Measuring Success One Student At A Time

This presentation describes Murray State University\u27s proactive efforts to enhance African¬-American students\u27 preparation, recruitment/retention and graduation. Strategies utilized to create and maintain a positive/hospitable campus environment will be delineated. It is our campus-wide responsibility to nurture each student with personalized contact and carefully selected services to engender degree persistence

Systematic review and meta-analysis of effects of community-delivered positive youth development interventions on violence outcomes

Background We systematically reviewed and meta-analysed evaluations testing the effectiveness of positive youth development (PYD) interventions for reducing violence in young people. Methods Two reviewers working independently screened records, assessed full-text studies for inclusion and extracted data. Outcomes were transformed to Cohen's d. Quality assessment of included evaluations was undertaken using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Effect sizes were combined using multilevel meta-analysis. We searched 21 databases, including MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL and CENTRAL, and hand-searched key journals and websites. We included studies where the majority of participants were aged 11–18 years and where interventions were delivered in community (not clinical or judicial) settings outside of normal school hours. We excluded studies targeting predefined physical and mental health conditions or parents/carers alongside young people. We defined violence as perpetration or victimisation of physical violence including violent crime. Results Three randomised trials were included in this systematic review. Included evaluations each had design flaws. Meta-analyses suggested that PYD interventions did not have a statistically significant effect on violence outcomes across all time points (d=0.021, 95% CI −0.050 to 0.093), though interventions did have a statistically significant short-term effect (d=0.076, 95% CI 0.013 to 0.140). Conclusions Our meta-analyses do not offer evidence of PYD interventions in general having effects of public health significance in reducing violence among young people. Evaluations did not consistently report theories of change or implementation fidelity, so it is unclear if our meta-analyses provide evidence that the PYD theory of change is ineffective in reducing violence among young people

Keeping the Board in the Dark: CEO Compensation and Entrenchment

We study a model in which a CEO can entrench himself by hiding information from the board that would allow the board to conclude that he should be replaced. Assuming that even diligent monitoring by the board cannot fully overcome the information asymmetry visà- vis the CEO, we ask if there is a role for CEO compensation to mitigate the inefficiency. Our analysis points to a novel argument for high-powered, non-linear CEO compensation such as bonus pay or stock options. By shifting the CEO’s compensation into states where the firm’s value is highest, a high-powered compensation scheme makes it as unattractive as possible for the CEO to entrench himself when he expects that the firm’s future value under his management and strategy is low. This, in turn, minimizes the severance pay needed to induce the CEO not to entrench himself, thereby minimizing the CEO’s informational rents. Amongst other things, our model suggests how deregulation and technological changes in the 1980s and 1990s might have contributed to the rise in CEO pay and turnover over the same period

The ties that bind: distinction, recognition and the relational

<p>The ‘relational’ as a theoretical category has a strong history in sociology, no more so than in the work of Pierre Bourdieu. His well-known assertion that the ‘real is relational’ is evident in his emphasis on distinction as a crucial mechanism of social reproduction, a mechanism that illuminates the relational aspects of class and the ways in which social classes are active in their own classification. Given that class is arguably a relational concept par excellence, what Bourdieu has done to a large extent is deliver on the promise of class as a concept; he has put the ‘classifying’ into class.</p> <p>What has not yet been done successfully, however, is the same for Bourdieu – to deliver on the promise of his avowed relational constructs, and explore in more detailed ways the importance of relations and relationships to people’s class trajectories. The current paper argues that, for such a task to be fulfilled, it requires a shift of emphasis away from vertical forms of relation, to more ‘horizontal’ forms. In effect, it requires the fleshing out of Bourdieu’s latent intersubjective analysis of social and cultural life. One way of expanding this relational geography can be found in the work of Axel Honneth and his emphasis on intersubjective recognition as the basis of social interaction. The purpose of the current paper is to explore this interplay between notions of recognition and distinction, and identify implications for, in particular, debates over agency and ambivalent class identities.</p&gt

Prevalence, profiles and policy: a case study of drug use in north inner city Dublin.

Research for this project was carried out by the Isis Research Group in the Centre for Womenís Studies, Trinity College, Dublin, in partnership with the Inter-Agency Drugs Project/North Inner City Drugs Task Force. The project was funded by Enterprise Ireland (Science and Technology Against Drugs Programme) and the Combat Poverty Agency. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected over a 10-month period on the prevalence of heroin use and the experiences of heroin users. After describing the background to the study, the report detailed the findings of the prevalence survey, including patterns of use found amongst clients of drug treatment agencies, multiple users and waiting lists, and data from the street survey. Profiles of heroin users are presented, including information on the social settings of heroin use, supply issues, experiences of seeking treatment, treatment needs, and prevention. Case studies of two heroin users are presented. The report concluded with a discussion of research and policy perspectives on the heroin problem

Allaqi Project Working Papers No.4

Allaqi Research Grou

Towards a drugs service development plan for Bray: report for the Bray Drugs Working Group.

This report deals with the issue of service provision in response to illegal drug use in Bray. The report identifies deficiencies in rehabilitation programmes, suitable premises for youth counselling etc., needle exchanges, information services, counselling services, youth workers and sport and leisure activities. The profile of the young people using drugs in Bray is mixed in terms of class, gender, educational attainment and family background. The long-term challenges that were identified in the report can only be met within a well-resourced set of structures that knit together the expertise and knowledge of the community as well as the statutory agencies. These should come into play as the primary source for understanding local needs and the impact, successful or otherwise of programmes which are put in place. The researchers recommend that a process involving all of the above be started which would lead to the development of a coherent, integrated and holistic drugs service plan for Bray