A Brief Reflection at Twenty Years: Filling the Alumni Void

25th anniversary reflectio

Prince Arthur, Crowne of Martiall Band: the vision and the quest in Spenser's Faerie Queene

Over the four hundred years which have elapsed since the publication of The Faerie Queene, the effectiveness of Arthur as the central hero of the poem has been called into question time and time again. Critics have objected to the sporadic nature of Arthur's appearances, and to the fact that this quest is unfinished. In the first chapter of my thesis I provide a survey of Spenser criticism, covering neoclassical and romantic views as well as a selection of twentieth century studies. My own argument centres on the belief that the role of Arthur in The Faerie Queene is not best understood in terms of a narrative with a beginning, middle and end. In contrast to the titular heroes of each book, perfection is the starting point of Arthur's story, not a goal he gradually works towards. The effects of Arthur's interventions do differ from book to book, but this reflects the evolving moral allegory of The Faerie Queene rather than the development of Arthur himself. In order to highlight the pre-eminence of Arthur vis-a-vis the titular knights of The Faerie Queene, chapter two compares the presentation of Arthur in a selection of medieval texts: the Celtic Arthur of the Mabinogion, the courtly king of Chretien de Troyes, Arthur's relation to the Grail in La Queste del Saint Graal, the warrior-king of Layamon's Brut, and the gathering together of different types of Arthurian narrative by Sir Thomas Malory. There has not been extended study of Spenser's Arthur in this context - those critics who touch on the topic tend not to go beyond the generalisation that Spenser exploits the prestige of Arthurian tradition whilst avoiding the constraints of reworking the familiar story

Labor Preemption: Striking Workers\u27 Right to Collect Unemployment Benefits

New York Telephone Co. v. New York State Department of Labor, 566 F.2d 388 (1977). The payment of unemployment insurance benefits to strikers has long been a hotly contested political issue, with state legislatures producing a variety of statutory plans to resolve and regulate the area.\u27 Some states flatly refuse to compensate employees who are direct participants in a strike, while others condition benefits on the employer\u27s continued operations during the strike or on the employer\u27s violation of the collective bargaining agreement. Strikers qualify for benefits in some states only if they are protesting hazardous conditions, have been laid off from a subsequent job, or are not in the grade or class financing the dispute. The conflict has moved in recent years from the political arena to judicial forums, where state statutes which confer such benefits have been challenged on constitutional grounds. The challenges are premised on the contention that the payments, by providing strikers with an economic weapon, substantially disrupt the federal policy of free collective bargaining and thus are void under the supremacy clause., Challengers maintain that state provisions for strikers conflict with and are preempted by the national mandate of neutrality in the bargaining process. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit responded to the challenge in New York Telephone Co. v. New York State Department of Labor. The court found no evidence of preemption and thus upheld the constitutionality of New York\u27s unemployment insurance provision for striking workers. In carving out an area of protected state activity, the decision reconciled a First Circuit formula for assessing the extent of preemption with the rationale from a recent and arguably distinguishable Supreme Court case. The result, which varies from the general pattern of preemption in labor-related areas and from prior cases overturning benefits to strikers, is indicative of a recent trend toward protecting state legislation which arguably falls within the federal purview. Recent cases suggest a trend toward protection of state activity by the Court in areas other than labor preemption. In the area of labor preemption the Court has until recently tended to accord greater protection to federal policy. Whether a state unemployment compensation plan which includes striking workers conflicts with national labor policy will be decided by the Supreme Court, which has granted certiorari in New York Telephone. Even if the .Court finds that New York\u27s unemployment benefits statute is preempted by the federal policy, the Second Circuit\u27s careful analysis will have served propitiously to frame for resolution a significant constitutional question. This note will analyze the reasoning underlying the New York Telephone decision, and other factors likely to be considered by the Court on review

The role of floodplains on the propagation of land management signals in the Vale of York

The floodplains of many UK rivers are heavily managed to reduce the risk of flooding. The presence of levées is thought to increase peak flows, decreasing the ability of the floodplains to attenuate flood waters. Understanding the role of floodplains for reducing flood risk is vital in order to create flood management strategies that utilise the natural attenuation properties of floodplains to reduce future flood risk. The impact of flood levées on the propagation of upstream land management signals has been assessed in this thesis. The study utilised the 1-D model HEC-RAS to determine the impact of levées on the transmission of possible land management signals (from moorland grips) in the Ouse catchment, and establish the resulting flood risk for the City of York. A link between rural land management in the upper catchments and flood routing was demonstrated. The flow was scaled in relation to the hypothesised effect of blocking grips to examine the scale of possible downstream consequences. At upstream cross-sections the reduction in peak discharge was higher, suggesting that the positive impact of removing the levées, in terms of decreasing the flood peak, is dissipated as the flood wave propagates downstream. Further downstream the attenuation reduced suggesting that land use signals are dissipated with distance downstream. Solely removing the levées reduced peak flows by only 1.3%. Crucially, by combining the positive effects of levée removal and grip blocking, peak discharge downstream at York could be reduced by 4.2% for the York 2000 flood event. This approach also reduced the peak flow for the York 2000 flood event below the threshold for peak flows associated with a 25 year return period. Peak discharge was more sensitive to flow scaling with the levées, suggesting that levées do make the grip effect more noticeable, although the influence of the levées is not large. The findings suggest that levées do transmit the flood signal further downstream to York due to a reduction in floodplain attenuation. The removal of levée sections combined with grip blocking in the upland catchments could prove an effective and sustainable approach for future flood risk management in the Ouse catchment

Will Minnesota Principals Continue to Hire School Librarians?

The number of school librarian positions are declining across the nation. In order to gain insight into this trend on a local level, two directors of school librarian preparation programs in Minnesota analyzed survey results of 251 Minnesota school leaders to determine what factors impact a principal’s decision to eliminate the position in their school. In examining the results of this mixed-methods study, only 42% reported their intention to replace their school librarian with another school librarian when the position becomes vacant. Others reported that they will fill the position with a paraprofessional (25%), or to hire a technology integration specialist (12%)

Situating the ‘beyond’: adventure- learning and Indigenous cultural competence

In 2010, an Indigenous Elder from the Wiradjuri nation and a group of academics from Charles Sturt University travelled to Menindee, a small locality on the edge of the Australian outback. They were embarked upon an ‘adventure-learning’ research journey to study ways of learning by creating a community of practice with an Elder from the Ngyampa/Barkandji nation. This article first explores the implications of this innovative approach to transformative learning for profes- sional development and for teaching and learning practice. It then reflects on the significance of location for pedagogic approaches aimed at closing the education gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians in universities