Mapping the Hero’s Journey into Thinking: Assigning a Geo-Literacies Multimodal Assignment in a First-Year Honors Seminar

By incorporating visual mapping into students’ thinking and writing processes, a narrative assignment in geo-literacy creates a reflective and agency-based learning experience for student writers in a first-year honors seminar. At Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM), I ask my first-year honors students to reflectively examine and practice habits of thinking and knowledge-building in a series of interrelated writing projects and readings. Each reading and writing task is designed to give students the opportunity to build their synthesis-level critical and creative thinking habits. The course theme of “Hero’s Journey” challenges students to consider the idea of the heroic, especially as it pertains to their own lives and to the time they will spend at AUM. Special emphasis is placed on the nature and value of education and the question “What does it mean to be an educated person?” To this end, I begin by introducing students to our central text, Alan Jacobs’s How to Think. This text is the foundation of the first writing project, in which students examine their view of learning and their roles as knowledge makers, a first reflective step toward understanding their agency in a journey that begins with examining preexisting knowledge and habits of learning and thinking

Covid-19 Safety Measures Vs. Reality

COVID-19 has had an impact on the entire globe. As time goes on we learn more about the virus and how to safely protect ourselves. Ensuring that the most current safety measures are being used is important. It is evident that a large number of individuals are not up to date with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended safety measures

Presentation, Clinical Pathology Abnormalities, and Identification of Gastrointestinal Parasites in Camels (Camelus bactrianus and Camelus dromedarius) Presenting to Two North American Veterinary Teaching Hospitals. A Retrospective Study: 1980–2020

Old World Camelids (OWC) represent two species (Camelus bactrianus and Camelus dromedarius) with increasing numbers in North America. Gastrointestinal (GI) parasitism is a major cause of clinical disease in camelids and leads to significant economic impacts. Literature reporting on clinical parasitism of camels is localized to India, Africa, and the Middle East, with limited information available on OWCs in North America. Objectives of this study were to report on clinical presentation and diagnostic findings in Camelus bactrianus and Camelus dromedarius with GI parasitism and provide a comparative analysis between geographic regions. Medical records of OWCs presenting to two veterinary teaching hospitals (of the University of Tennessee and University of Wisconsin) were evaluated. Thirty-one camels including 11 Bactrians and six dromedaries (14 species not recorded) were included for the clinical component of this study, reporting on signalment, presenting complaint, and clinical pathology. Anorexia, weight loss, and diarrhea were the most common presenting complaint. Clinical pathology findings included eosinophilia, hypoproteinemia, and hyponatremia. For the second component of this study, a total of 77 fecal parasite examination results were evaluated for parasite identification and regional variation. Trichuris, Capillaria, Strongyloides, Nematodirus, Dictyocaulus, Moniezia, and protozoan parasites (Eimeria, Cryptosporidium, Giardia) were recorded. Strongyle-type eggs predominated, followed by Trichuris and Eimeria spp. There was a statistically significant variation in prevalence of coccidia between the two regions, with fecal examinations from Tennessee more likely to contain Eimeria (P = 0.0193). Clinicians treating camels in North America should recognize anorexia, weight loss, and diarrhea combined with clinical pathologic changes of hypoproteinemia, eosinophilia and hyponatremia as possible indications of GI parasitism. Clinicians should also consider the potential for regional variation to exist for GI parasites of camels in different areas of North America

Possible Loss of the Chloroplast Genome in the Parasitic Flowering Plant Rafflesia lagascae (Rafflesiaceae)

Rafflesia is a genus of holoparasitic plants endemic to Southeast Asia that has lost the ability to undertake photosynthesis. With short-read sequencing technology, we assembled a draft sequence of the mitochondrial genome of Rafflesia lagascae Blanco, a species endemic to the Philippine island of Luzon, with ∼350× sequencing depth coverage. Using multiple approaches, however, we were only able to identify small fragments of plastid sequences at low coverage depth

In Defense of Sovereignty

In Defense of Sovereignty tells the story of the Oneida Nation's struggles for self-determination. Since the removal of the Oneida people from New York in the 1820s to what would become Wisconsin, the Nation has been engaged in legal conflicts to retain its sovereignty and its lands. Legal scholar and former Oneida Nation senior staff attorney Rebecca M. Webster traces this history, including the Nation's treaties with the US but focusing especially on its relationship with the village of Hobart, Wisconsin. Since 2003, six disputes have led to litigation between the local government and the Nation. Central to these disputes are Hobart's attempts to regulate the Nation and relegate its government to the position of a common landowner, subject to municipal authority. As in so many conflicts between Indigenous nations and local municipalities, the media narrative about the Oneida Nation's battle for sovereignty has been dominated by the local government's standpoint. In Defense of Sovereignty offers another perspective, that of a citizen directly involved in the litigation, augmented by contributions from historians, attorneys, and a retired Nation employee. It makes an important contribution to public debates about the inherent right of Indigenous nations to continue to exist and exercise self-governance within their territories without being challenged at every turn

Business ethics competencies research: implications for Canadian practitioners

This paper describes a proposed framework of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that a practitioner who is competent in business ethics, compliance, or integrity should possess. These competencies may be leveraged as key input to selecting content for an institutionalized business ethics training program. The focus in this paper is on the management problem of 'What competencies are important for job performance of business ethics practitioners'. Phase I consisted of developing a provisional taxonomy of business ethics competencies and Phase II involved academic and industry practitioners implicated in business ethics to validate the conceptually developed provisional taxonomy of business ethics competencies to eventually make recommendations regarding the selection of business ethics training content. The contribution to the business ethics competency-based management knowledge that is presented in this paper is a proposed business ethics competency model and the implications of this model for Canadian practitioners are discussed

Factors contributing to teacher retention in Georgia

Electronic Thesis or DissertationThe purpose of this mixed method, survey-based inquiry was to determine how Georgia public high school faculty members perceive various pressures and experiences associated with a career in education. These perceptions were then analyzed as possible indicators of teacher attrition in order to improve retention rates. The independent demographic variables selected to analyze these perceptions included level of education attained, years of teaching experience, and school size based on student enrollment numbers. Qualitative data examined the role of an educator, why one would choose to remain in or leave the field of education, and the future plans of the current educators. The faculty survey incorporated 30 items based on a Likert-type scaled response section with five qualitative open-ended questions. This mixed method analysis was chosen to provide more of a holistic examination of the state's teacher retention problem. A total of 545 surveys were analyzed from both the northern and southern counties of the state of Georgia. The implication of this study was to serve as guidance for future improvements of teacher retention rates throughout the state. The quantitative data reveals that most teachers in the state of Georgia have obtained their master's degrees, are within the first 5 years of their educational career, and view administrative support and working conditions as positive aspects of their teaching experience. From the qualitative analysis, it was evident that teachers view their role as important due to preparing students for future careers or simply as a preparation for high-stakes testing. The majority of teachers feel that the role of an educator has changed over the years and most have considered leaving their chosen careers due to low morale, low pay, and/or the amount of time required for the paperwork involved. Teachers stated that the reason they have chosen to remain in education is due to the intrinsic rewards such as making a difference in the life of a young person and the love or enjoyment that education provides. When asked about their future plans, almost half of the current teaching force was uncertain, and another one-third plan to leave the classroom