Mental Health Among Elderly Native Americans

Providing mental health services to the elderly generally and particularly to elderly Native Americans has been an issue of some concern for the last several decades. Despite this rise in concern for the mental health of elderly Americans, however, the fact remains that public decisions are made based on inadequate data. As Birren and Renner state: A major problem has been that our knowledge of the mental health problems and the frequency of psychiatric disturbances in the elderly has a weak information base. When on turns to minority elderly in general and elderly Native Americans in particular, the data base virtually disappears. In fact, the survey upon which much of this study rests represents the first research effort ever undertaken to document the conditions of life of older Native American and Alaskan native people nationwide. Because of this lack of data, there has been little research devoted to determining the factors associated with mental health among elderly Native Americans. Instead, the growing body of mental health research has been based on limited samples, primarily of middle-majority Anglos. Thus, the purpose of this research is to utilize existing data to close this gap in our understanding of mental health among elderly Native Americans. Specifically, multiple regression will be employed to describe the relationship between mental health and several theoretically-derived independent variables. Initially, this will involve a determination of whether the same relationships that hold for the dominant population are consistent with data drawn from elderly Native Americans and, if not, what alternative models should be examined. Secondly, the research will attempt to assess the relative importance of the various independent variables on mental health as well as analyze the interrelationships among these independent variables.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1042/thumbnail.jp

Fear and Loathing on the (Capital) Campaign Trail

It has been nearly five years since I wrote Engaging Continuing Education Alumni for this publication and several additional years prior to that since I began talking at various UCEA meetings about the fundraising potential of continuing higher education. During the ensuing period I have been through an institutional capital campaign, helped raise nearly $2.5 million dollars earmarked for school projects, succeeded in making friends and supporters beyond my wildest dreams, and failed miserably in accomplishing the fundraising goals established for the school. This article reflects on the lessons learned by a fundraising novice whose school was engaged in an institutional capital campaign for the first time. With apologies to Hunter Thompson, fear (unfounded) and loathing (unproductive) were but two of the many emotions stirred during this process

Engaging Continuing Education Alumni

An effective alumni relations program is the heart of all fundraising efforts. Every college campus in America has an office of alumni affairs. Today, active and engaged alumni create chapters across the country, contribute financially to both annual fund drives and capital campaigns, and generally serve their alma mater in numerous volunteer capacities. However, continuing education programs, both credit and noncredit, have historically existed on the periphery of traditional alumni groups or have been excluded from alumni activities altogether

The More Things Change: Reflections on the State of Marketing in Continuing Higher Education

All of us can readily identify the major changes that have occurred in society over the past several decades and, more important, the manner in which these changes have affected the way we conduct the business of continuing higher education. For example, the telephone has been replaced by e-mail, which is now the most prevalent way we communicate with each other in the workplace. Social media and the web now dominate how we market our programs and communicate with our various constituencies. Instruction, once delivered primarily face-to-face in a classroom setting, is now routinely delivered utilizing various digitally mediated formats, with online and blended learning models now accounting for a significant share of delivery. This list could go on indefinitely, and these few examples only scratch the surface of the changes that have occurred

A Business Curriculum for the Commonwealth of Independent States

Eastern Europe and the former states of the Soviet Union have undergone and continue to undergo a period of dramatic transformation from centralized economies to free market systems. This has involved a shift from public to private ownership for many large state enterprises, and it has also involved the development and launch of many new business ventures. Privatization as it is called, has created a demand for American style business education, capabilities, and experiences

Intergenerational Learning: Beyond the Jargon

Opportunities for intergenerational learning abound on college campuses. The advantages of these experiences for both young and mature learners are well documented, particularly in the context of service learning, civic engagement, and other experiences outside the classroom. Less well documented but no less compelling are the advantages of intergenerational learning within the traditional classroom setting. At the University of Richmond, our vision of intergenerational learning is one where adult students share the college classroom with traditional-aged students, and cross-school collaboration is a central tenet of the learning experience for all students. What follows is a presentation of why we are making it part of our institutional strategy, and some of the challenges we foresee in our efforts to create a meaningful and unique learning environment

The Bravest of the Brave : A Conversation with Mary Bitterman and James Narduzzi

Mary Bitterman, former President and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation, is President of The Bernard Osher Foundation and Immediate Past Chairman of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). James Narduzzi is Dean of the University of Richmond\u27s School of Continuing Studies. The following discussion is based on Dr. Bitterman\u27s 2008 commencement address to graduates of the University of Richmond\u27s School of Continuing Studies

Kuwait Special Educators Program

The United States has long been recognized as a world leader in responding to the developmental needs of individuals with mental retar­dation (Rowitz, 1989). Particular strengths exist in the educational arena, both in traditional settings as well as in the vocational area (Glidden & Zetlin, 1992; Clark & Kolstoe, 1990; Wehmen, 1990; Schlack, McGaughey, & Kiernan, 1989). Because of these strengths, an increasing number of inter­national groups are seeking training opportunities to study these practices. In July 1992, the Cultural Attache at the Embassy of Kuwait in Washington, D.C. issued a request for proposals directed at special education practices in the United States. At the University of Hartford, the Division of Univer­sity Programs and Conferences responds to international initiatives of this type, usually in collaboration with the Office of International Studies and one or more of the nine schools and colleges that comprise the university. In this instance, a proposal was developed and submitted in collaboration with the School of Education. The Embassy accepted the proposal. What follows is a description of the program with a focus on curriculum and administrative supports. Issues of replicability along with a discussion of the unique challenges of working with this particular clientele will also be addressed

The Asian Studies Consortium: An Innovative Approach to Study in Japan

Japan\u27s dramatic re-emergence as a world power in the \u2780s led a num­ber of U.S. colleges and universities to incorporate courses on Japanese history, politics, culture, management practices and language into their curricula. Simultaneously, there has been a flurry of activity to develop study abroad experiences in Japan to expose American students to Japa­nese culture and language. Chambers and Cummings (1990) document ap­proximately 90 programs involving a U.S. school and a Japanese partner. For a variety of reasons a number of these ambitious ventures have not been entirely successful. One of the major impediments to launching a successful study abroad program in Japan has been the language barrier (Li, 1993). Most U.S. students do not speak Japanese and those who do may not speak it well. A second impediment has been incompatibility of curricula between U.S. and Japanese universities. A third stumbling block has been lack of faculty support and accompanying concern about the degree of academic rigor (Ll, 1993). Finally, financial concerns and constraints have prevented most small colleges and universities from developing programs in Japan

Genomic ancestry estimation quantifies use of wild species in grape breeding

BACKGROUND: Grapes are one of the world’s most valuable crops and most are made into wine. Grapes belong to the genus Vitis, which includes over 60 inter-fertile species. The most common grape cultivars derive their entire ancestry from the species Vitis vinifera, but wild relatives have also been exploited to create hybrid cultivars, often with increased disease resistance. RESULTS: We evaluate the genetic ancestry of some of the most widely grown commercial hybrids from North America and Europe. Using genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS), we generated 2482 SNPs and 56 indels from 7 wild Vitis, 7 V. vinifera, and 64 hybrid cultivars. We used a principal component analysis (PCA) based ancestry estimation procedure and verified its accuracy with both empirical and simulated data. V. vinifera ancestry ranged from 11 % to 76 % across hybrids studied. Approximately one third (22/64) of the hybrids have ancestry estimates consistent with F1 hybridization: they derive half of their ancestry from wild Vitis and half from V. vinifera. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that hybrid grape breeding is in its infancy. The distribution of V. vinifera ancestry across hybrids also suggests that backcrosses to wild Vitis species have been more frequent than backcrosses to V. vinifera during hybrid grape breeding. This pattern is unusual in crop breeding, as it is most common to repeatedly backcross to elite, or domesticated, germplasm. We anticipate our method can be extended to facilitate marker-assisted selection in order to introgress beneficial wild Vitis traits, while allowing for offspring with the highest V. vinifera content to be selected at the seedling stage. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-016-2834-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users