Half a Loaf? Hard Lessons When Promoting Adjunct Faculty

In discussions of working conditions for non-tenure-track adjunct faculty in university and college writing programs--most recently, the CCCC Statement on Working Conditions for Non-Tenure-Track Writing Faculty--the goal of equity leads to calls for comparable pay and benefits, hiring practices, access to professional development, class sizes and assignments, and work space and resources. The New Faculty Majority lists professional advancement as one of its seven goals: Equity in Professional Advancement: Progressive Salary Steps and Equal Access to Professional Development Opportunities for All Faculty. The CCCC Statement does briefly mention promotion in its first core principle: Departments, programs, and faculty must work to ensure equity for NTT writing faculty by attending to issues associated with employment: compensation; job security; benefits; access to resources; access to shared governance; and opportunities for professional advancement

Archaeological Monitoring of the Caldwell County Courthouse Rehabilitation, Lockhart, Texas

In February 1999, the Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) of The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) entered into a contract with American Restoration of New Braunfels, Texas, to monitor utility trenches being excavated on the grounds of the Caldwell County Courthouse in Lockhart, Texas, under Texas Antiquities Permit No. 2117. The utilities were installed in connection with the exterior rehabilitation being conducted by the firm of Ford, Powell, and Carson, Architects. Five visits to the project between February and October of 1999 involved monitoring of mechanical trench excavations, selective screening of trenching backdirt, and surface collections. Monitoring of excavations and the inspection of trench profiles and contents have identified substantial disturbances on the courthouse grounds. These disturbances include utility line trenching associated with previous installations of water, sewer and electric lines, and grade modifications and introduced fill associated with landscaping. Selective screening and surface collections yielded artifacts relating to the construction and use of the three successive courthouses that have existed on the site. However, these artifacts derive from highly disturbed contexts and lack associational integrity. No traces of the foundations of the two previous courthouses were encountered during the trenching

Mission San Jose Indian Quarters Wall Base Project, Bexar County, Texas: With Appendixes on the Monitoring of the San Jose Bus Drive and Granary Parking Lot, and on the Monitoring and Shovel Testing of the San Jose Service Drive

In June and September 1997, the Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio, conducted test excavations outside the walls and inside selected rooms of the restored Indian Quarters of Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo (41BX3) for the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park of the National Park Service (NPS). The site is located ca. seven miles south of downtown San Antonio on a high terrace overlooking the west bank of the San Antonio River. The purpose of the excavations was to expose the foundations of these rooms in advance of a project to reinforce the southeast section of the Indian Quarters and to expose the wall bases in selected areas throughout the compound where mortar is deteriorating. The walls with deteriorating mortar are to be repointed as part of an NPS restoration project. The walls in question had all been reconstructed by the Civil Works Administration (CWA) in the 1930s under the direction of architect Harvey P. Smith, Sr. The excavations showed that the sandstone CWA foundations were set on the original limestone Colonial foundations. It was possible to differentiate between the two by the constituent rocks and mortar used in their construction. The results of the excavations also indicate that: 1) wall base mortar-loss is present only at the ground surface; 2) vertical wall cracks may be due to lack of underlying foundation (i.e., west cross wall of Southeast gate) or structural weaknesses in the Colonial foundation; 3) on the inside of the mission compound and outside of its walls, the upper 12 inches of deposit consists of severely mixed materials dating from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries; 4) deposits lying below 18 inches in depth contain less disturbed Colonial period materials; 5) within the Indian Quarter rooms, deposits found within three feet of the walls are severely disturbed to a depth of 18 inches; 6) less disturbed materials are encountered below a depth of 24 inches. Three recommendations are made concerning the proposed underpinning and repointing projects. First, outside of the Indian Quarters, deposits found below 12 inches in depth should be excavated by trained archaeologists. Second, within Room LXXIV of the Indian Quarters, deposits found below 18 inches in depth, in units found along the walls, should be excavated by professional archaeologists. Due to their disturbed character and limited interpretive potential, deposits lying above these depths within both contexts can be excavated by untrained personnel. Third, because the portion of the walls requiring repointing is above or at present ground surface and the upper 12 inches of deposits are disturbed, a trained archaeologist should only spot monitor any excavations (which do not exceed 12 inches in depth) associated with the repointing

Archaeological Investigations of Rainwater Catchment Basins along the South Wall of Mission San Jose, San Antonio, Texas

In February and early March 1998, the Center for Archaeological Research of The University of Texas at San Antonio, conducted excavations outside the south wall and in the general vicinity of the southeast gate of Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo (41BX3) for the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park of the National Park Service (NPS). The site is located ca. seven miles south of downtown San Antonio on a high terrace overlooking the west bank of the San Antonio River. The general purpose of the excavations was to determine the nature and content of the subsurface deposits in advance of the excavation of three drainage basins and connecting drain pipes under the three eastern-most canales adjacent the southeast gate. Specifically, the excavations had three goals: 1) identify any architectural features that may have originally been outside of the mission walls; 2) better define the stratigraphy of the cultural materials in the area; and 3) recover intact colonial period materials that might otherwise be lost. The excavations showed that: 1) large quantities of bones are present along the 102-ft-Iong portion of the wall; 2) much of the cultural material-bearing matrix found above the sterile Houston Black Clay has been stripped away along the planned route of the main drainage line; and 3) a thick caliche layer located in the westernmost catch basin may cap deeper deposits containing primarily Goliad wares. In addition, the excavations revealed two features, a historic period brazier and two intersecting hearths. We recommend that all work associated with the construction of the three catch basins and connecting pipes proceed as planned

Linguistic Diversity as Resource: A Multilevel Approach to Building Awareness in First-Year Writing Programs (and Beyond)

Drawing on research in systems theory and their own programmatic efforts to recognize, value, and integrate language differences in first-year composition, the authors argue for a multilevel approach for sustainable and systemic change to occur. Multilevel work functions to identify points of leverage for enacting language rights in institutional settings

Gender-specific mental health care: The case for women-centred care

Dementia has an estimated global prevalence of 35 million individuals (Alzheimer’s Disease International, 2009). In the UK 570,000 people live with dementia – a figure that will double over the next 30 years, reflecting global predictions (Alzheimer’s Disease International, 2009; Department of Health, 2009). With increasing demand and timescales of at least 5-10 years for the next possible disease modifying breakthrough, services are and have had to undergo change to cope with the increasing levels of need

Mission San Jose Repointing and Underpinning Project, San Antonio, Texas

This report contains the results of archaeological work performed by the Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) for the National Park Service (NPS) under Contract Numbers: 1443PX7600-97053 and 1443PX760098028. Both projects were carried out under Texas Historical Commission Permit Number 1841. The bulk of the report deals with the results of shovel testing and archaeological excavations conducted as part of the Indian Quarters Stabilization project at Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo (41BX3) for the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. Appendix 1 of this report contains the results of shovel testing and the monitoring of sign removal and installation conducted at Mission San Juan, Mission Espada, Mission Concepcion, and Mission San Jose as part of the Missions Signage Removal/lnstallation Project. Mission San Jose is located ca. seven miles south of downtown San Antonio on a high terrace overlooking the west bank of the San Antonio River. On October 27 and 29, 1997, CAR personnel excavated a total of 3 9 shovel tests (ST) along the southern, eastern, and western outer walls of the mission. The test excavations were conducted in preparation for grade alterations to be undertaken along the exterior and interior walls of the mission compound. In June and late July 1998, CAR personnel conducted excavations outside the south wall and within Room 54 adjacent to the western comer of the southeast gate of the mission. These excavations were undertaken to mitigate the impact of underpinning efforts on the southwest comer of the Southeast Gate of the mission being undertaken by the NPS through a major construction contract. The shovel testing and excavations showed that: 1) some high density artifact concentrations are present outside of the western and eastern mission walls possibly representing colonial middens; 2) a large portion of the soils and cultural materials found immediately adjacent the south wall of the mission show signs of disturbance from the Civil Works Administration (CWA) efforts to relocate the colonial foundation and outer walls of the mission; 3) much of the cultural material-bearing matrix found along the south wall of the mission, inside Room 54, is also disturbed to a depth of approximately 19 inches bs, and 4) a colonial living surface exists immediately below the disturbed zone in portions of the interior of Room 54 and under the southeast gate. Due to the urgency of the construction contractor to complete the regrading and underpinning efforts to reduce erosion and stabilize the southwest comer of the southeast gate, work on these projects proceeded concurrently and immediately following the archaeological investigations. However, it is the opinion of CAR that the regrading project impacted no intact cultural materials and, in fact, may have served to preserve, through burial, future disturbances to the deeper buried (less disturbed) colonial zone. In addition, the archaeological investigations conducted by CAR have recovered significant data and mitigated the impact of construction activities related to the underpinning of the southwest comer of the southeast gate. We commend the NPS and the construction contractor for their cooperation and collaboration in these efforts

Grain boundary ferromagnetism in vanadium-doped In2_2O3_3 thin films

Room temperature ferromagnetism was observed in In$_2$O$_3 thin films doped with 5 at.temperatures ranging from 300 to 600$\,^{\circ}{\rm C}$. X-ray absorption fine structure measurement indicated that vanadium was substitutionally dissolved in the In$_2$O$_3$ host lattice, thus excluding the existence of secondary phases of vanadium compounds. Magnetic measurements based on SQUID magnetometry and magnetic circular dichroism confirm that the magnetism is at grain boundaries and also in the grains. The overall magnetization originates from the competing effects between grains and grain boundaries.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, accepted by Europhysics Letter

Revering the past: the analysis of terminus groups in the Maya Lowlands

The functions of terminus groups and their relations with site cores are a topic of continuous debate among Mesoamerican archaeologist. Terminus groups contain monumental structures that are constructed atop platforms that are connected to the site core of large polities via sacbes, “white road” in Maya, or causeways. Hypotheses concerning terminus groups suggested they served as ritual centers, elite residences, and marketplaces. The focus of my research is to analyze the function of a large terminus group, called the Zopilote Group, that is connected to the site core of Cahal Pech in the Cayo District of Western Belize. Excavations at Zopilote have been conducted periodically over the past twenty years, yielding crucial information regarding the function of this group during the Middle Preclassic (900-300 BC) to the Terminal Classic period (AD 600-900). We hypothesized that the Zopilote Group functioned as a ritual pilgrimage center where rituals of ancestor worship were taking place even after the collapse of the Cahal Pech site core in the Terminal Classic period