The Enemy Within (the Ivory Tower): How Conservatives Came to Despise the Academy

This article gives historical perspective to the recent phenomenon of conservative opposition to the academic liberal arts, demonstrating how anti-relativism shifted from an elitist position to a conservative-populist one

The Relentless Attack on Teachers: Andrew Hartman interviews Mark Naison

Mark Naison, Professor of African American Studies at Fordham University, has become one of the foremost outspoken critics of the so-called education reform movement. In this interview, Naison discusses the problems with the movement, the effect its had on the profession of teaching, and what is to be done

The Hidden Curriculum of Teach for America

By way of a close reading of Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp\u27s two books, this article examines TFA\u27s role in the so-called education reform movement, and offers a critique of TFA and the movement. Author Biography: Andrew Hartman is an associate professor of history at Illinois State University. For the 2013-14 academic year, he will be on leave from ISU as the Fulbright Danish Distinguished Chair in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. Hartman teaches and researches 20th Century U.S. History with a focus on intellectual history. He also is one of the faculty members in charge of teaching methods courses for the department\u27s nationally renowned History-Social Sciences Education Program, duties that stem from his experience as a high school social studies teacher in the Denver area. Hartman\u27s first book, Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2008. He is currently putting the finishing touches on another book, A War for the Soul Of America: A History of the Culture Wars, From the Sixties to the Present, which is contracted to be published by the University of Chicago Press. Hartman has written numerous book chapters, articles and review essays in journals such as The Journal of Policy History and Reviews in American History. He also occasional writes for political magazines such as Jacobin, which published his article, Teach for America: The Hidden Curriculum of Liberal Do-Gooders. Hartman was the founding president of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History (S-USIH), and is a regular blogger for the Society’s award-winning blog. He earned his Ph.D. from the George Washington University in 2006, where he studied with Leo P. Ribuffo

The Role of Shame in Student Persistence and Help-Seeking

This thesis examined students’ lived experiences of shame in university and how this emotion interacts with factors related to student persistence (such as, motivation, self-efficacy, sense of belonging) and help-seeking. Previous studies have demonstrated that shame can negatively impact factors related to student persistence, but researchers have yet to investigate how experiencing shame impacts students during their academic studies. All sources of data were collected through semi-structured interviews (n=7) with shame-prone, undergraduate, domestic students. Following the interview participants had the opportunity to participate in an optional 10-day journaling activity (n=3). All data were analyzed following an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, resulting in the creation of six super ordinate themes: Processing Shame, Impact on Self, Motivation, Belonging, Factors That Promote Help-Seeking, and Factors That Deter Help-seeking, and 32 subordinate themes. This study demonstrates students’ experiences of shame impacting their motivation, sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and identity. Participants also shared difficulties seeking help in moments after experiencing shame. These findings provide evidence that shame impedes students’ persistence, and acts as a barrier to seeking help when struggling. This thesis reiterates the need for universities to design policies and programming that understands how during times of struggles students are less likely to reach out for support, and such initiatives should be structured to address this issue

The Kerr/CFT Correspondence

Quantum gravity in the region very near the horizon of an extreme Kerr black hole (whose angular momentum and mass are related by J=GM^2) is considered. It is shown that consistent boundary conditions exist, for which the asymptotic symmetry generators form one copy of the Virasoro algebra with central charge c_L=12J / \hbar. This implies that the near-horizon quantum states can be identified with those of (a chiral half of) a two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT). Moreover, in the extreme limit, the Frolov-Thorne vacuum state reduces to a thermal density matrix with dimensionless temperature T_L=1/2\pi and conjugate energy given by the zero mode generator, L_0, of the Virasoro algebra. Assuming unitarity, the Cardy formula then gives a microscopic entropy S_{micro}=2\pi J / \hbar for the CFT, which reproduces the macroscopic Bekenstein-Hawking entropy S_{macro}=Area / 4\hbar G. The results apply to any consistent unitary quantum theory of gravity with a Kerr solution. We accordingly conjecture that extreme Kerr black holes are holographically dual to a chiral two-dimensional conformal field theory with central charge c_L=12J / \hbar, and in particular that the near-extreme black hole GRS 1915+105 is approximately dual to a CFT with c_L \sim 2 \times 10^{79}.Comment: 21 pages, no figure

Sensory processing and the evolution of female preference in Neoconocephalus

A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts.Thesis supervisor: Dr. Johannes Schul.Vita.Includes bibliographical references (pages 54-59).The entire text is included in the research.pdf file; the abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical general description appears in the public.pdf file.While the importance of the female preference for exaggerated male traits is largely understood, the evolutionary origins remain under debate. During the evolution of the female preference for leading signals via a sensory bias, an important factor is the processing of sensory information. In katydids, contralateral inhibition on two bilaterally paired ascending auditory neurons (AN1 & TN1) acts to enhance directionality of neural responses to a male call, but may also act to suppress responses on the side of following calls. Here, I investigate the sensory processing underlying the preference for leading calls (LP) in Neoconocephalus katydids and test for a sensory bias in a phylogenetic and behavioral context. When presented with three different chirp patterns, AN1 and TN1 responded directionally, but no leader bias was found in AN1. There was a strong leader bias in TN1, but only for the call model of N. ensiger, a species with LP. These results for AN1 and TN1 were similar in all species tested, both with and without LP. The strength of the leader bias in TN1 was reduced after removing contralateral auditory inputs by cutting the contralateral leg. The leader bias in N. ensiger correlates to LP, suggesting that this LP may be due to a sensory bias mechanism but only after TN1 was incorporated into call recognition. Alternatively, TN1 might not be important for LP if higher centers in the auditory system extract the location of the leading call from other auditory neurons, such as AN1