Bolognini Competition 4th Annual Alumni Recital

Program listing performers and works performe

The Fragmented Vision of Claude McKay: A Study of His Works

Claude McKay, born in Jamaica in 1890, played a significant role in the development of Black American literature. His search for a Black aesthetic and his poems of defiance gave inspiration to young Black artists hungry to explore new ideas. Their creative spirit flowered into the Harlem Renaissance. But, McKay, whose themes helped to stimulate this movement, was plagued by the very concepts that helped to define it. Throughout his life, he was ambivalent about three things: his Afrocentric universe, his role as rebel spokesman, and his relationship to Jamaica. Already a poet of some consequence in Jamaica, McKay thought of America as a grander arena for his voice, but when he arrived in Charleston, South Carolina in 1912, he was shaken by the intense racism of America. His upbringing in rural Clarendon Hills had not prepared him for what he witnessed. By nature, a proud man, McKay turned his lyrical expression into an instrument that would change the arrogance of the Whites. "Harlem Dancer" and "Invocation" (1917) implied the nobility of African roots and affirmed the superiority of primitivistic value system over Western cultural standards. But in McKay's psyche lay the germ of ambivalence that rejected the code of any "world" not sanctioned by the West. During the years following World War I, when relations between Whites and Blacks were strained, McKay became a rebel spokesman for the masses with his defiant poem "If We Must Die" (1919). It urged oppressed people to stand valiant in the face of defeat. But McKay later denied that the poem spoke for Blacks and further questioned the artistic worth of his other "militant" poems. McKay was also ambivalent about his homeland. Throughout most of his life, he ignored in his writing the political, social, and economic realities of Jamaica and evoked instead the image of an Edenic island that offered him refuge from the complexities of the twentieth century

The lived experience of mothering during incarceration.

A phenomenological study of the lived experience of mothering during incarceration was conducted at a women\u27s multi-custody level prison in Kentucky. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the experience of mothering among incarcerated women to address the gap within this body of literature. Semi-structured interviews, observation, and field notes from 24 participants were collected and analyzed to provide an in-depth understanding of the mothering experience for the participants. Burnard\u27s method was used for analysis of the interview data. Two major themes emerged including: Living in the fire: The lived experience of incarcerated mothers which stemmed from two sub-themes: Mistakes were made and the \u27Here and Now\u27 of it and Emerging from the fire: Dreams for the future as mothers which arose from the sub-themes Motivated to change and Redefining themselves

Too Many Boys Are Failing In American Schools: What Can We Do About It?

This research studied those factors that impact the failure of boys in American schools.  Multiple areaswere explored.  Among the broadlyinvestigated area were: physiological, social and cognitive.  Attributing to the failure of boys includedbrain structure, cultural standards, teaching practices, economics, environmentalfactors, and familial expectations. Included among the list of negative factors attributed to the failure ofboys were: poor academic performance, behavioral penalties, substance abuse,and self inflicted death.  Greateremphasis was give to seeking solutions to the failure of the African Americanmale because the data reflected higher failure rates among this group.  Alternatives to these negative attributes areoffered to a range of publics in soliciting their support in ameliorating theproblem.  Among the public are: parents,educators, community organizers, government personnel, and medical professionals

Current Trends In Educational Leadership For Student Success Plus Facilities Planning And Designing

Many school leaders today are experiencing many challenges to ensure that their schools are successful.  Since the passage of No Child Left Behind Act, school leaders have been faced with making sure that all students, regardless of language and/or background, are successful on the state assessment test.  If students do not make AYP Annual Yearly Progress based on set standards, the school leader is viewed as not being effective.  The school leader/administrator is at the front-line for their school’s progress on a daily basis and just to name a few items, school safety, appropriate curriculum and accommodations for students, high quality instruction service to all students and utilizing technology to enhance instruction and management tasks (Lashway, 2003).  This research paper will discuss aspects and trends in leadership in the following areas:  leadership standards, leadership development, shared leadership, support for school leadership, change in mission, facility planning and designing, classroom configuration, use of school time, early programs, special programs, school transfer, use of technology and virtual schools

Modeling the impact of social problem-solving deficits on depressive vulnerability in the broader autism phenotype

The social communication and interaction deficits associated with the autism phenotype can have serious emotional consequences for individuals on the autism spectrum. This can be particularly true during young-adulthood, a period of increased social demands and expectations. The current study investigated the specific role of social problem-solving deficits as a mediator in the relationship between autism phenotype severity and depressive symptomology in young-adults. A sample of 230 university students (48% male) ranging in age from 18-30 (M=21.30, SD=2.48) were assessed on autism phenotype expression (Autism-Spectrum Quotient), social problem-solving ability (Social Problem-Solving Inventory, Revised) and depressive symptomology (Beck’s Depression Inventory). Results indicated that deficient social problem-solving skills account for a significant portion of the depressive symptomology associated with increased autism phenotype expression. Path model analysis output suggested that increased expression of the social components of the autism phenotype are associated with both ineffective social problem-solving styles and attitudes, while increased detail orientation discourages the use of an impulsive problem-solving style. The findings of this investigation provide preliminary evidence suggesting that programs designed to improve social problem-solving skills could be beneficial in the reduction of depressive vulnerability for young-adults on the autism spectrum.PostprintPeer reviewe

Acquisition of a late-developing syntactic structure by African-American-English-speaking learners of the mainstream dialect.

Analyses for the current paper explored the emergence of alternative syntactic formulations for reporting a question, using indirect questions ([asking] if he can go outside, or [asking] can he go outside) as opposed to direct questions (Can I go outside?). First, we establish which children in our sample may be considered AAE-speakers. Then we present the analogous AAE and MAE forms used by African-American (AA) and European-American (EurA) children with differing diagnostic and language-variation status at different ages. We observed a transition around age 8 toward greater convergence in contrastive-morphosyntax which coincided with greater divergence in the syntax for question reports. The proportion of children of both language groups who opted for Indirect questions increased from 4 to 10-12yrs. Among EurA-participants, the if-complementizer without inversion predominated, whereas among AA-children, third-person subjects with auxiliary-inversion predominated. A few AA-children with various AAE-density levels used if; but there was a clear divide by language variety between the alternative formulations. There was no statistical difference in DELV-NR standardized scores for perspective-shifters, regardless of the form used. These findings attest to the pragmatic appropriateness of these AAE-forms in a formal environment