#MeToo as Catalyst: A Glimpse into 21st Century Activism

The Twitter hashtag #MeToo has provided an accessible medium for users to share their personal experiences and make public the prevalence of sexual harassment, assault, and violence against women. This online phenomenon, which has largely involved posting on Twitter and “retweeting” to share other’s posts has revealed crucial information about the scope and nature of sexual harassment and misconduct. More specifically, social media has served as a central forum for this unprecedented global conversation, where previously silenced voices have been amplified, supporters around the world have been united, and resistance has gained steam. This Essay discusses the #MeToo movement within the broader context of social media activism, explaining how this unique form of collective action is rapidly evolving. We offer empirical insights into the types of conversations taking place under the hashtag and the extent to which the movement is leading to broader social change. While it is unclear which changes are sustainable over time, it is clear that the hashtag #MeToo has converted an online phenomenon into tangible change, sparking legal, political, and social changes in the short run. This Essay provides data to illustrate some of these changes, which demonstrate how posting online can serve as an impetus, momentum, and legitimacy for broader movement activity and changes offline more characteristic of traditional movement strategies

Embedding Universal Design for Learning in HECA Colleges. An exploratory study.

The Higher Education Colleges Association, through its Academic Quality Enhancement Forum, recently conducted an exploratory study demonstrating that since the pandemic, universal design for learning (UDL) has shifted from an ad hoc enhancement activity to a key strategic imperative across HECA colleges. This article describes the findings of that study, showing how UDL has advanced from piecemeal and niche activity to be increasingly a strategic priorit

Inspiring and incentivising professional development at CCT College Dublin: a multi-pronged approach

This presentation looks at the attributes of professional development delivery at CCT. it also explores professional development initiatives that CCT contributes at a national level. Coverage of the conference can be accessed on Twitter at #modelsofsuccess. Slides of the conference can be viewed here.https://arc.cct.ie/fac_presentations/1000/thumbnail.jp

Student-Centred Enhancements to Programme Delivery at CCT College Dublin

In February 2020, CCT College Dublin convened the Monitoring and Review Team (MRT), to identify risk and mitigating actions required to ensure the continuity of programme delivery and supports to learners during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the event of potential campus closure. The team investigated good practice in online teaching, learning and assessment, regulatory frameworks and practices, technology supports, and human resources required to proactively support any potential shift to online delivery and supports. A peer consultation was also conducted with online teaching and learning experts across the sector (CCT College Dublin, 2020). Maintenance of academic standards and integrity were central to the project. The CCT Academic Council was responsible for the review and approval of contingency arrangements in respect of teaching, learning and assessment. This poster captures three key enhancements that the College implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic but retained post pandemic to further enhance programme delivery going forward.https://arc.cct.ie/poster_presentations/1002/thumbnail.jp

Design and characterization of a research electrohydraulic lithotripter patterned after the Dornier HM3

An electrohydraulic lithotripter has been designed that mimics the behavior of the Dornier HM3 extracorporeal shock wave lithotripter. The key mechanical and electrical properties of a clinical HM3 were measured and a design implemented to replicate these parameters. Three research lithotripters have been constructed on this design and are being used in a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary research program to determine the physical mechanisms of stone fragmentation and tissue damage in shock wave lithotripsy. The acoustic fields of the three research lithotripters and of two clinical Dornier HM3 lithotripters were measured with a PVDF membrane hydrophone. The peak positive pressure, peak negative pressure, pulse duration, and shock rise time of the focal waveforms were compared. Peak positive pressures varied from 25 MPa at a voltage setting of 12 kV to 40 MPa at 24 kV. The magnitude of the peak negative pressure varied from -7 to -12 MPa over the same voltage range. The spatial variations of the peak positive pressure and peak negative pressure were also compared. The focal region, as defined by the full width half maximum of the peak positive pressure, was 60 mm long in the axial direction and 10 mm wide in the lateral direction. The performance of the research lithotripters was found to be consistent at clinical firing rates (up to 3 Hz). The results indicated that pressure fields in the research lithotripters are equivalent to those generated by a clinical HM3 lithotripter

#BlackLivesMatter—Getting from Contemporary Social Movements to Structural Change

From the haters and hackers to propaganda and privacy concerns, social media often deserves its bad reputation. But the sustained activism that followed George Floyd’s death and the ongoing movement for racial justice also demonstrated how social media can be a crucial mechanism of social change. We saw how online and on-the-ground activism can fuel each other and build momentum in ways neither can achieve in isolation. We have seen in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and more specifically the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, a new and powerful approach to using social media that goes beyond symbolic “slacktivism” and performative allyship to mobilizing people for social and cultural change. In this essay, we use empirical data to support a new theoretical model that illustrates how contemporary movements can use social media to build awareness, educate, and most importantly, promote the kinds of offline action that can lead to deeper structural change. In this case, BLM effectively leveraged social media to fuel and facilitate mass protests and broaden social awareness. In 2020-21, we have seen this begin to inspire deeper social, cultural, and legal change, in ways that previously felt like distant hope

#BlackLivesMatter: From Protest to Policy

In summer 2020, mass protests spread across the globe challenging police brutality and racial injustice and demanding change. Fueled by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd, these protests drew 15 million to 26 million participants in the United States alone to participate in late May and June of 2020. The sheer scale of these protests made them the largest movement in U.S. history. While there has been some consensus that this unprecedented protest movement pushed social awareness and changed the national conversation around race, existing research has yet to clearly document the extent to which it affected law and policy on the federal, state, and local levels. We begin to fill this gap by documenting the correlation between the online and offline protest activity, and showing the relationship between the location and intensity of protest activity and the initial wave of legal and policy change. In this Article, we use Twitter conversation and protest data to show how BLM fueled global protests that changed minds, hearts, and the baseline understanding of inequality in ways that could also ultimately drive legal and policy change. We then focus on the relationship between protest and activism in the summer of 2020 and legal and policy changes occurring across states and cities over the following year. We find that the protests of 2020 did indeed begin a paradigm shift in the social awareness of racialized police violence, and this important and significant social change has in turn already inspired political change and some degree of legal and policy change. However, the movement remains in a precarious position and it is uncertain how enduring these state and local policy changes will be and whether they will lead to the deeper and lasting structural changes sought by the movement. We are also observing substantial backlash policy that threatens to not only derail current racial justice efforts, but also exacerbate the underlying inequalities that the movement opposes. In Part I, we offer an analysis of the 2020 protests, including the critical role of social media in building the protests themselves as well as the policy demands that the protests helped to broadcast. In Part II, we assess the policy activity occurring within the first year following this historic level of activism in the United States, looking specifically at where and when legislators responded to three different kinds of movement demands: individual accountability, institutional changes, and broader systemic reform

Applying Cognitive Processing Therapy to Posttraumatic Stress Disorders Syndrome among Internally Displaced Youth Victims of Terrorism in Nigeria

The main concern of this research was to identify those who were experiencing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Syndrome after Boko Haran terror attacks and to employ Cognitive Processing Therapy strategy in minimising or preventing probable long-term psychological distress Four 4 practicing counselling psychologists were involved Traumatic Screening Questionnaire TSQ and Checklist- Civilian Version PCT-C were pilot-tested and used for the research Descriptive survey design was used Purposive and Stratified random samplings were used to select the youths Cognitive Process Therapy treatment model - Civilian Version PCL-C was applied Total sample population was 76 Findings showed that after undergone Cognitive Processing Therapy a total population of 57 75 of the respondents experienced little to no severity PTSD while 19 25 of respondents experienced moderate to moderately of PTS

Keeping Feet Dry: Rotterdam’s Experience in Flood Risk and Resilience Building

Rotterdam City in the South of Holland is one of the most vibrant cities you will find in the Netherlands. The city has gone through a transformation from the time it was bombed in the 1940s up to the time that a part of the city was flooded in 1953. Through extensive rebuilding and the Delta Plan project, the city has been well protected against any flooding disaster that may come. However, how resilient really is Rotterdam? Through in-depth interviews of key stakeholders in the City of Rotterdam, the study investigates the collective engagement in the city and how this has helped shape Rotterdam’s position in urban resilience. The study used the Collective Engagement Urban Resilience Framework as a framework to understand how disaster prone cities transform itself to become disaster resilient