Doctoral Advisor Research Articles

MEMORIAL TO LUKAS HOTTINGER (1933-2011)

Lukas Hottinger, micropaleontologist and longtime professor for geology and paleontology at the University of Basel passed away peacefully on September 4, 2011 in Allschwil, Switzerland. He was born in Dusseldorf (Germany) on February 25, 1933, into a family of medical doctors as son of Prof. Adolf Hottinger, pediatrist, and Dr. Greta Hottinger-Cahn, a chemist of Swiss nationality. Because of Nazi oppression, the family decided early to move back to Allschwil, Switzerland. Lukas attended primary and secondary school in Basel with summer courses in Neuchâtel (Switzerland) and Exeter (England). In 1952, he received his Matura (university entrance qualification) from the Humanistische Gymnasium (classical Greek and Latin). His early interest in fossils and geology was awakened by an uncle, who offered him his fossil and mineral collection without labels, obviously requiring some detective work. A few years later, his father handed Lukas a letter of recommendation to introduce him to August Buxtorf, an oil geologist and later professor and head of the Geological and Paleontological Institute in Basel. Buxtorf, sitting behind the typical large and heavy dark desk of a professor of that time, welcomed Lukas by reciting the famous poem of Oswald Heer on Miocene fossils from Oeningen—an experience that Lukas described as his first contact with fossil communities and their significance. This attracted his interest in earth sciences and in 1952 he entered the University of Basel to study geology and paleontology with additional courses in zoology, comparative anatomy, botany, and marine biology. For him, the study of earth sciences opened up the potential to travel and explore the world. In 1956, his future doctoral advisor, professor Manfred Reichel, offered him a thesis topic where he was asked to develop a high-resolution biostratigraphy for species of the larger benthic foraminiferal genus Alveolina by means of biometry. At this time, the …

An Antipodean Imaginary for Architecture+Philosophy: Ficto-Critical Approaches to Design Practice Research

This is a collaborative essay that presents the design practice research of six postgraduate researchers (past and present), who have been working within the Architecture+Philosophy research stream at the School of Architecture, RMIT University, Melbourne. What unites the projects is an aspiration to maintain a creative relationship between architectural design project research and critical theory, with an emphasis on transdisciplinary potentialities. While the design research introduced here is diverse, the researchers all share an engagement in how to construct imaginary worlds using what can be identified as a ficto-critical approach that draws on the productive intersection of architecture and philosophy. Hélène Frichot, who will situate this research from her position as their primary doctoral advisor, argues that by pursuing a productive relay between theory and practice a novel Antipodean design imaginary can be seen to emerge across the collected projects.

William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr. (1919-2011)

William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr., professor emeritus of Chemistry at Harvard University, died on April 14, 2011 in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA). Lipscomb was born on December 9, 1919 in Cleveland, Ohio but moved the following year to Lexington, Kentucky, where he received his Bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Kentucky in 1941. He then moved to the California Institute of Technology, where he was active until 1946. He initially registered for the physics program there, but quickly found his way back to chemistry under the guidance of his doctoral advisor, Linus Pauling. He was primarily interested in structural chemistry and chemical bonding, topics that later had a decisive influence on his research. However, until 1945 he was involved mainly in wartime projects. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1946, he taught at the University of Minnesota (1946–1959) before finally moving to Harvard University, where he remained active long after reaching emeritus status in 1990.11 Photo from http://wlipscomb.tripod.com. Apart from work on NMR spectroscopy and chemical shifts, primarily of borohydrides, Lipscomb made pioneering contributions to two very different fields: first the structure and theory of chemical bonds in boranes and later the structure and function of enzymes, especially zinc enzymes and allosterically regulated proteins. The structure and chemical bonding in boranes such as B2H6, B4H10, B5H9, B6H10, and B10H14 had remained unclear ever since their characterization by Alfred Stock, and an explanation based on classical covalent bonds with one bonding electron pair as in carbohydrates was impossible. Lipscomb’s contributions to the understanding of the structure and bonding of boranes were based primarily on X-ray crystallographic structure determination and calculations with empirical and quantum mechanical methods. His pioneering work in low-temperature crystallography around 1950 was decisive for the structural analysis of gaseous simple boranes as well as for other fundamental compounds such as hydrazine, NO, (NO)2, and HF. The diminished atomic vibrations at low temperatures also allowed for a more precise determination of atomic positions. To solve the structure of the simplest borane, B2H6, Lipscomb used liquid helium as a refrigerant for the first time. Thanks to the development and application of quantum-chemical calculation methods, the three-center-two-electron bond in this electron-deficient compound could be elucidated. Lipscomb received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1976 as the sole Laureate for his work on the structures of boranes and their implications for chemical bonding. By that time, Lipscomb had totally reoriented the focus of his lab and had dedicated himself to another pioneering field: the exploration of the three-dimensional structure of proteins using X-ray crystallography. Lipscomb had been interested in this topic since around 1960, which was not long after the first-ever determination of a protein structure, that of myoglobin by Kendrew in 1958. When I joined his lab in 1994 as a postdoc, borane structures hung from the ceilings as large models overhead, while protein structures danced in front of us on the workstations. The first structure that Lipscomb determined was that of carboxypeptidase A, for which he, in 1968, achieved a resolution of 2.8 Å. The catalytic mechanism proposed on the basis of cocrystal structures can be found in many biochemistry textbooks as a prototypical example of a metal-mediated hydrolysis reaction. First results of crystallographic studies on the 300 kDa allosterically regulated enzyme aspartate transcarbamylase were published in 1967, but the structure was not solved with molecular resolution for another decade. The structural analysis of transcarbamylase and later the allosteric enzymes fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase and chorismate mutase resulted in fundamental new insights into the allosteric regulation of proteins. Lipscomb was not only an exceptional scientist, he was also a talented clarinetist, and he even played regularly with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Lipscomb’s co-workers always called him “Colonel”, which was not, however, a reflection of any sort of militaristic behavior or corresponding management style. On the contrary, Lipscomb granted his co-workers broad freedom and cultivated the creativity of his many students and postdocs. Three of his co-workers were later awarded Nobel Prizes of their own (R. Hoffmann, T. Steitz, and A. Yonath). The salutation as Colonel can supposedly be traced back to his first student. Indeed, Lipscomb became a “Kentucky Colonel” in 1973, a title of honor awarded by the State of Kentucky. I also have fond memories of Lipscomb’s good sense of humor. I can still see him in front of me after each submitted paper, with a grave face: “Norbert, your manuscript has unfortunately been …︁ accepted!”. He is also known for his involvement with the Ig Nobel Prizes, which have been awarded yearly since 1991 for somewhat abstruse research projects. Lipscomb died of pneumonia as the result of a fall. He is survived by his wife Jean and three children.

The Surprising Weberian Roots to Milton Friedman’s Methodology

The main point of this paper is to contribute to understanding Milton Friedman’s (1953) “The Methodology of Positive Economics” (hereafter F1953), one of the most influential statements of economic methodology of the twentieth century, and, in doing so, help discern the non trivial but complex role of philosophic ideas in the shaping of economic theorizing and economists’ self-conception. It also aims to contribute to a better understanding of the theoretical origins of the so-called ‘Chicago’ school of economics. In this paper, I first present detailed textual evidence of the familiarity of George Stigler with the early work of Talcott Parsons, the most important American translator and disseminator of Max Weber’s ideas, who also helped create sociology as a distinct discipline in the United States. The Chicago-Parsons link is no surprise because historians have known that Frank Knight and Parsons corresponded, first about translating Weber and then about matters of mutual interest. Knight, who was a doctoral advisor to Stigler and teacher of Milton Friedman, was not merely the first American translator of Weber, but remained keenly and, perhaps, increasingly interested in Weber throughout his life. I am unfamiliar with any investigation of the Weberian influence on Knight’s students. I show that Stigler praises Parsons’ treatment of Alfred Marshall, who plays an outsized role in Friedman’s self-conception of economics and economic theory. I also show that Stigler calls attention to the methodological similarity between Friedman and Parsons. Finally, I turn to F1953, and I show, first, that some of its most distinctive and philosophically interesting claims echo Parsons’ treatment of methodological matters; second that once alerted one can note Weberian terminology in F1953.

Out of Crisis: Reflections of an Iraqi and an American on Advocacy for Andragogy

The post-9/11 global sensitivity to fear that from unreasoned radicals will come stalking in the dark of night has made finding a reasonable person who is unafraid of strangers hard to find. The elevated uses of language, rhetoric, and argument with very high vocabulary fog index, confronts any serious student of the literature, be it Christian-Muslim, capitalist-communist, or populist-elitist. The fear of terrorism penetrates much of political jawing. This type of rhetoric have produced cognitive debates that are shocking, if not terrifying, as average people try to find non-paranoid views of a decent and honorable life in a mostly safe world. As co-authors of the following conversation, we make transparent our belief in honoring the scholarship of adult educators who take a macro-political view of terrorism, and who consider the human dimensions of living day to day in an unsafe environment. Many adult education scholars are aware of the range of topics on the minds of adults who bring their hopes, fears, and experiences to graduate adult education study programs. American scholarship on adult education is replete with advocates who encourage, foster, and nurture learning climates that engage discussion, explore life's options, and an understanding of human desire to establish policies that promote and assure justice. But in the Arab Middle East, one is challenged to find such literature. We should know, since we are an Iraqi and an American engaged in dialogue about the significance of andragogy as a tool for rebuilding war-torn Iraq. We are Ghada and Larry. Ghada is an Iraqi doctoral candidate in adult and higher education and Larry is her doctoral advisor. We have been involved in intensive dialogue about how we see our cultures, how we perceive the conflict in the Middle East, and how andragogical theory offers hope for changing learning and teaching approaches that can influence political and social philosophies of leadership. Ghada believes that as a woman, wife and a mother of two boys from Baghdad, Iraq, and who experienced the bombings and terror, she has insights to bring to a mentoring relationship. Larry, as a senior professor in adult education, has made a lifetime study of Asia, but has found a certain value in learning and teaching with Ghada. Both have shared their perceptions of their cultures, including their concerns about potential conflicts from issues of oil, religion, governments, and families. This conversation is a reflection of our advocacy for andragogy as a tool for change and peace. We have written in a way that allow both of our voices to be heard; Ghada--from her experience as an Iraqi and as a U.S. doctoral student, and Larry--as a senior professor in adult education and educational administration. We talk about how an inclusive education can bridge two cultures, American and Arab together in meaningful ways. Following our conversations, our combined voices contemplate the following questions. What does Andragogy have to offer to people in cultures facing distress, conflict, and war? We poignantly ask ourselves, what is the relevance? And more importantly, why should we in the field of adult education care? An Iraqi Seeks Meaning in Adult Education Study Ghada: After struggling for two years to get the opportunity to go to the United States for doctoral studies, I did not know what to expect of American professors at the University of South Dakota. Would they be prejudiced toward my heritage? Would they be open to knowing me? Or, would they be dominating, self-important, or careless about morality as often portrayed in Western movies? Would I find new meaning in my studies? Would anyone care about me as a person? What I found was shocking. My professor turned out to be extraordinary. He was real, caring, and a good listener. He offered more than I expected, his ideas, empathy, and a willingness to share with me a deep concern for trying to make peace and meaning in the world. …

First Author

First Author

The Role of Doctoral Advisors: A Look at Advising from the Advisor’s Perspective

The doctoral advisor is said to be one of the most important persons—if not the single most critical person—with whom doctoral students will develop a relationship during their doctoral degree programs (Baird 1995). However, we have limited knowledge regarding how doctoral advisors see their roles and responsibilities as advisors. Therefore, through in-depth interviews, we explored the perceptions of 25 exemplary doctoral advisors, who have graduated a large number of doctoral students, about their roles and responsibilities as advisors. We conclude this article with implications for doctoral education.

Embracing diversity, embracing change

Diversity and change have been enduring themes in ecology. They have also been critical elements in the development of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) itself. I attended my first ESA annual meeting in June of 1973. ESA had recently grown to over 5000 members, but only about 10% of that number was in attendance, and of those who did attend, most – over 90% – were men, and I should add, mostly white men. The great majority of us were academics or aspiring academics. With a few notable exceptions, the tenor and focus of that meeting in Amherst, MA, were patently biocentric and basic-science oriented. Most young ecologists of my generation were strongly advised to avoid the taint of application. My doctoral advisor strongly encouraged me to study nature, defined as those systems absent of human influences; not only did human effects confound interpretation, but they contributed little to general ecological understanding. I am, of course, overgeneralizing; important studies, such as the Hubbard Brook project, were well underway, and contrarians like Frank Egler were purposefully doing research in explicitly human-dominated places, such as transmission line rights-of-way. But such studies were not the rule; rather, they were harbingers of what was to come. A decade later, ecologists were coming around to the hard truth that, like it or not, people are everywhere and that their effects are inescapable. Many ESA members were actually beginning to see human influences and the ecological responses to them as matters relevant to basic ecological theory. Amid much debate about its propriety, ESA opened its Public Affairs office in Washington, DC, in 1983. Certainly, this shift in philosophy was accelerated by the growing influence of legislation that cried out for ecological knowledge, such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. It was also encouraged mightily by such ESA leaders as Art Cooper, Gene Likens, George Woodwell, Jerry Franklin, and Hal Mooney, to name just a few. It was my honor and pleasure, in August of this year, to preside over ESA's 93rd Annual Meeting. We have grown larger still; last year we welcomed our 10 000th member. There were nearly 3500 of us at the Milwaukee meeting, and our society is increasingly diverse. Over 30% of us are women, and we are racially and ethnically more varied, although much work remains to be done before our membership truly mirrors the society it wishes to represent. We are certainly more diverse from a professional standpoint. Academics and aspiring academics remain plentiful in our ranks, but nearly 30% of us are professional ecologists from the private sector, public agencies, and non-governmental organizations. When I look at our journals, and at the titles of the hundreds of papers that were delivered in Milwaukee, it's hard to believe that we once fretted over the wisdom of studying human effects, or the relative value of basic versus applied research. As we look to the future, people are as important as ever, and issues like climate change and biodiversity loss have truly made arguments about the separation of humans and nature moot. We have come to understand that these changes are being driven not just by our growth in numbers, but by our ever-increasing per capita demands on Earth's resources. That those demands on resources, and the benefits of their use, are unequally shared among the nearly 7 billion of us who cohabit the planet profoundly complicates this issue. Attempts to deal with the biodiversity crisis or global warming that do not simultaneously address the well-being of Earth's 2 billion poorest people simply will not be sustainable. Just as our society has embraced research and education focused on human impacts on ecosystems, we must also now work to align our efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change and sustain Earth's biodiversity with the elimination of poverty. Ellis and Ramankutty's paper in this issue of Frontiers (pp 439–447) provides an interesting template for doing this. As we approach our centennial year, it is fair to say that we – the ESA – have come a long way. Diversity and change remain prominent themes in our science. The diversity within the ESA itself has been central to its capacity for, and willingness to, change. It is this diversity of views that has sustained our science. It is the contrarian voices – whether right or wrong – that have been the catalyst for change in our thinking. It is that diversity and ability to change that have been central to our credibility as a scholarly society and as a discipline.

Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean

Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean

Changes Are Needed to Attract and Retain Good Middle Grades Teachers

The arrival of two university magazines in the spring and summer of 2007 has made very personal to me the changing of the guard in American education. The spring 2007 issue of the DePauw Magazine bore the news that my undergraduate academic advisor, Prof. Clifton J. Phillips, passed away March 20 in Greencastle at age 87. In the summer, Education Times: University of Florida College of Education Magazine carried the news of the passing of Prof. Arthur J. Lewis, my doctoral advisor, September 10, 2006, in Jacksonville at age 89. These coincident events brought back to me fond memories of the relationships I had with each, as they guided me through the tangles of growing up and making decisions about my future. Both were not only inspiring teachers in the classroom, but patient, interested, and insightful mentors outside of it. Both brought a wealth of experiences—many of them in the distant lands of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East—to our encounters, which greatly influenced my own journey in life.

David Bruce Dill: A Man of Many Seasons and Environments—Committed to Life, Heat, and Altitude

Section editor’s note: This paper on the professional life of Dr David Bruce Dill is a departure from the typical ‘‘Lessons From History’’ commentary on a classic original scientific article relevant to wilderness medicine. It is hoped that readers will find this short vignette of Dr Dill, a personality who contributed so much to the field of environmental physiology, enjoyable and informative reading. David ‘‘Bruce’’ Dill (1891‐1986) was widely and affectionately known throughout his life as a scientist, colleague, and friend. As a pioneer in the fields of exercise and environmental physiology, physiochemical properties of blood, and aging, he made significant and lasting contributions. The 20 years Dill spent as research director of Harvard’s renowned Fatigue Laboratory was an era of highly productive research in high-altitude, tropical, and desert environments. His pursuit of research and passion for life lead him to many environments, starting in his early years at Harvard and continuing until his 95th year. Born in Kansas, Dill was raised by relatives after the death of his parents and ultimately moved to California. He was graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a bachelors of science degree in chemistry and received a masters of arts degree and a PhD in chemistry from Stanford University. Through his association with his doctoral advisor, Professor C. L. Alsberg, he obtained a National Research Council Fellowship (1925‐1927) at Harvard University with Lawrence J. Henderson. 1 While at Harvard, Dill was introduced to many scientists, establishing many lasting friendships. He worked with A. V. Bock during research on physiochemical properties of blood at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and their professional and personal relationship continued in the following years. In 1927, through the encouragement of A. V. Hill, both Dill and Bock wrote an update of Bainbridge’s monograph, The Physiology of Muscular Exercise . 2 This publication is considered pioneer work that made a lasting contribution to the field of exercise physiology. It was Dill’s association with L. J. Henderson that led

The Eighty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association

Report of the Committee on Program The 2006 annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association convened on Thursday afternoon, January 5, at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown Hotel. The program consisted of fifteen panels, a tour of two historical Catholic churches, and the presidential luncheon, an event which also allowed members of the Association to celebrate Monsignor Robert Trisco's long years of service as Secretary/Treasurer and editor of The Catholic Historical Review. The program was assembled by a committee that included Thomas Kselman (Chairman, University of Notre Dame), Brad Gregory (University of Notre Dame), John McGreevy (University of Notre Dame), and Margaret McGuinness (Cabrini College). Professor McGuinness was especially helpful in organizing two panels related to the history of Catholicism in Philadelphia, the tour of St. Mary's and St. Joseph's, and a reception at the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia's headquarters. In general, the chairmen of the different panels reported good attendance, even at the sessions on Thursday afternoon and Sunday morning, with the numbers ranging from a dozen to sixty present in the audience. Two of the panels at the meeting were co-sponsored by the American Historical Association, and one by the American Society of Church History. The meeting began with two panels on Thursday afternoon, January 5, both of which were interrupted by a fire alarm that emptied the building for a few minutes. The first, chaired by Joseph Casino, from the Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Research Center, was entitled "The Role of Catholic Philadelphia in World Affairs." John Quinn (Salve Regina University) presented a paper on "The Rise and Fall of Repeal: Slavery and Irish Nationalism in Antebellum Philadelphia." This was followed by Richard Warren's (St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia) paper, "Catholicism in Philadelphia as a Social Nexus for Latin American—U.S. Relations During the Age of Revolution." Sister Mary Louise Sullivan, M.S.C. (Cabrini College) provided the comment. The second panel, on "Catholic Education in the Twentieth Century," was chaired by Philip Gleason (emeritus, University of Notre Dame), a former president of the Association. One of the participants, Father Richard Gribble, C.S.C. (Stonehill College), was unable to attend because of a meeting of his Congregation. His paper, "Catholic Education in San Francisco in the Early Twentieth Century: Two Pioneering Efforts," was read by Christopher J. Kauffman, Father [End Page 244] Gribble's doctoral advisor at the Catholic University of America and a former president of the Association. His paper dealt with the activities of two important clerical leaders concerned with parochial education in San Francisco. Father Peter Yorke was a pedagogical theorist and the author of a number of widely distributed textbooks in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Edward Hanna, Archbishop of San Francisco from 1915 to 1935, fought for tax-exempt status of parochial schools in California, a right not obtained until 1951. Alan Delozier (Seton Hall University) presented a paper reviewing the presidency of Monsignor James F. Kelley, who oversaw the professionalization and expansion of Seton Hall College during his tenure from 1936 to 1949. Helen Ciernick (Santa Clara University) presented a paper on "Catholic Students in Transition: The History of the National Federation of Catholic College Students in the 1950's and 1960's." Dr. Ciernick analyzed the tension between the student organization and the National Catholic Welfare Conference, interpreted as a sign of increasing lay self-assertiveness. In his comment Professor Gleason noted that tensions between a central bureaucracy and competing peripheral institution could also help explain the difficulties experienced by the National Federation of Catholic College Students. The session was well attended and provoked enough interest that most of the twenty or so members of the audience returned for the discussion after the fire alarm episode. The meeting continued with two panels on Friday morning, January 6. William Portier (University of Dayton) chaired and commented on a session dealing with Catholic Modernists entitled "Criticism...

The Play's the Thing

The modern special education theater in the United States has hosted many plays, none with a larger or more diverse cast than the learning disabilities (LD) play. During the prologue the children with LD were waiting in the wings, not yet identified as LD but there, nonetheless. With the advent of compulsory education in this country, our awareness of these children and our concern for them grew. My vantage point from which to observe and participate in LD in the 1960s was that of close association with Kirk, my doctoral advisor, and Engelmann, the creator of direct instruction, the highly effective pedagogy. Then, in the early '70s law school called. I hoped to find tools to persuade schools to adopt proven, available teaching methods and materials. Now, 30 years later, it appears that hope may be realized through the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB; 2001) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1997, 2004) (IDEA), as both compel attention to the research base for the services we provide. ACT ONE At center stage in Act One of LD was the Wayne County Training School in Michigan. In the 1920s, '30s and '40s, the cast there included predecessors and pioneers of the LD field--Doll, Strauss, Werner, Cruickshank, Kephart, Lehtinen, Kirk, and others. There, Kirk was immersed in the study of mental retardation, brain injury, and more. That work, plus his work with Monroe in remediating reading disabilities, laid the foundation for his leadership in the emergence of the LD field in the 1960s. ACT TWO In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, the time was ripe for LD to move onto center stage. The social and education scenes were influenced by a powerful, optimistic spirit of can-do, fix-it, environmentalism. John F. Kennedy was president, Camelot was tangible, and the infant Head Start and Follow Through projects were thriving. The Peace Corps said it-can-be-better and it was, in far away places. Kirk had the leading role in LD as it emerged from its roots in language disorders, reading, and brain injury. From his extensive background in mental retardation, brain injury, and reading disabilities, he distilled the three conceptual linchpins of LD, the first of which was the educability of intelligence. He spoke often of Binet's insistence that once we could measure intelligence, the next imperative was to improve it. Second, Kirk believed that pronounced intraindividual differences were the hallmark of LD. The first children labeled LD at the Institute for Research on Exceptional Children demonstrated huge peaks and valleys among their cognitive and other abilities. Kirk emphatically distinguished these children from those who have mental retardation and, therefore, relatively flat profiles. Lastly, Kirk believed that while traditional psychological/psychiatric diagnoses led to labeling (e.g., as in DSM-IV), educational diagnoses should lead to recommendations for what and how to teach. The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) (1) (Kirk & McCarthy, 1961) launched the contemporary LD field. Three major premises underlay Kirk's ITPA: (a) specific psychological, linguistic, and cognitive abilities can be assessed, in contrast to global assessments such as IQ or reading level; (b) specific deficit areas can be improved by direct teaching; and (c) it is important to have a psychometric tool capable of demonstrating gains in specific areas of remediation. These premises were shared by the authors of other assessment tools widely used during this exciting emergence of LD--Frostig's Developmental Test of Visual Perception (Frostig, Maslow, Lefever, & Whittlesey, 1964); the Beery Test of Visual Motor Integration (Beery, 1967); and the Purdue Perceptual Motor Scale (Roach & Kephart, 1966). Deficits were precisely identified and specific remedial materials provided to decrease the intraindividual differences and move the child's profile closer to normal. …

Jerry Coyne.

Jerry Coyne.

The Myth of Sustainable Development: Personal Reflections on Energy, its Relation to Neoclassical Economics, and Stanley Jevons

The Myth of Sustainable Development: Personal Reflections on Energy, its Relation to Neoclassical Economics, and Stanley Jevons

The Journey of the Principles of Adult Mentoring Inventory

In the early 1990s, I had finally reached what most doctoral students would agree is that memorable point when a dissertation topic is the only remaining requirement on the obsessed radar screen. I too had heard all of the stories about ABD (all but dissertation) scholars who for a myriad of reasons, had never completed the doctorate. Fortunately, of the three mentors who were significant influences in my own life and educational travels, the third was my own doctoral advisor--Dr. Michael Galbraith. As a teacher myself at the Community College of Philadelphia since 1968, I had gradually learned that my continuing one-to-one dialogues with students outside of class were often as important to their sustainability as adult learners as the quality of instruction inside the classroom. My own cumulative experience certainly validated what my later research would reveal--cognitive and affective connections engaged in at an interpersonal level outside of class were essential factors in supporting the retention and enrichment for many adult learners, especially those from nontraditional backgrounds (Jacobi, 1991). Development of the Instrument The convergence of my own life history, my professional work as an instructor, and my positive experience in the early 1990s as a graduate student in adult education led almost naturally to a serious interest in a dissertation topic about the value of mentoring for adult learners in college. I conducted the typical comprehensive literature review, with the preliminary idea that I would collect the already available instruments relevant to mentoring practice and then design my specific dissertation project. To my surprise, after exhaustive research, I discovered that no valid and reliable scales or inventories existed either for pragmatic use as an evaluation tool by participants in mentoring programs or as an instrument for conducting scholarly studies of mentoring as an educational activity. After considerable consultation with my doctoral advisor, I decided on a two-part plan: (1) to determine if there were core mentoring behaviors, and then, if justifiable, (2) to develop an evaluation instrument that would enable professionals to assess their own interpersonal competencies as mentors to adult learners. I really had no preconceived idea about what the research would ultimately produce, or if a useable self-assessment scale was feasible. When the complex project was finally completed, using a large community college as the target population, my own qualitative and quantitative research demonstrated two primary findings: A conceptual model of a composite Complete Mentor Role could be devised based on six separate mentoring behavioral dimensions (Figure 1), and a self-assessment scale grounded in adult psychology and learning could be developed that would (1) reflect the extent to which a mentor was effective as a practitioner in the cumulative Complete Mentor Role, as well as (2) identify the mentoring proficiencies in each of the six distinct interpersonal competencies. The new instrument was entitled the Principles of Adult Mentoring Scale (Cohen, 1993). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] The Complete Mentor Role From an adult education perspective, academic and workplace mentoring can be considered as a one-to-one relationship in which mentors are similar to adult educators and mentees to adult learners. The two prototypes--the Complete Mentor Role and the Informed Mentee (Table 1)--should be applied as a blueprint to guide the development of adult mentoring relationships during the extended time frame typical of most organizationally sponsored mentoring programs. Although there is a general pattern of interpersonal development that will occur during the early, middle, and later phases of interaction, both mentors and mentees should be informed at the start that the six behavioral dimensions of the Complete Mentor Role are not expected to unfold in a rigid order that directly matches every specific action listed for that particular dimension of mentoring Also, both mentors and mentees should be initially prepared at orientations to engage in mentoring dialogues and activities as mutually active participants. …

Congruence semimodular varieties II: Regular varieties

In [8], P. Jones characterized the regular varieties of semigroups which are congruence semimodular and he partially solved the problem of characterizing the non-regular, congruence semimodular (CSM) varieties of semigroups. For regular varieties his characterization was an equational one, so necessarily a part of his argument was semigroup-theoretic. But some of his argument involved only congruence lattice manipulations and references to the two-element semilattice. It seemed plausible that one could give a universal algebraic characterization of all regular, CSM varieties. Jones posed the problem of characterizing regular, CSM varieties at the International Conference on Universal Algebra and Lattice Theory held at Molokai, Hawaii in 1987. The authors were students attending that conference and became familiar with the problem. Agliano began a general investigation of CSM varieties under the supervision of his doctoral advisor, J. B. Nation, at the University of Hawaii. In the fall of 1988, Agtiano filed his dissertation and Kearnes arrived at the University of Hawaii. We began discussing whether or not tame congruence theory could be applied to solve Jones' problem, at least for locally finite varieties or pseudo-varieties of finite algebras. This is the approach that had been suggested by Jones in 1987. We discovered a number of interesting facts about CSM varieties using tame congruence theory, but we did not solve Jones' problem at that time. (These "interesting facts" have since been collected in, Congruence semimodular varieties I: locally finite varieties.) After about two months our collaboration ended when Agliano returned to Italy. For a while we felt compelled to publish some of our results on CSM varieties, but we were reluctant to do so without solving Jones' problem first. We renewed

1988 Ewing Medal to Wolfgang H. Berger

From simple suggestions sometimes spring great accomplishments. For Wolfgang Berger the beginning was a suggestion from his doctoral advisor, Fred Phleger, who said, in response to a question about what Wolf might pursue for a dissertation, “study planktonic foraminifera.”At the time the suggestion probably would not have been of interest to a geophysics or geochemistry student, but luckily for all of us, Wolfs early training was in paleontology and stratigraphy, and he took Fred's suggestion. The result has been a rich flow of ideas about the formation and preservation of biogenic sediments in the deep‐sea carbonate dissolution, climatic change, global ocean productivity, and the Cenozoic ocean.