College Heights FINAL II

Pictorial history report of the Murchison Road area of Fayetteville, NC, particularly surrounding Fayetteville State University.https://digitalcommons.uncfsu.edu/fsu_development/1025/thumbnail.jp

A Study of Two Leadership Styles and School Cultural Norms in Small Middle Schools

The purpose of this study was to explore and compare small, public middle school principals’ and middle school teachers’ perceptions of the leadership style exercised by principals in these schools. The study also investigated the relationship between the principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of the principals’ leadership style as well as the principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of the presence of the 14 school cultural norms in their school cultures. The sample used in this study included building principals and their instructional staffs from 32 small, public middle schools across the Commonwealth of Virginia. Onsite visits were conducted by the researcher to administer the surveys at scheduled faculty meetings or to train a staff member on the administration of the surveys. Leadership style was measured by Bass and Avolio’s (1996) Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The 14 school cultural norms were measured by Sagor’s (1996) School Culture Survey. Descriptive and inferential statistics and Pearson’s r, the correlation coeflicient, were used to investigate the relationship of the perceptions of the teachers and of the principals in regards to the principals’ leadership style and the school cultural norms. Some of the findings of the study were: Middle school principals and their teachers differ in their perceptions of the leadership style exhibited in their schools. A significant difference was found to exist between the perceptions of principals and teachers in regards to the degree in which the middle school principals exhibited transformational leadership style behaviors. Both principals and teachers perceived that transactional leadership style behaviors were exhibited by these principals but to a lesser degree. Middle school principals and their teachers perceived that the 14 school cultural norms “generally” exist in their present positive school cultures. The middle school principals in this study perceived the 14 school cultural norms to exist at a higher degree than did their teachers. A correlation was found to exist between transformational leadership style behaviors and the one cultural norm, protection of what is important fiom the middle school principals’ perceptions. Seven cultural norms were perceived by the teachers in this study to be significantly correlated with the transformational leadership style behaviors exhibited by the middle school principals

Competition in financial services

In the financial services sector, the failure of a single institution can have a compounding effect on the sector, and on national and global economies. In particular, there is systemic risk from inter-institution lending, and this effect is more complex in Australia due to the small number of major players. In retail banking in Australia, following a similar practice in most developed countries, if an unsecured creditor is a retail depositor, their deposit is insured by the government. That is, if a retail bank fails, the Federal Government will make the depositors whole. The regulatory system, particularly the prudential regulatory system, is designed to protect depositors’ and borrowers’ interests, and this protects the interest of the government. The effect is that regulatory policy on banking has prioritised stability in consideration of the sovereign risk associated with the risk of retail bank failure. However, this approach also creates a policy dilemma. The dilemma concerns the extent to which the retail banking sector can attain the benefits of the vigorous rivalry from effective and efficient competition, without unduly risking stability and the potential of a devastating call on the public purse. Specifically, in the context of effective and efficient competition, there is limited competitiveness in retail banking in Australia. This is reflected in the static state of market share between the four major banks, and very slow and marginal improvements gains even by strong second tier competitors. Furthermore, the retail banking sector’s capacity for product and service innovation is limited. Although the absence of vigorous rivalry is conducive to stability within the retail banking sector, it is likely to detract from the welfare of retail banking consumers. Furthermore, the level of innovation may not be as high as is feasible and barriers, including prudential regulatory barriers to entry or expansion, mean that the extent of rivalry is unlikely to change without some form of promotion of competition. The paper consequently makes a four-point recommendation for the removal of the ‘four pillars’ policy:  The four major banks are protected by an implicit government guarantee that impacts market operation with little observable benefit to consumers, and may be a source of consumer disutility.  The four pillars policy has prompted increased vertical integration within the sector, particularly in the area of mortgage products.  There are sufficient merger protections provided by Part IV of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).  Competition and contestability arise when there are reasonably low barriers to entry and exit from the sector. It is not clear that low barriers to entry exist in Australia, and evidence to support this view comes from the failure of international banks to gain a significant toehold in the retail banking sector in Australia. One deterrent to entry is the regulatory focus on the four pillars. The authors recognise that this position is at odds with the view of the Financial System Inquiry. However, the rationale in the report of the Inquiry was to prevent mergers, and the current competition law achieves this objective. The paper recommends two specific policies to promote competition in retail banking without the structural intervention that would otherwise be required to improve the intensity of competition in the retail banking sector:  Introduce bank account number portability. This would use ‘know your customer’ and central database systems in a similar form to those that have been used for mobile number portability in Australia for the last decade and a half.  Introduce customer access to data held by banks to allow third parties to compare bank offerings across all banks.  Significantly, these two recommendations are consistent with the productivity proposals issued by the UK Government in July 2015. The research paper also examines crowd equity funding as a disruptive force in the banking sector, and recommends that crowd equity funding be permitted with the following safeguards:  ASIC should take an active role in monitoring crowd equity funding and be willing to sue in case of fraudulent action.  Any intermediary online platform should have a financial services licence with limited duty of care.  There should be a cap for business raisings through crowd equity funding of $2 million in a 12-month period.  Crowd equity funding is a social phenomenon. Through its use of social media, it has attracted people who have previously never been interested in investing in companies. Instead of being feared, this interest should be nurtured through the promotion of investors’ financial education

Personality Profiles of Iditasport Ultra-marathon Participants

Each February, competitors convene in Big Lake, Alaska, to participate in the “Iditasport Human Powered Ultra-Marathon”. Who would attempt this challenging race? Personality might be one factor predicting participation. Iditasport represents a unique athletic event with a distinctive social and psychological climate that might be reflected in the personalities of the participants in many ways. This study was designed to identify the personality profile of Iditasport athletes when compared to normative populations and to explore differences between athletes competing in different race divisions

Fiction services

It is perhaps surprising to find a chapter on fiction services in a book primarily concerned with considering the information needs of community groups. It is certainly challenging to try and shift the emphasis when looking at community information services, that is, to focus on the 'community' rather than the 'information' aspects of the service. The aim of this chapter is to illustrate that the public library fiction services can, and do, make a positive impact on the local community, particularly, but not exclusively, on those members who have special needs

"Spoon-feeding" an AGN

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) occur when a star, passing too close to a massive black hole, is ripped apart by tidal forces. A less dramatic event occurs if the star orbits just outside the tidal radius, resulting in a mild stripping of mass. Thus, if a star orbits a central black hole on one of these bound eccentric orbits, weaker outbursts will occur recurring every orbital period. Thanks to five Swift observations, we observed a recent flare from the close by (92 Mpc) galaxy IC 3599, where a possible TDE was already observed in December 1990 during the Rosat All-Sky Survey. By light curve modeling and spectral fitting, we account for all these events as the non-disruptive tidal stripping of a single star into a 9.5 yr highly eccentric bound orbit. This is the first example of periodic partial tidal disruptions, possibly spoon-feeding the central black hole.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, to appear in "Swift:10 years of discovery", Proceedings of Scienc

Educational Leadership Doctoral Faculty Academic Qualifications and Practitioner Experiences in Georgia

Aim/Purpose This study examined doctoral faculty of educational leadership within the state of Georgia in the United States. The aim was to illustrate the academic qualifications and practitioner experiences of the faculty that develop students in educational leadership programs to be scholarly practitioners and future educational leaders. Background Faculty of educational leadership programs prepare their students to hold imminent senior leadership roles in P-12 school administration and higher education administration. In this apprenticeship model, doctoral faculty utilize their academic qualifications and/or practitioner experiences to develop students into scholarly practitioners. Methodology A descriptive quantitative study utilizing content analysis was conducted to examine faculty of doctoral programs in educational leadership (n=83). True to this methodology, the inquiry of this study sought to better understand the academic qualifications and practitioner experiences of doctoral faculty in the field of educational leadership. Contribution This study serves as a primer for faculty and researchers to visualize the doctoral faculty of educational leadership programs. It can serve as a catalyst to encourage empirical studies of educational leadership faculty and their effectiveness in preparing scholarly practitioners. Findings Key findings included that nearly 2/3 of the faculty have their terminal degrees from a Research 1 institution, 3/5 hold a PhD, and 3/4 have practitioner experience in their respective field. Recommendations for Practitioners Doctoral programs should examine the diversity of the academic qualifications and practitioner experiences of their faculty and develop strategies to enhance their programs with these complimenting skill sets. Recommendation for Researchers Descriptive studies effectively “dip our toe” into a new area of inquiry. Considerations for future research includes examining student perceptions of their faculty who hold either a PhD or Ed.D, as well as those who are academics versus practitioners to better understand their effectiveness. Impact on Society True to the work of John Dewey, education serves as the vehicle to promote a democratic society. Recognizing these doctoral faculty are preparing the future leaders of education, understanding the experiences of faculty will allow for better insight into those who are ultimately shaping the future of education. Future Research Future research should focus on empirical studies that explore the effectiveness of faculty based on their academic qualifications and practitioner experiences through the lens of student perceptions

A study of the impact of workshops on the teaching of thinking skills across the primary school curriculum upon the subsequent classroom practice of participants.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Abstract available in PDF.Prof. Ken Harley and Harvey Adams were acknowledged by the author for their assistance, guidance and inspiration

The linear space of ring conformations

The description of ring conformation in terms i ' a set of pocketing coordinates relative to a mean plane is shown to be equivalent to the group theoretic definition of the conformation of a puckered ring in terms of out-of-plane displacements of a planar polygon. A description of the conformation of a general N-membered ring, based on crystallographic coordinates, is provided in terms of the one-dimensional displacement modes of the regular polygon of symmetry. The set of puckered forms therefore represent a linear space. The out-of-plane displacement modes of the irreducible representations provide a natural basis set. Two linearly independent modes equivalent to the two orthogonal modes of each two-dimensional representation, and a one-dimensional mode for an even-membered ring, form a (N-3)-dimensional basis. The linear coefficients are independent of the puckering amplitude and of the ring numbering scheme. The linear combination of primitive forms provides a simple algorithm to identify classical forms and a quantitative description of conformations, intermediate between the classical forms. The one-dimensional model describes the conformation of large rings. Conformational analysis of nine-membered rings is completed by projection of the conformational space onto a three-dimensional surface defined by the puckering parameters. Intermediate forms are expressed as a linear combination of six primitive forms. The conformation of larger rings is characterized by the linear coefficients, interpreted graphically. A nomenclature for any symmetrical conformation is proposed