Humanitarian aid for ethnic reconciliation

Mission: Promote rebuilding of a multi-ethnic society in rebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina Methods: The group organizes events to engage Clemson students to collect aid for the students in Srebrenica. This is a small city, which was the site of the genocide in 1995 and ethnically cleansed, and it is recovering very slowly. There is an effort to build ethnic tolerance and it starts with youth. The forms of aid have been determined based on their needs and our capability. Close relationship has been established with The House of Confidence, a local NGO in Srebrenica. Their work is focused on children and young people many of whom are thinking about leaving because of lack of jobs, and also ethnically motivated political struggles. This past May twelve suitcases filled with clothing, school supplies, and other necessities were transported to the town and handed out to different groups of children ages 5-teens. Conclusion: Our group hopes to shed light and expose the Clemson community to the Balkan region. We want to build support in Clemson for the people of Srebrenica

Greek community needs assessment: Reducing the negative impact of alcohol and drugs

Participants representing Clemson\u27s Greek community have designed a research project that aims to define the problems associated with alcohol and drug misuse in the Greek community at Clemson University and to implement action steps based on sound evidence to mitigate the negative consequences associated with that misuse. The team is made up of Greek student leaders who are passionate about making a difference in their community and ultimately creating a plan to reduce alcohol and drug abuse among members. The team has conducted IRB and National PanHellenic approved focus groups and is in the process of coding the data. This poster reflects a preliminary analysis of that data

Education: Expectation and the Unexpected

In this paper I consider the concept of expectation in Higher Education. To focus the discussion I begin by sketching out some examples of how this notion pervades a number of practices in the university, and how in particular, expectation drives the way that the university tutorial operates between tutors and students. In relating this to the tendency towards what has been identified as the marketization and consumerism of higher education, I draw on the distinction that Paul Standish identifies between and ‘economy of exchange’ and an ‘economy of excess’, and suggest how expectation and responsibility figure in these economies. In moving to think beyond narrow conceptions of expectation and responsibility, and beyond the literature on policy and management in higher education, I turn to the work of the Jewish philosophers, Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas to show how they have both given attention to richer ideas of relationship, responsibility and the other. I initially outline Buber’s central work on the distinction between I-It and I-Thou modes of relationship, and how the latter is characterised by a dialogic intersubjectivity. I contrast this with the work of Emmanuel Levinas and draw out the distinction between the mutuality at the heart of Buber’s work, and the relationship of asymmetry that mark’s Levinas’ conception of our responsibility to the other, which is ethics. Having drawn the distinction, I then show how there are lines of connection in their respective philosophical projects, specifically how speech or dialogue is central to the relationship with the other in both thinkers. I find in both Buber and Levinas that speech cannot be thought of solely as communication. This has significant implications for education: speech is not simply the communication of (curricular) content between tutor and student. Given this, teaching can be thought of as a space for encounter with the other through language. This has further implications for thinking about the place of the tutorial in a university education. At this point I return to the scene of the university tutorial and suggest that, rather than seeing it as a place only for the meeting of expectations (which would suggest a closed economy of exchange), it might be envisioned as a space for encounter with the unexpected. In considering the nature of the encounter in relation to an example from the film adaptation of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, I argue that the tutorial opens up the possibility for a mutual encounter with otherness. This positions the tutorial as a space of educational otherness, - a Foucauldian heterotopia which rejects the expectation-bound economy of exchange, and which offers instead the possibility of an education marked instead by an economy of excess. <br/

Selective recovery of lithium from seawater using a novel MnO2 type adsorbent III - benchmark evaluation

The granulation method of λ-MnO2 adsorbent employing chitin-based binder, which has efficient selectivity towards lithium ion, has been developed. The granules of ca. 1 – 2 mm with high resistance to the column operation for seawater (pH = 8.1) can be achieved. The laboratory scale column separation with the granulated adsorbent shows that lithium ions from seawater can be selectively recovered against the majority of co-existing cations. In addition, the elution of Mn from the adsorbent can be prevented. The benchmark column separation plant with seawater intake 200 L/h has been built and the whole process was verified and evaluated. The composition analysis of dried precipitated salts showed ca. 35 % efficiency of lithium recovery in the benchmark plant. In order to enhance the lithium recovery efficiency the following recovery steps are expected when routine techniques are applied