Exploring the Lack of Funding for Coral Reef Research and it’s Effects on Coral Reef Management and Conservation

Climate change is greatly harming coral reefs (Gibbs and West, 2019). It is important to research how to help these coral reefs build resilience against climate change but research programs are severely underfunded (Johnston et al. 2020). This paper explored how lack of funding prevents scientists from saving coral reefs and how scientists themselves can be affected. The goal of this paper was to bring to light the struggles faced in the midst of underfunding to feasibly gain support from politicians and government officials to promote funding for these programs. Through three virtual interviews with two scientists and one college professor, I gathered personal experiences from these participants on how coral reefs are being affected today, why research is necessary, and how lack of funding prevents the restoration of these reefs. With the use of a thematic analysis, I was able to recognize common themes between the interviews in order to conclude how lack of program funding prevents scientists from managing and restoring these coral reef ecosystems. The initial assumption for this paper was that coral reef research is underfunded because coral reefs are considered less important, however, the analysis of the data for this paper concluded that all research programs are underfunded. In essence, marine biology, in general, is underfunded as opposed to mainly research on coral reefs. As a result, scientists can be very limited in their abilities to conduct research.

My Grandfather’s Face: A Black Contemplative Educator’s Discovery of Unknown Relatives through DNA

This narrative essay offers an exploration of the power and importance of family origin stories as a grounding aspect of collective and individual identity for Black people. The author, drawing on his experience as a Black queer contemplative scholar and college professor, gives attention to the question of whether the truth is necessary or beneficial in the creation of family narratives and what each successive generation is allowed to know. This question is explored through the story of the unintended positive and negative consequences the author experienced as a result of submitting DNA to Ancestry.com.

From Treasure to Trash: The Changing Meaning of Books in the New Social Economy of Higher Education

This paper draws on the findings of an autoethnographic study to discuss significant changes in the character of US institutions of higher education in recent decades. The autoethnography incorporates two forms of evidence: first, a dataset generated from the author’s experiences, observations, communications, and interactions over a 40-year career as a college professor in a wide range of academic settings, and second, a specific event that occurred just weeks before the author’s formal retirement from full-time academic employment. The latter event proved to be analytically important as a crystallizing experience for making sense of the larger body of data collected over the author’s academic career. The event serves as a dramatic illustration of profound changes in how various academic constituencies have come to define the meaning and value of academic books. The paper proposes that the changing meaning of books among key academic actors can be viewed as an important signifier of broader social-economic trends in higher education in the postwar era.

Exploring the Development of Contemporary Chinese Flute Art Through Heavenly Tune of Chinese Flute and The Ancient Call

In the 21st century, the development of the flute follows the steps of modernization closely, and a batch of outstanding works with novel genre and innovative theme appear. This paper will focus on two new national art funded projects in China. One is the large humanity art epic The Ancient Call by Chinese Flute music college professor Zhang Weiliang from China Conservatory of Music, and the other is Tang Junqiao’s Chinese Flute stage play Heavenly Tune of Chinese Flute. This paper aims to explore the motivation that China’s performance composers create and promote the innovation of the traditional music, innovate the artistic features of Chinese Flute works, and analyze the improvement of the Chinese Flute performance art as well as the possibility of future development.

Technology supporting green chemistry in chemical education

Changes in technology have affected the way we teach, the way students learn and the way chemical research is conducted. Rapid changes in technology have greatly improved laboratory instrumentation, data collection and treatment and have greatly enabled Green Chemistry. This chapter will trace the career of a 4-year college professor who began teaching as a high school teacher in the sixties and transcended to the collegiate level. She will describe how changes in technology changed the way we teach chemistry and how this has enabled us to introduce green chemistry at all levels to our students. This chapter will highlight changes in technology which have enabled educators both in teaching chemistry labs and conducting research to employ green chemistry.

Using EMDR to Address Social Anxiety With Clients Who Stutter: Treatment Considerations

This article describes the treatment considerations when providing eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy to treat clients who stutter. Since stuttering is often developed in childhood and persists into adulthood, it has long-term impacts on the educational, social, psychological, and professional development of those who stutter. While stuttering can present with physiological impairments not amendable to psychological interventions, EMDR therapy may effectively decrease the psychological stressors (such as social anxiety and shame) that can intensify stuttering. The authors present an extensive literature review on the traumatic experiences and adverse effects of stuttering. They also discuss essential treatment guidelines when using EMDR to work with people who stutter (PWS), including processing developmental trauma when stuttering, experiences of being bullied because of stuttering, shame and internalized negative self-statements, distrust of one's body due to inability to control one's speaking, and the social anxiety and avoidance in dealing with triggering situations. The clinical instructions are illustrated with a case example of a 40-year-old college professor who experienced anxiety and shame related to persistent developmental stuttering, and who sought treatment due to difficulties speaking in front of his classes. After completing 20 sessions of EMDR therapy, the client reported decreased social anxiety and shame and was able to teach courses comfortably. Further research considerations using EMDR treatment with PWS are recommended.

A Change of Verbs

How much of your life is trapped in social norms? What would you say if you were free to say what you really thought? How would you live your life differently? In this work of philosophical short fiction, Simon in a married, middle aged, college professor. Inch by inch, day by day, over his life he has given up his freedom to social norms. He stays quiet in his true thoughts in the face of his wife, and his co-workers. One day, something changes, and he decides to “change his verbs.” He tells his wife what he thinks. He tells his students what he thinks. He says no to attending pointless meetings. In short, he releases himself from the social cages that he has created for himself, and he is happy. He comes home to his wife and, seemingly for the first time in years, is free to tell her honestly that he loves her.

Teaching and Learning During a Pandemic

This chapter encompasses the lived experiences of a high school teacher, high school administrator, and college professor. Each worked through the trials and tribulations of teaching and learning in a pandemic. The authors' narratives provide a vivid account of the initial shock of the pandemic announcements and the life changes that ensued. Written through an equity lens, this chapter explains how instruction is delivered in remote and hybrid settings; the importance of building communication with students, families, and staff; access to technology for learning; and the importance of building relationships with the students and families. This chapter aims to contextualize inequities that existed before the pandemic, how they were exacerbated as schools closed down, and how students' well-being became the necessary focus. The chapter's discussion frames how we can redefine our roles and responsibilities as educators to encourage student agency and the potential of trauma-sensitive schools as a means to help students heal from the wounds caused by this pandemic.

A Rapid Switch to Remote E-Learning in the COVID Era

This chapter discusses in a very readable and down-to-earth fashion the struggles and victories that a college professor encountered as he switched from live instruction to remote e-learning in a heartbeat. The chapter also includes 2-3 paragraph unedited impressions and reflections by first generation and international undergraduate students as to their feelings about the switch to remote e-learning. For most of them this was the first time they experienced either synchronous or asynchronous e-learning.