A Missiology of With: The Catalyst for Missionary Effectiveness in the 21st Century

The world is a very a different place than it was a century ago, and while the modern missionary movement has slightly evolved through time, many of the accepted standards and approaches are predicated on realities that no longer exist. Global connectivity, the ease of travel, and shift of the global center of Christianity mean that practices which may have been effective even fifty years ago are becoming outdated and fruitless. Nevertheless, mission agencies continue to employ these archaic practices, burning-out missionaries, alienating nationals, and wasting Kingdom resources. This dissertation proposes cross-cultural collaboration as the needed paradigm for missionary effectiveness and sustainability in the 21st century. Section One explores the current challenges facing cross-cultural Christian missions and describes existing barriers to fruitfulness. It includes a brief overview of modern realities that must be addressed in order to establish mission practices that are relevant to our time. Section Two analyzes the three dominant approaches to cross-cultural mission—the apostolic method, contextualization, and indigenization—and considers their viability for today. It also surveys and evaluates current missionary training and support methods. Section Three recommends a modification of the standard approaches to missions by suggesting a missiology of “With,” in which mission agencies, missionaries, and national partners prioritize collaborative efforts and relational methods. It suggests that doing Mission With would not only increase missionary effectiveness (particularly for future generations of missionaries, including Millennials), but may also reduce missionary attrition. Section Four introduces the artifact, a three-year program called Elan that is designed to help missionaries adapt to the field in France while equipping them to do Mission With. Section Five offers a detailed description of the Elan program, including the program specifications, standards, budget, and evaluative measures. Finally, Section Six is a reflection on my personal learning through the dissertation writing process, with a call for further research on the topic

Species-specific responses to ozone and drought in six deciduous trees

Saplings of alder (Alnus glutinosa), birch (Betula pendula), hazel (Corylus avellana), beech (Fagus sylvatica), ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and oak (Quercus robur) were exposed to five episodic ozone regimes in solardomes, with treatment means between 16 and 72 ppb. All trees were kept fully watered for the first five weeks of exposure, after which half the trees continued to be well-watered, whereas the other half were subjected to a moderate drought and received approximately 45% of the amount of water. Species-specific reductions in growth in response to both ozone and drought were found, which could result in reduced potential carbon sequestration in future ozone climates. In well watered conditions the ozone treatments resulted in total biomass reductions for oak (18%), alder (16%), beech (15%), ash (14%), birch (14%) and hazel (7%) in the 72 ppb compared to the 32 ppb treatment. For beech there was a reduction in growth in response to ozone in the well watered treatment, but an increase in growth in response to ozone in the drought treatment, assumed to result from changes in hormonal signalling. For alder, in addition to a decrease in root biomass there was reduced biomass of root nodules with high compared to low ozone for both drought treated and well-watered trees. There was also a large reduction in the biomass of nodules from drought trees compared to well-watered. It is therefore possible that changes in the nitrogen dynamics of alder could occur due to reduced nodulation in both drought and elevated ozone conditions

Ozone pollution affects flower numbers and timing in a simulated BAP priority calcareous grassland community

Mesocosms representing the BAP Priority habitat ‘Calcareous Grassland’ were exposed to eight ozone profiles for twelve-weeks in two consecutive years. Half of the mesocosms received a reduced watering regime during the exposure periods. Numbers and timing of flowering in the second exposure period were related to ozone concentration and phytotoxic ozone dose (accumulated stomatal flux). For Lotus corniculatus, ozone accelerated the timing of the maximum number of flowers. An increase in mean ozone concentration from 30 ppb to 70 ppb corresponded with an advance in the timing of maximum flowering by six days. A significant reduction in flower numbers with increasing ozone was found for Campanula rotundifolia and Scabiosa columbaria and the relationship with ozone was stronger for those that were well-watered than for those with reduced watering. These changes in flowering timing and numbers could have large ecological impacts, affecting plant pollination and the food supply of nectar feeding insects

Sialic Acid Mutarotation Is Catalyzed by the Escherichia coli β-Propeller Protein YjhT

The acquisition of host-derived sialic acid is an important virulence factor for some bacterial pathogens, but in vivo this sugar acid is sequestered in sialoconjugates as the {alpha}-anomer. In solution, however, sialic acid is present mainly as the β-anomer, formed by a slow spontaneous mutarotation. We studied the Escherichia coli protein YjhT as a member of a family of uncharacterized proteins present in many sialic acid-utilizing pathogens. This protein is able to accelerate the equilibration of the {alpha}- and β-anomers of the sialic acid N-acetylneuraminic acid, thus describing a novel sialic acid mutarotase activity. The structure of this periplasmic protein, solved to 1.5Å resolution, reveals a dimeric 6-bladed unclosed β-propeller, the first of a bacterial Kelch domain protein. Mutagenesis of conserved residues in YjhT demonstrated an important role for Glu-209 and Arg-215 in mutarotase activity. We also present data suggesting that the ability to utilize {alpha}-N-acetylneuraminic acid released from complex sialoconjugates in vivo provides a physiological advantage to bacteria containing YjhT

Hiking Tracker to Give Directions Along a Trail

The goal of this project is to design and build a device that will give directions to a user along a hike. It will give directions in real-time in the form of arrows (8 possibilities: represented by the 8 cardinal directions), as well as display the current time, current direction the user is traveling (Ex: N), the distance traveled and the distance left. The focus is one trail (around campus) for testing purposes but more trails can be added. The process for adding more trails involves mapping it using an online resource and downloading the data. The device contains a GPS receiver to get the user\u27s location and be able to provide this data in real-time, and a 3-axis accelerometer that is used as the compass. Data from these components is dealt with using an Arduino Nano and then the correct information is sent to an OLED display, which was used due to its size and ability to display arrows

DTR (Dating That’s Real): Developing Daters for the Common Good

Dating and romance: It’s complicated for college students. Secular culture sets a model that is problematic for many people of faith. This session will share contemporary research as well as anecdotal experience from “Does Anyone Date Anymore?” a course offered at the University of Dayton for the past four years. By boldly stepping into real conversations about the influence of casual attitudes about hooking up, pornography, and gender scripts, professional staff have the opportunity to help students deepen their understanding of themselves, their values, and their intimate relationships. Drawing on Catholic social teaching — specifically the dignity of the individual and the common good — students can be challenged to consider the impact of their behavior on their community

School counselor assignment in secondary schools: Replication and extension

Before school counselors can carry out the duties and responsibilities outlined as part of a comprehensive school counseling program, they must know which students they are responsible for helping. The topic of assigning students to school counselors has only recently been seen in the educational research arena in a study by Akos, Schuldt, and Walendin (2009). The current study attempts to replicate and extend the findings of Akos, Schuldt, and Walendin by addressing the questions of how secondary school counselors are assigned and what are their perceptions of their assignment. In addition, the study attempts to determine whether a particular type of school counselor assignment is more effective in enhancing student achievement in a large school district. A review of literature relevant to this study includes: the history of school counseling; the role of the school counselor; student achievement as defined by NCLB (2001); school counselor interventions in the areas of standardized-test scores, attendance, and graduation rates; and school counselor assignment. The study was conducted in two parts. Part one of the study was conducted using a survey questionnaire--School Counselor Assignment Questionnaire, SCAQ (Akos, Schuldt, and Walendin, 2009). A total of 213 secondary school counselors from Clark County School District participated in the survey. The results found that the breakdown of school counselor assignment used in participating secondary schools was similar to that found by Akos, Schuldt, and Walendin (2009) with a majority of middle schools using a grade level looping method and a majority of high schools using an alphabetical method. Also evident in the findings of this study was that school counselors using methods of school counselor assignment in which they keep the same students from year to year, had more positive perceptions of their method than those who were using a mixed method. Part two of the study is an analysis of student achievement data from schools using different school counselor assignment methods. Results of this analysis show no significant difference between school counselor assignment and the student achievement variables--percentage of students who meet or exceed standards on the standards-based reading test, percentage of students who meet or exceed standards on the standards-based math test, and student daily average attendance. At the middle school level there was a difference related to method of assignment in the student achievement variables, but extended analysis suggested this was an artifact of extraneous variables. Although the findings of this study do not identify a relationship between school counselor assignment and the three NCLB variables representing student achievement, it does further the findings of the original study by showing statistically significant differences in counselor perceptions of several aspects of their school counselor assignment method. These findings appear to warrant consideration when discussing school counselor assignment with school counseling students, when school counseling departments are developing their comprehensive guidance program, or when working to create better guidelines for determining school counselor assignment

Sentimental appropriations: contemporary sympathy in the novels of Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison

This project investigates the appearance of the nineteenth-century American sentimental mode in more recent literature, revealing that the cultural work of sentimentalism continues in the twentieth-century and beyond. By examining working-class literature that adopts the rhetoric of "feeling right" in order to promote a proletarian ideology as well as neo-slave narratives that wrestle with the legacy of slavery, this study explores the ways contemporary authors engage with familiar sentimental tropes and ideals. Despite modernism's influential assertion that sentimentalism portrays emotion that lacks reality or depth, narrative claims to feeling--particularly those based in common and recognizable forms of suffering--remain popular. It seems clear that such authors as Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison apply the rhetorical methods of sentimentalism to the cultural struggles of their age. Contemporary authors self-consciously struggle with sentimentalism's gender, class, and race ideals; however, sentimentalism's dual ability to promote these ideals and extend identification across them makes it an attractive and effective mode for political and social influence. The authors in this study draw upon common sentimental themes such as vulnerable womanhood, motherhood and family, caregiving and domesticity, death and the fear of separation, and Christian salvation to establish sympathy for "Othered" members of society. Sentimental literature not only helped mark private and public spaces, but it also redefined the family as more than just a biological or economic unit -- it bound the family in terms of affection and love. Like their nineteenth-century predecessors, contemporary authors expand the definitions of family and kinship in order to develop sympathy for those who have been cast as outsiders and "Others." This study examines how contemporary authors modify the sentimental mode through narrative appropriation--adopting the perspectives and voices of "Others" and figuring them as legitimate objects of reader sympathy. Many current sentimental works appropriate the subjectivity of the "Other" in a form of colonial or postcolonial sympathy that assumes or critiques a universal western perspective that believes its power of sympathy to be so strong that it can effectively inhabit the "Others" it seeks to help and improve.Doctor of Philosoph