Report of Legislative Committee

In the first place, the Committee, in my opinion, in the past and during the past year has been too large. It consists of a chairman and twenty-eight members; and any of you who have had experience in working with committees know that a committee of that size is just too big, and when matters were to be considered by the Committee most of them had to be considered through correspondence. We found that we were very fortunate indeed if we obtained the opinions of sixteen or seventeen of the members

Report of the Board of Governors and Address of the President

I appreciate the privilege that I have had during the past year of acting as your President. Although work for the Bar Association took considerable of my time, I found it most enjoyable. My labors were made less burdensome and most pleasant by reason of the fact that the members of the Board of Governors with whom I worked were highly efficicient and devoted to the best interests of our Association. A large part of the work of the Bar Association is necessarily performed by committees. As a whole the committee work was highly satisfactory. I shall not, in this report, discusse the work of all committees, but I shall later on speak briefly of some of the most active committees of the Bar

EU policy in Belarus : prospects for democratization.

This thesis addresses the impact of an external actor’s democracy promotion policies on domestic democratic development. More specifically, it is a case study of the European Union as an external actor, using Belarus as the domestic polity of focus. My research questions are: (1) What have been the policies of the EU intended to encourage democracy in Belarus? and (2) What have been the impacts of these policies on Belarus’ level of democracy in comparison to the rest of Central and Eastern Europe? To respond to these questions, a definition and method of measuring democracy is proposed, and Belarus’ level of democracy as it relates to that of neighboring countries is evaluated. I theorize that external agents have a significant role in this process, largely through diffusion. The most important forms of diffusion highlighted in this thesis are linkage, leverage, neighbor, and that occurring via transnational advocacy networks. Conditionality, or the notion of an external actor offering a domestic polity a set of incentives and/or disincentives for modifying its standards, behaviors, practices, etc. is the method by which the EU most frequently attempts to affect democratization. For this reason, EU democracy promotion policies based on conditionality are the focus of this paper. I proceed by analyzing three specific, conditionality-based policy instruments the EU has utilized over the past decade to encourage democratization in Belarus. Each instrument’s purported objectives, incentives and conditionality requirements are considered before its impacts are assessed according to the corresponding political developments in Belarus at that time. This serves as a relevant indicator of whether or not the policy was successful in meeting its objectives, and may provide further insights into the types of policies which appear to be successful in effecting democratic progress. The results found that the policies the EU has implemented thus far have had varying degrees of success: the Eastern Neighborhood Policy, very strict in its conditionality requirements, had very little impact; the Eastern Partnership, a more multilateral, collaborative approach with more lenient requirements for participation produced slightly better results until 2010 when there was a violent political crackdown in Belarus; lastly, the Dialogue on Modernization, which places a greater emphasis on civil society, has made greater strides in supporting and legitimizing opposition groups in Belarus – motivating certain members of the Belarusian political elite to express their desire to participate, a positive sign. My findings also suggest that initial signs of progress do not necessarily signal substantive, long-lasting change will occur. Further research into the EU’s ability to influence democratic change in Belarus is necessary

Reliability, Usefulness, and Validity of Field-Based Vertical Jump Measuring Devices

Comyns, TM,Murphy, J, and O’Leary, D. Reliability, usefulness, and validity of field-based vertical jump measuring devices. J Strength Cond Res 37(8): 1594–1599, 2023—The purpose of this study was to examine the test-retest reliability, usefulness, and validity of field based devices, in determining jump height (JH) during a countermovement jump (CMJ). Twenty-one male (22.8 6 2.4 years; 1.82 6 0.07m; 86.0610.4 kg) and 7 female field sport athletes (20.561.5 years; 1.6560.06 m; 65.467.2 kg) performed 3CMJs with data simultaneously recorded using a force plate (criterion measure), Opto jump, Output Capture, and Push-Band 2.0. Reliability was determined by intraclass correlation (ICC) and coefficient of variation (CV) analyses. Usefulness was assessed by comparing typical error (TE) with the smallest worthwhile change (SWC), and the validity analyses involved repeated measures analysis of variance with post hoc analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient (r), coefficient of determination, and Bland-Altman 95%limits of agreement analyses. All 3 field-based devices were deemed reliable in assessing CMJ height as the respective ICCs $ 0.80 and the CV # 10%. Only the Opto jump and Output Capture devices were rated as “good” at detecting the SWC in performance (Opto jump SWC: 1.44.TE: 1.04; Output Capture SWC: 1.47 . TE: 1.05). The Output Capture device demonstrated acceptable validity for CMJ height assessment, whereas the Push-Band 2.0 showed systematic bias when compared with the criterion force plate data. Systematic difference was also evident for the Opto jump potentially due to the optical switching-cell position on the Opto jump. Although all 3 devices showed excellent reliability, the Opto jump and Output Capture devices offer practitioners a cost effective, reliable, and valid method of assessing the smallest worthwhile change in CMJ performance in an applied setting

Impact of Mandatory Diversity Training: Lessons from a Private University

Attendance at diversity training programs is often dictated by management, and participants find themselves caught between their genuine desire to broaden their understanding of the subject and resentment at being forced to do so. The outcomes of these mandatory training programs have not been systematically assessed. This study looks at the cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral impacts of attending such a program and finds valuable lessons learned and cautious room for optimism

STATURE AND LOAD AFFECT THE WALK TO RUN TRANSITION SPEED

Military personnel are often required to march “in-step” while carrying heavy loads. For example, the two speeds required to complete the role fitness test for the British Army are close to the preferred walking speed and preferred walk-to-run transition speed (PTS) for healthy adults when unloaded. PTS depends on anthropometry, including stature. Walking at speeds markedly different to PTS has been associated with increased metabolic cost and increased joint loading. There is also limited research into how this PTS is affected by load carriage. To minimise the risk of injury, there is a need to understand how load carriage affects PTS. This study found PTS for male and female personnel decreased with increased load carried, and that female personnel tended to transition from walking to running earlier than male personnel. The relationship between PTS and stature became more positive as load increased, irrespective of sex. Due to the association between deviating from preferred walking gait and increases in joint loading, these findings may have implications for the risk of injury in military personnel who are required to march “in-step”

Are Alternative School Leader Preparation Programs Really Needed to Prepare Next-Generation School Leaders?

The essays in this chapter focus on the issue of how best to recruit the very best administrative talent to leadership positions in schools. For years, the accepted practice has been for school leaders to be prepared through traditional school administration programs with higher education institutions. These programs, almost exclusively housed within colleges and schools of education, consisted of a range of courses from school law to school finance, often with associated and embedded field and clinical components. The focus on school leader preparation has emerged in partial response to the No Child Left Behind legislation. Clearly, there are expanded expectations regarding what principals can and should be able to do in order to be effective as school leaders. Critics of traditional preparation programs, such as Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, argue that far too little of the principal preparation curriculum focuses on accountability while far too much deals with issues that simply do not create opportunities for principals to understand how to use data and how to effectively evaluate the personnel who report to them. Critics such as Hess and others expect principals to be able to use data in ways that will help them manage school programs so that all students are able to achieve to their full potential and so that every teacher can be productive in terms of fostering essential and necessary student academic growth. The critics challenge whether traditional programs have been able to keep pace with the educational demands that are a part of a competitive, globalized economy. Whether such critics have it right is debatable, but what both critics and advocates of traditional programs agree on is the fact that the principal is absolutely critical to the success of any school program. Teachers need a school leader who understands how to manage a complex educational environment. The question remains about how best to prepare such school leaders, which serves as the focus for this chapter. This is not the first time that there have been serious and ongoing efforts to upgrade the quality of administrator preparation, but even with current and previous efforts, serious concerns have surfaced as to whether traditional programs can really deliver to PreK-12 schools the intellectual talent needed to foster educational excellence. Some critics believe that the real solution to the problem is to bring persons with business degrees into schools who understand how to operate, manage, and market businesses. Indeed, some universities around the country are now working through their business schools to prepare individuals who have interests in taking their business degrees into educational environments for the purpose of serving as principals or school leaders. Emmy L. Partin and Jamie Davies O\u27Leary, from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, make the case that more nontraditional, nonuniversity-based options are needed. They argue that programs run by charter management organizations or selected non profits, such as New Leaders for New Schools, create new vehicles for attracting talent to school leadership positions that simply are not being evidenced through traditional, university-based programs. In addition, Partin and O\u27Leary assert that many of the nontraditional options place emphasis on preparing administrators for some of the nation\u27s most poorly performing schools, where the need for quality school leaders is most pronounced. Theodore J. Kowalski from the University of Dayton takes a different view. Kowalski is one of the nation\u27s thought leaders in terms of school leader preparation practices. He has concerns that the alternatives will deprofessionalize school leadership at precisely the time when more professional skills and understandings are required by those assuming the difficult responsibilities associated with school administration. Kowalski perceives that, in general, no shortage of administrative talent exists in the United States and that traditional programs are much better suited to address the preparation demands that are currently found in the educational marketplace. These two essays capture in a significant way much of the active and substantive debate currently found in the professional literature about how to ensure that the nation secures the school leaders it needs. Everyone agrees that school principals and district superintendents are critical ingredients to educational excellence. What these two essays highlight is the very different approaches that policymakers and practitioners have taken relative to how best to recruit and train the next generation of school leaders. In reading these two essays, consider the following questions. First, will emerging alternatives really deprofessionalize what it means to be a school leader? Second, if it is really essential to have the right people in a leadership position, how should schools best recruit the talent they need? Finally, is the key to recruiting more professional principals paying them more so that you attract better quality or training them differently so that they are assured of possessing skills they need for success? — Thomas J. Lasley II, University of Dayto