Black Male Retention Initiatives: Exploring Students\u27 Experiences and Program Effectiveness at Predominantly White Institutions

Recent initiatives in higher education have been designed to increase Black undergraduate male collegiate retention and persistence through graduation for this historically underrepresented population. Although institutional leaders in higher education have focused on creating more inclusive campuses, designing and implementing programs to retain Black undergraduate men have remained largely under studied. Specifically at predominantly white institutions (PWIs), a step in the process is evaluating and assessing the efforts for effectiveness and impact on students\u27 overall development and success. Programs that have achieved ways to increase the retention rates have information that is useful in reversing low retention and graduation should be empirically studied.;This qualitative study of retention initiatives at two state institutions explores the development of the retention initiative; how initiatives are structured within an institution\u27s overall diversity plan; and what the overall impact is on the participants and the institutional environment. Focus group interviews conducted with student participants, interviews of the institutional leadership involved in implementing the initiative, along with a document analysis of cases are used to answer how Black male retention initiatives affect campus diversity initiatives and advance student development and success. While both cases focused on retention through student engagement, accountability, and leadership development, each case used separate foundational principles to carry out the same mission to retain Black males. Northwestern State University (pseudonym) focused on developing students\u27 cultural awareness and Black identity while Southern State University (pseudonym) focused on building students\u27 sense of humility and interdependency. These case studies and the underlying research prove that leadership support, funding and institutionalization have had and can have a measurable effect on young men of color. Institutional culture matters for individuals, and institutional policy can affect change for good.;These efforts to create inclusive environments for Black undergraduate men at PWIs have required time to develop and to bring about deep and pervasive change to affect this population\u27s collegiate experience. A critical step in the process is evaluating and measuring the effectiveness and impact on students\u27 overall success. Through assessment, programs that have improved Black male retention may serve as benchmarks for reversing low retention and graduation. Included in the study are individual analyses of each institution and a cross-case comparison that provides in-depth description of these Black undergraduate male initiatives and specifies implications for institutional leaders incorporating a race and gender based retention program into an overall campus-wide diversity initiative

Expanding the functional CD8+ T cell repertoire reduces HSV-1 reactivation from latency in sensory ganglia

Following corneal infection, herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1 establishes latency in sensory neurons of the trigeminal ganglia (TG). In humans, spontaneous and recurrent reactivation of HSV-1 from latency has the potential to cause lesions on the gums (stomatitis), lips (cold sores, fever blisters), cornea (stromal keratitis), and brain (encephalitis). Latently infected neurons were once thought be largely ignored by the host immune system. Existing evidence shows that not only do HSV-specific CD8 T cells recognize latently infected neurons; they actively maintain viral latency using proinflammatory cytokines and lytic granules containing granzymes. The premise of this study further characterized the nature of the CD8 T cell response. Previous studies displayed that in the C57BL/6 mouse; CD8 T cells infiltrate the TG and become situated in direct apposition to infected neurons. It was known that 50 % of the CD8 T cells recognized the immunodominant epitope on glycoprotein B (gB) while the specificities of the remaining CD8 T cells were undefined. In this study, we observed that the non-gB CD8 T cell repertoire was confined to 18 epitopes on 11 viral proteins. During acute infection, these cells, similar to gB498-505-specific CD8 T cells, readily produce cytokines and release lytic granules upon stimulation. Conversely, during latency, even though these cells remain in the TG, they lose the ability to produce cytokines and release lytic granules upon stimulation suggesting functional compromise, unlike gB498-505-specific CD8 T cells. We show that the immunosuppressive cytokine, IL-10, preferentially suppresses the non-gB498-505-specific CD8 T cell population. Upon administration of an antibody against the IL-10 receptor, we see a dramatic increase in functional non-gB498-505-specific CD8 T cells without apparent effect in the gB498-505-specific CD8 T cell population. This increase in functional CD8 T cells leads to a 50% reduction in viral reactivation from latency suggesting the possibility of anti-IL10R as a treatment of recurrent reactivation of HSV-1 from latency

The occurrence of cancer among lunatics

At the present time the question of the nature of cancer and its relative incidence under varying conditions is uppermost in medical literature. The problems requiring solution are at present in a stage in which even contributions of a negative nature iri specific directions have a value which does not always attach to such studies.In this thesis I shall consider the incidence of cancer among the inmates of two lunatic asylums.Statements are frequently made to the effect that cancer is rare or does not occur among lunatics, and by inference one might he led to believe that the two conditions mutually excluded one another.It was originally my intention to investigate this question on the basis of the t figures obtain - able from all the asylums under the control of the London County Council. The abstraction and tabulation of the data has, however, been a labour far exceeding my expectation and has occupied so much time that up till now I have only been able to overtake the work with reference to two asylums. The work is all the more difficult to carry out because the records are not kept with a view to the future abstraction of the data here given and the separate records have therefore to be referred to

Louis Kossuth in America, 1851-1852

Of the many visitors who came to America before the Civil War, perhaps the strangest guest was Louis Kossuth, the ex-governor and revolutionist who unsuccessfully rebelled against the Hapsburg monarchy. Such visitors as Lafayette, de Tocqueville, Martineau, Dickens and others came primarily to .America to learn more about our society and political institutions. This was not true in the visit of Louis Kossuth. For the first time since our independence was established, an active, central European militarist was upon our shores