“The Grand Experiment:” Modeling Adult Learning with Adult-Ministry Students

Adult-learning theory challenges faculty to adapt their teaching to certain characteristics of adult learners, including self-direction: if adults direct the bulk of their lives outside of school, so should they be permitted to direct their own educational experiences. To what extent is self-directed learning an optimal, or even realistic, methodology for seminary teaching? Does it matter what subjects we are teaching? This essay details an experiment with self-directed learning in a seminary ministry class: what worked; what might be altered before experimenting again with this teaching methodology; how it challenges our view of ourselves as faculty to teach in this way. Student feedback from the course in question enhances our understanding of the best (and most challenging) features of the experiment

Newspaper Clipping, July 20, 1911

Sobbing Over Father, newspaper clipping of article by Laura Simmons, published in Boston, Massachusetts, July 20, 1911. Clipping received from Henry Romeike, Inc., a clipping bureau located in New York.https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/fathers-day-newspapersPre1924/1023/thumbnail.jp

Economic Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence: A Practicum Study of Action Against Hunger in Post-Conflict Northern Uganda

This project is an exploration with Action Against Hunger (ACF) on gender-based violence and economic empowerment of women in northern Uganda. The two-decade long civil war in northern Uganda has dramatically affected the lives and livelihoods of the population, creating the situation of a basic need for livelihood enhancement. The program that is analyzed utilizes cash transfers for the most vulnerable populations in thirteen sub-counties in the region in order to address the issues of both gender-based violence and lack of reliable economic production. This project realizes the realities of the relationship between gender-based violence and livelihood enhancement and aims to combat the underlying causes. The intentions of this practicum were to develop an understanding of the work that ACF conducts and the underlying causes of the main issues facing the population in the region.During this practicum period, activities, workshops, meetings and daily workings of the organization were observed. Numerous secondary sources were researched and interviews were carried out amongst both the ACF staff and the beneficiaries of the program.While six weeks is too short of a time to undertake a full, comprehensive understanding and analysis of the success of such a program, it was found according to the practicum, that this program is of great importance and has had meaningful successes; the context of northern Uganda is unique and any program that looks to address the issues facing the communities must also take a unique approach that addresses the underlying issues in order to create sustainable and effective change, which ACF has done. In the following and concluding year of the “Combating Gender-based Violence and Enhancing Economic Empowerment of women in Northern Uganda through cash transfers” project there are ways in which it can improve in order to best help the communities it works in. This practicum revealed the challenges that the organization faces, and the views of the beneficiaries on such a project

Ouida Bergère

Ouida Bergère was perhaps best known in the film industry as Mrs. Basil Rathbone and party hostess extraordinaire. However, before her marriage, to Rathbone, Bergère was a prominent and top paid scenario writer. Bergère was born in Spain, but moved to the US at the age of six. Her father was French-Spanish and her mother, British (Lowrey 1920, 22). There is some conflicting information regarding her birth name; most sources claim she was born Ida Bergère, others Eulalia Bergère. Regardless, upon entering the film industry, she changed her name to Ouida

Impact of an Emergent Reading Skills Intervention on Letter Recognition and Phoneme Identification in Pre-Kindergarten Children

Research in the field of early literacy has demonstrated that letter recognition and phoneme identification are two necessary components of emergent reading skills (Casbergue & Strickland, 2016). Emergent literacy refers to the reading and writing skills that young children develop prior to learning traditional literacy skills and has been linked to increased literacy achievement (Justice & Pullen, 2003). This study focused solely on emergent reading skills. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effects of a targeted multi-sensory intervention on the emergent reading skills of letter recognition and phoneme identification using a multiple baseline design (Kazdin, 2011). Children were observed using the discrete categorization method during informal classroom observations while interacting with emergent reading materials (Kazdin, 2011). Previous research suggests that targeted emergent reading skill development supports emergent reading abilities (Noe et. al., 2014). The Emergent Reading Skills Intervention consisted of three components: shared reading, teacher-led phonemic awareness activities, and multi-sensory letter games. Results demonstrated the effectiveness of the Emergent Reading Skills Intervention on emergent reading skills of letter recognition and phoneme identification. It should be noted that this study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future research could examine which components of the intervention were most impactful on the emergent reading skills of the targeted children

Development of an in silico molecule assessment method for product expression

Protein products with expression-related manufacturability problems can present a significant barrier to the clinical and commercial feasibility of a project. Methods to identify and potentially eliminate poor-expressing therapeutic candidates early in the drug development process can simplify process development activities and facilitate platform fit, saving resources, costs and time. Existing experimental methods for screening expression level, such as transient transfection or stable pool yields, either lack the capability to accurately discriminate between candidates and/or they can be time-consuming, resource-intensive evaluations for multiple candidates. An in silico method was investigated with the goal of developing a more efficient and precise screening tool for determining expression level of therapeutic candidates. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

New Technologies for Weed Eradication—Invasive Plants Have No Place to Hide When DNA Is Involved

Building on the advances in molecular technology, two genetic based tools are being developed by Biosecurity Queensland to improve conventional invasive plant detection, monitoring and control. Sporobolus is a genus of almost 200 grass species from tropical and subtropical parts of the world. In Australia, 19 Sporobolus species are endemic and 8 species are introduced. Of these, 10 (5 natives and 5 introduced) are closely allied species and overlapping morphological traits makes accurate identification very difficult. Five of the introduced weedy Sporobolus grasses including Giant Rat’s Tail Grass (GRT), threaten to cost the grazing industry of eastern Australia $60 million per annum, having the potential to infest 60% of Queensland and 30% of Australia. The success of four GRT biological control programs in Australia, hinge on the accurate identification of the host plant. The GRT project relies on a molecular approach to delimit and accurately identify these Sporobolus species, allowing for a more accurate and targeted control strategy to be used in the paddock. The second molecular project focuses on the dioecious Mexican bean tree (Cecropia spp.), a restricted pioneer tree that has invaded rainforests in tropical and subtropical Queensland. Molecular markers are being used to genotype an eradicated population to identify if there are any undetected parent trees within surveyed areas that may be residing in inaccessible rainforest patches, thereby preventing extirpation to occur. Dust monitoring devices to capture pollen are being trialed as an eDNA surveillance method for detecting unknown Mexican bean tree populations in remote rainforest locations

Books, Theology, and Hens: The Correspondence and Friendship of C. S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers

That Lewis and Sayers had much in common and that their lives intersected in a number of interesting ways throughout their careers is common knowledge for even the casual follower of either author. What does not seem to have been appreciated or explained sufficiently in the scholarship to date is the nature of the friendship between these two influential Christian authors. Therefore, it is this friendship we wish to shed light on, using as our primary source the correspondence between Lewis and Sayers from 1942-1957. In addition, we look at what the biographers of each author have to say about their relationship