more niche we become. It just so happens that I do not have to choose between what I love, and instead have found where each aspect meets. All this being said, I still look at music and stories of the past with a critical eye, as should every scholar. Lessons I have learned include: old does not equal good, tradition does not validate bias, and art exists to be challenged, not propped up on a pedestal. In particular, I have been struck by the treatment of women in Western music, both as composers and characters. This resulted in my second program, Hell Hath No Fury, a concert dedicated to the disrespected and maligned female voice. All of these women, in one way or another, have been undermined, underestimated, or underappreciated by the patriarchal structure in which we live. Nevertheless, the female characters express their desires, contemplate their hardships, find their own strength, and are honest to themselves about their experiences. The composers, against all odds, pushed forth their music, preserved it, and proved they were just as talented as the men, exploring the depths of praise, love, sorrow, loss, and grief. These women are not niche, not a subset; they are a part of the whole of music, literature, and classics, and, as a result, do not deserve to get lost in the in-betweens. While I am happy I found them in my exploration, it is my desire to bring them up into the light for everyone to love

An empirical study of negation in datalog programs

Datalog is the fusion of prolong and database technologies aimed at producing an difficultly logic-based, declarative language for databases. Since negation was added to Datalog, Datalog has become more expressive. In this thesis, I focus my attention on adding negation to DatalogIC which is a language which has been implemented by Mark P. Wassell, a past MSc student in the Department of Computer Science at UCT. I analyse and compare stratified, well-founded and inflationary semantics for negation, each of which has been implemented on top of INFORMIX; we call the resulting system NDatalog. According to the test results, we find that some results are unexpected. For example, when we evaluate a recursive stratified program, the results show that NDatalogstra is slower than NDatalogwellf although NDatalogwellf is more complex. After further investigation, I find the problem is that the NDatalog system has to spend a lot of time imitating the MINUS function, which does not exist in INFORMIX-SQL. So the running time depends on what kind of database system is used as backend. When we consider the time spent on pure evaluation, excluding auxiliary functions, we find that the results support our expectations, namely, that NDatalogstra is faster than NDatalogwellf which is faster than NDataloginf

Production Development: A Practical Approach to Directing for Educational Theatre

The goal of this thesis was to develop a process-based approach for a theatre production with an emphasis in musical theatre at the secondary education level. Many times, a high school theatre instructor is faced with challenges when selecting materials for productions that go beyond the standard mandated curriculum. In a perfect world, the program would have strong enrollment, overflowing funding and community support. This is usually not the case, so how does the director prioritize the necessary practice to find success for a production? What does the instructor do to select material that will be appropriate for the curriculum standards? How does the director adapt production elements to satisfy both academic and community requirements? By establishing clear goals for the production, I utilized effective research methods and proper selection of materials to create a successful production. Drawing from my experiences as a stage manager, educator and director in a wide variety of settings, I used my thesis to devise an effective pedagogical approach to directing a production of Mamma Mia

Well-Being, Authority, and Worth

Theories of well-being give an account of what it is for persons to fare well or to live prudentially valuable lives. I divide the theoretical landscape based on the position that theories accord to schedules of concerns. A schedule of concerns is the loose program that specifies the objects that engage the subject’s active interest, attention, and care. Objective theories hold that the objects of one’s concerns alone determine one’s well-being. Subjective theories hold that one’s concerns alone determine one’s well-being. I assess each set of theories for descriptive adequacy and find that each runs into difficulty. Subjective theories confront the problem of worth. They imply that one can fare well despite the fact that the objects of one’s concerns are not objectively valuable. Critics object that the latter claim does not cohere well with some pre-analytic beliefs about well-being. Not all the objects in one’s schedule of concerns are on equal axiological footing. Meanwhile, objective theories confront the problem of authority. They imply that, provided the objects to which one relates are independently valuable, one can fare well despite the fact that one does not endorse the conditions of one’s life. This alienates welfare subjects from their well-being. Finally, each set of theories imply that objective goods and schedules of concerns on their own do not contribute to well-being. I argue that this claim is counter-intuitive. I call this the double bind problem. My research shows that we can address the problem of authority, the problem of worth, and the double bind problem by defending an accommodating view of well-being as endorsing worthy goods. This is a hybrid account of well-being that tries to take seriously the intuition that well-being has both a subjective and an objective part. The endorsement condition captures the subjective part of well-being; the worth condition captures the objective part of well-being. My considered view is that, in central cases, one fares well at a time when one endorses worthy goods

Minds, Brains and Programs

This article can be viewed as an attempt to explore the consequences of two propositions. (1) Intentionality in human beings (and animals) is a product of causal features of the brain I assume this is an empirical fact about the actual causal relations between mental processes and brains It says simply that certain brain processes are sufficient for intentionality. (2) Instantiating a computer program is never by itself a sufficient condition of intentionality The main argument of this paper is directed at establishing this claim The form of the argument is to show how a human agent could instantiate the program and still not have the relevant intentionality. These two propositions have the following consequences (3) The explanation of how the brain produces intentionality cannot be that it does it by instantiating a computer program. This is a strict logical consequence of 1 and 2. (4) Any mechanism capable of producing intentionality must have causal powers equal to those of the brain. This is meant to be a trivial consequence of 1. (5) Any attempt literally to create intentionality artificially (strong AI) could not succeed just by designing programs but would have to duplicate the causal powers of the human brain. This follows from 2 and 4

The Whalesong

UAS recreation center finally prevails after numerous plans -- Answers to housing rumors -- Politics and art: something to think about -- How to save a life in one easy step turn signals: not just for decoration -- Letters from Murkowski to UAS students -- More student fees coming -- From classroom to field studies -- Student production liberates the 'V' word -- UAS professors at Home Show -- Campus poll -- Informed-traitor advice -- Star Wars now on DVD -- Celebrating Elizabeth Peratrovich -- Astronauts remembered -- The Passion of the Christ -- UAS Wintergame

Does Phenomenology Ground Mental Content?

I develop several new arguments against claims about "cognitive phenomenology" and its alleged role in grounding thought content. My arguments concern "absent cognitive qualia cases", "altered cognitive qualia cases", and "disembodied cognitive qualia cases". However, at the end, I sketch a positive theory of the role of phenomenology in grounding content, drawing on David Lewis's work on intentionality. I suggest that within Lewis's theory the subject's total evidence plays the central role in fixing mental content and ruling out deviant interpretations. However I point out a huge unnoticed problem, the problem of evidence: Lewis really has no theory of sensory content and hence no theory of what fixes evidence. I suggest a way of plugging this hole in Lewis's theory. On the resulting theory, which I call " phenomenal functionalism", there is a sense in which sensory phenomenology is the source of all determinate intentionality. Phenomenal functionalism has similarities to the theories of Chalmers and Schwitzgebe