Skills-Based Volunteering as Both Work and Not Work: A Tension-Centered Examination of Constructions of “Volunteer”

The Corporation for National and Community Service defines professional skills-based community service as “the practice of using work-related knowledge and expertise in a volunteer opportunity.” Traditional definitions of volunteer work in organizational communication scholarship, however, are typically based on (1) the bifurcation between work and volunteer activity; (2) low barriers to volunteer entry and exit; (3) the lack of managerial power/control over volunteers; and (4) the altruistic focus of volunteer work. An analysis of interviews with 19 skills-based volunteers highlights the identity and role tensions inherent in professional volunteering and serves as the basis for a proposal for a new way to visualize volunteering characterized by spectrums of tension rather than by the traditional lens of “not work.

Refugees in the news: A representative anecdote of identification/division in refugee media coverage

A refugee worker conflict at the JBS Swift plant in Grand Island, Nebraska serves as a representative anecdote of the dominant media discourses about refugees in the United States. This study adopts a critical cultural perspective and applies Burke’s (1969) concepts of identification and division to the ways in which refugees are described in comparison to other immigrants in the media coverage of the conflict. These identifications and divisions generate ideologically powerful official roles for refugees in American society. This study finds that refugees, especially refugees who are also Muslim, are defined in the media coverage of the Grand Island conflict as the ‘least preferred immigrant’ because of their perceived distance from the ideal American immigration myth

Negotiating knowledges and expertise in refugee resettlement organizations

Interviews with both refugees and organizational staff in two nonprofit refugee resettlement organizations in the United States reveal the ways in which knowledge(s) and expertise are crafted, threatened, and understood in refugee organizations. Refugee-participants described the need for knowledgeable communication, barriers to the communication of knowledge, and processes of negotiating whose expertise is involved. Organizational staff participants described the duty of communicating expert knowledge, the limits of knowledge as expertise, and alternative communications of expertise. These tensions surrounding “knowing” in refugee resettlement organizations highlights the need for a more complex theoretical understanding of the processes of knowing present in refugee resettlement. These tensions also suggest areas in which refugee resettlement agencies and other nonprofit staff can make on-the-ground changes to better facilitate refugee resettlement processes

Community Partners’ Assessment of Service Learning in an Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Course

This assessment explored community partners’ perceptions of service learning in a required communication course. Semi-structured interviews revealed that community partners believed that students were providing needed and valuable service, students were learning about the community and students were learning through their application of course skills in an applied context. However, community partners also felt that students were unaware of or did not care what they should be learning, that faculty contact was rare or nonexistent and that community feedback opportunities were rare and undervalued by faculty. Results suggest specific improvements necessary in service learning assignment design

Accelerated Forgetting in People with Epilepsy: Pathologic Memory Loss, Its Neural Basis, and Potential Therapies

While forgetting is vital to human functioning, delineating between normative and disordered forgetting can become incredibly complex. This thesis characterizes a pathologic form of forgetting in epilepsy, identifies a neural basis, and investigates the potential of stimulation as a therapeutic tool. Chapter 2 presents a behavioral characterization of the time course of Accelerated Long-Term Forgetting (ALF) in people with epilepsy (PWE). This chapter shows evidence of ALF on a shorter time scale than previous studies, with a differential impact on recall and recognition. Chapter 3 builds upon the work in Chapter 2 by extending ALF time points and investigating the role of interictal epileptiform activity (IEA) in ALF. These findings lend support for distinct forgetting patterns between recall and recognition memory. We also demonstrate the contribution of hippocampal IEA during slow-wave sleep to this aberrant forgetting. Chapter 4 investigates the potential of intracranial stimulation to ameliorate IEA burden. Our findings suggest that stimulation does not appear to have a direct effect on IEA rate. Further studies are necessary to explore the potential of stimulation as a therapeutic tool outside of seizure cessation. Overall, this thesis provides further evidence and classification of long-term memory impairment in epilepsy and identifies a neural correlate that can be targeted for future clinical intervention

Cooperative Struggle: Re-framing Intercultural Conflict in the Management of Sino-American Joint Ventures

Sino-American economic joint ventures are most often studied through a lens of technical rationality that typically emphasizes organizational efficiency, reduces culture to a manageable resource, and views conflict as discrete disruptions requiring efficient handling. Here, we conceptualize Sino-American business partnerships as sites of struggle where co-managers\u27 accounts of intercultural disagreements reveal friction around action, voice, interests, and identity. We propose cooperative struggle as a critical management practice for working creatively with the multiple forms of difference that arise in this organizational form

Cooperative Struggle: Re-framing Intercultural Conflict in the Management of Sino-American Joint Ventures

Sino-American economic joint ventures are most often studied through a lens of technical rationality that typically emphasizes organizational efficiency, reduces culture to a manageable resource, and views conflict as discrete disruptions requiring efficient handling. Here, we conceptualize Sino-American business partnerships as sites of struggle where co-managers\u27 accounts of intercultural disagreements reveal friction around action, voice, interests, and identity. We propose cooperative struggle as a critical management practice for working creatively with the multiple forms of difference that arise in this organizational form

Musical components important for the Mozart K448 effect in epilepsy

There is growing evidence for the efficacy of music, specifically Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K448), at reducing ictal and interictal epileptiform activity. Nonetheless, little is known about the mechanism underlying this beneficial “Mozart K448 effect” for persons with epilepsy. Here, we measured the influence that K448 had on intracranial interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) in sixteen subjects undergoing intracranial monitoring for refractory focal epilepsy. We found reduced IEDs during the original version of K448 after at least 30-s of exposure. Nonsignificant IED rate reductions were witnessed in all brain regions apart from the bilateral frontal cortices, where we observed increased frontal theta power during transitions from prolonged musical segments. All other presented musical stimuli were associated with nonsignificant IED alterations. These results suggest that the “Mozart K448 effect” is dependent on the duration of exposure and may preferentially modulate activity in frontal emotional networks, providing insight into the mechanism underlying this response. Our findings encourage the continued evaluation of Mozart’s K448 as a noninvasive, non-pharmacological intervention for refractory epilepsy

Negotiating knowledges and expertise in refugee resettlement organizations

Interviews with both refugees and organizational staff in two nonprofit refugee resettlement organizations in the United States reveal the ways in which knowledge(s) and expertise are crafted, threatened, and understood in refugee organizations. Refugee-participants described the need for knowledgeable communication, barriers to the communication of knowledge, and processes of negotiating whose expertise is involved. Organizational staff participants described the duty of communicating expert knowledge, the limits of knowledge as expertise, and alternative communications of expertise. These tensions surrounding “knowing” in refugee resettlement organizations highlights the need for a more complex theoretical understanding of the processes of knowing present in refugee resettlement. These tensions also suggest areas in which refugee resettlement agencies and other nonprofit staff can make on-the-ground changes to better facilitate refugee resettlement processes