Is the System Flawed? Legal Ramifications of the Bowl Championship Series and Conference Alignment

Vice Chancellor Williams: Let me start -this is really a discussion, or a panel that deals with the BCS and conference alignment. So why don\u27t we just jump right in it, and I think the first question that I would like to ask is --we\u27ll throw it up, really I think I\u27d like to go to both Mike and Gary on this --why are we seeing all the movement around of the schools from conference to conference? What is this all about? Gary Roberts: That\u27s 95% of it. It is schools trying to reposition themselves better in their industry, which is largely driven by an effort to increase your revenues. Boston College and Miami and Virginia Tech thought they were in a better position, for a variety of reasons, to make more money in the Atlantic Coast Conference; the Atlantic Coast Conference thought it, as a conference --because it could now have a football championship --was certainly strengthened by those schools, so it can make more money. That sort of left the Big East hanging out there to dry, so they went after schools from the next conference down on the food chain, which was our Conference USA, and they picked off Louisville and Cincinnati and South Florida; those schools wanted to go to the Big East because it\u27s a BCS conference and Conference USA isn\u27t --money. So there are some realignments that I think are to some extent driven by --at least in part --some other factors --natural rivalries and what have you. I\u27m still trying to figure out why TCU went to the Mountain West, that\u27s just a total mystery to me. So some of these movements are not explainable solely on the basis of money, but most of them are just a desire to position yourself to increase your revenues

A comparison of walk-in counselling and the wait list model for delivering counselling services

Background: Walk-in counselling has been used to reduce wait times but there are few controlled studies to compare outcomes between walk-in and the traditional model of service delivery. Aims: To compare change in psychological distress by clients receiving services from two models of service delivery, a walk-in counselling model and a traditional counselling model involving a wait list Method: Mixed methods sequential explanatory design including quantitative comparison of groups with one pre-test and two follow ups, and qualitative analysis of interviews with a subsample. 524 participants 16 years and older were recruited from two Family Counselling Agencies; the General Health Questionnaire assessed change in psychological distress; prior use of other mental health and instrumental services was also reported. Results: Hierarchical linear modelling revealed clients of the walk-in model improved faster and were less distressed at the 4-week follow-up compared to the traditional service delivery model. At the 10-week follow-up, both groups had improved and were similar. Participants receiving instrumental services prior to baseline improved more slowly. Qualitative interviews confirmed participants valued the accessibility of the walk-in model. Conclusions: This study improves methodologically on previous studies of walk-in counselling, an approach to service delivery that is not conducive to randomized controlled trials

A framework of single-session problem solving in elite sport: A longitudinal multi-study investigation

In this six-year, multi-study paper we summarize a new and effective framework of single-session problem-solving developed in an elite sport context at a world leading national institute of sport science and medicine (English Institute of Sport: EIS). In Study 1, we used ethnography (3.5 years) to observe how single-session problem-solving methods were being considered, explored, introduced and developed within the EIS. In Study 2, we used case-study methods split into two parts. A multiple case-study design (10 cases) was employed in Part one to evaluate how the approach was refined into an effective framework of practice. An individual case-study is then illustrated to detail the framework in-action. Collectively, findings realized a framework of single-session problem-solving for use both inside and outside of elite sport that focused on ways to reframe clients’ problems into more ‘solvable’ descriptions. Guidance for psychologists wishing to integrate these problem-solving techniques into their practice are offered

Dutch Painting

24 p.; 32 cm