Fits and Starts: Visions for the Community Engaged University

Good Morning. So, here we are in Alabama. You’ve all been here a few days. I just got here last night. And I’m again shocked. Eight o’clock in the morning and all of you had all these options and here you are. Now, I know it was the breakfast that probably pulled you in. But anyway, thank you for coming. Let’s acknowledge the folks here at the University of Alabama for their great work [applause]. Thank you so much. Special thanks go to Dr. [Samory] Pruitt, Dr. Heather Pleasants and Dr. Ed Mullins for organizing us and working with us over the past several months and working together. I’m now working with a new colleague half way across the country and we’re up to the challenge and we hope you are too. So, we hope you’ll come along with us on a journey today

Lost Worlds

Think of Latin America and what do you see? Escape? Adventure? Chaos? Oblivion? Lost Worlds explores how these stereotypes came into being and what they tells us about ourselves. Examining a range of texts, from Southey's epics to Naipaul's essays, from Conan Doyle's gentlemen adventurers to Kerouac's restless hipsters, this book reveals the role that Latin America has played in British, US and Australian endeavours in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Over the last 200 years, Latin America has served the West as an imaginary realm where its highest hopes and deepest anxieties might be realised

Status Decay: The Reverse of Status Construction Theory

This thesis studies the status of African Americans at two points in time (1985 and 2004). Status construction theory would suggest that a group of people who increased their possession of goal objects (like education) would also increase in status. However, this study finds that an increase in education of African Americans has not affected their status from 1985 to 2004. In fact, living in a region with a higher proportion of African Americans with college degrees actually lowers the percentage of African American confidants chosen. The results of this paper do not concur with the predictions of status construction theory and would suggest that more research be done on the topic of the decay of status and status construction theory\u27s ability to explain it

Corrosion protection mechanisms of trivalent chromium based passivations on γ-ZnNi coated Al6061-T6 alloy

“The role of cobalt in trivalent chromium passivations (TCPs) to improve corrosion resistance of γ-ZnNi coated steel and aluminum is based on its effect on hexavalent chromium content in the passive layer. Investigations of both a cobalt-containing and cobalt-free TCP on SAE 1008 steel indicated that both passivations protect well for up to 1000 hours in neutral salt spray exposure (SSE). A repetition on Al 6061-T6 alloy indicated that TCP performed much better than cobalt-free TCP implicating the underlying substrate. Optical and electron micrographs indicated physical changes such as crack thickness, crack density, passivation porosity, and passivation thickness existed between the TCP and cobalt-free TCPs but had contradictory results on corrosion performance. Electrochemical differences between the TCPs on both substrates were consistent and scribed specimens on the Al 6061-T6 specimens showed active protection from TCP and not cobalt-free TCP indicating a chemical rather than physical difference. Confounding factors of electroless nickel (EN) between the substrate and γ-ZnNi coating and heat treatments led to Al 6061-T6 panels that were heat treated and steel panels with EN layers. The EN layer had no significant effect and heat treatments had inconsistent performance. Direct measurements of Cr(VI) content found some correlation between the amount of Cr(VI) and corrosion performance. XPS analysis of the surface Cr(VI) content revealed that Cr(VI) is needed for corrosion protection but that there must be an interaction with physical aspects of the coating to explain the inconsistent results. The TCPs were found to perform better because the divalent cobalt in TCPs facilitated production of Cr(VI) during corrosion”--Abstract, page iv

Three Questions for Community Engagement at the Crossroads

Unfortunately, a decade of “calls to action,” begun by the Kellogg Commission’s report on university engagement and the 1999 Wingspread Declaration on Renewing the Civic Mission of the American Research University, has not produced a flowering of transformed institutions….This is not because engagement does not work….And it is not for lack of knowledge on how it can be implemented….Rather, engagement is difficult work. It gets to the heart of what higher education is about and as such, it requires institution-wide effort, deep commitment at all levels, and leadership by both campus and community. (Brukardt, Holland, Percy, & Zimpher, N., 2004, p. ii) [T]he civic engagement movement seems to have hit a wall: [I]nnovative practices that shift epistemology, reshape the curriculum, alter pedagogy, and redefine scholarship are not being supported through academic norms and institutional reward policies that shape the academic cultures of the academy. There are limits to the degree of change that occurs institutionally, and the civic engagement work appears to have been accommodated to the dominant expert-centered framework. (Saltmarsh & Hartley, 2008, p. 12) Full participation incorporates the idea that higher education institutions are rooted in and accountable to multiple communities—both to those who live, work, and matriculate within higher education and those who physically or practically occupy physical or project spaces connected to higher education institutions. Campuses advancing full participation are engaged campuses that are both in and of the community, participating in reciprocal, mutually beneficial partnerships between campus and community….Yet, while higher education as a sector has publicly acknowledged that it has an important public mission, there remains a gap between intention and practice. The problem lies in the incongruity between institutions’ stated mission and their cultural and institutional architecture, which is not currently set up to fulfill that mission

Primary sources and their effects on student interest

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of primary sources on the interest levels of three Honors classes during my Student Teaching. I wanted to see if my students would enjoy the ten primary sources I introduced to them. The study was conducted over a month\u27s time. Data was collected using hundreds of surveys, over sixty questionnaires, fifteen interviews, and anecdotal notes to determine my seventy-five students\u27 interest in the primary sources I chose for their classes. After analyzing the written data, I concluded that my students overwhelmingly enjoyed the primary sources we read and analyzed together. I then determined the reasons why they enjoyed them. Finally, I learned that the primary sources I handed out helped to produce meaningful debates and discussions of the past, helped to improve my pedagogy, and brought my students closer to an authentic studying of history

Taking a Stand: Community-Engaged Scholarship on the Tenure Track

This article assesses the journey to tenure among higher education faculty whose scholarship focuses on community engagement. It provides examples for two categories of action—contextual interventions and structural interventions—that agents of the university enact in order to create space for their approach to scholarship. It also describes structural transformation, which is the product of strategically conceived and deployed structural interventions that fundamentally alter university reward structures and culture so as to promote and support community-engaged scholarship. Finally, this piece describes a contextual intervention by the author that has allowed him to work within local communities while meeting standards of research and teaching that move him toward tenure

Lost Worlds

Think of Latin America and what do you see? Escape? Adventure? Chaos? Oblivion? Lost Worlds explores how these stereotypes came into being and what they tells us about ourselves. Examining a range of texts, from Southey's epics to Naipaul's essays, from Conan Doyle's gentlemen adventurers to Kerouac's restless hipsters, this book reveals the role that Latin America has played in British, US and Australian endeavours in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Over the last 200 years, Latin America has served the West as an imaginary realm where its highest hopes and deepest anxieties might be realised