THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LONGEVITY AND A LEADER’S EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND RESILIENCE

The role of an educational leader is complex, challenging and, at times, fraught with adversity. Overcoming the many challenges and adversities, and flourishing as an educational leader, requires resilience and an instinct for survival. Understanding how to prevail in the face of adversity, by employing one’s emotional strengths as well as vulnerabilities and how to increase one’s ability to remain resilient, is essential for an educational leader to succeed in the face of adversity. The purpose of this study was to research Montana educational leaders to discern whether emotional intelligence EI is necessary to remain resilient and successful in a leadership role despite adversity. This quantitative research was undertaken as a non-experimental, ex post facto or after-the-fact research. Participants for this study included sixty-one superintendents, principals, and assistant principals, from a population of 935 educational leaders, who held a leadership position in the State of Montana during the 2017-2018 school year. A linear regression was used to examine the proportion of variance in years in a leadership position that can be explained by emotional intelligence and resilience. This analysis demonstrated that some EI competencies appear to have an effect on the longevity of an educational leader in a position. However, the effects vary between assistant principals, principals, and superintendents, not all competencies were equal. The coefficient of determination showed assistant principals and principals’ years of service is more strongly influenced by all emotional intelligence competencies than is that of the superintendent. Future studies should expand this research to include educational leaders nationwide for greater generalizability. It is also recommended that this research be replicated using raters to assess the participant’s emotional intelligence

Financial Sustainability Strategies of Religious Nonprofit Organizations

The percent of religious nonprofit organizations (RNOs) facing uncertainty in operational capital and resources will rise as government funding diminishes. The RNOs that struggle to maintain a competitive advantage are at high risk of failure. Grounded in the resource-based view theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore funding strategies leaders of RNOs use to achieve financial sustainability beyond the first 5 years of operation. Participants were 3 leaders of RNOs in Middle Tennessee with successful experience in applying funding strategies that increased revenue year-over-year while serving their constituencies. Data sources included face-to-face interviews and organizational documents. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Three themes emerged: prioritizing core donors as primary parts of business strategy, fostering community within the organization, and collaborating with other RNOs to expand services. The implications for positive social change include the potential for leaders of RNOs to cultivate a stable donor base, increase funding capital, and support the economic and social development of the regional communities

Interspecies Violence and Crimes of Dissent: Communication Ethics and Legitimacy in Message Crimes Involving Wildlife

In this article, we consider the phenomenon of message crimes involving harm to wildlife from a sociological and criminological perspective. Using a case study of dissident Nordic hunters killing protected wolves to send a message to the state agencies responsible for their conservation, we engage philosophically with the question of wildlife victimhood and why interspecies violence is unjustifiable as a mode of political dissent. As an alternative to the species justice perspective in green criminology, we examine how the acts disrespect animals as moral subjects of public communication and frustrate dialogue regarding what is owed to them in terms of political justice

‘Not the Wolf Itself’: Distinguishing Hunters’ Criticisms of Wolves from Procedures for Making Wolf Management Decisions

Swedish hunters sometimes appeal to an inviolate ‘right to exist’ for wolves, apparently rejecting NIMBY. Nevertheless, the conditions existence hunters impose on wolves in practice fundamentally contradict their use of right to exist language. Hunters appeal to this language hoping to gain uptake in a conservation and management discourse demanding appropriately objective ecological language. However, their contradictory use of ‘right to exist' opens them up to the charge that they are being deceptive – indeed, right to exist is a 'disguised NIMBY!' We address this situation by distinguishing hunters’ criticisms of wolves from the procedures for reaching objective policy decisions. Wolves; conservation policy; deliberation; NIMBY; metaconsensus; hunterspublishedVersio

Are Illegal Direct Actions by Animal Rights Activists Ethically Vigilante?

Constructed as terrorist, illegal direct actions by animal rights activists have become the subject of draconian law enforcement measures in the US and UK. Some scholars respond to this phenomenon by interpreting such actions to protect vulnerable animals not as terrorist but civilly disobedient. This approach highlights their ethical character, as a normatively relevant consideration in the state’s law enforcement response. Consistent with this approach, we argue that illegal direct actions by animal rights activists are not terrorist, although their motivations are sometimes anti-statist and anarchist. However, we also argue that civil disobedience is an awkward fit for many such actions. Consequently, we explore a different approach. Instead, we consider illegal direct actions to protect vulnerable animals in light of a concept of ethical vigilantism. This permits us to acknowledge how these actions often dis-align from civil disobedience, while also allowing us to insist their ethical motivations remains normatively relevant considerations for the state

Neo-republicanism as a route to animal non-domination

In this article, we reinterpret the current political turn in animal rights theory in terms of republican as opposed to liberal political theory. By appealing to the values of liberty and fraternity as well as equality, we argue for a conception of animal liberation from human domination and not from humanity per se. This establishes a basis of liberty and fraternity in our cooperative relationships with animals in a "zoopolis," or interspecies political community. We contend that such a basis for interspecies political cooperation is not available on the more traditional model of animal liberation, where rights are derived from weak equality of the species

Skill or Slaughter in ‘Fair Chase:’ What does Animal Resistance Tell us about Modern Sports Hunting

In philosophy of sport, the internal justification for sports hunting is often that the chase empowers hunters to become skilled performers. However, this internal justification for sport hunting is challenged by two factors. One is the growing awareness that the hunted non-human animals themselves are skilled performers, demonstrating agency is resisting their hunters. Another is that recent developments in hunting practice undermine the internal justification by reducing the necessity for hunters to refine their performance skills, in effect allowing them to rely on technology and shortcuts in place of sportsmanship. Both factors reveal important justificatory deficits in modern sports hunting as closer to slaughter than skill

Interspecies Political Agency In The Total Liberation Movement

In this paper, we examine the possibility of interspecies political agency at the level of social movements. We ask to what extent animals and humans can be co-participants in one another’s liberation from oppression. To do so, we assess arguments for and against including animals in the ‘total liberation package’, taken as the liberation from oppressive societal structures. These are not pragmatic-political arguments, but conceptual-philosophical arguments that have been put before animal liberationists attempting to ‘piggy-back’ on human liberation movements. In discrediting these philosophical arguments, we argue that animals have capacities for self-liberation that humans can facilitate and that animals, in turn, can facilitate human liberation. As such, we defend the coherence of a total liberation package linking all oppression and all liberation, animal and human. We further argue that the rhetoric of total animal/human liberation performs a vital function in creating unity and solidarity between otherwise disparate and fragmented social justice movements

A Comparative Study on Critical Thinking Skills of ISEC and Non-ISEC Teachers in Institutions of Higher Education in the North of China

Viewed as one of the essential skills needed to succeed in the 21st Century, advancing student's critical thinking (CT) is a significant focus in higher education. This study utilized a non-experimental causal-comparative methodology with an explanatory mixed methods research design. The purpose of this study was to explore the status quo (current situation) of Chinese teachers’ (including ISEC and non-ISEC teachers) CT, as well as the perception, attitude, and practice of CT among them in institutions of higher education in the north of China. There were 102 participants took the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST). The results from the quantitative research showed the CT skills of Chinese teachers fell in the upper range of moderate level. There were no significant differences or relationships in CT skills for ISEC and non-ISEC teachers based on the variables: gender, professional rank, educational background, discipline taught, age, and years of teaching. Twelve participants were interviewed. The core phenomenon or theory emerged from the qualitative data: Chinese teachers advocated and supported CT instruction, but they had a varied and fragmented perception about CT. Although they held a positive attitude towards CT and CT instruction, they applied limited CT teaching strategies in their practice. All participants displayed a strong desire to participate in CT training programs. The findings from the qualitative paradigm supported, complemented, and deepened the findings from the quantitative paradigm

The Implications of Victimhood Identity: The Case of \u27Persecution\u27 of Swedish Hunters

This ethnographically based study examines Swedish hunters\u27 claims to victimhood through appeal to the term \u27persecution\u27. Perceiving disenfranchisement, injustice and discrimination on the basis of wolf conservation policy, we present hunters\u27 self-styled predicament as victimhood-claimants of persecution at the hands of a state that has been co-opted by a conservationist, pro-wolf agenda that systematically disenfranchises rural and hunting interests and lifestyles. Through the phenomenological accounts of hunter respondents, our paper takes seriously the hunters\u27 perception of persecution and, likewise, considers the opposite case made by conservationists: that wolves have been, and continue to be, the real victims of persecution in the conflict. Nonetheless, we show that the persecution language as it is applied from opposing parties in the conflict is problematic inasmuch as it is focused around creating a moral panic and confusion among the Swedish public who are ultimately responsible, as a democratic body-politic, for assessing the legitimacy of claims to moral wrong-doing and legal redress for the wronged. Our case study joins scholarship that explores the pathologies of claims to victimization by populist rural interest groups in the context of controversial conservation directives