Assessing Faculty Shortages in Comprehensive Colleges and Universities

In the last two years, the national media and higher education publications have begun warning of faculty shortages. In the fall of 1989 Edward Fiske and Elizabeth Fowler wrote in the New York Times that colleges and universities would be facing major faculty shortages in the humanities and social sciences (Fiske 1989; Fowler 1989). A few months earlier, Joseph Berger (1989) warned in the New York Times that the Slowing Pace to Doctorates Spurs Worry on Filling Jobs. The Chronicle of Higher Education has been running a series of articles on various aspects of the faculty labor market --concerning the extent of anticipated shortages and how colleges and universities are coping with them (Mooney 1989a; Mooney 1989b; Blum 1989), the pros and cons of academic careers ( The Pros and Cons... 1989), and the lost generation of scholars (Heller 1990). These articles present the overall picture, with some attention to differences among the disciplines. None identifies how different types of institutions will experience changes in the supply and demand for faculty. This paper focuses especially on the implications of changes in the faculty labor market for comprehensive universities, four-year primarily undergraduate universities that are neither research universities nor liberal arts colleges (Harcleroad and Ostar 1987; Youn, Finnegan, and Gamson forthcoming). It draws on several national studies to present statistics on anticipated faculty supply and demand for higher education as a whole and then disaggregates these statistics for comprehensive institutions. Next, the paper presents preliminary results from a field study of how several comprehensive universities in New England have been handling faculty recruitment and retention. It concludes with a number of implications of these findings for future institutional responses to changes in the faculty labor market

Iron deficiency in parkinsonism : region-specific iron dysregulation in Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy

Alpha synuclein pathology is widespread and found in diverse cell types in multiple system atrophy (MSA) as compared to Parkinson's disease (PD). The reason for this differential distribution is unknown. Regional differences in the distribution of iron are associated with neurodegenerative diseases, and here we characterize the relationship between iron homeostasis proteins and regional concentration, distribution and form of iron in MSA and PD. In PD substantia nigra, tissue iron and expression of the iron export protein ferroportin increased, while the iron storage protein ferritin expression was unchanged. In the basis pontis of MSA cases, increased total iron concentration coupled with a disproportionate increase in ferritin in dysmorphic microglia and a reduction in ferroportin expression. This is supported by isothermal remanent magnetisation evidence consistent with elevated concentrations of ferritin-bound iron in MSA basis pontis. Conventional opinion holds that excess iron is involved in neurodegeneration. Our data support that this may be the case in PD. While region-specific changes in iron are evident in both PD and MSA, the mechanisms of iron dysregulation appear quite distinct, with a failure to export iron from the MSA basis pontis coupling with significant intracellular accumulation of ferritin iron. This pattern also occurs, to a lesser extent, in the MSA putamen. Despite the excess tissue iron, the manner of iron dysregulation in MSA is reminiscent of changes in anemia of chronic disease, and our preliminary data, coupled with the widespread pathology and involvement of multiple cell types, may evidence a deficit in bioavailabile iron

Analysing the impact of iron dysmetabolism on regional metal ion distribution in the brain

An Iron Overload and an H-Ferritin Deficient Mouse Model were used to examine the impact of disrupted iron metabolism on the brain. Brain sections were imaged and compared using Synchrotron μXRF spectroscopy. Quantitative measurement of the relative metal ion concentrations for iron, copper and zinc were made across selected regions of interest in the brain. It was generally found that metal ion concentrations of iron and zinc decreased in specific regions in the Iron Overload condition compared with the control, with copper increasing in only one region. Few regions differed in metal ion concentration between the H-Ferritin Deficient Model and the control. The three conditions exhibited similar / identical results for metal ion concentrations in many brain regions, indicating the validity of the method used for comparison between samples. It is clear that there exists a complex relationship between these trace metal

The Period protein homolog LIN-42 negatively regulates microRNA biogenesis in C. elegans

AbstractMicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression in many multicellular organisms. They are encoded in the genome and transcribed into primary (pri-) miRNAs before two processing steps that ultimately produce the mature miRNA. In order to generate the appropriate amount of a particular miRNA in the correct location at the correct time, proper regulation of miRNA biogenesis is essential. Here we identify the Period protein homolog LIN-42 as a new regulator of miRNA biogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans. We mapped a spontaneous suppressor of the normally lethal let-7(n2853) allele to the lin-42 gene. Mutations in this allele (ap201) or a second lin-42 allele (n1089) caused increased mature let-7 miRNA levels at most time points when mature let-7 miRNA is normally expressed. Levels of pri-let-7 and a let-7 transcriptional reporter were also increased in lin-42(n1089) worms. These results indicate that LIN-42 normally represses pri-let-7 transcription and thus the accumulation of let-7 miRNA. This inhibition is not specific to let-7, as pri- and mature levels of lin-4 and miR-35 were also increased in lin-42 mutants. Furthermore, small RNA-seq analysis showed widespread increases in the levels of mature miRNAs in lin-42 mutants. Thus, we propose that the period protein homolog LIN-42 is a global regulator of miRNA biogenesis

The density of anthropogenic features explains seasonal and behaviour-based functional responses in selection of linear features by a social predator

Anthropogenic linear features facilitate access and travel efficiency for predators, and can influence predator distribution and encounter rates with prey. We used GPS collar data from eight wolf packs and characteristics of seismic lines to investigate whether ease-of-travel or access to areas presumed to be preferred by prey best explained seasonal selection patterns of wolves near seismic lines, and whether the density of anthropogenic features led to functional responses in habitat selection. At a broad scale, wolves showed evidence of habitat-driven functional responses by exhibiting greater selection for areas near low-vegetation height seismic lines in areas with low densities of anthropogenic features. We highlight the importance of considering landscape heterogeneity and habitat characteristics, and the functional response in habitat selection when investigating seasonal behaviour-based selection patterns. Our results support behaviour in line with search for primary prey during summer and fall, and ease-of-travel during spring, while patterns of selection during winter aligned best with ease-of-travel for the less-industrialized foothills landscape, and with search for primary prey in the more-industrialized boreal landscape. These results highlight that time-sensitive restoration actions on anthropogenic features can affect the probability of overlap between predators and threatened prey within different landscapes

The Capaciousness of No: Affective Refusals as Literacy Practices

© 2020 The Authors. Reading Research Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Literacy Association The authors considered the capacious feeling that emerges from saying no to literacy practices, and the affective potential of saying no as a literacy practice. The authors highlight the affective possibilities of saying no to normative understandings of literacy, thinking with a series of vignettes in which children, young people, and teachers refused literacy practices in different ways. The authors use the term capacious to signal possibilities that are as yet unthought: a sense of broadening and opening out through enacting no. The authors examined how attention to affect ruptures humanist logics that inform normative approaches to literacy. Through attention to nonconscious, noncognitive, and transindividual bodily forces and capacities, affect deprivileges the human as the sole agent in an interaction, thus disrupting measurements of who counts as a literate subject and what counts as a literacy event. No is an affective moment. It can signal a pushback, an absence, or a silence. As a theoretical and methodological way of thinking/feeling with literacy, affect proposes problems rather than solutions, countering solution-focused research in which the resistance is to be overcome, co-opted, or solved. Affect operates as a crack or a chink, a tiny ripple, a barely perceivable gesture, that can persist and, in doing so, hold open the possibility for alternative futures

Vernalization-Repression of Arabidopsis FLC Requires Promoter Sequences but Not Antisense Transcripts

The repression of Arabidopsis FLC expression by vernalization (extended cold) has become a model for understanding polycomb-associated epigenetic regulation in plants. Antisense and sense non-coding RNAs have been respectively implicated in initiation and maintenance of FLC repression by vernalization. We show that the promoter and first exon of the FLC gene are sufficient to initiate repression during vernalization; this initial repression of FLC does not require antisense transcription. Long-term maintenance of FLC repression requires additional regions of the gene body, including those encoding sense non-coding transcripts

Roadmaps to Utopia: Tales of the Smart City

Notions of the Smart City are pervasive in urban development discourses. Various frameworks for the development of smart cities, often conceptualized as roadmaps, make a number of implicit claims about how smart city projects proceed but the legitimacy of those claims is unclear. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. We explore the development of a smart transport application, MotionMap, in the context of a £16M smart city programme taking place in Milton Keynes, UK. We examine how the idealized smart city narrative was locally inflected, and discuss the differences between the narrative and the processes and outcomes observed in Milton Keynes. The research shows that the vision of data-driven efficiency outlined in the roadmaps is not universally compelling, and that different approaches to the sensing and optimization of urban flows have potential for empowering or disempowering different actors. Roadmaps tend to emphasize the importance of delivering quick practical results. However, the benefits observed in Milton Keynes did not come from quick technical fixes but from a smart city narrative that reinforced existing city branding, mobilizing a growing network of actors towards the development of a smart region. Further research is needed to investigate this and other smart city developments, the significance of different smart city narratives, and how power relationships are reinforced and constructed through them