The Tenure Process: A Descriptive Study of Selected Texas Universities

Few things in the professional life of university faculty are more important than the tenure process. Achieving tenure provides the faculty member with the confidence that his or her position with the university will be secure for life. There are exceptions; criminal behavior and elimination of the program come to mind, but tenure allows the faculty member to research controversial areas without the potential for political repercussions that could jeopardize employment. According to the American Association of University Professors: The principal purpose of tenure is to safeguard academic freedom, which is necessary for all who teach and conduct research in higher education. When faculty members can lose their positions because of their speech or publications research findings, they cannot properly fulfill their core responsibilities to advance and transmit knowledge. (2018

International Partnerships: A Model for Educational Organizations

Opportunities exist for faculty and students within educational leadership preparation programs to participate in international initiatives within developing countries. One way to do this is through collaboration with organizations that already have an established presence in the country. Working within these organizations provides opportunities for learning and research for the educational leadership program. If done well, such work also helps host organizations meet their mission and goals. An understanding of effective behaviors in international partnerships may benefit educational leadership programs that develop these types of service opportunities. The behaviors mirror the scholar-practitioner philosophy, of which some prominent educational leadership programs adhere, through addressing pragmatic needs within a local context

Improved Professional Development Through Teacher Leadership

Research suggests the need to provide leadership opportunities for teachers within school settings in order to increase professional collaboration and community. This research explored one rural district’s professional development model, which was evaluated to determine its potential in developing teacher leaders. This district’s professional development model utilized their exemplary teachers to develop other teachers through formal presentations that were traditionally taught by non-district experts. This study utilized a practitioner research methodology to determine effectiveness of using teachers as leaders. Data were collected to determine the impact on the teacher leaders and the effectiveness of the presentations as perceived by the overall teaching faculty. The results suggest an overall positive experience for teachers, as well as an increase in collaboration. In addition, teacher presenters believed their participation in staff development increased faculty effectiveness and increased the perception of the teacher presenters as leaders within the district

Preparation Issues in Educational Leadership

Educational leaders have chosen to belong to one of the most important and influential professions. Not only do educators have an important impact on others, but there is a need to have a practical understanding of instruction, curriculum, and psychology. Leaders in all disciplines often relate to previous educational relationships in discussions about important moments in their lives. These relationships matter, and they provide foundational experiences for each of us

Educational Leadership in a Mayan Village in Southern Belize: Challenges Faced by a Mayan Woman Principal

A Mayan woman principal taking a position in a historically paternalistic village in Southern Belize faces inevitable challenges due to the cultural structure of the village. In this case, the challenges go beyond cultural norms. Mrs. Po, a Mopan woman leading a school in a Kekchi village, faces challenges related to her role as a teaching principal in a multigrade school, her lack of leadership preparation, the remoteness of the village, and the language barrier, among others. The reader is encouraged to ponder the myriad of issues that impact the principal’s efforts to improve the education system while working in a village where the community struggles to perceive the value of education

Building Bridges: Opportunities Abound for P-20 Collaborations

PK-12 leaders value opportunities to collaborate with outside entities to improve student achievement and career-readiness. With increasing federal and state student-performance expectations for more than 1.4 million students enrolled in Texas public schools, collaborating with a public or private university, a community college, or a technical or health institute can provide important mutual benefits

Leveraging University Partnerships to Build Capacity in Rural Schools: A Case Study

University partnerships provide an avenue to increase capacity within K-12 schools. This case study reviews and successful partnership and the steps taken to make it work

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Dynamic conservation for migratory species

In an era of unprecedented and rapid global change, dynamic conservation strategies that tailor the delivery of habitat to when and where it is most needed can be critical for the persistence of species, especially those with diverse and dispersed habitat requirements. We demonstrate the effectiveness of such a strategy for migratory waterbirds. We analyzed citizen science and satellite data to develop predictive models of bird populations and the availability of wetlands, which we used to determine temporal and spatial gaps in habitat during a vital stage of the annual migration. We then filled those gaps using a reverse auction marketplace to incent qualifying landowners to create temporary wetlands on their properties. This approach is a cost-effective way of adaptively meeting habitat needs for migratory species, optimizes conservation outcomes relative to investment, and can be applied broadly to other conservation challenges