Intersecting Identities of Female College Student Intramural Sports Officials: A Grounded Theory

Intramural activities are conducted on virtually every college campus throughout the United States, but there is a debate as to the role of intramurals in the overall development of the student (Rothwell & Theodore, 2006). Specifically for females, not every sport is offered for participation at youth or higher levels, but intramural sports is one arena where they have the chance to learn the sport rules and referee the game. This study aims to create a base of knowledge on the experiences of female college students who work on campus as intramural sports officials. The purpose of the study is to understand how working as an intramural sports official contributes to the developmental growth of female college students and discover new methods of support and direction for this population. The researcher conducted a qualitative study utilizing constructivist grounded theory methodology to answer the primary research questions: what is the meaning of the relationship between identity development and sports officiating for female college student intramural sports officials in a higher education setting? To become more specific, the researcher explored two secondary research questions: * How do female college student intramural sports officials filter societal messages on gender roles in sport? * How does their personal view of women affect their identity development as a female college student intramural sports official? Chickering\u27s (1979) identity development theory served as the theoretical framework to develop 21 initial interview questions. Eleven (11) female college student intramural sports officials served as the sample population (n=11); they were interviewed utilizing a semi-structured interview process. Additionally, on the current Director of Intramural sports who worked closely with the participants was interviewed. The researcher examined additional data sources such as observations of participants while officiating, documents from the pilot study, various definitions of student success based on information gathered from several Student Affairs websites, and information regarding intramural sports officiating on college campuses to triangulate data. Data were analyzed utilizing Strauss and Corbin\u27s (1990; 1998) methods of microanalysis, open coding, axial coding, and selective coding procedures. Field notes and memos were maintained by the researcher providing support to data analysis and allowing the researcher to identify and express emerging ideas, categories, and themes. A diagram was formed by the researcher to provide information on specific skills developed by female college student intramural sports officials that led to the definitive answer to the primary research question: student success. The researcher also created a visual diagram of the interaction among the four emergent themes that explained the relationship between identity development and intramural sports officiating: external influences, internal perceptions, intersecting identities, and student success. The researcher found that the intersections of identities became an integral part of explaining the experiences of female college student intramural sports officials. Even as younger officials were not as cognizant of how officiating fit into their identity, older, more experienced female college student intramural sports officials were more reflective in their roles as females, intramural sports officials, college students and athletes. While participants noted that working as an intramural sports official made them better students, better leaders, and better communicators, support and relationships amongst each other was missing to some extent. Female college student intramural sports officials also tended to downplay how prominent a role gender truly played in their lives. Identity salience in reference to gender only fully occurred once in the intramural sports officiating environment and in reflection of questions from the researcher

Exploring NIRSA Championship Series Professional Development Opportunities: Understanding Their Perceived Value to the Association

The NIRSA Championship Series (Series) is a significant component of NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation (NIRSA). Demonstrated, in part, by the fact that many campus recreational professionals contend the events directly relate to both their institution and the association’s mission. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of how NIRSA professionals perceive the value of volunteer experiences at Series events. The research team conducted semistructured interviews with thirteen campus recreation directors. The participants had a median of 28 years in the profession, (SD = 7.4), and represented all six NIRSA regions. In describing the benefits of volunteerism at Series events, the directors identified three broad themes, each with numerous subthemes: Personal Experience (Lifelong learner, Mentors, and Networking), Professional Development (Teamwork, Leadership, Communication, and Training), andIdeal Job Characteristics (Attitude and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors). The themes, subthemes, and implications for Series events are discussed. In addition, the authors present suggestions for future research

Academic Progress Reports: Leadership Implications for College Basketball Coaches

The Academic Progress Report, commonly referred to as APR, is an evaluation tool established by the NCAA to monitor current academic progress for Division I intercollegiate student-athletes in regard to eligibility, retention, and graduation. APR data collection was initially started with the 2003-04 academic year. The first data report was released in February 2005 for all Division I member institutions. The Academic Progress Report was born out of a need to better calculate graduation rates and is a continuous assessment tool for the NCAA. Under this new system, the APR awards two points each term to student-athletes who meet all minimum academic eligibility standards and who remain at that Division I institution. The Division I Board of Directors approved 925 as the minimum cut off score for all teams. The 925 score out of a possible 1,000 translates to approximately sixty percent on the new Graduation Success Rate (GSR). The GSR is an alternate graduation rate system that was also recently launched by the NCAA. While the existing graduation rate calculation system is still in place, the new GSR accounts for outgoing transfer or incoming transfer student-athletes which the current graduation rate calculation does not. The existing graduation rate system also does not monitor student-athlete eligibility

NIRSA Championship Series Volunteerism: The Perceived Impact on Professional Development

The National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) Championship Series (Series) has developed into the primary organization for governing extramural/sport club collegiate recreational tournaments. As NIRSA professionals describe it, the Series has also evolved into a platform for professional development. To date, however, no study has attempted to link professional growth and advancement to volunteerism at Series events. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine skills and competencies that could be correlated with volunteering at Series events. Using Astin’s Input-Environment-Outcome (I-E-O) model the research team explored the environmental impact of the volunteer experience by collecting data in two phases (prevolunteer experience and 3–4 months after the volunteer experience). Results indicated that campus recreation professionals do perceive themselves to be using effective leadership and communication behaviors and that there are no significant differences in professional development based on the NIRSA region of the tournament. Some gendered differences were uncovered, but it appears that a significant number of volunteers returned to work with higher levels of job-related competencies and important networking connections. Possible implications are discussed, including a Series training program based on NIRSA’s core competencies, and areas for future research

Municipalities and University Athletic Departments: The Collaborative Funding of Capital Improvement Projects

This panel takes three papers and details how municipalities and universities can collaborate, develop, and market policies that subsidize collegiate athletic capital improvement projects and improve both groups. Each paper uses either resource dependency theory or interpretive policy analysis as theoretical frameworks to explore how local governments and universities can add value to their environments, while improving the lives of their constituents. While this kind of community project is not new the difficulties rest in getting people to agree to an additional tax levy. Each paper on this panel communicates the multiple advantages and disadvantages associated with approving and marketing athletic capital improvement projects in a community

Low-frequency cortical activity is a neuromodulatory target that tracks recovery after stroke.

Recent work has highlighted the importance of transient low-frequency oscillatory (LFO; <4 Hz) activity in the healthy primary motor cortex during skilled upper-limb tasks. These brief bouts of oscillatory activity may establish the timing or sequencing of motor actions. Here, we show that LFOs track motor recovery post-stroke and can be a physiological target for neuromodulation. In rodents, we found that reach-related LFOs, as measured in both the local field potential and the related spiking activity, were diminished after stroke and that spontaneous recovery was closely correlated with their restoration in the perilesional cortex. Sensorimotor LFOs were also diminished in a human subject with chronic disability after stroke in contrast to two non-stroke subjects who demonstrated robust LFOs. Therapeutic delivery of electrical stimulation time-locked to the expected onset of LFOs was found to significantly improve skilled reaching in stroke animals. Together, our results suggest that restoration or modulation of cortical oscillatory dynamics is important for the recovery of upper-limb function and that they may serve as a novel target for clinical neuromodulation

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Investigating the Utility of Previously Developed Prediction Scores in Acute Ischemic Stroke Patients in the Stroke Belt

BACKGROUND: To assess the utility of previously developed scoring systems, we compared SEDAN, named after the components of the score (baseline blood Sugar, Early infarct signs and (hyper) Dense cerebral artery sign on admission computed tomography scan, Age, and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale on admission), Totaled Health Risks in Vascular Events (THRIVE), Houston Intra-arterial Therapy (HIAT), and HIAT-2 scoring systems among patients receiving systemic (intravenous [IV] tissue plasminogen activator [tPA]) and endovascular (intra-arterial [IA]) treatments. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed all IV tPA and IA patients presenting to our center from 2008–2011. The scores were assessed in patients who were treated with IV tPA only, IA only, and a combination of IV tPA and IA (IV-IA). We tested the ability of THRIVE to predict discharge modified Rankin scale (mRS) 3–6, HIAT and HIAT-2 discharge mRS 4–6, and SEDAN symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage (sICH). RESULTS: Of the 366 patients who were included in this study, 243 had IV tPA only, 89 had IA only, and 34 had IV-IA. THRIVE was predictive of mRS 3–6 in the IV-IA (odds ratio [OR], 1.95; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.30–2.91) and the IV group (OR, 1.71; 95% CI, 1.43–2.04), but not in the IA group. HIAT was predictive of mRS 4–6 in the IA (OR, 3.55; 95% CI, 1.65–7.25), IV (OR, 3.47; 95% CI, 2.26–5.33), and IV-IA group (OR, 6.48; 95% CI, 1.41–29.71). HIAT-2 was predictive of mRS 4–6 in the IA (OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.03–1.87) and IV group (OR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.18–1.57), but not in the IV-IA group. SEDAN was not predictive of sICH in the IA or the IV-IA group, but was predictive in the IV group (OR, 1.54; 95% CI, 1.01–2.36). CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated that although highly predictive of outcome in the original study design treatment groups, prediction scores may not generalize to all patient samples, highlighting the importance of validating prediction scores in diverse samples