Mechanisms of Impact: An Exploration of Leadership for Sustained World Language Enrollment in U.S. Higher Education

In response to the pressures of globalization, internationalization has been driving change in higher education over the past decades. Most internationalization frameworks consider world language and intercultural education essential to a 21st-century global education. While many U.S. institutions of higher education (IHEs) are increasingly dependent on tuition revenue, enrollment numbers in language programs across the U.S. declined 15.3% from 2009 to 2016. Given the need for academic departments to generate tuition revenue to remain viable, dwindling world language enrollment in most U.S. higher education institutions is a pressing issue that warrants further investigation. Drawing on both a network theory of group social capital and social network leadership theory, this mixed methods survey-based study of world language department chairs explored the mechanisms that drive student enrollment in postsecondary language programs within the networked and relational paradigm of 21st-Century higher education. Specifically, this research investigated to what extent entrepreneurial leadership behaviors of academic department chairs and the accumulation of social capital within networks that include of an institution’s internal and external stakeholders affect enrollment in their programs, and whether social network leadership and P-12 outreach form suitable strategies to maximize relevance and visibility of the unit. The final sample comprised 1,311 world language departments at 923 IHEs across the United States; a total of 283 valid survey responses from department leaders were received. The findings indicated that enrollment in language programs is affected by complex dynamics that include “a host of non-system actors or intermediaries who play roles in the spread of knowledge, information, and other resources” (Mamas & Daly, 2019 p. 45). This research aimed to shift the focus of inquiry from a traditional upper leadership perspective to the department level and investigate the impact of social networking on departmental viability. It further bridges the gap between secondary and postsecondary education and may inform leaders at both P-12 schools and IHEs as to the significance of school-university partnerships and provide ways for leaders to build social capital for their programs

The Georgia Seal of Biliteracy: Exploring the Nexus of Politics and Language Education

On May 3, 2016, House Bill (HB) 879—the Georgia Seal of Biliteracy—was signed into law by Governor Nathan Deal and went into effect on July 1, 2016. Outside of the language education sphere, many educators and policymakers may not fully understand the benefits of studying other languages. Yet, this policy hinges on the utility of simultaneously demonstrating proficiency in a foreign language and an advanced command of English, thus forming the foundation of biliteracy. This article provides an overview of the political landscape in Georgia as it pertains to language education and analyzes how lawmakers translated the issues at hand into specific goals for the Seal of Biliteracy. The paper concludes with four policy proposals to improve the implementation of the legislation and provide suggestions for enhancing pending legislation elsewhere

At the Crossroads: Learning to Speak the (Foreign) Language of Higher Education Leadership

More than ten years have passed since the 2007 MLA Ad Hoc Committee of Foreign Languages report recommended structural and curricular change initiatives to counteract the growing crisis in postsecondary world language education. Almost a decade earlier, Heidi Byrnes had already expounded on the need to replace persistent bifurcated curricular legacy systems in world language education with clearly articulated programs across the entire undergraduate spectrum. To do so, she argued, faculty members at all levels needed to abandon unrealistic and nativist expectations of student proficiency, stop pitting teaching against research, and replace the dictates of a textbook or chosen methodology with well-thought-out curricula. She also urged practitioners to engage in “deep reflection on the value of foreign language study in a collegiate context” to help “learners perform the humanist act of discovering themselves” through the acquisition of multiple literacies (278). If we consider John Kotter’s change theory (1993), world language practitioners have been aware of a sense of urgency to devise and enact change since the 1990s; however, attempts at building a guiding coalition or forming a strategic vision and initiatives have—with few notable exceptions—rarely been enacted or yielded many tangible results at the department level

Restaurant outbreak of Legionnaires' disease associated with a decorative fountain: an environmental and case-control study

BACKGROUND: From June to November 2005, 18 cases of community-acquired Legionnaires' disease (LD) were reported in Rapid City South Dakota. We conducted epidemiologic and environmental investigations to identify the source of the outbreak. METHODS: We conducted a case-control study that included the first 13 cases and 52 controls randomly selected from emergency department records and matched on underlying illness. We collected information about activities of case-patients and controls during the 14 days before symptom onset. Environmental samples (n = 291) were cultured for Legionella. Clinical and environmental isolates were compared using monoclonal antibody subtyping and sequence based typing (SBT). RESULTS: Case-patients were significantly more likely than controls to have passed through several city areas that contained or were adjacent to areas with cooling towers positive for Legionella. Six of 11 case-patients (matched odds ratio (mOR) 32.7, 95% CI 4.7-infinity) reported eating in Restaurant A versus 0 controls. Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 was isolated from four clinical specimens: 3 were Benidorm type strains and 1 was a Denver type strain. Legionella were identified from several environmental sites including 24 (56%) of 43 cooling towers tested, but only one site, a small decorative fountain in Restaurant A, contained Benidorm, the outbreak strain. Clinical and environmental Benidorm isolates had identical SBT patterns. CONCLUSION: This is the first time that small fountain without obvious aerosol-generating capability has been implicated as the source of a LD outbreak. Removal of the fountain halted transmission

Riociguat treatment in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: Final safety data from the EXPERT registry

Objective: The soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat is approved for the treatment of adult patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and inoperable or persistent/recurrent chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) following Phase

Riociguat treatment in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension: Final safety data from the EXPERT registry

International audienc

Riociguat treatment in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: Final safety data from the EXPERT registry

International audienc