This is How We Did It: A Study of Black Male Resilience and Attainment at a Hispanic Serving Institution Through the Lenses of Critical Race Theory

This qualitative narrative inquiry based research sought to gain a better understanding of how Black male upperclassmen and recent college graduates experience the process of academic resilience and attainment within the context of their intersecting identities of race, class, and gender at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). The theoretical framework guiding this study draws upon two distinctive collections of scholarship: Critical Race Theory (CRT) and academic resilience. Findings revealed Black male risk to postsecondary attainment was adversely impacted by academic (dis)integration, fractured sense of belonging, physical and mental illnesses, lack of financial support, racialized and gendered experiences, and lingering affects of resource deficient and violent communities. These threats were thwarted by participants’ self-determination, self-efficacy, spiritual faith, proactive help seeking tendencies, familial and peer support networks, and the supportive HSI campus ethos. It was also found that successful Black men educated and empowered other marginalized campus peers on how to persist by sharing their success-based counter narratives. Findings led to the development of the Black Male Academic Resilience Cycle (BMARC), which provides a framework that infuses CRTs intersectionality of social identities with experiential risk and protective factors, explaining the process of academic resilience experienced by Black male collegians

This is How We Did It: A Study of Black Male Resilience and Attainment at a Hispanic Serving Institution Through the Lenses of Critical Race Theory

This qualitative narrative inquiry based research sought to gain a better understanding of how Black male upperclassmen and recent college graduates experience the process of academic resilience and attainment within the context of their intersecting identities of race, class, and gender at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). The theoretical framework guiding this study draws upon two distinctive collections of scholarship: Critical Race Theory (CRT) and academic resilience. Findings revealed Black male risk to postsecondary attainment was adversely impacted by academic (dis)integration, fractured sense of belonging, physical and mental illnesses, lack of financial support, racialized and gendered experiences, and lingering affects of resource deficient and violent communities. These threats were thwarted by participants’ self-determination, self-efficacy, spiritual faith, proactive help seeking tendencies, familial and peer support networks, and the supportive HSI campus ethos. It was also found that successful Black men educated and empowered other marginalized campus peers on how to persist by sharing their success-based counter narratives. Findings led to the development of the Black Male Academic Resilience Cycle (BMARC), which provides a framework that infuses CRTs intersectionality of social identities with experiential risk and protective factors, explaining the process of academic resilience experienced by Black male collegians

Methodology for the determination of criticality codes and recertification intervals for Tank Mounted Air Compressors (TMAC) and Base Mounted Air Compressors (BMAC)

This methodology is used to determine inspection procedures and intervals for components contained within tank mounted air compressor systems (TMAC) and base mounted air compressor systems (BMAC). These systems are included in the Pressure Vessel and System Recertification inventory at GSFC

Social Problems are Social: Empirical Evidence and Reflections on Integrating Community Psychology into Traditional Curriculum

The paper will describe the development and impact of a course that exemplifies the principles and values of community psychology, but does so outside the bounds of a community psychology program or concentration in a large, diverse, public university. The class, Community Engagement for Social Change, has two aims: to teach undergraduates that social problems have social causes, and to engage students in a range of social problem-solving approaches that incorporate that understanding. It accomplishes these aims by introducing a “multi-level analysis” of social problems, using a case study of the social problem of poverty, and requiring that all students complete 20 hours of service in community organizations. The development of the class required strategic thinking and significant retooling in order to attract and promote learning across a broad range of students. It has now been offered each semester for seven years, and has evolved into an opportunity for the first author and her graduate students to integrate social justice-oriented teaching and research. For the past three years, the authors have been engaged in a longitudinal project evaluating the impact of the class on student outcomes. This paper provides an overview of this course, and describes lessons learned from two sources: (1) the experience of teaching and refining the class, and (2) the longitudinal dataset collected from students who did and did not take the course. Data show that the class is effective in shifting attitudes both specific to poverty and more generally to social problems. Results also show that implicit bias did not shift over the course of the semester, and that individual and systemic attributions for social problems are only moderately related. We hope that sharing our experience is useful to those interested in similar coursework in other institutions that lack an explicit focus on community psychology

Social Problems are Social: Empirical Evidence and Reflections on Integrating Community Psychology into Traditional Curriculum

The paper will describe the development and impact of a course that exemplifies the principles and values of community psychology, but does so outside the bounds of a community psychology program or concentration in a large, diverse, public university. The class, Community Engagement for Social Change, has two aims: to teach undergraduates that social problems have social causes, and to engage students in a range of social problem-solving approaches that incorporate that understanding. It accomplishes these aims by introducing a “multi-level analysis” of social problems, using a case study of the social problem of poverty, and requiring that all students complete 20 hours of service in community organizations. The development of the class required strategic thinking and significant retooling in order to attract and promote learning across a broad range of students. It has now been offered each semester for seven years, and has evolved into an opportunity for the first author and her graduate students to integrate social justice-oriented teaching and research. For the past three years, the authors have been engaged in a longitudinal project evaluating the impact of the class on student outcomes. This paper provides an overview of this course, and describes lessons learned from two sources: (1) the experience of teaching and refining the class, and (2) the longitudinal dataset collected from students who did and did not take the course. Data show that the class is effective in shifting attitudes both specific to poverty and more generally to social problems. Results also show that implicit bias did not shift over the course of the semester, and that individual and systemic attributions for social problems are only moderately related. We hope that sharing our experience is useful to those interested in similar coursework in other institutions that lack an explicit focus on community psychology

Long-term effect of different soil management systems and winter crops on soil acidity and vertical distribution of nutrients in a Brazilian Oxisol

“Strategies” to sustain crop productivity by reducing the fertilizer and lime demands must be developed. The use of plant species that use more efficiently the soil nutrients and tillage systems that provide nutrients accumulation in more labile forms are prerequisites for sustainable agroecosystems. This study aimed to evaluate the long period effect of cultivating different winter species under different soil management systems on vertical distribution of soil nutrients and the soil acidity distribution in soil profile. The experiment was established in 1986 with six winter treatments (blue lupine, hairy vetch, oat, radish, wheat and fallow) under conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT) in a very clayey Rhodic Hapludox in Southern Brazil. As a result of 19 years of no soil disturbance, soil chemical attributes related to soil acidity and the availability of P and K were more favorable to crops growth up to 10 cm in the soil under no-tillage than in the conventional tillage. On other hand, lime applications in low doses on the soil surface were not efficient in neutralizing the aluminum toxicity below 10 cm depth. It shows that repeated use of lime on the soil surface under NT system can be a viable alternative strategy only when soil acidity and aluminum toxicity in subsurface has been previously eliminated using the adequate amount of lime and incorporating it into the arable layer. Moreover, in the conventional tillage system P and K availability were higher below 10 cm depth compared to the no-tillage system. Even after 19 years of no soil disturbance in the NT system the available P content below 10 cm soil layer was lower than the optimal content of available P recommended to cash crops. The reduced surface K application over time was sufficient to gain adequate crop yields and to maintain the optimal content of soil available K in both soil management systems. The effects of soil management systems were predominant on the soil acidity attributes, and no effects of winter cover crops were observed on soil acidity attributes. Black oat and blue lupine were more efficient in P cycling, increasing the soil available P content especially in the surface soil under NT. The lower amount of biomass produced over time when no cover crops were used in the winter period resulted in lower P and K availability in the soil, showing the important role of growing winter species to maintain soil fertility

Coupling of disulfide bond and distal histidine dissociation in human ferrous cytoglobin regulates ligand binding

Earlier kinetics studies on cytoglobin did not assign functional properties to specific structural forms. Here, we used defined monomeric and dimeric forms and cysteine mutants to show that an intramolecular disulfide bond (C38-C83) alters the dissociation rate constant of the intrinsic histidine (H81) (∼1000 fold), thus controlling binding of extrinsic ligands. Through time-resolved spectra we have unequivocally assigned CO binding to hexa- and penta-coordinate forms and have made direct measurement of histidine rebinding following photolysis. We present a model that describes how the cysteine redox state of the monomer controls histidine dissociation rate constants and hence extrinsic ligand binding

Bridging Time Scales in Cellular Decision Making with a Stochastic Bistable Switch

Cellular transformations which involve a significant phenotypical change of the cell's state use bistable biochemical switches as underlying decision systems. In this work, we aim at linking cellular decisions taking place on a time scale of years to decades with the biochemical dynamics in signal transduction and gene regulation, occuring on a time scale of minutes to hours. We show that a stochastic bistable switch forms a viable biochemical mechanism to implement decision processes on long time scales. As a case study, the mechanism is applied to model the initiation of follicle growth in mammalian ovaries, where the physiological time scale of follicle pool depletion is on the order of the organism's lifespan. We construct a simple mathematical model for this process based on experimental evidence for the involved genetic mechanisms. Despite the underlying stochasticity, the proposed mechanism turns out to yield reliable behavior in large populations of cells subject to the considered decision process. Our model explains how the physiological time constant may emerge from the intrinsic stochasticity of the underlying gene regulatory network. Apart from ovarian follicles, the proposed mechanism may also be of relevance for other physiological systems where cells take binary decisions over a long time scale.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure