Building Bookstore Displays: A Collaboration Between University Fashion Students and Campus Bookstore to Develop Merchandising, Management, and Leadership Skills Through the Development of Visual Displays

Through a partnership with the Fashion Promotion class, the students could help with the fashion merchandising and promotion in the bookstore. As a result, students were assigned a three-part Building Bookstore Displays Project. For each segment, a project worksheet was given to the student teams with objectives. Before beginning the project, the students and instructor visited the store together and received an orientation that included a tour and discussion of student expectations during the project. Project included display proposal, display execution and display presentation and analysis.The Building Bookstore Displays Project outcome exceeded the expectations of the initial plan, and the coordination of segments throughout the semester to complete one project that clearly made a positive visual change in the store windows, proved to be successful based on instructor analysis, store manager comments, and the sustained interest of the students

Preparing University Students for Future Careers in the Retail Industry: The Retailer Realities Project

With currently high unemployment rates, the job market has become increasingly more competitive, leading to more aggressive efforts of recent college graduates to obtain entry-level career positions in merchandising and retailing. While many merchandising students work in retail settings while in college, some never look beyond their current job to explore other retail companies. As merchandising and retailing programs strive to meet the needs of students and employers, university faculty must teach students practical and professional skills through classroom and experiential learning activities while encouraging students to investigate companies that can provide future opportunities,. Consequently, the objective of this teaching strategy is to provide senior-level merchandising students with broader knowledge of varied types of retail companies as well as specific companies in order to be able to make better decisions about career choices when evaluating potential employers

Experiential Learning and Service Activities for University Students: Development of the Fashion Earth Project to Foster Leadership and Management Skills through Volunteerism

As a plan to support recycling and sustainability in the fashion industry, the instructor challenged university students enrolled in a career development course to develop a project to build awareness and promote recycling and conservation in the fashion industry through a campus-based project in April, around Earth Day. The teambuilding project was designed to also develop effective leadership and management skills of the students, and through numerous submissions and planning meetings of the class, one multi-faceted project called, Fashion Earth, was selected that would be executed by the class members, in organized teams with specific tasks

Sustainable Showcase Project: Student Pathway to Understanding Sustainability in the Apparel and Home Furnishings Industries

As consumers increasingly look to textile and apparel industry firms to be more sensitive and reactive to significant social issues, it is necessary for university fashion majors to understand the key issues and philosophies related to sustainability that directly affect the fashion industry and its customers. Sustainability is a resource consumption concept that focuses on utilizing renewable resources in order to reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources so as not to cause harm to people or the planet. Thus, an important aspect of people and companies transitioning to sustainability is to focus on the idea of recycling, or reusing resources. Because recycling is an activity that can be performed by everyone and any act of recycling supports the concept of sustainability, no matter how inconsequential it seems, a course project focused on recycling is valid

Service Learning for University Students: Convergence of Fashion Coursework and Community Service to Develop Leadership and Management Skills Through the Planet Style Project

In order to connect university students to the community, a service learning activity was designed to allow students to improve future leadership skills by executing a project that was created to promote awareness of Earth Day and also the Fashion and Textiles Program on a university campus. Ultimately, this activity provided upper-level, undergraduate fashion design and fashion merchandising majors enrolled in a career development course with immediate experience in project management through an experiential learning project that would prepare future graduates for the workplace by developing leadership and management skills

Racial differences in the responses to shear stress in human umbilical vein endothelial cells

African American ethnicity is an independent risk factor for exaggerated oxidative stress, which is related to inflammation, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Recently, we reported that in vitro oxidative stress and inflammation levels differ between African American and Caucasian human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), African American HUVECs having higher levels of both. However, it remains to be shown whether the cells would respond differently to external stimuli

Racial differences in tumor necrosis factor-α-induced endothelial microparticles and interleukin-6 production

African Americans (AA) tend to have heightened systemic inflammation and endothelial dysfunction. Endothelial microparticles (EMP) are released from activated/apoptotic endothelial cells (EC) when stimulated by inflammation. The purpose of our study was to assess EMP responses to inflammatory cytokine (TNF-α) and antioxidant (superoxide dismutase, SOD) conditions in human umbilical vein ECs (HUVECs) obtained from AA and Caucasians. EMPs were measured under four conditions: control (basal), TNF-α, SOD, and TNF-α + SOD. Culture supernatant was collected for EMP analysis by flow cytometry and IL-6 assay by ELISA. IL-6 protein expression was assessed by Western blot. AA HUVECs had greater EMP levels under the TNF-α condition compared to the Caucasian HUVECs (6.8 ± 1.1 vs 4.7% ± 0.4%, P = 0.04). The EMP level increased by 89% from basal levels in the AA HUVECs under the TNF-α condition (P = 0.01) compared to an 8% increase in the Caucasian HUVECs (P = 0.70). Compared to the EMP level under the TNF-α condition, the EMP level in the AA HUVECs was lower under the SOD only condition (2.9% ± 0.3%, P = 0.005) and under the TNF-α + SOD condition (2.1% ± 0.4%, P = 0.001). Basal IL-6 concentrations were 56.1 ± 8.8 pg/mL/μg in the AA and 30.9 ± 14.9 pg/mL/μg in the Caucasian HUVECs (P = 0.17), while basal IL-6 protein expression was significantly greater (P < 0.05) in the AA HUVECs. These preliminary observational results suggest that AA HUVECs may be more susceptible to the injurious effects of the proinflammatory cytokine, TNF-α

Surficial Geology of the Upper Iowa River Watershed Phase 4: Dorchester (Iowa) 7.5\u27 Quadrangle,

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