4,733 research outputs found
Moving Toward a Collective Impact Effort: The Volunteer Program Assessment
Volunteers are essential to the operation of many nonprofits, but some experience challenges in retaining their volunteer workforce. The Volunteer Program Assessment (VPA) seeks to address this issue by helping organizations to identify strengths, growth areas, and recommendations for improving volunteer experiences. To maximize the effectiveness of VPA’s mission, the organization is moving toward a collective impact (CI) approach. Although not developed as a CI effort, the program currently exemplifies many of its characteristics, which have been instrumental in expanding reach to more organizations. We examine VPA’s alignment with collective impact and outline how VPA will continue to improve efforts
Collective Impact Strategies: Introduction to the Special Issue
The societal and cultural issues facing humanity are far greater than any nonprofit, for-profit, university, or government agency to address adequately alone. Whether poverty, water shortages, socio-economic inequality, natural disasters with lasting effects, or any number of other challenges facing our communities, organizations must band together to secure the impact needed to truly create change. Increasingly, communities are turning to collective impact as an approach that brings together the collective resources of multiple institutions to address a community-identified problem or need. While a somewhat new approach, there is a growing body of evidence of supporting the effectiveness of using the collective impact approach to addressing wicked problems (Bridgeland et al., 2012; Christens & Inzeo, 2015; Kania, Hanleybrown, & Splansky Juster, 2014).
As anchor institutions, Metropolitan Universities have a unique opportunity and responsibility to initiate and promote social change in a way that also advances their mission. Unlike other institutions for higher education, Metropolitan Universities are most suited for targeting social change because of the type of communities they serve and their location within large municipalities. Participating in collective impact is increasingly seen as one approach to this. This issue includes case studies and practical papers to prepare Metropolitan University administrators, faculty, and staff to initiate, facilitate, and strengthen collective impact initiatives in their communities
Collective Impact versus Collaboration: Sides of the Same Coin OR Different Phenomenon?
Collective impact is a recently developed concept and approach to solving social problems that rectifies many of the issues associated with isolated impact. We compared collective impact and the formal definition of collaboration and made integrations between the two concepts. Specifically, we explored effective assessment and facilitation methods and applied them to collective impact initiatives in order to facilitate more purposeful implementation of collective impact. We concluded that collective impact is a specific form of collaboration
X-ray Bright Active Galactic Nuclei in Massive Galaxy Clusters II: The Fraction of Galaxies Hosting Active Nuclei
We present a measurement of the fraction of cluster galaxies hosting X-ray
bright Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) as a function of clustercentric distance
scaled in units of . Our analysis employs high quality Chandra X-ray
and Subaru optical imaging for 42 massive X-ray selected galaxy cluster fields
spanning the redshift range of . In total, our study involves
176 AGN with bright () optical counterparts above a keV flux
limit of . When excluding
central dominant galaxies from the calculation, we measure a cluster-galaxy AGN
fraction in the central regions of the clusters that is times lower
that the field value. This fraction increases with clustercentric distance
before becoming consistent with the field at . Our data
exhibit similar radial trends to those observed for star formation and
optically selected AGN in cluster member galaxies, both of which are also
suppressed near cluster centers to a comparable extent. These results strongly
support the idea that X-ray AGN activity and strong star formation are linked
through their common dependence on available reservoirs of cold gas.Comment: 9 Pages, 4 Figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, please contact
Steven Ehlert ([email protected]) with any querie
Cosmology and astrophysics from relaxed galaxy clusters - IV: Robustly calibrating hydrostatic masses with weak lensing
This is the fourth in a series of papers studying the astrophysics and
cosmology of massive, dynamically relaxed galaxy clusters. Here, we use
measurements of weak gravitational lensing from the Weighing the Giants project
to calibrate Chandra X-ray measurements of total mass that rely on the
assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium. This comparison of X-ray and lensing
masses provides a measurement of the combined bias of X-ray hydrostatic masses
due to both astrophysical and instrumental sources. Assuming a fixed cosmology,
and within a characteristic radius (r_2500) determined from the X-ray data, we
measure a lensing to X-ray mass ratio of 0.96 +/- 9% (stat) +/- 9% (sys). We
find no significant trends of this ratio with mass, redshift or the
morphological indicators used to select the sample. In accordance with
predictions from hydro simulations for the most massive, relaxed clusters, our
results disfavor strong, tens-of-percent departures from hydrostatic
equilibrium at these radii. In addition, we find a mean concentration of the
sample measured from lensing data of c_200 = . Anticipated
short-term improvements in lensing systematics, and a modest expansion of the
relaxed lensing sample, can easily increase the measurement precision by
30--50%, leading to similar improvements in cosmological constraints that
employ X-ray hydrostatic mass estimates, such as on Omega_m from the cluster
gas mass fraction.Comment: 13 pages. Submitted to MNRAS. Comments welcom
Autism Spectrum Disorder Prevalence Rates in the United States: Methodologies, Challenges, and Implications for Individual States
Many different studies have been conducted to determine the prevalence rates of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the United States. The methodologies of these studies have varied, resulting in a multitude of publications with differing prevalence rates. Because there is such a wide range in the results of prevalence studies, it may be difficult for individual states to determine their rates. Accurate prevalence rates are important to obtain for many different reasons including increasing advocacy and awareness, increasing funding, and proper allocation of services for individuals with ASD and their families. Additionally, prevalence studies can be used to assess which groups are more at risk for ASD based off location and environmental factors. This paper describes different methodologies that can be utilized to determine ASD prevalence rates, the strengths and weaknesses of each method, and the challenges to determining accurate rates. This paper also includes the results from a study conducted in Nebraska to determine prevalence rates of ASD in the state. Implications for future prevalence studies are addressed and recommendations are provided
Cosmology and Astrophysics from Relaxed Galaxy Clusters II: Cosmological Constraints
We present cosmological constraints from measurements of the gas mass
fraction, , for massive, dynamically relaxed galaxy clusters. Our data
set consists of Chandra observations of 40 such clusters, identified in a
comprehensive search of the Chandra archive, as well as high-quality weak
gravitational lensing data for a subset of these clusters. Incorporating a
robust gravitational lensing calibration of the X-ray mass estimates, and
restricting our measurements to the most self-similar and accurately measured
regions of clusters, significantly reduces systematic uncertainties compared to
previous work. Our data for the first time constrain the intrinsic scatter in
, % in a spherical shell at radii 0.8-1.2 ,
consistent with the expected variation in gas depletion and non-thermal
pressure for relaxed clusters. From the lowest-redshift data in our sample we
obtain a constraint on a combination of the Hubble parameter and cosmic baryon
fraction, , that is insensitive to the
nature of dark energy. Combined with standard priors on and ,
this provides a tight constraint on the cosmic matter density,
, which is similarly insensitive to dark energy. Using
the entire cluster sample, extending to , we obtain consistent results for
and interesting constraints on dark energy:
for non-flat CDM models, and
for flat constant- models. Our results are both competitive
and consistent with those from recent CMB, SNIa and BAO data. We present
constraints on models of evolving dark energy from the combination of
data with these external data sets, and comment on the possibilities for
improved constraints using current and next-generation X-ray
observatories and lensing data. (Abridged)Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, 8 tables. Accepted by MNRAS. Code and data can
be downloaded from http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~amantz/work/fgas14/ . v2:
minor fix to table 1, updated bibliograph
Love of Place: The Metropolitan University Advantage: 2015 CUMU National Conference in Omaha
The theme for the 2015 CUMU National Conference in Omaha, NE was “Love of Place: The Metropolitan University Advantage”. The 2015 theme celebrates key elements that establish the identity of metropolitan universities and CUMU as an organization. The theme recognizes the unique opportunities and benefits provided by metropolitan universities for students and communities. Metropolitan universities provide students with enriching educational experiences while contributing to building and strengthening the community. These enriched experiences also support faculty and staff growth as members of the university and community. The theme encouraged conference participants to explore new pedagogical approaches, strategies for sustaining meaningful partnerships, and opportunities for successful engagement of the community by examining the transformative power of the relationships between metropolitan universities and their “place.” Essential to this theme is the notion of stewardship and being good stewards of the communities that we live in, that bless our lives, our families, and our universities. The special issue devoted to the theme and notion of “Love of Place” provides an overview of the stewardship witnessed at the conference and then launches into the full article contributions that illustrate the “Love of Place” exemplified by the great presenters and the many initiatives occurring across the CUMU
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