Assistance to Firefighters Program: Distribution of Fire Grant Funding

[Excerpt] Firefighting activities are traditionally the responsibility of states and local communities. As such, funding for firefighters is provided mostly by state and local governments. During the 1990s, shortfalls in state and local budgets, coupled with increased responsibilities of local fire departments, led many in the fire community to call for additional financial support from the federal government. Although federally funded training programs existed (and continue to exist) through the National Fire Academy, and although federal money was available to first responders for counterterrorism training and equipment through the Department of Justice, there did not exist a dedicated program, exclusively for firefighters, which provided federal money directly to local fire departments to help address a wide variety of equipment, training, and other firefighter-related needs

Building History: Public History Students make Community History More Accessible through Building History Projects

Historic buildings shaped, witnessed, bear evidence of, and can serve asaccessible gateways to the history of a community. They also cancontribute the development of a community’s identity. The case for thevalue of aging structures and the task of arguing for their preservationmay fall upon the shoulders of underfunded and under resourced localhistorical societies. Public history students and local historicalsocieties benefit from collaborative service-learning experiences wherestudents help the historical society document local history and buildtheir work place skills. Students also gain an awareness of theimportance of the work historical societies do and the needs of thecommunities that they serve. This presentation will discuss the learningexperiences of students in an undergraduate public history class whoworked with a local historical society to document and share the storiesof historic structures that are located the town’s historic main street.It will describe the evolution of this collaborative activity, describeproject stages, assignment topics, means of coordination betweenacademic librarian, public history professor, students, and historicalsociety, the benefits for all involved, the outcomes of the project, andnext steps that are envisioned. It will invite discussion of similarexperiences or suggestions of how the collaboration, which is expectedto be repeated, might be improved

Fearless: Immersion Projects

Students on an Immersion Project in New Orleans are definitely doing some great work this week! The students spent part of the week working with Grow Dat Youth Farm in New Orleans City Park, an organization that hires youth from the city to work at the farm. They sell 60% of their organically grown food at whole food markets and restaurants and they donate the rest to their student workers. The organization strives to teach their volunteers responsibility, team work and commitment. [excerpt

Fearless: The Vagina Monologues

Performed annually around the world to celebrate womanhood, empower survivors of sexual assault and abuse, and create an open forum for challenging cultural attitudes toward women, the Vagina Monologues will be performed by Gettysburg College students next Thursday and Friday (February 20 & 21). [excerpt

Lady Gaga, Racist Jokes, and Other Pet Peeves

When I was a kid, my sister would whistle whenever I entered a room because she knew that it bothered me. I picked up on this trick, and I use it even now that I’m older. I have a friend who gets Lady Gaga songs stuck in her head really easily, so of course I sing Lady Gaga songs at the top of my lungs so they get stuck in her head. I do this to annoy her. It’s what friends do. We poke fun at each other, and, knowing which buttons to push, we push them because it’s funny. It’s a game. To win, you have to show you are not annoyed so they’ll stop. [excerpt

LSHTM Research Data Management Summary Guides

A set of one-page guides to good practice on various data management-related topics, including data management plans, data encryption and data sharing. These guides are CC-licensed and can be re-purposed by other institutions. Editable versions of the guides can be found in the ZIP archive

Fearless: Class of 2014

We recognize all of the Gettysburg College graduates who will use what they learned and experienced over the past four years to fearlessly promote change, seek justice, and challenge inequality after leaving Gettysburg College. The following list contains the names of all of the members of the class of 2014 who have been recognized by other members of the campus community as leaders for change, and we are proud to claim these fearless and inspirational students as our own. We know, however, that we do not have everyone who deserves to be recognized listed below, so feel free to continue nominating your friends, peers, co-workers, students — any member of the class of 2014 that you believe will go on to create positive change post-graduation. Nominations can be received either through comments at the bottom of this post or through this link

Is There a Judicial Remedy for Victims of Federal Data Breaches?

[Excerpt] The scope of information believed to have been compromised by a series of cyber-intrusions at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) continues to grow. OPM recently announced that further investigation of the initial breach affecting 4.2 million current and former federal employees has led officials to conclude that sensitive information on 21.5 million individuals had been stolen from separate OPM databases used in connection with background investigations. In addition to the potential effects on domestic and foreign policy that may result from these breaches, which are discussed here, two recently filed lawsuits raise questions regarding what redress, if any, is due to affected individuals beyond the free credit monitoring that has been offered by OPM. The two suits, filed separately by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) allege a number of legal theories under which the plaintiffs believe recovery may be available, including claims citing the Privacy Act, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), common law negligence, and the Due Process clause of the Constitution. While, procedural obstacles to such suits, such as whether the plaintiffs have suffered a sufficiently concrete injury to have a right to sue, are important and may end up being dispositive, this post focuses instead on the extent to which selected sources of statutory, common, and constitutional law may provide a judicially enforceable remedy for current and former federal employees whose personal information may have been exposed during the breach of a federal information technology system

Mass incarceration: the juggernaut of American penal expansionism

A plethora of evidence confirms that America continues to lead the world in imprisonment. No serious commentator doubts mass incarceration is a major issue for the nation. The America penal industrial complex incarcerates close to a quarter of all the prisoners on the planet. The American rate of incarceration remains stubbornly locked at a substantially higher level than those of comparable parliamentary democracies. There is no doubt that America’s penal institutions contain some individuals who pose a substantial public risk. However, there is significant scope to limit incarceration for a range of offenders, including those convicted of drug offences. There is a recognition the decades-long ‘War on Drugs’ has ultimately been counterproductive. At the end of 2014, some six years into Obama’s presidency, the USA’s total incarcerated population included some 2,306,100 prisoners It is only now that the United States may be witnessing the end of an ill-starred forty year experiment with mass incarceration and that American penal expansionism has finally begun to ease. The overall picture is of a pause, and even a slight reverse, in the race to incarcerate.non