Addressing the Critical Shortage of Latinos in Music Education: Pre-Service Latino Music Education Student Perspectives on Recruitment and Retention Strategies

My research focus is on 1st and 2nd generation Latino music education students and their paths to becoming music educators in the United States. Latino students are an under researched portion of music education in the American population, but represent the fastest growing ethnic group in America. During my preliminary research I found that there is a critical shortage of Latino music educators. Through an instrumental case study with critical-case sampling, done through interviews and a questionnaire taken by several pre-service Latino music education majors at a southwest university, I found that the most important factor for recruiting future music educators was having a mentor of strong character to guide and inspire students. The Latino student attitude and perception was taken into account as those researched live this experience and provide the necessary insight into this critical issue as a direct source. In my research, I found that to successfully recruit and retain Latino music education students, teachers and administrators must provide diverse music ensembles, community outreach, and educational tasks with leadership roles. The reason why there is a shortage of Latino music educators, according to pre-service Latino music educators, have to do with: A career process that is too long and expensive; 2. Too few scholarship opportunities; 3. Music education programs that tend to serve more as a roadblock than an opportunity due to their long duration and expensive course load that leads students to drop the major and pursue other degrees and careers

Disentangling phase transitions and critical points in the proton-neutron interacting boson model by catastrophe theory

We introduce the basic concepts of catastrophe theory needed to derive analytically the phase diagram of the proton-neutron interacting boson model (IBM-2). Previous studies [1,2,3] were based on numerical solutions. We here explain the whole IBM-2 phase diagram including the precise order of the phase transitions in terms of the cusp catastrophe.Comment: To be published in Physics Letters

European periphery crises, international financial markets, and democracy: moving towards a globalized neofeudalism?

This paper analyzes the origin and causes of the recent economic and financial crises, mainly for the countries located in the periphery of the European Union (EU), as well as their evolution and transformation into social, political, and institutional crises. After explaining the differential impact of the crises on EU member economies and critically analysing the unsuccessful orthodox neoclassical policies implemented by governments and international institutions to try to manage and resolve them, we propose some alternative economic policy measures for the EU. Furthermore, we analyze how the economic policies developed thus far not only are unable to resolve the current crisis pattern but also actually entail a risk to the present democratic models by transferring the legitimate control over governments from citizens and democratic parliaments to unelected, non-representative international financial markets.

Excited-state quantum phase transitions in a two-fluid Lipkin model

Background: Composed systems have became of great interest in the framework of the ground state quantum phase transitions (QPTs) and many of their properties have been studied in detail. However, in these systems the study of the so called excited-state quantum phase transitions (ESQPTs) have not received so much attention. Purpose: A quantum analysis of the ESQPTs in the two-fluid Lipkin model is presented in this work. The study is performed through the Hamiltonian diagonalization for selected values of the control parameters in order to cover the most interesting regions of the system phase diagram. [Method:] A Hamiltonian that resembles the consistent-Q Hamiltonian of the interacting boson model (IBM) is diagonalized for selected values of the parameters and properties such as the density of states, the Peres lattices, the nearest-neighbor spacing distribution, and the participation ratio are analyzed. Results: An overview of the spectrum of the two-fluid Lipkin model for selected positions in the phase diagram has been obtained. The location of the excited-state quantum phase transition can be easily singled out with the Peres lattice, with the nearest-neighbor spacing distribution, with Poincar\'e sections or with the participation ratio. Conclusions: This study completes the analysis of QPTs for the two-fluid Lipkin model, extending the previous study to excited states. The ESQPT signatures in composed systems behave in the same way as in single ones, although the evidences of their presence can be sometimes blurred. The Peres lattice turns out to be a convenient tool to look into the position of the ESQPT and to define the concept of phase in the excited states realm

Integrability and Quantum Phase Transitions in Interacting Boson Models

The exact solution of the boson pairing hamiltonian given by Richardson in the sixties is used to study the phenomena of level crossings and quantum phase transitions in the integrable regions of the sd and sdg interacting boson models.Comment: 5 pages, 5 fig. Erice Conferenc

Intrinsic structure of two-phonon states in the interacting boson model

A general study of excitations up to two-phonon states is carried out using the intrinsic-state formalism of the Interacting Boson Model (IBM). Spectra and transitions for the different dynamical symmetries are analyzed and the correspondence with states in the laboratory frame is established. The influence of multi-phonon states is discussed. The approach is useful in problems where the complexity of the IBM spectrum renders the analysis in the laboratory frame difficult.Comment: 22 pages, TeX (ReVTeX). 7 eps figures. Submitted to Nucl. Phys.

THE EFFECTIVNESS OF FEDERAL PELL GRANT PROGRAM

This study presents a systematic literature review of the effectiveness of the Federal Pell Grant program, a program provided by the United States government to assist low-income college students attend a higher education institution. Using literature obtained from the OneSearch database of the California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) John M. Pfau Library, this study included 14 articles for analysis, out of which 12 studies utilized quantitative cross-sectional and quasi-experimental research designs. The 3 remaining studies utilized qualitative phenomenological and descriptive methodologies to further examine Pell Grant effectiveness of student access to education, academic performance along with employment outcomes among students seeking a higher educational level. Based on a preliminary analysis of 14 articles, findings point to conflicting information about the effectiveness of the Federal Pell Grant program on students seeking higher education. Patterns observed in the reviewed articles suggested that the results highlighted the challenges in the evaluation of the effectiveness of the Federal Pell Grant program. While some articles suggested positive outcomes for Pell Grant recipients, other articles present evidence of the program’s inefficiency. Overall, findings suggested that more research should be conducted on the effectiveness of the Federal Pell Grants program meeting students educational and financial needs