BEACON VOYAGES FOR SERVICE: 2013 Alternative Spring Break Trip to the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota

This March, fourteen UMass Boston students traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to address the pressing issues of poverty faced by the Oglala Lakota people by assisting in construction efforts such as repairing stairwells, building children’s bunk beds, and installing protective skirting around mobile homes to help increase the overall quality of life on the reservation. In conjunction with the service work, special attention was placed on fostering relationships and participating in a cultural exchange with the Oglala Lakota community that has created awareness about the tribulations faced by the United States of America’s most disadvantaged demographic

Social Equality and Environmental Education in Brazil

Beacon Voyages for Service (BVS) is a program within the Office of Student Leadership and Community Engagement that coordinates Alternative Break programs. BVS Brazil traveled to Porto Alegre. This group of students partnered with “The Brazilian Association of Cultural Exchange (ABIC)” and the Center for Environmental Education to learn about the social problems that affect the citizens of Brazil and tackle issues of waste management. The students work alongside community members in a recycling unit and spend many hours working with local youth

Building Sustainability in Rural Puerto Rico

Beacon Voyages for Service (BVS) is a program within the Office of Student Leadership and Community Engagement that coordinates Alternative Break programs. BVS Puerto Rico traveled to Las Marias, Puerto Rico. This group of students partnered with Plenitud Eco-Educational Initiatives to learn about sustainability through organic farming and permaculture practices in rural areas of Puerto Rico

Mobilizing Undergraduates to Address the Social Determinants of Health in the Community: Year 1 of Health Leads at UMass Boston

Health Leads, a national non-profit organization, currently operates in six cities. Following successful partnerships with Harvard University and Boston University, Health Leads Boston initiated a partnership with UMass Boston in the Fall of 2012 to mobilize undergraduate students in addressing the social determinants of health for patients at Codman Square Health Center (CSHC). 16 undergraduates at UMass Boston were selected into the Health Leads program at CSHC, joining 17 students from Harvard and 4 students from BU. In 6 months, Health Leads at CSHC served 337 families, with students reporting positive experiences. Further expansion of Health Leads at UMB is planned with efforts focused on integrating the program on campus

The passage to adulthood: Challenges of late adolescence

This chapter outlines the major developmental challenges likely to affect overall well-being during adolescence and emerging adulthood and discusses the personal and social assets needed to facilitate a successful passage through adolescence and into adulthood.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49326/1/179_ftp.pd

Supplemental Information 6: Data set randomly subsampled for even representation of spider species

The Hawaiian Islands offer a unique opportunity to test how changes in the properties of an isolated ecosystem are propagated through the organisms that occur within that ecosystem. The age-structured arrangement of volcanic-derived substrates follows a regular progression over space and, by inference, time. We test how well documented successional changes in soil chemistry and associated vegetation are reflected in organisms at higher trophic levels—specifically, predatory arthropods (spiders)—across a range of functional groups. We focus on three separate spider lineages: one that builds capture webs, one that hunts actively, and one that specializes on eating other spiders. We analyze spiders from three sites across the Hawaiian chronosequence with substrate ages ranging from 200 to 20,000 years. To measure the extent to which chemical signatures of terrestrial substrates are propagated through higher trophic levels, we use standard stable isotope analyses of nitrogen and carbon, with plant leaves included as a baseline. The target taxa show the expected shift in isotope ratios of δ15N with trophic level, from plants to cursorial spiders to web-builders to spider eaters. Remarkably, organisms at all trophic levels also precisely reflect the successional changes in the soil stoichiometry of the island chronosequence, demonstrating how the biogeochemistry of the entire food web is determined by ecosystem succession of the substrates on which the organisms have evolved

The Influence of Leadership Development Programs on First-Generation College Student Success

Students whose parents did not go to college, also known as first-generation college students, often enter postsecondary institutions faced with immediate challenges navigating their higher education experiences. Lower cultural capital often impacts first-generation students’ persistence from year to year as well as their understanding of higher education. Despite resources such as TRIO programs and community programs created specifically for first-generation students, national persistence rates among these students remain lower than those of continuing-generation college students. Leadership development programs have proved effective at not only developing the leadership skills of college students, but also providing personal development. Research has shown that leadership development programs increase students’ self-awareness, critical-thinking skills, and self-efficacy. Programs that use leadership frameworks such as the social change model for leadership development or the leadership identity development model have helped students become stronger leaders on campus and heightened their ability to influence their higher education environments. This study sought to understand how leadership development programs influence first-generation college students’ decisions to persist at higher education institutions. The study used case-study methodology to examine three institutions’ leadership development programs to understand how students’ persistence was influenced by their experience with these programs. Additionally, the study uncovered how students’ understanding of higher education evolved after their participation in the programs. Using phenomenological-style interviewing with students in each case, the study showed that leadership development programs are an effective means of increasing students’ understanding of higher education, building leadership comprehension and skills, and enhancing personal development

Studies on the membrane potentials of some imperfect clay and shale membranes

The membrane potentials of three imperfect shale membranes were measured for a number of electrolytes. The transference numbers of ions within the membranes were determined in an apparatus which is described. Membrane potentials were calculated from the equation. General agreement between measured and calculated values was obtained, although the former were consistently lower than the latter, due to the mosaic character of the membranes. The order of calculated relative mobilities of adsorbed cations within the membranes studied. The membrane potentials of natural bentonite and hydrogen-bentonite membranes were measured as a function of the water content of the membranes. As the water content was decreased, the membrane potential was observed to increase, reflecting a closer packing of the clay particles. The data for hydrogen-bentonite support the conclusion that free (non-adsorbed) hydrogen ions lose their abnormal mobility within a membrane in which water is oriented