TUCK YOUR BOOTS IN

This thesis discusses my labor experiences and the acquired skills that have been an influential part of my art making process. Developing my own technique and ways of working are very important to me. By nature, I am driven to acquire as many skills as possible. Skills are valuable. It is the desire of still wanting more that has led me to make art

Social Organisation in the Malaysian Peacock Pheasant

This thesis reports a study of the behaviour and morphology of the Malaysian peacock pheasant Polyplectron malacense, an inhabitant of lowland rain forest in Peninsular Malaysia. A total of 21 months was spent in the field and museum collections were visited. Micro-habitat analysis, radio-tracking and contextual analysis of calling behaviour and call playback experiments were used to collect data on the species in the wild. Periods of calling arid display scrape maintenance were infrequent and unpredictable. Not all of the available micro-habitats within the primary forest were used by the birds as some areas were consistently avoided. Within calling periods males used particular micro-habitats to call and maintain display scrapes. Three different call types were heard. There were differences between calling periods in the number of birds calling, the types of calls given and the overall amount of calling. The number of display scrapes maintained also differed. Based on contextual observations, call playback experiments were conducted and stimulus tapes elicited responses and permitted investigation of call function. There are several morphological features of the male which seem likely to be subject to sexual selection. Males appear to possess several sexually-selected traits which show considerable variability among individuals. Several male morphological characters have evolved in. association with particular epigamic display elements, suggesting that they are potentially under selection through female choice. These results suggest that a female is presented with variation among males in several different ornamental traits. A qualitative model, based on food availability, is proposed to explain variation in calling and scrape maintenance among males. It is argued that opportunities for males to display to females may be very rare and that this may explain the evolution of the male's plumage and display. Females lay a single-egg clutch and hence only one male can fertilise a clutch, with the result that competition between males for paternity is likely to be very strong

James McGowan

James McGowan, Professor of English Emeritus, joined IWU\u27s faculty in 1969 and retired in 2000. He and Anne (Class of 1976) remain active in the community. Dr. McGowan read his original poem commemorating the inauguration of IWU\u27s 15th President Richard F. Wilson may be found at http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/wilson_inauguration/1

Untangling the Myth of the Model Minority

The model minority stereotype depicts Asian Americans as a group that has succeeded in America and overcome discrimination through its hard work, intelligence, and emphasis on education and achievement - a modern-day confirmation of the American Dream. A large body of work by Asian critical scholars condemns this image and charges that it conceals more sinister beliefs about Asian Americans and other racial minorities in America. Is this critique correct? Does the model minority stereotype really mask hostility toward Asian Americans or breed contempt for other minorities? This article presents the results of an empirical study into the model minority stereotype. Using 1990, 1994, and 2000 General Social Survey data (including some of the very data used by critical scholars to establish the existence of this stereotype), we confirm claims that some non-Hispanic white Americans think that Asian Americans as a group are more intelligent, harder working, and richer than other minorities and that some think Asian Americans are more intelligent and harder working than whites. But we also discovered that these ideas are not usually linked with negative views of Asian Americans (or of other minorities, for that matter). Indeed, we found weak support for the contrary position - that those who rate Asian Americans higher than other minorities, or particularly higher than whites, are more likely to hold other positive views about Asian Americans, immigration, African Americans, and government programs supporting these groups. Our study nonetheless confirms the scholarly suspicions in one crucial respect: non-Hispanic whites who have positive views of Asian Americans are less likely to think that Asian Americans are discriminated against in both jobs and housing, thus tending to support the claims of some Asian critical scholars that positive stereotypes about Asian Americans tend to be associated with a failure to recognize continuing discrimination. In these data, however, this complacency by whites about prejudice against Asians does not translate into hostility toward government programs to alleviate the problems of Asian or African Americans