Urban climate adaptation as a process of organisational decision making

In a world that is increasingly urbanised, cities are recognised as critical sites for tackling problems of climate change, both by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing the impacts of changing climate conditions. Unlike climate change mitigation, adaptation does not have one clear, commonly agreed collective goal. Governing and making decisions on climate adaptation in cities entails contestation over knowledge, values and preferences. Currently, the two dominant conceptualisations of adaptation are as cycles or pathways. Do these models adequately theorise what can be empirically observed in cities as to how climate adaptation is undertaken? Most research on urban climate adaptation emanates from the Global North, where political, scientific, economic and administrative systems are well established and well resourced. There is a dearth of empirical research from cities of the Global South contributing to the development of urban climate adaptation theory. This thesis contributes to addressing this gap in two ways. Firstly, by drawing on both conceptual and methodological resources from the field of organisational studies, notably the streams and rounds models of decision making, organisational ethnography and processual case research. Secondly, by conducting empirical case study research on three processes of city scale climate adaptation in Cape Town, South Africa, a growing city facing many development challenges where the local government began addressing climate adaptation over ten years ago. The three adaptation processes studied are: the preparation and adoption of city-wide sectoral climate adaptation plans; the creation of a City Development Strategy with climate resilience as a core goal; and the inclusion of climate change projections into stormwater masterplans. Data were gathered through interviews, participant observation, focus groups and document review, through embedded research within a formal knowledge co-production partnership between the University of Cape Town and the City of Cape Town government. Processual analysis and applied thematic analysis were used to test models of adaptation and decision making against data from the three case studies. The findings suggest that both the cycles and pathways models of climate adaptation inadequately represent the contested and contingent nature of decision making that prevail within the governance systems of cities such as Cape Town. Based on ethnographic knowledge of how Cape Town's local government undertakes climate adaptation, it is argued that the rounds model of decision making provides conceptual tools to better understand and represent how the process of climate adaptation in cities is undertaken; tools that can be used to enhance the pathways model. The study concludes that progress in adapting cities to a changing climate is currently constrained by both the problems and potential solutions or interventions being too technical for most politicians to deal with and prioritize and too political for most technical and administrative officials to design and implement. It calls for urban climate adaptation to be understood as distributed across a multitude of actors pursuing concurrent, discontinuous processes, and thereby focus needs to be on fostering collaboration and coordination, rather than fixating on single actors, policies, plans or projects

A History of the Black Women's Caucus of Union Theological Seminary

This thesis deals with the formation of the Black Women's Caucus of Union Theological Seminary. Its major premise is this: the Black Women's Caucus formed in response to the seminary's insensitivity to the needs of Black women at Union; an insensitivity that resulted from the political structure of the seminary. It did not form solely as a reaction to the male chauvinism of black males or the sexism of the Black Caucus

Archaeological Survey of a Proposed Riverside Park Trail at the Victoria Municipal Park, Victoria, Texas

During April 1985, personnel from the Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio, conducted a pedestrian survey and shovel testing of the area to be affected by a proposed riverside park trail within the Victoria Municipal Park in Victoria County, Texas. The investigation was sponsored by the City of Victoria. The purpose of the survey was to locate any archaeological sites which might be impacted by construction of the proposed trail. No archaeological sites were identified during the project, and it is recommended that no further archaeological investigations are needed

The Effects of Maternal Energy Restriction During Mid-Gestation on Growth Performance, Immune Function, and Gene Expression in the Resultant Beef Offspring

Fetal or developmental programming evaluates the effects of maternal alterations on the developing fetus and the potential consequences later in life. To understand the effects of mid-gestation energy restriction on beef cows and their calves the objectives of this dissertation were to determine the effects of dietary energy restriction on measurements associated with cow energy status, and the effects on growth performance, the humoral immune response, and subcutaneous adipose tissue gene expression in the resultant beef offspring. Pregnant beef cows were allotted into 2 treatment groups during mid-gestation: 1) fed at maintenance (Positive Energy Status (PES)); or 2) fed just below maintenance (Negative Energy Status (NES)). Cows were evaluated for parameters reflective of cow energy status. Positive energy status cows maintained or gained condition where the NES cows lost condition during the mid-gestation treatment period, indicating the intended treatment was met. Progeny were evaluated for growth performance characteristics from birth through the finishing phase. Birth weight was decreased in NES heifer calves (P0.05). Two genes important in adipose differentiation had a tendency (

The Need of a Vocational Guidance Program in A. J. Moore High School Waco, Texas

Vocational guidance is an educational service and as such should be considered an integral part of the educational program carried on by the recognized educational agency of the community. Helping the youth to obtain reliable and significant information upon which to base a choice of occupation, aiding him to find a suitable opportunity to begin work in the occupation of his choice, and giving him additional assistance as needed during the period of adjustment and further training after employment begins, are just as truly educational service as teaching the same youth history or mathematics. The former service often has a more vital bearing upon his satisfaction in life and his contribution to society than the latter. When we consider the question of guidance, we are considering not something which is to be added to education, not something which exists outside, but something which is really in the very center of education itself. American democratic ideals demand not only that all should have as nearly as possible equal opportunity for education, but also that all men and women should be employed in that form of work to which they may contribute most of their own happiness and to the common good. Hence if the high school is to prepare its students to be vocationally efficient, there is need for guiding them so that they will be equipped to make the optimum re-adjustments in this complex world of economic and social changes

The Effect of Adolescent-Parent Congruence on the College-Decision Making Process of Rural Appalachian Youth

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between adolescent-parent congruence on the SCCT variables of college-going self-efficacy beliefs, college outcome expectations, and college decision-making in rural Appalachian youth. The study addressed three main research questions: What are the typical levels of adolescent-parent congruence, college-going self-efficacy, and college outcome expectations of rural Appalachian youth? How are college-going decisions impacted by the level of adolescent-parent congruence, college-going self-efficacy beliefs, and college outcome expectations of rural Appalachian youth? and How do rural Appalachian high school students say that adolescent-parent congruence impacts their college decisions? Participants in the study were high school seniors enrolled in five rural Appalachian high schools within a single Southeastern state. Data was collected through online surveys. Participants were asked to complete three scales: the Adolescent-Parent Career Congruence Scale-Revised (Sawitri et al., 2012), College Outcome Expectation Scale (Flores et al., 2008), and the College-Going Self-Efficacy Scale (Gibbons & Borders, 2010). Participants were also asked to answer two open response questions and complete a brief demographic scale. Findings indicated that rural Appalachian youth have a moderate amount of congruence with their parents regarding postsecondary plans, moderately high levels of college-going self-efficacy, and high levels of college outcomes expectations. High positive correlations were found between each of these three variables. In addition, multiple variables were found to predict students’ adolescent-parent congruence including college-going self-efficacy, college outcome expectations, mother’s educational level, and gender. Finally, while students reported moderate levels of adolescent-parent congruence on the quantitative measure, they demonstrated increased incongruence when asked about incongruence in an open-ended format. Based on these findings, implications for future research, counselors, and counselor educators were provided

A Letter of Anna [Taylor], Daughter of Walter T. Taylor, the First Principal of the Pioneer School, to Rev. Albertus C. Van Raalte

A letter of Anna [Taylor], daughter of Walter T. Taylor, the first principal of the Pioneer School, to Rev. Albertus C. Van Raalte. She assumed that A.C.V.R. had heard of her father\u27s death. However, she regretted that her father and A.C.V.R. had a disagreement which marred their relationship. Wichers quotes this letter in A Century of Hope, p. 40.https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/vrp_1850s/1355/thumbnail.jp