HEALING THE WOUNDS OF WAR: The Peacebuilding Work of Silvie Maunga Mbanga of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

In the following pages, you will find these narrative stories along with supplemental information to provide a deep understanding of the conflict and one person’s journey within it. These supplements include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated by the peacemaker. Sylvie Maunga Mbanga, a lawyer by training, works with local organizations in the fight against sexual violence against women in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Formerly coordinator of the program against sexual violence for the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) and Church in Action, as well as the program officer for the peacebuilding and conflict transformation program at the Life and Peace Institute, Mbanga consults for other agencies and groups, providing counseling and legal services to victims of rape and sexual violence. With ICCO, she developed strategic and holistic interventions to assist victims, including the provision of psychological counseling and medical care, legal services and access to the judicial system, and economic support in the form of income-generating activities and skills building. For the Life and Peace Institute, Mbanga was charged with implementing programs on good governance and coordinating research activities. Mbanga also works to resolve ethnic conflicts within communities in the provinces of North and South Kivu. She has facilitated dialogue between the Banyamulenge community and other local groups such as the Babembe and Baviro. The dialogue sessions and subsequent cultural exchanges between the groups led to the founding of an ethnically mixed organization that raises awareness about the need for further communication and tolerance. Mbanga has served as a radio correspondent for the French/Swahili service of Voice of America, covering local women’s peacebuilding initiatives and issues of women’s leadership, and is a member of Synergy for Women Victims of Sexual Violence and Action by Christians Against Torture.https://digital.sandiego.edu/ipj-research/1035/thumbnail.jp

A VIEW THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS: The Peacebuilding Work of Zeinab Mohamed Blandia in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice. Zeinab Mohamed Blandia, a Muslim peacemaker from Sudan, has been described as a “point person” for creating community and maintaining peace in the Nuba Mountains, one of the most conflict-affected and neglected regions of the world. She is the founder and director of Ruya, or “Vision,” an organization based both in Kadugli in the middle west region and Omdurman in the north, where she trains and cultivates fellow “women peace ambassadors.” Uprooted from her home in the 1980s because of the war between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M), Blandia lived among other displaced people in Omdurman, across the Nile River from Khartoum. There, the displaced from opposing sides of the conflict often became “next-door neighbors,” which prompted Blandia to establish the Tabag Alsalam, or “Tray of Peace,” where women from different regions and diverse cultures prepared traditional meals and invited other groups to eat and “debate peacefully” the issues that were being fought over in the distant battlefield. The initial small group of women grew to include 45 groups from across Sudan. Blandia has since taken her skills in community conflict resolution and dialogue back to the Nuba Mountains and expanded the work of Ruya. Ruya’s Women’s Solidarity Fund Groups develop the economic skills of women through traditional group activities and contemporary modes such as savings accounts. The solidarity groups include Trust Committees which identify conflict issues and engage in peacebuilding at the community level. Blandia also initiated the program “Women Bridging,” which involves exchange visits between communities in government-controlled and SPLA/M- controlled areas in Southern Kordofan State. The latest Ruya project involves training illiterate women in solar engineering and transferring that technology to other regions of Sudan that are outside the reach of government electricity services. With other women and men in the rugged terrain of the Nuba Mountains, Blandia is leading the renewal of civil society and indigenous conflict resolution methods, as well as the quest for reconciliation.https://digital.sandiego.edu/ipj-research/1030/thumbnail.jp

The Impact of Sleepiness and Sleep Constructs on Driving Performance

Sleepiness causes performance decrements that lead to thousands of crashes and fatalities annually. Research supports the conclusions that sleep duration and circadian rhythms impact sleepiness and affect driving performance. Conflicting in the literature is whether severity of sleep disorders, sleep quality and subjective sleepiness affect driving performance. The correlation between a driver\u27s perception of their sleepiness and their driving performance is also unclear. The primary goal of this study was to create an in-depth model demonstrating which measures of sleepiness influence driving performance. It was hypothesized that sleep quality, sleep apnea severity and subjective sleepiness add to a model of how sleep constructs impact driving performance. The secondary goal of this study was to compare trait and state sleepiness to determine which correlates with driving performance. It was hypothesized that participants with state sleepiness would have a greater decline across the 60-minute drive as compared to participants with trait sleepiness. Both sleepiness groups would have increased lane position variability compared to the normal group. The tertiary goal was to examine driving performance decrements of sleep apnea drivers compared with healthy controls. It was hypothesized that the sleep apnea group would perform worse on the driving simulator test compared with the control group. Results indicate that sleep quality and subjective trait sleepiness significantly add to models of sleepiness and driving performance. The model developed here show that years with driver\u27s license, sleep efficiency and trait sleepiness are significant predictors of lane position variability. Also, results show that driving performance is worse for participants high in trait sleepiness. Participants with high state sleepiness had no significant performance differences compared to non-sleepy participants. Sleep apnea participants did not perform significantly worse than controls as hypothesized but there was a significant group by time interaction indicating that sleep apnea participants\u27 performance degraded more quickly over the course of the drive. These results can be generalized to the community members and students, but not necessarily to sleep disorder center patients

The Writing Exam as Index of Policy, Curriculum, and Assessment: An Academic Literacies Perspective on High Stakes Testing in an American University

Academic literacy is a policy goal universities implement through curricular and assessment decisions that are generally discipline-based. Disciplinary genres are traditionally seen as relatively fixed entities, easily evaluated by practiced members of the field and able to be emulated and mastered by students with training. This study examines the interplay of policy, curriculum, and assessment as they concern academic literacy in higher education and explore how writing assessment is employed in the maintenance and verification of academic literacy. The research took place at a small university known primarily for its pharmacy school and preparation for careers in the sciences and health sciences. The university is unusual in that it requires that students pass a writing proficiency exam in order to graduate. This research employed ethnographic methods and textual analysis to discover the interaction between university writing policy and its real-world effects. Data was collected in the form of fieldnotes of my observations of the Writing Center and interactions on-campus; ethnographic interviews with faculty, administrators, and students; course syllabi and other site documents; and exam bluebooks. This study looks at the use of the five-paragraph theme as an assessment tool, an academic genre rarely seen outside of composition classrooms and essay exams. It also evaluates the social and institutional function of a high-stakes testing policy, and how the policy serves to balance curricular ideologies with other constraints. It shows how universities, increasingly working under a business model, make curricular and assessment decisions in the interest of balancing hiring costs, academic ideology, and so on, in an iterative process. The results of this research have implications for evaluating writing policy in higher education institutions, and the use and structure of writing assessment in other arenas as well

Autonomy and agentic engagement among first-generation college students : exploring resources for psychological need satisfaction

Previous research has demonstrated that higher education creates distinct challenges to first-generation students’ well-being and motivation in university. Amid growing interest in psychological interventions to support first-generation students’ well-being in college, this study used the self-determination theory of basic needs as a framework to examine these students’ resources and strategies. Previous research within this framework has emphasized teaching practices to boost student engagement through support for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. However, much remains to be explored regarding students’ active role in need fulfillment and agentic efforts to reshape their learning environments. Beliefs and strategies regarding self-determination have also been linked to orientations toward autonomy satisfaction as asserted (self-reliant) or assisted (reliant on supportive environments and relationships). This study sought to extend our understanding of how inner and environmental resources intertwine in first generation students’ active pursuit of psychological well-being. First-generation students (n=212) were surveyed regarding their beliefs, perceived resources for psychological need satisfaction in college, and agentic engagement. This mixed-method study integrated findings from correlation and regression analyses, used to examine associations between student beliefs, perceived need support, and agentic engagement, with findings from the analysis of qualitative responses regarding students’ salient experiences of need satisfaction or frustration in college. Results demonstrate that first-generation students’ interdependent motives for college may coincide with either asserted or assisted orientations toward experiencing autonomy, but only an assisted orientation was linked to significantly greater overall satisfaction in college. However, alongside supportive teacher practices, the orientation toward asserted autonomy predicted increased agentic engagement in college classes. Participant narratives highlighted how environments and relationships in college life also were connected with first-generation students’ proactive efforts to fulfill their psychological needs. This research develops an understanding of how the college environment, instructors, and learners’ own agentic efforts help nurture first-generation students’ inner motivational resources.Educational Psycholog