Reclaiming the Joy of Teaching in a Post-Pandemic, Post-Tenure World

In this essay, the author reflects on her journey from joy in teaching to ennui and back again. She shares three lessons that she learned from her journey that can be applied to your own teaching practice

In a Class of Their Own: The Eighth Circuit Upholds a Credit Card Agreement\u27s Class Action Waiver and Mandatory Arbitration Clause

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently joined the cadre of courts to uphold class action waivers in arbitration agreements. In Cicle v. Chase Bank USA, the court held that a Missouri woman\u27s putative class action suit against a credit card company was barred due to theclass action waiver in her card agreement\u27s arbitration clause. The Eighth Circuit reversed a sharply worded federal district court order and rejected the plaintiff s contention that the class action waiver was a de facto immunity provision[] for the credit card company which would leave her and other similarly situation plaintiffs effectively without a remedy. In reaching its decision, the Eighth Circuit overlooked Missouri\u27s fundamental public policy disfavoring class action bars in arbitration provisions and effectively ignored several Missouri state court decisions handed down after oral argument that starkly conflict with the court\u27s decision

Silencing the Rebel Yell: The Eighth Circuit Upholds a Public School\u27s Ban on Confederate Flags

In 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit heard for the first time a case challenging the constitutionality of a public school\u27s ban on the display of Confederate flags. When the Eighth Circuit faced this situation in B. WA. v. Farmington R- 7 School District (B. WA. v. Farmington), it attempted to balance the competing interests of protecting students\u27 free speech rights and avoiding future disruption and danger to the learning environment. In doing so, the court adhered to the reasoning established by its sister circuits and set a precedent within the Eighth Circuit that shifts away from Tinker\u27s original protections to allow suppression of a particular mode of student political speech, even when that exact mode of expression has never caused a disruption

The Effects of Artificial Sweeteners on Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance in Adults

The effects that artificial sweeteners may have on weight have been studied for the past 30 years with conflicting results. Rat studies and prospective cohorts have shown that artificial sweetener consumption may lead to weight gain. On the other hand, randomized controlled trials have suggested the opposite. Because of the conflicting results surrounding this topic, the purpose of the study was to see if artificial sweetener consumption could affect total weight loss and maintenance in adults on a weight loss program. The study also aimed to examine whether or not the type of artificial sweetener consumed had an effect on the amount of total weight loss. To do this, a secondary analysis of previously collected data from a randomized, clinical trial (Phone versus Clinic; PVC) was done. Participants were grouped by amount of weight lost from baseline to 18 months (10%). Total artificial sweetener consumed (in mg) and type of artificial sweetener consumed were compared between the groups using ANOVA and mixed modeling. In a separate analysis, participants were grouped into tertiles based on amount of weight maintained from 6 months to 18 months, and total artificial sweetener consumed (in mg) was compared between the groups. No significant group (p = 0.686), time (p=0.141), or group*time interaction (p=0.267) regarding total artificial sweetener intake and weight loss over the 18 month study period was observed. When comparing total artificial sweetener intake with weight maintenance, no significant group (p=0.801), time (p=0.148), or group*time (p=0.600) interactions were seen. Therefore, artificial sweetener intake does not appear to affect weight loss or weight maintenance in our population of overweight and obese adults. These findings are encouraging for those attempting to lose weight. Many people consume artificial sweeteners during weight loss, and the results of this study show that sweeteners do not prevent weight loss as previously found. Finally, the study is the first to examine the effects of artificial sweeteners in a group that wasn’t specifically told to consume or replace foods and beverages with sweeteners. Therefore, it is more generalizable

Threads Of Practice: An A/R/Tographal Community Of Care (Poster)

Highlights include: Refereed Book Chapter (in press); Two peer-reviewed Articles (under review & in process); Three Conference Presentations in 2019; Two Upcoming Conference Presentations in 2020; Stillpoint; Guest In-Class Activities; Turchin Visual Journaling Workshops; Internal Grants; and Arts-Based Pedagogy in practice and content (e.g., Rhetoric and Composition, Media Studies, Library Science)

The Effect of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Femoral Entheseal Shape on Ligament Strain

Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP)http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116116/1/Effect_of_Anterior_Cruciate_Ligament_Femoral_Entheseal_Shape_on_Ligament_Strain.pd

The Creativity Collaborative: A/R/Tography In Action (Poster)

The Creativity Collaborative is an interdisciplinary research cluster established in 2017. This poster will share The Creativity Collaborative's ongoing work where we disarticulate and relocate our teaching and research through a/r/tography. A/r/tography is a type of practice-based research involving the arts and education. Like Gouzouasis et al. (2013), we believe that "arts-based research adds to the diversity and complexity inherent in understandings about education and pedagogy" (p. 1). Our exploration of a/r/tography has been enacted through traditional scholarly inquiry approaches combined with arts-based research methods and pedagogy, specifically visual journaling. In our cluster, we seek to broaden repertoires of praxis to promote creative, inclusive, and equitable learning cultures in higher education that incorporate arts-based practices

Strain Heterogeneity in the Anterior Cruciate Ligament and Constitutive Modeling with Full-Field Methods

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury rates are rising, particularly for women and young people. These injuries are debilitative; they typically require surgical reconstruction and lead to osteoarthritis within ten years. Still, there is little consensus about what puts someone at risk for an ACL injury, and this knowledge is critical to the development of injury prevention strategies. Finite element models provide an effective platform for systemically determining the effect of proposed injury risk factors on ACL strain concentrations, and thus, determining whether they predispose an individual to injury. However, the accuracy of a finite element model relies on the accuracy of the material models used in its construction. Initially, I examined how the shape of the ligament-bone attachment (enthesis) might affect injury risk. Two factors were found to increase effective strain concentrations: more acute attachment angles and more concave enthesis shapes, both of which are more common in women. However, I also discovered that enthesis shape significantly affects the macroscopic (global) mechanical response of the model ligament. As such, I concluded that enthesis geometry (and the deformation heterogeneity it creates) would need to be considered in the construction of material models. I also explored the effect of collagen fiber splay (material direction heterogeneity) on the macroscopic mechanical response of the ACL bundles and the patellar tendon (PT), a commonly used graft for ACL reconstruction. Using analytical, computational, and experimental approaches, results clearly demonstrate that splay geometry significantly affects the macroscopic mechanical response of ligaments. Since material properties are, by definition, independent of geometry, this indicates fiber splay is a structural property that prevents the identification of true material properties with standard modeling techniques. Hence, in the finale of this work, I used displacement-encoded magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure full-volume deformation fields of the ovine PT and both ACL bundles under tension. I then employed the virtual fields method (VFM) -- a full-field inverse method -- to calibrate material models with this data, accounting for strain heterogeneity, material direction heterogeneity (fiber splay), and enthesis shape. Most constitutive parameters were consistent among all specimen groups, demonstrating the universality of ligament material constituents. A material parameter describing the degree of anisotropy, or collagen fiber alignment, however, showed statistically significant differences between groups. It indicated that collagen fibers in the anteromedial (AM) bundle of the ACL were significantly more aligned than those in the posterolateral (PL), which is congruent with optical measurements. My work demonstrates that (when strain heterogeneity and structural properties are accounted for) ligament material microstructure is detectable with measures of mechanical function.PHDMechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155271/1/cmluetke_1.pd