Revisiting the Promise and Foundations of a Jesuit Education

Offering a Jesuit education requires much from the faculty and staff at a Jesuit university. While there is wide agreement with Jesuit Superior General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach’s observation that our particular education should be measured by who our students become, faculty and staff need a fundamental understanding of the roots and intentions of Jesuit education to truly begin to fulfill that promise of a Jesuit education.1 This article shares the reflective practice of five colleagues working in different roles at a Jesuit university, seeking to better re-examine their understanding of the foundations of Jesuit education, including special attention to the history, contextual meaning, and analysis of the six Catholic, Jesuit values that we uphold at Regis University: contemplatives in action, finding God in all things, men and women for and with others, the magis, cura personalis, and unity of heart and mind

Educating Pharmacy Students to Improve Quality (EPIQ) in Colleges and Schools of Pharmacy

Objective. To assess course instructors’ and students’ perceptions of the Educating Pharmacy Students and Pharmacists to Improve Quality (EPIQ) curriculum. Methods. Seven colleges and schools of pharmacy that were using the EPIQ program in their curricula agreed to participate in the study. Five of the 7 collected student retrospective pre- and post-intervention questionnaires. Changes in students’ perceptions were evaluated to assess their relationships with demographics and course variables. Instructors who implemented the EPIQ program at each of the 7 colleges and schools were also asked to complete a questionnaire. Results. Scores on all questionnaire items indicated improvement in students’ perceived knowledge of quality improvement. The university the students attended, completion of a class project, and length of coverage of material were significantly related to improvement in the students’ scores. Instructors at all colleges and schools felt the EPIQ curriculum was a strong program that fulfilled the criteria for quality improvement and medication error reduction education. Conclusion. The EPIQ program is a viable, turnkey option for colleges and schools of pharmacy to use in teaching students about quality improvement

Internal hydraulic flows on the continental shelf: High drag states over a small bank

Observations of currents, hydrography, and turbulence provide unambiguous evidence for hydraulic control of flow over an isolated three-dimensional topographic feature on Oregon’s continental shelf. The flow becomes critical at the crest of the bank, forming a strong supercritical downslope flow in the lower layer. Farther downstream, internal hydraulic jumps form as the bottom flow becomes subcritical. As a consequence, turbulence is greatly enhanced in the bottom boundary layer, in the sheared interface above the swiftly flowing bottom current, and in the internal hydraulic jump. The dissipation rate of turbulent energy is consistent with the mean energy removal rate for a hydraulic jump in an idealized two-layer flow. This enhanced turbulence constitutes a “high drag” state of the flow in which the form drag introduced by the topography exerts significant influences on the flow around it and mixing is increased 10² - 10³ times the background values

Are We Fulfilling the Promise of a Jesuit Education? A Group of Educators’ Reflective Examen

Higher education is often faced with external pressures that can guide the practice and offerings of colleges and universities. Graduate professional education in the health professions is especially prone to accreditation standards and its associated professional movements. At a Jesuit university, these external pressures, along with public pressure for job-ready graduates, must be intertwined with the history and the promise of a Jesuit education — that of transformation. As educators at a Jesuit university, our roles involve more than offering this kind of education. Our responsibility is to revisit what this promise means as a way of examining our practice. This article shares the reflective practice of five colleagues working in different roles at a Jesuit university seeking answers to questions of whether they are delivering on the promise of Jesuit education. The article includes a guiding set of questions, a short reflection on each author’s experience, and a review of the external and internal influences on their programs, providing a guide for a type of practice Examen that can be used by any faculty or staff member

Microstructure estimates of turbulent salinity flux and the dissipation spectrum of salinity

Direct determination of the irreversible turbulent flux of salinity in the ocean has not been possible because of the complexity of measuring salinity on the smallest scales over which it mixes. Presented is an analysis of turbulent salinity microstructure from measurements using a combined fast-conductivity/temperature probe on a slowly falling vertical microstructure profiler. Four hundred patches of ocean turbulence were selected for the analysis. Highly resolved spectra of salinity gradient Ψ[subscript]Sz exhibit an approximate k⁺¹ dependence in the viscous–convective subrange, followed by a roll-off in the viscous–diffusive subrange, as suggested by Batchelor, and permit the dissipation rate of salinity variance χ[subscript]S to be determined. Estimates of irreversible salinity flux from measurements of the dissipation scales (from χ[subscript]S, following Osborn and Cox) are compared to those from the correlation method (), from TKE dissipation measurements (following Osborn), and to the turbulent heat flux. It is found that the ratio of haline to thermal turbulent diffusivities, d[subscript]x = K[subscript]S/K[subscript]T = χ[subscript]S/χ[subscript]T[superscript](dT/dS)² is 0.6 < dx < 1.1

What do students want most from written feedback information? Distinguishing necessities from luxuries using a budgeting methodology

Feedback is a key concern for higher education practitioners, yet there is little evidence concerning the aspects of assessment feedback information that higher education students prioritise when their lecturers’ time and resources are stretched. One recent study found that in such circumstances, students actually perceive feedback information itself as a luxury rather than a necessity. We first re-examined that finding by asking undergraduates to ‘purchase’ characteristics to create the ideal lecturer, using budgets of differing sizes to distinguish necessities from luxuries. Contrary to the earlier research, students in fact considered good feedback information the single biggest necessity for lecturers to demonstrate. In a second study we used the same method to examine the characteristics of feedback information that students value most. Here, the most important perceived necessity was guidance on improvement of skills. In both studies, students’ priorities were influenced by their individual approaches to learning. These findings permit a more pragmatic approach to building student satisfaction in spite of growing expectations and demands

Enhancing structure relaxations for first-principles codes: an approximate Hessian approach

We present a method for improving the speed of geometry relaxation by using a harmonic approximation for the interaction potential between nearest neighbor atoms to construct an initial Hessian estimate. The model is quite robust, and yields approximately a 30% or better reduction in the number of calculations compared to an optimized diagonal initialization. Convergence with this initializer approaches the speed of a converged BFGS Hessian, therefore it is close to the best that can be achieved. Hessian preconditioning is discussed, and it is found that a compromise between an average condition number and a narrow distribution in eigenvalues produces the best optimization.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, added references, expanded optimization sectio

The SED Machine: a robotic spectrograph for fast transient classification

Current time domain facilities are finding several hundreds of transient astronomical events a year. The discovery rate is expected to increase in the future as soon as new surveys such as the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and the Large Synoptic Sky Survey (LSST) come on line. At the present time, the rate at which transients are classified is approximately one order or magnitude lower than the discovery rate, leading to an increasing "follow-up drought". Existing telescopes with moderate aperture can help address this deficit when equipped with spectrographs optimized for spectral classification. Here, we provide an overview of the design, operations and first results of the Spectral Energy Distribution Machine (SEDM), operating on the Palomar 60-inch telescope (P60). The instrument is optimized for classification and high observing efficiency. It combines a low-resolution (R$\sim$100) integral field unit (IFU) spectrograph with "Rainbow Camera" (RC), a multi-band field acquisition camera which also serves as multi-band (ugri) photometer. The SEDM was commissioned during the operation of the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) and has already proved lived up to its promise. The success of the SEDM demonstrates the value of spectrographs optimized to spectral classification. Introduction of similar spectrographs on existing telescopes will help alleviate the follow-up drought and thereby accelerate the rate of discoveries.Comment: 21 pages, 20 figure

The role of turbulence stress divergence in decelerating a river plume

Turbulence controls the composition of river plumes through mixing and alters the plume's trajectory by diffusing its momentum. While believed to play a crucial role in decelerating river-source waters, the turbulence stress in a near-field river plume has not previously been observationally quantified. In this study, finely resolved density, velocity, and turbulence observations are combined with a control-volume technique to describe the momentum balance in the Columbia River's near-field plume during 10 tidal cycles that encompass both large and small river flow. Turbulence stress varies by 2–3 orders of magnitude, both within a given ebb and between ebbs with different tidal or river forcing; its magnitude scales with the strength of the instantaneous ebb outflow, i.e., high stresses occur during peak flow of strong ebbs. During these periods, the momentum equation is represented by a balance between stress divergence and plume deceleration. As the flow relaxes, the stress divergence weakens and other terms (pressure gradient and Coriolis) may become appreciable and influence plume deceleration. While the momentum balance could not be closed during these weaker flow periods, during strong tidal pulses the time scale for decay based on observed stress is significantly less than a tidal half-period, indicating that stress divergence plays a fundamental role in the initial deceleration of the plume

Small-Scale Processes in the Coastal Ocean

Varied observations over Oregon’s continental shelf illustrate the beauty and complexity of geophysical flows in coastal waters. Rapid, creative, and sometimes fortuitous sampling from ships and moorings has allowed detailed looks at boundary layer processes, internal waves (some extremely nonlinear), and coastal currents, including how they interact. These processes drive turbulence and mixing in shallow coastal waters and encourage rapid biological responses, yet are poorly understood and parameterized. The work presented here represents examples of efforts by many physical oceanographers to quantify small-scale, coastal-mixing processes so that their effects might be included in regional circulation models