Pre-Boomer Students On Campus: An Exploratory Study of How Students Born Before 1946 Experience the Youth-Oriented Campus Culture at UNM

Older learners have been studied thoroughly, except for those born before 1946, preceding the post-war population bulge (Carlson, 2008; Laditka, Fischer, Laditka, & Segal, 2004; Verstynen, 2011). Most such studies define older as over 25 or over 40, and fail to separate the subject group from those who came later. Defining a group by numerical age is problematic because it changes every year and soon omits the group\u27s defining life experiences (Pilcher, 1994), which for this group include the Great Depression, World War II, the polio epidemic, and life before television. To address that gap this critical ethnography explored the experience of Pre-Boomers at UNM. Through qualitative analysis of data collected from volunteer participants in semi-structured interviews and a focus group, supplemented with the author\u27s own observations as both pre-boomer and researcher, and contextual literature, an understanding of students born before 1946 and of their perceptions about the campus culture emerged. In 2017 a total of 212 individual Pre-Boomers were enrolled at all loads and levels at UNM. Of those, 23 were enrolled for degrees, some are enjoying retirement, and some are employed or self-employed or preparing for a career change to keep working. The study participants are active in the campus community and contribute their living history experience to classroom discussions, enriching traditional students\u27 learning experience. They described little significant age discrimination although some reported occasionally feeling invisible or irrelevant. Future studies should examine why other Pre-Boomers have not enrolled and whether factors that discouraged them should be addressed

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire: Trauma in the Lives of Homeless Youth Prior to and During Homelessness

Anecdotal evidence from those who work with homeless youth indicates that trauma permeates these young people\u27s lives. This paper presents the findings from a study of 100 homeless youth regarding the presence of trauma in their lives, both before and during homelessness. Participants living in the Maritime Provinces volunteered to take part in a semi-structured interview lasting one to two hours. The interview questionnaire was conducted by a trained interviewer, and was composed of standardized and adapted survey instruments, as well as questions regarding demographics, experiences prior to becoming homeless, assistance received while dealing with stressors, and current needs. The results indicate that trauma is both a cause and a consequence of youth being homeless, as a large majority of participants experienced a number of types of highly stressful events both preceding and during homelessness, and that trauma in the lives of both male and female homeless youth should be understood as a pervasive reality with serious implications. Implications for service delivery are discussed

Engineering and gender issues - evidence from low-income countries

Engineers' work has an impact on society, economically, environmentally and socially. However, society is not uniform and some people will benefit or be adversely impacted more than others. Access to decision making is one important factor in determining the impact on different social groups. In low-income countries, the development of infrastructure can transform the domestic chores of collecting water, fuel or food and can improve the local environment through improved sanitation. Many of these tasks are the responsibility of women, yet they can be excluded from the development process. Engineers can contribute to the inclusion of socially excluded groups of people through increasing the involvement of men and women in engineering decision making and adopting technologies that suit women's needs, resulting in better infrastructure and more equitable societies

Developing engineers and technicians: Notes on giving guidance to engineers and technicians on how infrastructure can meet the needs of men and women

Engineers are increasingly being involved in social issues. These notes are designed to assist the managers and trainers of engineers in raising awareness of some of the issues with their staff. They are written in the form of training notes in 38 Units, together with 7 Checklists for use in meetings. It accompanies the book (also available from WEDC) Infrastructure for All which has been produced to help engineers, technicians and project managers ensure that the facilities they design and build are beneficial to all members of society. Using many examples, especially examples related to water and sanitation, Infrastructure for All demonstrates that 'one size does not fit all'. It shows how women, men and children frequently have different needs and different priorities because they use infrastructure in different ways. It explains how the community that will use the infrastructure is generally structured by inequalities of various kinds. The engineer may intend that the facility should serve the needs of all; but if there is no analysis of social issues then this intention is not likely to be realized. Infrastructure for All seeks to make gender analysis intelligible to engineers working at the project level; to enable them to co-operate with social scientists, and to increase their awareness of the need to work with women and men in the user community. The book emphasizes the practical ways in which taking account of gender relations will improve the design, implementation and use of infrastructure. With this in mind, it is focused on what civil engineers actually need to know to improve their projects, to give the 'civil' aspects of their work equal weight with the 'engineering' aspects. This book, together with Infrastructure for All, will be of great interest to all engineers, technicians and project managers concerned with infrastructure development in low- and middle-income countries. This book is one of the outputs from a Knowledge and Research project funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the British Government

Developing competences for water utility change programmes

African and Asian urban water sector organisations recognise the need to support performance improvement and organisational change programmes to meet the growing demands for improved services in challenging environments. Yet many such programmes have not resulted in the desired service improvements. This paper looks at three successful water utilities in Africa and Southern Asia to identify the factors that are contributing to substantial service delivery improvement. This analysis is used to inform the competencies required of senior managers and engineers responsible for water utility change programmes. How to develop the necessary competences through targeted management development programmes is considered by reviewing selected urban water sector management development programmes in India and Africa. Increasingly engineers working in the developing world are expected to focus on effective service management in challenging environments, and develop appropriate competences

Maximizing the benefits of training engineers about gender

Gender is an important aspect of multidisciplinary provision of water and environmental sanitation services; however it is not just the responsibility of social scientists, but the whole team. Training engineers about gender has been difficult, or even not attempted due to perceived professional boundaries, but a research project looking into ways gender can be “mainstreamed” into infrastructure development has produced a new way of getting the message across to a technical audience. This however may be in a form that social scientists may not recognize

Adapting alternative sanitation systems for emergencies: teaching old dogs new tricks?

As emergency scenarios increase in number and complexity, standard sanitation solutions are not always able to meet the demand of populations or environmental situations. Alternative sanitation systems provide a viable way forward yet many of these technologies, such as urine diversion, are being resisted by humanitarian engineers who typically cite the inability of users to adapt behaviours. This paper reports research in to this situation, drawing on experiences from the 2010 Haiti earthquake

Diversity training for engineers: making ‘gender’ relevant

In 1992, at the UN International Conference on Water and the Environment in Dublin, delegates adopted the principle that ‘women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water’. While this principle has been largely accepted at policy level in international development, it has proved harder to put into practice. Gender training for engineers and allied professionals was treated as a socioeconomic issue and not part of mainstream infrastructure and basic public service provision. As part of a 3-year study into this area and a series of subsequent training courses, a team of engineers and training professionals has developed new conceptual approaches to training engineers, focusing on the practical application of the Dublin principle. The study looks at the concepts of relevance, engagement and practical skills required to deliver infrastructure services to the whole of society

Planning for an uncertain future : the challenges of a locally based collaborative approach to coastal development decisions

In England spatial planning decisions with regard to development in coastal areas at risk of flooding or erosion are largely devolved to negotiations at what is said to be the local scale. Such development is discouraged but may be allowed so long as it is possible to demonstrate wider sustainability benefits said to outweigh the risk. It is at this point a range of stakeholders, representing different organisations and concerns must come together to try and resolve the tension between new development and risk reduction. Participants must navigate an evolving, complex, multiscale risk governance network to achieve an effective risk dialogue. The paper critically examines this apparently local, collaborative method, to understand the contributions and challenges of such an approach and provide suggestions to support this process. Semi structured interviews with thirty interviewees across three coastal locations in England reveal a number of key areas of contention, centred on: the risk data, local boundaries and planning timescales. In a complex system, mixing formal and informal planning spaces, stakeholders represent diverse spaces, a variety of organisational concerns and different planning horizons. At least some local concerns have a significant influence, but the system struggles to address national and strategic issues

Infrastructure for all: Meeting the needs of both men and women in development projects - a practical guide for engineers, technicians and project managers

This book has been produced to help engineers, technicians and project managers ensure that the facilities they design and build are beneficial to all members of society. Using many examples, especially examples related to water and sanitation, the book demonstrates that "one size does not fit all". It shows how women, men and children frequently have different needs and different priorities because they use infrastructure in different ways. It explains how the community that will use the infrastructure is generally structured by inequalities of various kinds. The engineer may intend that the facility should serve the needs of all; but if there is no analysis of social issues then this intention is not likely to be realized. The book seeks to make gender analysis intelligible to engineers working at the project level; to enable them to co-operate with social scientists, and to increase their awareness of the need to work with women and men in the user community. The book emphasizes the practical ways in which taking account of gender relations will improve the design, implementation and use of infrastructure. With this in mind, it is focused on what civil engineers actually need to know to improve their projects, to give the 'civil' aspects of their work equal weight with the 'engineering' aspects. This book will be of great interest to all engineers, technicians and project managers concerned with infrastructure development in low- and middle-income countries