Student drinking in the transition to university and across the first academic year

Previous research has shown that high numbers of students drink hazardously or harmfully, or binge drink, but little is known about how drinking patterns establish or develop for this population. The purpose of this thesis was to understand this further by exploring patterns of, experiences with and potential influences upon drinking among young adults as they transition to university and across their first academic year. A sequential, with embedded concurrent, mixed-methods design was adopted, consisting of four studies which explored: 1) the nature of events and alcohol-related content students are exposed to at a university freshers’ fair; 2) students’ drinking patterns prior to university and across the first academic year; 3) the perceptions and experiences of both drinkers and abstainers, with alcohol, across the same time period; and 4) the views of staff who have a role in student experience and welfare on the university drinking culture.Many students came to university having engaged in or with an established pattern of binge drinking, but higher proportions reported doing so in the first month of university, more frequently and with higher quantities of alcohol. This remained elevated across the year. The increase appears to be initially driven by students’ expectations that drinking is central to socialising at university as well as an emphasis on alcohol-centred events from the Students’ Union during freshers’ week. Student-led groups emerged as a potentially important influence upon student drinking as they had a strong influence over the nature of social events from freshers’ week and beyond, with many of the events that they advertised in their freshers’ fair materials and organised throughout the year centred on drinking heavily. Many drinkers and abstainers, however, wanted a more socially inclusive environment where drinking was not the focus. Staff provided examples of where they had attempted to address the binge drinking culture, to reduce adverse incidents resulting from heavy drinking and make the university more inclusive to light- and non-drinkers, although efforts were fragmented highlighting the need for policy to ensure a consistent and comprehensive approach on student drinking. This thesis demonstrates for the first time that how much and how often students’ drink increases upon arrival to university and then remains elevated across the academic year. It identified the presence of pro-alcohol messages prior to, upon arrival and across the university academic year. This suggests that although the time before university may be important in establishing drinking behaviour and drinking expectations, there are a number of influences at the transition point and across the academic year which may be reinforcing and developing this behaviour for many students. The inclusion of abstainers as well as University and Students’ Union staff in this narrative has highlighted the importance of considering their views in attempts to reduce how much students drink, and helped to shape the recommendations to the University on how to address the binge drinking culture and create a more socially inclusive environment in the future

Creating and Implementing a One Hour Inclusive Excellence Training for Faculty and Instructors

At the MGH Institute of Health Professions we designed a one-hour program for clinical nursing instructors to increase knowledge of challenges faced by diverse students, to foster open-minded attitudes, and to present teaching strategies to maximize student success. We believe principles from this training can be customized to any setting. Participants will role play using vignettes taken from student experiences. Our clinical faculty found our vignettes realistic and the teaching strategies helpful. In this workshop, participants will work in groups to create training programs for faculty colleagues

What are the most important characteristics of effective Continuous Professional Learning (CPL) within an urban secondary school?

“all natural learning experiences and those conscious and planned activities which are intended to be of direct or indirect benefit to the individual, group or school and which contribute, through these, to the quality of education in the classroom”. Day (1999: 18

Symptom Profiles in Head and Neck Cancer Patients treated with Radiation Therapy: A Prospective Study

https://openworks.mdanderson.org/catalyst24/1004/thumbnail.jp

1,2-Bis(2-bromo­benz­yl)diselane

In the title compound, C14H12Br2Se2, the Se—Se bond length [2.3034 (9) Å] is similar to those in diphenyl diselenide [2.3066 (7) and 2.3073 (10) Å] and shorter than that in 1,8-diselenona­phthalene [2.0879 (8)Å]. The mol­ecule adopts a classical gauche conformation

Creating Order Out of Chaos? Development of a Measure of Perceived Effects of Communication on the Crisis Organizing Process

Organizations are important sources of communication during natural-hazard crises. How members of an organization perceive these communications (e.g., creating confusion, causing disorder, providing clarity, and restoring order) influences response and recovery from such a crisis. Using Chaos Theory as a guiding framework, the authors developed a new instrument measuring the perceived effects of an organization’s communication on crisis-organizing processes. Three distinct studies were conducted to assess the reliability and validity of this new instrument: the “Perceived Effects of Communication on the Crisis-organizing Process (PEC-COP)” scale. This one-factor scale can be used by both scholars and practitioners to assess the effects of an organization’s communication on how people organize (i.e., react and respond) during a crisis. By gaining greater insight into how an organization’s communication is perceived, the organization can better prepare to communicate in ways that promote efficient and effective crisis-organizing processes throughout a natural-hazard crisis. Effective communication can create order out of chaos

Factors Associated With Pain in Oral Cavity and Oropharyngeal Cancer Patients During Radiation Therapy

https://openworks.mdanderson.org/sumexp21/1037/thumbnail.jp

The Effect of Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy on Pain Levels In Head and Neck Cancer Patients

https://openworks.mdanderson.org/sumexp21/1242/thumbnail.jp

Using Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) to Manage Pain During Radiation Therapy

https://openworks.mdanderson.org/sumexp21/1116/thumbnail.jp

N3-ligated Nickel(II) Diketonate Complexes: Synthesis, Characterization and Evaluation of O2 Reactivity

Interest in O2-dependent aliphatic carbon–carbon (C–C) bond cleavage reactions of first row divalent metal diketonate complexes stems from the desire to further understand the reaction pathways of enzymes such as DKE1 and to extract information to develop applications in organic synthesis. A recent report of O2-dependent aliphatic C–C bond cleavage at ambient temperature in Ni(II) diketonate complexes supported by a tridentate nitrogen donor ligand [(MBBP)Ni(PhC(O)CHC(O)Ph)]Cl (7-Cl; MBBP = 2,6-bis(1-methylbenzimidazol-2-yl)pyridine) in the presence of NEt3 spurred our interest in further examining the chemistry of such complexes. A series of new TERPY-ligated Ni(II) diketonate complexes of the general formula [(TERPY)Ni(R2-1,3-diketonate)]ClO4 (1: R = CH3; 2: R = C(CH3)3; 3: R = Ph) was prepared under air and characterized using single crystal X-ray crystallography, elemental analysis, 1H NMR, ESI-MS, FTIR, and UV-vis. Analysis of the reaction mixtures in which these complexes were generated using 1H NMR and ESI-MS revealed the presence of both the desired diketonate complex and the bis-TERPY derivative [(TERPY)2Ni](ClO4)2 (4). Through selective crystallization 1–3 were isolated in analytically pure form. Analysis of reaction mixtures leading to the formation of the MBBP analogs [(MBBP)Ni(R2-1,3-diketonate)]X (X = ClO4: 5: R = CH3; 6: R = C(CH3)3; 7-ClO4: R = Ph; X = Cl: 7-Cl: R = Ph) using 1H NMR and ESI-MS revealed the presence of [(MBBP)2Ni](ClO4)2 (8). Analysis of aerobic acetonitrile solutions of analytically pure 1–3, 5 and 6 containing NEt3 and in some cases H2O using 1H NMR and UV-vis revealed evidence for the formation of additional bis-ligand complexes (4 and 8) but suggested no oxidative diketonate cleavage reactivity. Analysis of the organic products generated from 3, 7-ClO4 and 7-Cl revealed unaltered dibenzoylmethane. Our results therefore indicate that N3-ligated Ni(II) complexes of unsubstituted diketonate ligands do not exhibit O2-dependent aliphatic C–C bond clevage at room temperature, including in the presence of NEt3 and/or H2O