Sexual Assault Adjudication on Campus: Examining the Underlying Discourses of Title IX

It is estimated that 20% of college women have been victims of sexual assault (Krebs, Lindquist, Warner, Fisher, & Martin, 2009), an alarming rate that drew the attention of the Obama-Biden Administration. During their time in office (January 20, 2009-January 20, 2017), the Administration bolstered institutional requirements to address sexual assault in higher education under Title IX (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2011). Even though addressing campus sexual assault was a stated priority of the (seemingly progressive) Obama-Biden Administration, there was a lack of representation among students with marginalized identities reflected in the national media conversation at the time. The purpose of this Critical Discourse Study was to examine the ideologies underlying sexual assault and its adjudication in higher education. To uncover and examine these ideological discourses, I conducted this study through a poststructural feminist paradigm (Peters & Burbules, 2004; St. Pierre & Pillow, 2000), and applied intersectionality as a theoretical framework (Crenshaw, 1991, 2014). I chose to analyze the ideologies conveyed through print news media because of its ubiquity and relationship to the formation of public opinion. I analyzed 340 print news articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Chronicle of Higher Education that were published during the Obama-Biden Administration (January 20, 2009-January 20, 2017) and identified four ideological findings: (1) violence as the problem and solution, (2) money motivates action, (3) preventing sexual assault is up to everyone, except perpetrators, and (4) the University is its football program. Each of these four underpinning ideologies support social stratification through dynamics of affluent, white, cisheteropatriarchal values and norms being dominant over others. Ultimately, dynamics of power and oppression supported by the rhetoric rely on the same attitudes and beliefs that uphold sexual violence as a social issue. This study is significant to the field of higher education because it provides a critical examination of ideological assumptions surrounding sexual assault adjudication in a contemporary legal and political environment and contributes to the growing body of literature in higher education applying intersectionality as a theoretical framework. Intersectionality can help us understand the complexities of sexual assault and the reproduction of dominance perpetuated through white, cisheteropatriarchal systems such as higher education

Noise-induced energy excitation by a general environment

We analyze the effects that general environments, namely ohmic and non-ohmic, at zero and high temperature induce over a quantum Brownian particle. We state that the evolution of the system can be summarized in terms of two main environmental induced physical phenomena: decoherence and energy activation. In this article we show that the latter is a post-decoherence phenomenon. As the energy is an observable, the excitation process is a direct indication of the system-environment entanglement particularly useful at zero temperature.Comment: 14 pages; 7 figures. Version to appear in Phys Lett.

Is this class making history in the way it is straying from Commencement tradition?

Abbot Pennings answers a question about the history of graduation and commencement ceremonies, archived from the SNC website

The dark and the bright sides of proactive work behaviour and situational constraints : longitudinal relationships with task conflicts

We investigated relationships of a job stressor (situational constraints) and specific proactive behaviours with change in task conflicts over time. We introduced two distinct types of proactive work behaviour (promotion- oriented initiative and prevention-oriented initiative) and examined their positive but also negative relationships with change in task conflicts. Study 1 supported the construct validity of promotion-oriented initiative and prevention-oriented initiative for 363 student assistants: Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that both types of proactive behaviour were distinct constructs and also distinct from active coping; patterns of correlations were similar to those of a prior concept of proactive behaviour. Study 2 was a longitudinal online survey with 197 employees over 3 weeks. Consistent with our hypotheses, situational constraints and promotion-oriented initiative predicted an increase in task conflicts, whereas prevention-oriented initiative predicted a decrease in task conflicts

The role of star performers in software design teams

Purpose – This study seeks to extend previous research on experts with mainly ad-hoc groups from laboratory research to a field setting. Specifically, this study aims to investigate experts’ relative importance in team performance. Expertise is differentiated into two categories (task functions and team functions) and the paper aims to investigate whether experts in task and team functions predict team performance over and above the team’s average expertise level. Design/methodology/approach – Longitudinal, multi-source data from 96 professional software design engineers were used by means of hierarchical regression analyses. Findings – The results show that both expert members in task functions (i.e. behavior that aids directly in the completion of work-related activities) and the experts in team functions (i.e. facilitation of interpersonal interaction necessary to work together as a team) positively predicted team performance 12 months later over and above the team’s average expertise level. Research limitations/implications – Samples from other industry types are needed to examine the generalizability of the study findings to other occupational groups. Practical implications – For staffing, the findings suggest that experts are particularly important for the prediction of team performance. Organizations should invest effort into finding “star performers” in task and team functions in order to create effective teams. Originality/value – This paper focuses on the relationship between experts (in task functions and team functions) and team performance. It extends prior research on team composition and complements expertise research: similar to cognitive ability and personality, it is important to take into account member expertise when examining how to manage the people mix within teams. Benefits of expertise are not restricted to laboratory research but are broadened to real-world team settings

Dos nuevas especies y una combinación en el género Stipa L., Sección Leiostipa Dumort. (Poaceae) para el SE de España

Dos nuevas especies y una combinación en el género Stipa L. seccion Leiostipa Dumort. (Poaceae) para el SE de España. En este estudio se describen dos nuevas especies (S. filabrensis y S. bufensis) y una combinación (S. cazorlensis) del género Stipa L., sección Leiostipa Dumort. para la flora del sudeste de la Península Ibérica. S. filabrensis es una especie endémica del macizo de Filabres y S. bufensis (=S. lagascae var. australis sensu F.M. Vázquez & Devesa) está distribuida por la mitad oriental de la Península Ibérica

Love won’t tear us apart but work might: How job stressors relate to constructive and destructive reactions to one’s romantic partner’s negative behavior

This study investigates the associations between job stressors and accommodation (i.e., constructive and nondestructive reactions to negative behavior) in romantic relationships. We propose that situational constraints and workload negatively relate to self-regulatory resources that, in turn, are associated positively with constructive reactions and negatively with destructive reactions. To test our hypotheses, we surveyed 238 employees with online questionnaires twice on one workday. In general, results showed that job stressors were negatively associated with self-regulatory resources that, in turn, were associated with accommodation. In particular, situational constraints, but not workload, negatively related to self-regulatory resources. Self-regulatory resources were negatively associated with destructive reactions, but unrelated to constructive reactions. Self-regulatory resources mediated the indirect effect of job stressors on destructive reactions assessed with a scenario method. We discuss the importance of replenishing self-regulatory resources and suggest ways how to do so

Job demands-resources model in the context of recovery : Testing recovery experiences as mediators

The aim of the present study was to extend the original Job Demands– Resources (JD-R) model by taking into account recovery as an important mediation mechanism between work characteristics and well-being/ill-health. Specifically, we examined whether recovery experiences—strategies promoting recovery—might have a mediating role in the JD-R model among 527 employees from a variety of different jobs. The results showed that psychological detachment fully mediated the effects of job demands on fatigue at work and mastery partially mediated the effects of job resources on work engagement. Altogether, the results suggest that recovery merits consideration as a mediating mechanism in the JD-R model

Organizational error management culture and its impact on performance: a two study replication

The authors argue that a high-organizational error management culture, conceptualized to include norms and common practices in organizations (e.g., communicating about errors, detecting, analyzing, and correcting errors quickly), is pivotal to the reduction of negative and the promotion of positive error consequences. Organizational error management culture was positively related to firm performance across 2 studies conducted in 2 different European countries. On the basis of quantitative and qualitative cross-sectional data from 65 Dutch organizations, Study 1 revealed that organizational error management culture was significantly correlated with both organizational goal achievement and an objective indicator of economic performance. This finding was confirmed in Study 2, using change-of-profitability data from 47 German organizations. The results suggest that organizations may want to introduce organizational error management as a way to boost firm performance