“The Prophetic American Voice of Our Day”: The Implications of Wendell Berry’s Cultural Critique for American Education in the Twenty-first Century

This study examines Wendell Berry’s cultural critique to identify implications for American education. It explores three themes in Berry’s fiction: land and place, community, and character, and considers Berry’s observations about education in his non-fiction and interviews. The health of natural resources is a fundamental value for Berry who believes that human beings have a moral obligation to be stewards of the Earth. Practicing stewardship enables the creation of valuable places. A vital connection links the health of the natural world and human community. Healthy communities are radically inclusive, work for a sustainable future, and care for those with special needs. Community “members” exemplify qualities of character, knowledge of the community, good work, and neighborliness, all essential for responsible stewardship. The study assesses Berry’s claims that: (1) formal schooling often lacks vibrant association with the local community; (2) our reliance on discrete academic disciplines fosters over-specialization and academic isolation; and (3) the standard for education should be revamped to focus on the health of the community rather than job preparation. American education often serves economic and political agendas that ignore the well-being of natural resources and human communities. In spite of our daunting challenges, Berry maintains hope and charts constructive steps forward. Students learn best, he believes, through apprenticeship and mentoring. The study concludes that with substantive changes education can play a major role in enabling students to grasp the needs of a healthy, life-supporting planet and to develop the skills, values, and disciplines of responsible community members. Replacing corporate-dominated, technology-driven, and shortsighted attitudes and behaviors with restorative practices and values requires commitment from all of society’s sectors, and perhaps especially from our schools, colleges, and universities

The Properties of Poor Groups of Galaxies: III. The Galaxy Luminosity Function

We obtain R-band photometry for galaxies in six nearby poor groups for which we have spectroscopic data, including 328 new galaxy velocities. For the five groups with luminous X-ray halos, the composite group galaxy luminosity function (GLF) is fit adequately by a Schechter function with Mstar = -21.6 +/- 0.4 + 5log h and alpha = -1.3 +/- 0.1. We also find that (1) the ratio of dwarfs to giants is significantly larger for the five groups with luminous X-ray halos than for the one marginally X-ray detected group, (2) the composite GLF for the luminous X-ray groups is consistent in shape with that for rich clusters, (3) the composite group GLF rises more steeply at the faint end than that of the field, (4) the shape difference between the field and composite group GLF's results mostly from the population of non-emission line galaxies, whose dwarf-to-giant ratio is larger in the denser group environment than in the field, and (5) the non-emission line dwarfs are more concentrated about the group center than the non-emission line giants. This last result indicates that the dwarfs and giants occupy different orbits (i.e., have not mixed completely) and suggests that the populations formed at a different times. Our results show that the shape of the GLF varies with environment and that this variation is due primarily to an increase in the dwarf-to-giant ratio of quiescent galaxies in higher density regions, at least up to the densities characteristic of X-ray luminous poor groups. This behavior suggests that, in some environments, dwarfs are more biased than giants with respect to dark matter. This trend conflicts with the prediction of standard biased galaxy formation models. (Abridged)Comment: 36 pages, AASLaTeX with 8 figures. Table 1 also available at http://atropos.as.arizona.edu/aiz/papers/all_grp_lf_ascii.dat.final . To appear in Ap

The Trail, 1963-10-16

https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/thetrail_all/1875/thumbnail.jp

On the scarcity of Magellanic Cloud-like satellites

We have used H alpha narrow-band imaging to search for star-forming satellite galaxies around 143 luminous spiral galaxies, with the goal of quantifying the frequency of occurrence of satellites resembling the Magellanic Clouds, around galaxies comparable to the Milky Way. For two-thirds of the central galaxies, no star-forming satellites are found, down to luminosities and star-formation rates well below those of the Magellanic Clouds. A total of 62 satellites is found, associated with 47 of the central galaxies searched. The R-band magnitude difference between central galaxies and their satellites has a median value of 4.6 mag, and a maximum of 10.2 mag. The mean projected separation of the satellites from their central galaxies is 81 kpc, or 98 kpc for systems beyond 30 Mpc. Thus star-forming satellites are quite rare, and the Milky Way is unusual both for the luminosity and the proximity of its two brightest satellites. We also find that the Clouds themselves are unusual in that they appear to form a bound binary pair; such close satellite pairs, of any luminosity, are also extremely rare in our survey.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

The Trail, 1963-10-30

https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/thetrail_all/1877/thumbnail.jp

The Use of 360-Degree Video in Developing Emotional Coping Skills (Reduced Anxiety and Increased Confidence) in Mental Health Nursing Students: A Protocol Paper

Higher education institutions are uniquely placed to introduce emotional coping skills to promote resilience in pre-registration nurses in order to reduce anxiety and increase confidence before they enter clinical placement for the first time. In this qualitative study, we will explore the use of a 360-degree video in developing skills for coping. The participants will be mental health nursing students. We will develop a 360-degree video in collaboration with a mental health service user. All participants will watch the video. A sub-group will receive a supportive clinical supervision discussion within a cognitive reappraisal/solution-focused/VERA framework. We will record the experiences of the participant to explore: (1) how students felt about the use of 360-degree video, as an education tool to build skills of resilience; (2) whether the students involved felt more confident and less anxious about the situation in the video as a result of participating in the cognitive reappraisal/solution-focused/VERA supervision discussion

Satellite abundances around bright isolated galaxies

We study satellite galaxy abundances in SDSS by counting photometric galaxies around isolated bright primaries. We present results as a function of the luminosity, stellar mass and colour of the satellites, and of the stellar mass and colour of the primaries. For massive primaries the luminosity and stellar mass functions of satellites are similar in shape to those of field galaxies, but for lower mass primaries they are significantly steeper. The steepening is particularly marked for the stellar mass function. Satellite abundance increases strongly with primary stellar mass, approximately in proportion to expected dark halo mass. Massive red primaries have up to a factor of 2 more satellites than blue ones of the same stellar mass. Satellite galaxies are systematically redder than field galaxies of the same stellar mass. Satellites are also systematically redder around more massive primaries. At fixed primary mass, they are redder around red primaries. We select similarly isolated galaxies from mock catalogues based on the simulations of Guo et al.(2011) and analyze them in parallel with the SDSS data. The simulation reproduces all the above trends qualitatively, except for the steepening of the satellite luminosity and stellar mass functions. Model satellites, however, are systematically redder than in the SDSS, particularly at low mass and around low-mass primaries. Simulated haloes of a given mass have satellite abundances that are independent of central galaxy colour, but red centrals tend to have lower stellar masses, reflecting earlier quenching of their star formation by feedback. This explains the correlation between satellite abundance and primary colour in the simulation. The correlation between satellite colour and primary colour arises because red centrals live in haloes which are more massive, older and more gas-rich, so that satellite quenching is more efficient.Comment: 29 pages, 24 figure

Skunk River Review Fall 1996, Vol 8

https://openspace.dmacc.edu/skunkriver/1017/thumbnail.jp

Measures of Galaxy Environment - I. What is "Environment"?

The influence of a galaxy's environment on its evolution has been studied and compared extensively in the literature, although differing techniques are often used to define environment. Most methods fall into two broad groups: those that use nearest neighbours to probe the underlying density field and those that use fixed apertures. The differences between the two inhibit a clean comparison between analyses and leave open the possibility that, even with the same data, different properties are actually being measured. In this work we apply twenty published environment definitions to a common mock galaxy catalogue constrained to look like the local Universe. We find that nearest neighbour-based measures best probe the internal densities of high-mass haloes, while at low masses the inter-halo separation dominates and acts to smooth out local density variations. The resulting correlation also shows that nearest neighbour galaxy environment is largely independent of dark matter halo mass. Conversely, aperture-based methods that probe super-halo scales accurately identify high-density regions corresponding to high mass haloes. Both methods show how galaxies in dense environments tend to be redder, with the exception of the largest apertures, but these are the strongest at recovering the background dark matter environment. We also warn against using photometric redshifts to define environment in all but the densest regions. When considering environment there are two regimes: the 'local environment' internal to a halo best measured with nearest neighbour and 'large-scale environment' external to a halo best measured with apertures. This leads to the conclusion that there is no universal environment measure and the most suitable method depends on the scale being probed.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, published in MNRA

Impact of glucocorticoid receptor density on ligand-independent dimerization, cooperative ligand-binding and basal priming of transactivation: a cell culture model

Glucocorticoid receptor (GR) levels vary between tissues and individuals and are altered by physiological and pharmacological effectors. However, the effects and implications of differences in GR concentration have not been fully elucidated. Using three statistically different GR concentrations in transiently transfected COS-1 cells, we demonstrate, using co-immunoprecipitation (CoIP) and fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET), that high levels of wild type GR (wtGR), but not of dimerization deficient GR (GRdim), display ligand-independent dimerization. Whole-cell saturation ligand-binding experiments furthermore establish that positive cooperative ligand-binding, with a concomitant increased ligand-binding affinity, is facilitated by ligand-independent dimerization at high concentrations of wtGR, but not GRdim. The down-stream consequences of ligand-independent dimerization at high concentrations of wtGR, but not GRdim, are shown to include basal priming of the system as witnessed by ligand-independent transactivation of both a GRE-containing promoter-reporter and the endogenous glucocorticoid (GC)-responsive gene, GILZ, as well as ligand-independent loading of GR onto the GILZ promoter. Pursuant to the basal priming of the system, addition of ligand results in a significantly greater modulation of transactivation potency than would be expected solely from the increase in ligand-binding affinity. Thus ligand-independent dimerization of the GR at high concentrations primes the system, through ligand-independent DNA loading and transactivation, which together with positive cooperative ligand-binding increases the potency of GR agonists and shifts the bio-character of partial GR agonists. Clearly GR-levels are a major factor in determining the sensitivity to GCs and a critical factor regulating transcriptional programs