A Study of the Condition of "Good Work" in Educational Leadership in Iowa

iv, 180 leaves. Advisor: Sally Beisser.Extending the research of Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, and Damon (2001) in the fields of genetics and journalism and pursued because "we are convinced that the challenge of good work confronts every professional today" (p. ix), this study focuues on the question of what it means to carry out good work - "work that is both excellent in quality and socially resposible - at a time of constant change" (p ix) in the field of educational leadership. This study is qualitative in nature, combining features from the traditions of grounded theory and ethnography to provide a thick and rich description of good work in educational leadership in Iowa. One central research question, "What does it mean to carry out 'good work' in the professional realm of educational leadership in Iowa today?" guided the study. Over 120 pages of data were collected from semi-structured interviews of 10 high-profile, influential educational leaders from the state of Iowa. These leaders were specifically selected through a collaborative identification process with School Administrators of Iowa. Data analysis and verification included searching for themes through the processes of open, axial, and selective coding; triangulation; member checks; and interpreting the data to make sense of the findings. The resulting findings were written in an ethnographic narrative style to present a meaningful, contextual description of the discoveries and to provide the opportunity for authorial "voice". This study found that good work (defined in terms of excellence and ethics) exists for these 10 educational leaders through the building of relationshps, leadership, focusing on student need and achievement, moral purpose, decision-making, transparency of processes, and accountability. Their efforts to carry out good work are supported by professional organizations, strong relationships, influential individuals, high expectations, effective communication, integrated personal belief systems, and personal efficacy. Efforts to do good work are challege by resource limitations, political mandates and accountability systems, systemic and societal changes, and subtle shift to a market based educational system, and the continual struggle to determine the "greater good" in any given circumstance. Fundamentally, those who choose educational leadership as a profession do so for a greater good; to make a difference in the lives of children, subsequently shaping the future of our society and even the world. It is the conclusion of this study, that despite the incresing challenges, prominent educational leaders in Iowa are engaging in high quality work in a socially responsible manner. As a result, the perception prevails that the future of educational leadership is an optimistic one

Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]

Biogeographical observations on the Cretaceous biota of Australasia

[Extract] The Cretaceous System is well represented in Australasia (Fig. 1). The generation of new seafloor to the west, south, and east of continental Australia, associated with the Cretaceous fragmentation of Gondwana (see Veevers et al. 1991), led to the development of extensive passive margin sedimentary systems. Fragmentation and the generation of new seafloor had commenced by the mid-Jurassic for northwestern Australia (Fig. 2). Although the history of oceanic crust adjacent to much of northern Australia is unknown, the entire sector of continental borderland stretching from North West Cape to Melville Island is considered as a single morphotectonic tract. The North West Shelf and the associated passive margin assemblage is referred to as the Westralian Superbasin (see Bradshaw et al. 1988). The Cretaceous System comprises a major part of the Westralian Superbasin. Neocomian strata are generally of paralic aspect but some contain nannoplankton indicative of open-marine conditions (Shafik 1994). A widely developed Aptian transgression brought open marine mudstones and siltstones to much ofthe superbasin in late Early Cretaceous time. By the middle of the Late Cretaceous, carbonate sedimentation became dominant in all but the eastern sector of the superbasin. In comparison to the offshore representation of the Cretaceous System, its onshore development is minor. At its western extremity, the superbasin incorporates onshore sequences of the Carnarvon Basin which are essentally continuous from the Aptian to the Maastrichtian (Hocking et al. 1987). To the east, it incorporates the Money Shoals Platform where onshore sequences range from Aptian to Turonian in age (Henderson 1998). Remnants of an ephemeral blanket of upper Lower Cretaceous strata has been widely recognised for the continental borderland to the Westralian Basin, indicating that the Aptian-Albian transgression was widely developed (Frakes et al. 1987)

The Social Contract and Beyond in Broadcast Media Policy

This article undertakes an institutionalist analysis of broadcast media policy, analyzing sources of both stability and change over time. It draws attention to the distinctive features of broadcast licenses as a form of soft property and the significance of policy settlements as ways in which regulators in different countries have managed the relationship between private ownership and public interest. It traces the development of broadcast media policy in Australia from the 1950s to the present in this light, arguing that continuities in policy over time that have favored incumbent commercial interests have been the prevailing pattern of policy outcomes. The article concludes by raising issues about whether a social democratic approach to media policy should support the introduction of greater market competition in a multiplatform environment rather than seek to maintain the existing broadcasting order and draws on so-called new public interest literature to make this argument