Stitching a New Pattern in Educational Leadership: Reinterpreting a University Partnership Academy Model for Native Nations

With this themed issue of Educational Considerations focused on using university-district partnership academies to prepare leaders for educational settings, it is important to consider the value of this model in socially diverse environments and especially the potential for native nations to use this approach for training emerging educational leaders

Table of contents and introductory materials for Vol. 43, no. 4, Fall 2016

The table of contents, editorial information and more for this special issue Exploring University Partnerships for Building Leadership Capacity in Education

Educational Considerations, vol. 43(4) Full Issue

Educational Considerations, vol. 43(4)-Fall 2016-Full issu

Walking the Walk: The Presence of Core Educational Leadership Standards in the Development and Implementation of Partnership Academies

A guest editor commentary. As repeatedly mentioned throughout this themed issue of Educational Considerations, the Kansas State University partnership academy model was built on the foundational principle of improving educational leadership training by creating a learning environment that better merges theory and practice

Identifying Conditions to Optimize Lactic Acid Production from Food Waste

There is an increased demand for lactic acid for the production of biopolymers and to aid nutrient removal in wastewater treatment. Food waste offers a source of soluble sugars to produce lactic acid, which does not increase land demand, but digestion conditions have yet to be optimized when co-digested with primary sludge. Food waste was collected from cafeteria waste bins, homogenized and seeded with primary sludge. A Box Behnken Response surface design was used to optimize lactic acid production based on pH, temperature, loading rate, and retention time. Subsequent experiments verified and refined those conditions to optimize for both yield and concentration of lactic acid. When optimized for concentration and yield, 58 g L -1 and 48 g L-1 lactic acid were achieved respectively and retention time was reduced three-fold over previous experiments. Digestion rates of carbohydrates to lactic acid demonstrate homolactic fermentation as the dominant microbial pathway. Approximately 60% of the lactic acid produced was L(+) lactic acid. The ratio of soluble chemical oxygen demand to NH 4 -N was 176 indicating high potential for biological nutrient removal

Conversion of Municipal Organic Waste into Higher Value Acids and Sugars

Food waste and sewage sludge were studied for their ability to be up-convert to higher value products under three different scenarios; food waste conversion to lactic acid, glycogen quantification in waste activated sludge from municipal wastewater treatment facilities performing enhanced biological phosphorous removal, and finally the conversion of either food waste or sewage sludge to rhamnose biofilm via acid phase digestion. In studying the conversion of food waste to lactic acid, three factors where opportunities exist for process improvement; freezing of samples during storage, discontinuous pH control, and holdover of fermentation broth between fermentations, were studied. Freezing samples prior to fermentation was shown to reduce the production rate of lactate by 8%, indicating freeze-thaw should be avoided in experiments. Continuous pH control can achieve both higher lactate accumulation and higher production rate. Finally, holding over fermentation broth was shown to be a simple method to improve production rate (by 18%) at high food waste loading rates (\u3e140 g VS L-1 ) but resulted in lower lactate accumulation (by 17%). The results inform continued process improvements within the treatment of food waste through fermentation to lactic acid. Glycogen is a chief metabolic storage pool in bacteria performing enhanced biological phosphorous removal (EBPR), and is a potential resource for the production of bio-based fuels and chemicals. These bacteria are settled out in the wastewater treatment process to form waste activated sludge (WAS). To more fully understand the resource potential of glycogen in WAS, two lab-scale quantification methods were compared to ensure suitable assessment; acid treatment (0.9M HCl) and alkaline treatment (5M KOH) both at 100°C for 3 hours. Alkaline treatment recovered only 58% of glycogen in known standards versus 96% for acid treatment. The acid method was successfully applied to WAS from seven different treatment facilities, which ranged from 2.5 to 2.8% of solids as glycogen. The results represent the first broad survey of glycogen in full-scale EBPR systems and indicates that it is a modest resource potential. Finally, the conversion of food waste or sewage sludge to rhamnose was studied. Rhamnose is a high value carbohydrate used as a precursor for flavorings, aromatics, and cosmetics, but also as a biosurfactant in the form of rhamnolipids. A rhamnolipid producing culture was seeded from wastewater sludge, and found to convert carbon from a model acid phase digestate to rhamnose and ribose within the biofilm matrix. The biofilm was characterized to inform rhamnose production potential. Microbial community analysis revealed a highly diverse biofilm community that does not include prior known rhamnose producers. Carbohydrate production in the biofilm was associated with nutrient limiting conditions, and found highest at a C:N ratio of 28 (mmol-C:mmol-C). Rhamnose production was highest from glucose, followed by propionic acid, acetic acid, lactic acid, valeric acid, and butyric acid. Overall, the work indicates that rhamnose production is achievable from mixed organic waste sources via acid phase anaerobic digestion

Set the prairie on fire: an autoethnographic confrontation of colonial entanglements

Doctor of EducationDepartment of Educational LeadershipKakali BhattacharyaThere is minimal scholarship related to modern Osage perspectives in the field of education. Yet, the pursuit of cultural healing relies on self-representation to move Osages toward a higher degree of self-determination, and calls for voices within the community who share zones of cultural and professional intersectionality. Using Red Pedagogy (Grande, 2008) and traditional Osage ribbon work (Dennison, 2012, 2013) as a framework, this critical Indigenous autoethnographic inquiry works to advance conversations about settler-colonial entanglements in education from the perspective of an Indigenous (Osage)-White educator and educational leadership doctoral student. This inquiry uses writing as both field and method (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005) to explore Osage perspectives related to topics of Transformational Indigenous Praxis (Pewewardy, 2017), White privilege (McIntosh, 2003) as a pale-skinned American Indian, American Indian mascots (Pewewardy, 2000) from educational leadership perspectives (NPBEA, 2015; Waters & Cameron, 2007), and ecologically informed consciousness (Cajete, 1994)

Walking the Walk: The Presence of Core Educational Leadership Standards in the Development and Implementation of Partnership Academies

A guest editor commentary. As repeatedly mentioned throughout this themed issue of Educational Considerations, the Kansas State University partnership academy model was built on the foundational principle of improving educational leadership training by creating a learning environment that better merges theory and practice