Bringing Organizations Back In: Perspectives on Service-Learning, Community Partnership and Democratic Thinking in a Voter Engagement Project

The potential of service-learning to foster democratic thinking is often unrealized. The absence of political learning in service-learning has been a subject of particular concern. Drawing on student reflections, pre- and post-test surveys and the perspectives of two faculty members and a community organizer, this article examines the ways in which a year-long, interdisciplinary voter engagement service-learning partnership between a community-based organization and a public university promoted democratic thinking and democratic action. The project helped students understand issues of inequality situated in voting rights, race and class; strengthened relationships between the community and university; and contributed to voter participation. Students came to see organizations, activism and public policy as important antidotes to political inequality. We argue that partnerships with advocacy groups to support political change constitute an important aspect of educating for democracy; these collaborative endeavors challenge views of politics that negate the importance of government, political participation and collective action.Keywords: democratic thinking, voting, organizational partnerships, inequalit

Synchronous vs Asynchronous Chain Motion in α-Synuclein Contact Dynamics

α-Synuclein (α-syn) is an intrinsically unstructured 140-residue neuronal protein of uncertain function that is implicated in the etiology of Parkinson’s disease. Tertiary contact formation rate constants in α-syn, determined from diffusion-limited electron-transfer kinetics measurements, are poorly approximated by simple random polymer theory. One source of the discrepancy between theory and experiment may be that interior-loop formation rates are not well approximated by end-to-end contact dynamics models. We have addressed this issue with Monte Carlo simulations to model asynchronous and synchronous motion of contacting sites in a random polymer. These simulations suggest that a dynamical drag effect may slow interior-loop formation rates by about a factor of 2 in comparison to end-to-end loops of comparable size. The additional deviations from random coil behavior in α-syn likely arise from clustering of hydrophobic residues in the disordered polypeptide

Tertiary Contact Formation in α-Synuclein Probed by Electron Transfer

To explore tertiary contact formation in α-synuclein, a natively unfolded protein implicated in Parkinson's disease, we have measured the rates of reaction between a powerful electron donor, the tryptophan (W) triplet excited state, and an acceptor, 3-nitro-tyrosine (Y(NO_2)) in six different variants, probing loop sizes between 15 and 132 residues. Electron transfer rates decrease with loop size with the fastest contact time of 140 ns for the N-terminal pair and the slowest of 1.2 μs for the N- to C-terminal pair. Diffusion coefficients ranging from ∼2 × 10^(-6) to ∼10^(-5) cm^2 s^(-1) were extracted from simultaneous fits of the W to Y(NO_2) electron (triplet excited state) and energy transfer (singlet excited state) kinetics

Copper(II) Binding to α-Synuclein, the Parkinson’s Protein

Variations in tryptophan fluorescence intensities confirm that copper(II) interacts with α-synuclein, a protein implicated in Parkinson’s disease. Trp4 fluorescence decay kinetics measured for the F4W protein show that Cu(II) binds tightly (K_d ∼ 100 nM) near the N-terminus at pH 7. Work on a F4W/H50S mutant indicates that a histidine imidazole is not a ligand in this high-affinity site