Strategies for Engaging in International Librarianship: Misconceptions and Opportunities

Higher education institutions are increasingly formalizing internationalization priorities into their strategic plans. As a result library and information science (LIS) programs are beginning to encourage the inclusion of more international perspectives in student experiences. One means of doing so is by drawing upon international librarianship (IL), an LIS field of study since the 1950s. However, IL is a relatively small field that is not understood well. In order for IL to be studied, practiced, and funded in ways that are appropriate to its potential, this essay revisits the concept of IL, discusses some of its misconceptions, and advocates for more intentional, reciprocal, and reflective applications. It is also argued that IL praxis should be coupled with critical theorist (or critical librarian) values, in order to achieve the most balanced relationships

Exploring the Changing Teaching Practices and Needs of Business Faculty at Santa Clara University

This report will present the findings and recommendations of a study designed to explore Santa Clara University (SCU) business faculty’s current and emerging undergraduate teaching practices. The study was led locally by researchers in the SCU Library, with parallel studies conducted at fourteen other institutions of higher education in the United States during the 2018-19 academic year. These studies were coordinated at the national level by Ithaka S&R, a not-for-profit research and consulting service that helps academic and cultural communities serve the public good and navigate economic, technological, and demographic change. Ithaka will publish a capstone report of major themes across all fourteen institutions in Winter 2020 and will include recommendations that libraries, universities, and business schools can use to support the changing teaching practices of their business faculty

Equity, markets and the politics of aspiration in Australian higher education

This paper provides a critical discussion of contemporary policy agendas to raise aspirations for university study among students from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. It traces the politics of aspiration from the working class 'poverty of desire' thesis propounded by British socialists at the turn of the twentieth century to recent concerns about the educational aspirations of low SES groups. These concerns are manifest in the current aspiration-raising agenda in Australian higher education, which aims to realise equity objectives by cultivating market-rational behaviour and dispositions to maximise self-investment in human capital. However, changes in contemporary global education and labour markets present significant obstacles to the 'good life' promises made by advocates of human capital theory, and even when these promises are realised, deficit constructions of aspirations persist. The paper identifies a tension in aspiration-raising logics between (1) human capital promises of economic rewards for enterprising behaviour and (2) the policing of aspirations and associated behaviours according to dominant social values

Mobility, aspiration, voice : a new structure of feeling for student equity in higher education

There is a changed ‘structure of feeling’ emerging in higher education systems, particularly in OECD nations, in response to changed social, cultural and economic arrangements. Taking a student equity perspective, the paper names this change in terms of ‘mobility’, ‘aspiration’ and ‘voice’. It argues that (1) new kinds and degrees of mobility are now a significant factor in sustaining unequal access to and experience of higher education for different student groups, (2) despite government and institutional aspirations to expand higher education, students\u27 desires for university are not a given among new target populations and (3) while universities are seeking to enroll different students in greater numbers, the challenge now is how to give greater voice to this difference. Drawing on these themes of mobility, aspiration and voice and taking recent changes to higher education policy in Australia as the case, the paper presents a new conceptual framework for thinking about student equity in HE. The framework extends from established approaches that focus on barriers to accessing higher education in order to focus on people\u27s capacities in relation to higher education participation

Appreciating aspirations in Australian higher education

Aspiration for higher education (HE) is no longer a matter solely for students and their families. With OECD nations seeking to position themselves more competitively in the global knowledge economy, the need for more knowledge workers has led to plans to expand their HE systems to near universal levels. In Australia, this has required the government and institutions to enlist students who traditionally have not seen university as contributing to their imagined and desired futures. However, this paper suggests that failing to appreciate the aspirations of different groups, understood as a collective cultural capacity, casts doubt over the ability of institutions to deliver increased numbers of knowledge workers. Moreover, inciting subscription to the current norms of HE is a weak form of social inclusion. Stronger forms of equity strategy are possible when HE is repositioned as a resource for different groups and communities to access in the pursuit of their aspirations.<br /

IMPACT OF A MORE INTENSIVE INSECT PEST INFESTATION LEVEL ON COTTON PRODUCTION: TEXAS HIGH PLAINS

This study evaluated implications of increased bollworm problems in a 20-county area of the Texas High Plains relative to cotton yields and economic impact. Results did not indicate a serious effect of bollworms upon lint yield when insecticides were used for control. However, estimated annual reduction in farmer profit due to the bollworm for 1979-81 was over $30 million. Yields were estimated to decline about 300,000 bales without insecticide use and about 30,000 bales with insecticide use. This decline suggests potentially serious implications for the comparative economic position of cotton in this region if insecticide resistance were to develop among insect pests.Crop Production/Industries,

PISA for schools: topological rationality and new spaces of the OECD's global educational governance

This article examines the OECD’s new PISA-based Test for Schools (“PISA for Schools”) program. PISA for Schools is part of the expanding education work of the OECD, building upon main PISA to enable school-to-schooling system comparisons. We examine the development of PISA for Schools, the nature of the instrument, and some initial effects of its introduction. Our theoretical framework focuses on new spatialities associated with globalization and the emergence of topological rationalities and heterarchical modes of governance. We analyze 33 interviews with personnel at the OECD and relevant edu-businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and philanthropic foundations. Pertinent documents and web-based media are also analyzed. We suggest that PISA for Schools provides an exemplary demonstration of heterarchical governance, in which vertical policy mechanisms open up horizontal spaces for new policy actors. It also creates commensurate spaces of comparison and governance, enabling the OECD to “reach into” school-level spaces and directly influence local educational practices

Lunar Reference Suite to Support Instrument Development and Testing

Astronauts on long-duration lunar missions will need the capability to "high-grade" their samples - to select the highest value samples for transport to Earth - and to leave others on the Moon. Instruments that may be useful for such high-grading are under development. Instruments are also being developed for possible use on future lunar robotic landers, for lunar field work, and for more sophisticated analyses at a lunar outpost. The Johnson Space Center Astromaterials acquisition and Curation Office (JSC Curation) wll support such instrument testing by providing lunar sample "ground truth"