Broad rhetorical analysis of Charles Murrays on Liberal Education as Essay

Broad rhetorical analysis of Charles Murrays on Liberal Education as suggested by President Obama - Essay Example It talks about students who are undertaking their education. If it were addressed to students, it would imply that the author was telling them not go for higher qualifications as it does not help. This would be a misguided advice to students. The thing is that students should always aim higher while in school or practice. In support of the argument, the author indicates that university degrees work well for children who come from wealthy families, but not for anyone else who wants to land in a stable job and is not interested in the aspect of education. He states, â€Å"Children just want to know how to get a job that is satisfying and the one that pays well.† He further adds that in order for students to meet their demands, higher education is normally required. However, this should not be essential or necessary anymore if certificate testing is to be used as the best way out. The author used some rhetorical appeals to pass his message across. For instance, when he indicates that college education culminating to a bachelor’s degree works well for the kids whose parents have a lot of money. In addition, he indicates that the system only works well for top students who come from backgrounds that are drawn to academics. The funny part comes when he indicates that most of the 18-year-olds or rather students are not from well-to-do families, are not drawn to academics and are not top students. This is based on the fact that there are thousands of people going through vocational training, but are not poor.

Most Influential Books on Leadership Essay Example for Free

Most Influential Books on Leadership Essay Leadership is an issue which has been in the limelight in every aspect of human governance. Human development has been linked with management and directions which are part of leadership. Various characteristics of leadership have therefore been identified from various areas in life. This paper aims at identifying three different types of books on leadership which are recognized to be the most influential. The first choice is the book â€Å"Talent Is Never Enough: Discover the Choices That Will Take You beyond Your Talent† by John C. Maxwell . The author holds that talent is never enough in leadership. There are many different people in the whole world , thus showing that talent will never end. Nevertheless if acquiring that talent were just enough for everybody, then we would all be at a higher level and being full of potentials. There are therefore other things that need to be included in our talents so as to be able to discover those opportunities especially when it comes to business. People need to come up with other discoveries which would take them more steps beyond the talents they have. In businesses today, most leaders mostly concentrate more on the talents they have alone. The writer of this book, who in this case is a known expert in leadership John C. Maxwell argues that this is not the right way to achieving success. In his discourse, he describes how highly talented people who are globally known would be very successful if talent was the only contingency for that matter . That is not however the case. The book goes on to place more emphasis and support the writer’s decision by highlighting the fact that society is full of people who could have been great men and women if only they used other ideas apart from what they call talent. The author talks of prominent people like Jefferson, Nameth, Churchill, Bono, Oprah, and Dickens whom, apart from their talents, went steps ahead to the next level of increasing their talents and maximizing it to improve the world. They employed more efforts to what they discovered as their talent to capture other opportunities in life. That is why they are the talk of the world. According to Max, talent should therefore be present. It should however be followed by other measures that improve it. With different examples given of those people who maximized their talents, there are a few who did not. The author thus goes ahead to encourage the reader to support the authors views and improve their lives by giving thirteen key choices one can adopt to become a person with advanced and maximized talent (Maxwell J. C(2009). The second selection of the most influential leadership books that I would recommend is â€Å"The Skinny of the Art of Persuasion† by Jim Randel. In leadership, persuasion is one of the most important skills that a leader should posses. This book provides sound and detailed information on persuasion in leadership. Moreover, it offers other important recommendations on persuasion from various prominent leaders. The book advices on persuasion thanks to the fact that the author is an attorney besides being well experienced in the field. Further, apart from his experience Randel quotes people like Kevin Hogan, James Speakman, Dave Lakhani, Dale Carnegie, Robert Cialdini, Tom Hopkins, Malcolm Gladwell, and others in his discussion on persuasion in leadership. This approach puts more emphasis on the author’s concept. He states that persuasion basically involves integrity. To add to his topic, Randell gives his personal life stories regarding leadership which still bothers him till then. To understand and get acquainted with what he is insinuating, his book finalizes with tips which are easy to understand about a good persuader in leadership (Alegre M. 2010). The third influential book on leadership is John Ferling’s new book on â€Å"The Ascent of George Washington. † It talks about the relationship between leadership and education. It is very important -especially in the current world to link leadership with the educational backgrounds of those aspiring to be leaders in future. George Washington was an educated man in leadership. He had focus in his politics due to the great boost from his education. This is an ideal model of how leaders should learn to lead others. The author in this book goes ahead to reveal Washington as a political genius due to the fact that he was politically focused, ambitious, and was driven to succeed. Although described by the author as the most untactful and indecisive in times of crises, Washington was the only right person to lead Americans to independence. His character, boldness, judgment, industriousness, determination, and skillful political thinking were remarkable. It is a book that explains how one does not need to be perfect to achieve greatness (Alegre M. 010). Therefore, these books cover some of the most important aspects of leadership which most people fail to identify while leading others. Since most of us are leaders in one way or another, it is equally important to consider reviewing such influential leadership books to acquire various tips of leadership and also as stated by Maxwell to improve our talents in leadership. This strategy will not only boost our leadership qualities, but will also enable us to identify new opportunities in life and be able to pursue only the best of them.

Compulsive Disorder Essay -- essays research papers

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a lifelong disorder, which can cause a person to do things repeatedly. This disorder is identified by two general symptoms: obsessions and compulsions. An obsession can be defines as an unwelcome, distressing thought or mental image. (Schwartz, 1996) It is a thought that annoys you so much that it causes distress and anxiety. Compulsions are the behaviors that people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder perform in an attempt to get rid of the fears and anxieties caused by their obsessions. (Schwartz, 1996) The disorder which usually starts in adolescence or early childhood, is more common that asthma or diabetes. (Baer, 1991) It affects one in forty people, or more than five million Americans. (Baer, 1991)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is related to a biochemical imbalance in the brain that can be treated effectively without drugs. This starts with a biochemical problem in the brain called â€Å"Brain Lock†. (Schwartz, 1996) Four key structures of the brain become locked together and the brain sends false messages that the person cannot recognize as false. (Schwartz, 1996) One of the main signal-processing centers of the brain, made up of two structures called the caudate nucleus and the put amen, can be thought of like a gearshift in a car. (Schwartz, 1996) The caudate nucleus is like the automatic t...

The My Lai Massacre Essay -- History Innocent Murder Historical Essays

The My Lai Massacre   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On March 16, 1968, in the Quang Ngai region of Vietnam, specifically My Lai, the United States military was involved in an appalling slaughter of approximately 500 Vietnamese civilians. There are numerous arguments as to why this incident even had the capacity to occur. Although some of the arguments seem valid, can one really make excuses for the slaughter of innocent people? The company that was responsible for the My Lai incident was the Charlie Company and throughout the company there were many different accounts of what happened that reprehensible day. Therefore there are a few contradictions about what had occurred, such as what the commanding officers exact instructions for the soldiers were. Even with these contradictions the results are obvious. The question that must be posed is whether these results make the American soldiers involved that day â€Å"guilty†. There is the fact that the environment of the Vietnam War made it very confusing to the s oldiers exactly who the enemy was, as well as providing a pent up frustration due to the inability to even engage in real combat with the enemy. If this is the case though, why did some soldiers with the same frustrations refuse the orders and sit out on the action, why did some cry while firing, and why then did one man go so far as to place himself between the Vietnamese and the firing soldiers? If these men who did not see the sense in killing innocents were right with their actions, then how come the ones who did partake were all found not guilty in court? The questions can keep going back and forth on this issue, but first what happened that day must be examined. Captain Earnest Medina was in charge of giving orders to the Charlie Company and in the early evening of March 15th a meeting was called. CPT Medina told the company that the next morning they would be moving into My Lai and attacking Vietcong forces there. He told them that all the civilians would be at the market or would have already been moved out by the time that the soldiers arrived to carry out their planned attack. He said all that would be left in the village would be the Vietcong of the 48th battalion and Vietcong sympathizers. It was never clear what CPT Medina had said to do in the event of coming across civilians. Medina claimed in court that he had told the GI’s not to kill women and children, to us... ... landing on the president for putting the soldiers out in the jungles of an un-winnable war. In conclusion, there are just too many people and too many things to place blame easily for this disturbing event. So the easy road was taken, just do not let this happen again. The military took time out to think about their training of soldiers. "Commanders sent troops in the Desert storm operation into battle with the words, â€Å"No My Lais—you hear?† (Linder) History is said to be good for one reason- to learn from past mistakes so they will not be repeated, and that is a very good lesson to learn from My Lai and one that all hope was, in fact, learned. Works Cited Chafe, William H. The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Goff, Richard, et al. The Twentieth Century: A Brief Global History. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998. Linder, Doug. â€Å"An Introduction to the My Lai Courts Martial.† Famous American Trails: The My Lai Courts Martial, 1970. 15 Nov. 1999 <http://www.law.umkc.edu/ faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_intro.html>. Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. My Lai: A Brief History With Documents. Boston: Bedford, 1998

Achieving variety and details in writing Essay

Although there are many cities and countries named after presidents, Washington is the only state named for American presidents. Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia is another example of a city named after a U. S president. 2. California a popular state in the United States is a nature’s beauty. Bordered by the Pacific Ocean, its coast contains many islands, waterways, and rivers, not to mention the evergreen forests that found near the coast. 3. The car battery would not start thus I had to call a tow truck to pull it to the garage. I had not identified the problem but the mechanic confirmed that the battery was dead. 4. Although there are sisters, they were total opposites. She was not like her sister. She was stubborn and quick tempered but the sister was calm. 5. Although said to have fallen out of fashion, Ricky Martin will remain my favorite singer. His songs inspire. He has even done some free concerts for good causes too and I think he is terrific. 6. I took a trip to Pet Smart to look for hamsters. I have heard that they have terrific pets. What surprised me is that I was the only one looking for the hamsters and I wondered if no one realized. 7. Since the beginning of October, it has been dry. The heat has been unrelenting and the ground ran dry and cracked. The desert is now at its worst. It seems to have a covering of a fine reddish dust. 8. At sixteen, Holly was severe. She wore thick glasses down on her nose and was very thin. Her shoulder bones showed through her shirt seemingly to puncture her skin. This made her to lose self-esteem but her mother would encourage her and she would tell her that someday she was going to be a beauty. 9. When Joanne turned fifteen, Aunt Alice went to town and bought her a guitar as a gift. However, the guitar looked used and some of its strings were broken. It also had a scratch on the outside. 10. The cold would go through the clothes to the skin, buds popped out on the trees and these marked the late winter, which was clammy, and we looked forward for maple sugaring time. REFERENCE. Scott, N. (2008). Paragraph- writing. New York: NY. BiblioBazaar, LLC.

The History and Invention of Peanut Butter

The History and Invention of Peanut Butter It’s one of the country’s favorite things to spread over bread. We dip celery sticks in it. It’s often baked into cookies and countless deserts. I’m talking about peanut butter and as a whole Americans consume tons of the pulverized pea about a billion pounds worth each year. That’s roughly $800 spent annually and  a booming increase from the roughly two million  pounds produced at the turn of the 20th century. Peanuts were first cultivated as food in South America and natives in the region began turning them into grounded up paste roughly 3,000 years ago. The kind of peanut butter that the Incas and Aztecs made was of course much different from the manufactured stuff sold in grocery stores today. The more modern story of peanut butter actually began towards the end of the 19th century, not too long after farmers began mass commercializing the crop that was suddenly in demand after the civil war. A Nutty Controversy So who invented peanut butter? Its hard to say. In fact, there appears to be some disagreement among food historians over who deserves the honor. One historian, Eleanor Rosakranse, says a woman from New York named Rose Davis started making peanut butter as early as the 1840’s after her son reported seeing women in Cuba grinding peanuts into a pulp and smearing it onto bread.      Ã‚   Then there are some who think the credit should go to Marcellus Gilmore Edson, a Canadian chemist who in 1884 filed and was granted the first patent in the United States for what he called â€Å"peanut-candy.† Conceived as a kind of flavoring paste, the process described running roasted peanuts through a heated mill to produce a fluid or semi-fluid byproduct that cools into a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment. However, there wasn’t any indication that Edson made or sold peanut butter as a commercial product. A case can also be made for a St. Louis businessman named George A. Bayle, who began packaging and selling peanut butter through his food manufacturing company. It’s believed that the idea was born out of a collaboration with a doctor who had been seeking a way for his patients who were unable to chew meat to ingest protein. Bayle also ran advertisements in the early 1920’s proclaiming his company to be the â€Å"Original Manufacturers of Peanut Butter.† Cans of Bayle’s Peanut Butter came with labels touting this claim as well. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg It isn’t difficult to find those who dispute this claim as many have argued that the honor should go to none other than the influential Seventh-day Adventist Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Indeed, the National Peanut Board states that Kellogg received a patent in 1896 for a technique he developed for making peanut butter. There’s also an 1897 advertisement for Kellogg’s Sanitas company Nut Butters that pre-dates all other competitors. More importantly, though, Kellogg was a tireless promoter of peanut butter. He travelled extensively throughout the country giving lectures on its benefits of to health. Kellogg even served peanut butter to his patients at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a health resort with treatment programs supported by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The one big knock on Kellogg’s claim as the father of modern day peanut butter is that his disastrous decision to switch from roasted nuts to steamed nuts resulted in a product that barely resembled the ubiquitous jarred goodness found on store shelves today. Kellogg also  in an indirect way played a part in the production of peanut butter reaching a mass scale. John Lambert, an employee of Kellogg’s who was involved in the nut butter business, eventually left in 1896 and founded a company to develop and manufacture industrial strength peanut-grinding machines. He would soon have competition as another machine manufacturer, Ambrose Straub, was granted a patent for one of the earliest peanut butter machines in 1903. The machines made the process easier as making peanut butter had been quite tedious. Peanuts were first grounded using a mortar and pestle before being put through a meat grinder. Even then, it was hard to achieve the desired consistency.    Peanut Butter Goes Global In 1904, peanut butter was introduced to the wider public at the World’s Fair in St. Louis. According to the book â€Å"Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food,† a concessionaire named C.H. Sumner was the only vendor to sell peanut butter. Using one of Ambrose Straub’s peanut butter machines, Sumner sold $705.11 worth of peanut butter. That same year, the Beech-Nut Packing Company became the first nationwide brand to market peanut butter and continued to distribute the product until 1956. Other notable early brands to follow suit were the Heinz company, which entered the market in 1909 and the Krema Nut Company, an Ohio-based operation that survives to this day as the world’s oldest peanut butter company. Soon more and more companies would start selling peanut butter as a disastrous mass invasion of boll weevils ravaged the south, destroying much of cotton crop yields that had long been a staple of the region’s farmers. Thus the food industry’s growing interest in peanut was fueled in part by many farmers turning to peanuts as a replacement. Even as demand for peanut butter grew, it was primarily being sold as a regional product. In fact, Krema founder Benton Black once proudly boasted â€Å"I refuse to sell outside Ohio.† While it may sound today like a bad way of doing business, it made sense at the time as grounded peanut butter was unstable and best distributed locally. The problem was that, as the oil separated from the peanut butter solids, it would rise to the top and quickly spoil with exposure to light and oxygen.                All that changed in the 1920’s when a businessman named Joseph Rosefield patented a process called â€Å"Peanut butter and process of manufacturing the same,† which describes how hydrogenation of peanut oil can be used to keep the peanut butter from coming apart. Rosefield began licensing the patent to food  companies  before he decided to go off on his own and launch his own brand. Rosefields Skippy peanut butter, along with Peter Pan and Jif, would go on to become the most successful and recognizable names in the business.

Bad Leadership Essay Example

Bad Leadership Essay Example Bad Leadership Paper Bad Leadership Paper BAD LEADERSHIP What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters By Barbara Kellerman Page 1 The book is all about the dark side of leadership and how you individuals get there and what we can do to avoid it. She suggests that leaders do not act alone and are not solely responsible for bad leaderships. There is no leadership without followship. If followers would just not follow a bad leader we could put a stop to the bad leadership. She has two main arguments throughout the book. The first is that leadership is either classified as ineffective or unethical. The second argument is that you can break the whole bad leadership into seven types – incompetent, rigid, intemperate, callous, corrupt, insular, and evil. She talks about how writers of other books and schools that study leadership suggest that to become a leader is to become a good leader. The dark side then as she suggests that to limit leadership to good leadership presents three major problems. It is confusing and misleading and does a disservice. She goes on to talk about the reasons why we are bad. She states that â€Å"people in a state of nature are not, in the usually sense of the word, good. This is not to insist that people are bad but rather that the human animal cannot be relied on to behave well. †[i] I’m not so sure that I agree with this statement. She brings up a point that in the past, scholars believed that a leader’s traits, such as intelligence, were more important then any other variable when determining a leader’s ability. They now agree that there are other variables that need to be considered such as the situation, the nature of the task at hand, and the followers. Why do we follow leaders who behave badly? She suggests it’s out of our need for safety and self-preservation. Getting along by going along is one of life’s early Page 2 lessons and so we need simplicity and stability. We do not want to lose our jobs so we keep quiet and keep things simple. Groups go along with bad leaders because even bad leaders can provide important benefits. Leaders maintain order, provide cohesion and identity, and do the collective work. Either in a group or as an individual, we find that it’s in our best interest to go with the flow and not stir the pot. How can we expect to reduce the number of bad leaders though unless we reduce the number of bad followers like we probably all have been at one point in our career. She states that, â€Å"Bad leadership will not, cannot be stopped or slowed unless followers take responsibility for rewarding the good leaders and penalizing the bad ones. †[ii] The first of Kellerman’s arguments is that bad leadership falls into two categories: ineffective and unethical. An ineffective leader â€Å"fails to produce the desired change. For reasons that include missing traits, weak skills, strategies badly conceived, and tactics badly employed, ineffective leadership falls short of its intention. †[iii] Whereas, unethical leaders may be very effective, they just don’t know the difference between right or wrong. Our textbook has a chapter on leadership ethics and social responsibility. The textbooks describes ethics as, â€Å"the study of moral obligations, or of separating right from wrong†, and morals as, â€Å"an individual’s determination of what is right or wrong†. [iv] I would suggest that they may know the difference, but they choose to ignore it. She then goes on to her next argument that there are seven types of bad leadership: Incompetent, Rigid, Intemperate, Callous, Corrupt, Insular and Evil. She says Page 3 that the first three types (incompetent, rigid and intemperate) tend to be classified as ineffective leadership and the last four (callous, corrupt, insular and evil) are bad because of unethical behavior. She defines an incompetent leader as, â€Å"The leader and at least some followers lack the will or skill (or both) to sustain effective action. With regard to at least one important leadership challenge, they do not create positive change. [v] Leaders are incompetent for many reasons. Some lack experience, education or expertise and others lack drive, energy or the ability to focus. The instances I have recognized incompetent leaders are one’s in which someone was promoted only because of their longevity at the company and not because of their skills or expertise. I tend to call them worker bees who are gre at at being a worker bee, and then they get promoted to a leadership role because they are such a great worker bee, and then they fail. They don’t have the courage to step back and realize they are not meant to be leaders. She defines Rigid Leadership as, â€Å"The leader and at least some followers are stiff and unyielding. Although they may be competent, they are unable or unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information, or changing times. †[vi] I think this has come into play in past couple of decades with the emergence of technology. There were leaders who were not use to the convenience of technology and it scared them. It scared them right out of their jobs though because they were using rigid leadership and not being able to adapt to the change. Page 4 Kellerman defines Interperate Leadership as, â€Å"The leader lacks self-control and is aided and abetted by followers who are unwilling or unable effectively to intervene. †[vii] This is more of a private matter and very important for leaders to keep it that way. If these types of leaders lose self-control in public it can be very damaging to their reputation and to their followers. The book defines Callous Leadership as, â€Å"The leader and at least some followers are uncaring or unkind. Ignored or discounted are the needs, wants, and wishes of most members of the group or organization, especially subordinates. [viii] Leaders are supposed to consider what their employees want. She uses words such as power-sharing and team-building as examples of what leaders are suppose to be promoting. We read in our textbook that leaders are to empower their employees and let them make decisions and seek improvement. It states that â€Å"a dominant characteristic of effective leaders is their passion for their work and to some extent for the people who help them accomplish the work. † The textbook has a section on team-based organizations and the role that the leader plays. It defines 9 key roles of the leader and those are: Building trust and inspiring teamwork Coaching team members and group members toward higher levels of performance Facilitating and supporting the team’s decisions Expanding the team’s capabilities Page 5 Creating a team identity Anticipating and influencing change Inspiring the team toward higher levels of performance Enabling and empowering group members to accomplish their work Encouraging team members to eliminate low-value work[ix] These are all roles that will help contribute to effective leadership and team building. These types of organizations needs leaders who know the team process and can give feedback and resolve conflict. She defines Corrupt Leadership as, â€Å"The leader and at least some followers lie, cheat, or steal. To a degree that exceeds the norm, they put self-interest ahead of the public interest. †[x] We have learned that there is no place that is immune to corrupt leaders, not even the church. Most of the time the corrupt leader is motivated by money. They are placing their personal interests over the welfare of the company and other employees. It is important to remember that these types of leaders exist especially when you are a follower. Being a follower of these types of leaders can only bring you down as well if you choose to follow them. Insular Leadership is defined by her as, â€Å"The leader and at least some followers minimize or disregard the health and welfare of, ‘the other’- that is, those outside the group or organization for which they are directly responsible. †[xi] It is in some sense, human nature to feel that your group, or family, or country competes with others and that Page 6 your group will always come first. These leaders should look to more of a collaboration and cooperation rather then competition. The textbook suggests, as a way to build teamwork, that you encourage competition with another group. It says that, â€Å"one of the best-known methods of encouraging teamwork is rallying the support of the group against a real or imagined threat from the outside. † It also goes on to say though that, â€Å"the leader should encourage rivalry, not intense competition that might lead to unethical business practices. †[xii] The last style of leadership that she defines is, Evil Leadership. She defines it as, â€Å"The leader and at least some followers commit atrocities. They use pain as an instrument of power. The harm done to men, women, and children is severe rather than slight. The harm can be physical, psychological, or both. †[xiii] She focuses more in this section on the followers who follow these evil leaders. She suggests that they are just as much as evil if they do nothing and just follow along. She also suggests though that maybe they are a victim and are terrorized into following. She of course uses Saddam Hussein as an example of an evil leader, which I think we all could agree with. Before I even read who the brief examples were about, he is who came to my mind. The textbook talks a little about the evil and the dark side of leadership in that of a charismatic leader. It states that, â€Å"some people believe that charismatic leadership can be exercised for evil purposes. Charismatic leaders are experts at promising Utopia. Since perfection is the end, often the most heinous actions can be tolerated as seemingly Page 7 necessary means to the end. †[xiv] It goes on to talk about followers and why they follow these types of leaders. The textbook states that it’s because of that leader’s personal magnetism. Overall, the costs of bad leadership cannot be known exactly. Not only does it cause pain and suffering to those directly affected by the bad leadership, but there are those that are indirectly affected such as family and friends. She does a great job describing the many different ways bad leadership develops and also gives way at the end to correct and fend off bad leadership. She says, â€Å"What is to be done? How can we all, leaders and followers alike, begin truly to correct for and prevent bad leadership? She makes three assumptions to answer these questions: â€Å"First, we cannot stop or slow bad leadership by changing human nature. Second, we cannot stop or slow bad leadership without stopping and slowing bad followship. Finally, we cannot stop or slow bad leadership by sticking our heads in the sand. †[xv] [i] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 15) [ii] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 232) [iii] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 33) [iv] Leadership (Durbin, p. 169) [v] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 40) [vi] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 41) [vii] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 2) [viii] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 43) [ix] Leadership (Durbin, p. 264) [x] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 44) [xi] Bad Leadership (Kellerman p. 45) [xii] Leadership (Durbin, p. 271) [xiii] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 46) [xiv] Leadership (Durbin, p. 91) [xv] Bad Leadership (Kellerman, p. 231 232) Page 8 REFERENCES Durbin, Andrew J. Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills. Fifth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company (2007). Kellerman, Barbara. Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters. Harvard Business School Press (2004). Page 9

10 Questions to Ask For-Profit Online Colleges

10 Questions to Ask For-Profit Online Colleges Not all for-profit colleges are scams. In fact, some offer students flexibility and a career-oriented learning style that can be difficult to find elsewhere. On the other hand, some online for-profit programs rake in big money while leaving students with lots of debt and few job prospects. If you’re considering enrolling in a for-profit online college, hold off on signing that first tuition check until you get answers to these ten questions: 1. What is the colleges accreditation status? You’ll want to make sure that your school’s accreditation is recognized by the United States Department of Education. The most transferable form of accreditation comes from the six nationally-recognized regional accrediting bodies. 2. Is the school now (or has it ever been) on one of the federal financial watch lists? The federal government recently released a list of colleges that are being monitored due to concerning financial behavior. Although the list isn’t comprehensive, you’ll want to make sure your college isn’t on it. 3. What is the colleges graduation rate? Find out what percent of students who start the program end up graduating. If this number is particularly low, it’s a good indicator that the school may not be providing a quality experience or enough student support. 4. How many students who graduate from the program are able to find a career in their field? The federal government is starting to crack down on for-profit programs that charge a lot for tuition and leave students in the dark when it comes to career prospects. Make sure your investment is worthwhile - you’ll want to know that a reasonable percentage of graduates in your program are able to find employment. 5. How long does it actually take most students to graduate from this program? It’s likely that the average is longer than 4 years. But, if students are taking 6-8 years to earn an undergraduate degree, that might be a sign to look elsewhere. 6. How much student debt does the average student in this program take on? Tuition prices may be posted. But, how much debt are students actually accruing? When you factor in student fees, additional coursework, textbooks, and graduation charges, expenses start to add up. You don’t want to graduate with a photography degree and $100,000 of student debt. Make sure that your debt won’t be too challenging to manage with your expected income. 7. What kind of access to career development does the school offer? Traditional schools tend to offer job fairs, employer meet-and-greets, resume reviews, and other career development options. Does your for-profit program provide any services to help put your degree to use? 8. What other schools or parent companies is this for-profit program connected with? Some for-profit schools are part of larger conglomerate of schools. Sometimes, when a for-profit program fails, it takes new life with a new name. Do a bit of research into your college’s history and make sure they’ve been thriving for a while. 9. What are the advantages of choosing this school over a non-profit alternative? Some for-profit schools offer legitimate advantages. They may be able to let you focus on your career rather than saddle you with too many general ed requirements. Or, they may be able to help you finish a degree in less time and with less expense. However, this isn’t always the case. Find out by comparing your for-profit options with similar non-profit and public colleges. 10. How does this school track their statistics? Don’t just ask the above questions to a telephone recruiter and call it a day. Learn where and how they are collecting this information. Then, double-check the numbers with outside sources. Don’t rely on any school to give you the full picture without your own research to back it up. Jamie Littlefield is a writer and instructional designer. She can be reached on Twitter or through her educational coaching website: jamielittlefield.com.

Article 4 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 3

4 - Article Example The second part mentions about a farm six miles away from the town of Decorah in Iowa. The farm is about 890-acre and contains a stretch of woods and rolling fields of Heritage crops. This particular farm is known of its practice of letting its crops grow to seeds. It has been named home to the Seed Savers Exchange and is one of the biggest non-governmental seed banks within the United States (Siebert, Charles 6). An account of Diane Ott Whealy is mentioned concerning the seedlings of Heirloom plant types. And this is dates back to the year 1975. It is because of their enthusiasm towards keeping that specific variety of seeds that they Diane and the husband Kent decide to build a store. Currently, that store is said to have a membership of about 13,000 people and preserves seeds of several varieties of heirloom. Considering the increasing food extinction in the world, in the US, 90% of its historic fruits and vegetable varieties have vanished. For instance, of the 7000apple varieties grown in the 1800s, less than a hundred remain today. The same case is happening in Philippines where thousands of types of rice once existed: now only less than a hundred are there. Countries like; China, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen and Sudan are also not exempted. Some other dwindling food variety include beet, Cabbage, Cucumber, Tomato, Sweet corn, Radish, Pea, Squash, Lettuce and Muskmelon (Siebert, Charles 8). Another section of the article gives information relating to the present efforts to increasing food production in the developing continents like Africa. And this is a process that has been considered to bypass the green revolution and might only elevate the pace at which crop species and livestock breeds become extinct. Countries like Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, are said to have sacrificed much of their crops to the mono-cropping of imported, high-yielding ones. In conclusion, therefore, this article gives ideas relating to why some of our crop varieties

What is democracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

What is democracy - Essay Example A popular definition of democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. Elections are held periodically (usually every 4 or 5 years) that determine ministers who would take part in state’s operations. Every adult (usually above 18 years) has the right to vote and decide on the ministers who would actively represent their country Even after election, there are checks and balances so that those who hold offices are kept on their toes. If people are not satisfied with the performance of a particular minister or party, they can show their dissent through petitions, marches, blogs, or other peaceful means. There are rooms for diverse opinions and multiple parties exist to represent different ideologies. Some countries under British model of democracy can have any number of parties, like in the parliamentary form of democracy. The number of parties is restricted to three or four in some democracies like US and UK because of administrative reasons, ensuring that democratic tenets are not compromised in the process. It is only natural that under democratic system, which promotes diverse views and opinions, there are multiple parties competing with each other. The head of state is either designated as ‘president’ or ‘prime minister.’ As democracy takes into account majority view while taking collective decisions, the basic concept right from formation of ruling council (parliament) to any minute issue regarding its operation remains the same. A country is divided into a number of regions or provinces. A candidate is selected as winner for a particular region if he or she has secured the maximum number of votes for that region. A candidate either represents a party or can stand independent. If a candidate stands independent, depending upon the constitution of that country, he or she may or may not be allowed to support a political party later on during the elected tenure. Parliament consists of group of ministers who have all won maximum number of votes from their respective regions. Ministers represent different parties, if not independent. The party that has sufficient amount of majority will be the ruling party from which key ministerial post of president or prime minister is determined. The ruling party’s members together determine who their president or prime minister would be. President or prime minister, as the case may be, allocates responsibilities to other ministers in the party, such as defense minister, finance minister, etc. This is the main concept behind any democratic form of government, which is tailored in context of a particular country. When democracy is in pure form, one can expect that there will be no distinction made on account of religion, caste, language, or culture. In democracy, there is a right for everyone to live with whatever small or big aspirations they have. Democracy gives an opportunity to all to progress, without making distinction on personal issues like sexual orientation, believe or disbelieve in reincarnation, etc. The terms democracy and civil society come side by side. While defining civil society, Jane Morse states that civil society comprises â€Å"individuals like you and me.† Interesting to note is the statement, ‘democracy depends on civil society’ by Morse. What Morse perhaps wants to highlight through this watchword is overwhelming importance of citizens. Democratic government is there to serve its citizens. Democratically elected government is not an end by itself, but means to an end of serving its citizens. According to America.gov, â€Å"Governments alone cannot build strong democracies, thriving economies, or stable societies; it is the people themselves — especially the civil society organizations — that bring people together.† While democratic government is given a mandate by citizens to run state in the best interest of citizens, civil society absorbs citizens in a m ore direct way. If there is threat on civil society, then it reflects that the problem is perhaps with the true implementation of

Issues in child development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Issues in child development - Essay Example Every childs development is judged by their intellectual function, their inventiveness, their ego strength, their relatedness to their peers and adults, and capacity to deal with new events that come across their like each day in their social life. Depression may be simply defined as a state of sadness. Many may feel depressed for a short time when things do not go their way, but when this feeling persists and interferes with daily activity a doctor may diagnose an individual with clinical depression and order medication. Genetic predisposition, personal problems, and seasonal hormonal changes are some of the many things that may trigger depression. A depressed individual may encounter feelings of despair and sadness, constant fatigue, constant headaches, among other things. If left untreated, depression may lead to suicide. (Mood Disorders, 2003) Most mothers aspire to provide a nurturing environment for their children. Depressed mothers generally want the best for their children, but their illness prevents them from achieving this goal. Depressed mothers have a much different opinion of themselves as mothers and of their childrens behaviour. They may see themselves as inadequate and think that they have little control over their childs development and they may perceive many aspects of their childs normal behaviour in a negative light. (Gurian, 2003) Many report feeling overwhelmed at the responsibilities of raising a child. Under so much stress, depressed mothers will face the normal frustrations of raising children much differently than normal mothers would. In many cases, the mother may criticize the child to the point of insulting him. Verbal abuse has been linked to lack of self esteem in children, especially when done at a young age. Some depressed mother will go even further and react violently to her childs petty

Practical Interaction Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Practical Interaction Design - Essay Example 18). HCI is a tool-rich methodological system that provides practicality to most of the established paradigms of artistic and aesthetic studies involving interaction design in its purest sense. Physical interaction design is based on PID. It focuses more on the PID elements such as ideation and familiarity, encompassing the techniques of voice based and/or tools based conversations. Physical interaction design studies are aimed to address the issues which call for usage of some physical form and material contour. These are explicit, objective gadgets which can facilitate or mediate an interaction process. A physical interaction designer must be sensitive towards the usefulness or playfulness of the objects whose physical forms can be used to interpret human gestures. For example, students in Carnegie Mellon and Victoria University of Wellington have created gadgets of paper having objective shape, size and appearance. The gadgets have been built in such a way that they can illustrate the amalgamation of technological knowledge and emotional quotient (see Figure – 1). These gadgets (which are supplied with specialised electronic effectors and receptors) can be programmed to respond towards sound, light, Internet chatting, users’ commands, etc. The responses are expressed as motions. (Baskinger and Gross, 2010) Figure – 1: Designs adaptable with users’ gestures (Baskinger and Gross, 2010, p. 9) Advantages of Physical Interaction Physical interaction design is based on models and gadgets that can respond to the user’s physical gestures. Physical gestures can engage the whole body of the user. Hence, interactive platforms involving physical gestures can be pleasing and interesting. Physical interaction, when synchronised with biometrics and electronics, can help the designers to innovate intelligent exercising machines for enhanced biomedical/biomechanical usage. (Norman, 2010) If aspectual paradigms of physical interactions are e xplored, we can take numerous ideas from existing machines and gadgets. These ideas can be interpreted with more stress on interactivity and uniqueness of design. In 2009, Sobolewska, Smith and Turner partook in a survey-cum-experiment involving a diverse group of students (most of them had undergraduate computing degrees). Each of them was given the task of describing an electronic gadget of his/her choice. In the course of this research, one of the students described a K10D midsized digital SLR as â€Å"very solid† (Sobolewska, Smith and Turner, 2009, p. 95), in which all the openings are sealed to protect the gadget from temperature, dust, etc. Importantly, â€Å"The camera has a large right hand grip, so it’s easy to hold† (Sobolewska, Smith and Turner, 2009, p. 95). This is how the basic paradigm of physical interaction design evolves: The gadget must be made not only easy but also pleasurable and comfortable to handle. Figure – 2: The large right ha nd grip of a K10D digital SLR camera (Adapted from Letsgodigital.org, 2012) Contextually, Baskinger and Gross (2010, p. 9) have illustrated the example of â€Å"Hit Me Interactive† lighting device in their research. This model lamp with LED display instantaneously responds to touch and gestures of hands and fingers (Figure – 3). This sort of gadgets can be used to manufacture convenient and high speed signalling systems. Figure – 3: The Hit Me Interactive device that can be used

Significance of moral virtues and moral principles Essay

Significance of moral virtues and moral principles - Essay Example The focus of moral principles on behavior is the major difference between principles and virtues. Moral principles designed for medical professionals are a standard for how practitioners should act and what they should do regarding treatment and in relationships with their patients. Moral virtues, in contrast, are the beliefs that a medical professional holds regarding the kind of person they should be. Moral principles are a starting point for ethical behavior, and, while far from being exhaustive, can help teach the relevant proper moral behavior. Appropriate behavior arises from the intersection of moral virtues and moral principles, and the correlation between the principles and the virtues is how those principles are able to teach those moral behaviors. Moral virtues and principles are generally the beliefs and actions supported by the general population. However, community support is not enough to designate a behavior, virtue, or belief as â€Å"moral†. Moral virtues req uire the background support of moral reason. If a principle is to be considered moral, it must teach morally valuable behavioral traits. Community morals must be backed by reasons as to why they are moral. This can cause a dilemma if the general beliefs of a community do not agree with a practitioner's personally held belief. For example, if a particular community's legal system does not allow abortions but a medical professional feels that one is morally indicated for a particular patient, he or she may be held to be immoral by principle but moral in virtue. Simply because an action fails to meet the community morality does not make such an action universally immoral. This specific example is of course controversial and does not attempt to make a statement on the morality of abortions, but simply to make a point about the difference between community standards and an individual's beliefs. Moral dilemmas can also arise from too-strict adherence to standards that have been built from moral principles. Moral principles are a guideline and a starting point for standards, but they cannot and should not be applied universally. A good example of over-applied standards affecting moral virtue is the principle of impartiality. Most medical standards and codes of ethics hold impartiality to be the correct course of behavior; these codes hold that a medical practitioner should treat all of his or her patients the same and to keep a professional distance with all patients. However, in practice, maintaining this distance is not always practical or even desirable, especially for long-term care. A principle of impartiality in a situation where such a distance is not ethical can cause a dilemma for the practitioner, as he or she must then decide whether to obey personal moral virtues or professional moral principles. The previous example is a sample of how the gap between practical ethics and theoretical ethics, of which principles are a type, can lead to dilemmas in medical practice. Principles should only be used as a starting point for developing standards of behavior. These principles need additional data and information in order to cover the true ethics implications of a situation in treatment, and they need flexibility enough to deal with the changing reality of medical treatment. As stated above, no principle can possibly cover every treatment scenario. The resultant dilemmas can be dealt with

Practical Interaction Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Practical Interaction Design - Essay Example 18). HCI is a tool-rich methodological system that provides practicality to most of the established paradigms of artistic and aesthetic studies involving interaction design in its purest sense. Physical interaction design is based on PID. It focuses more on the PID elements such as ideation and familiarity, encompassing the techniques of voice based and/or tools based conversations. Physical interaction design studies are aimed to address the issues which call for usage of some physical form and material contour. These are explicit, objective gadgets which can facilitate or mediate an interaction process. A physical interaction designer must be sensitive towards the usefulness or playfulness of the objects whose physical forms can be used to interpret human gestures. For example, students in Carnegie Mellon and Victoria University of Wellington have created gadgets of paper having objective shape, size and appearance. The gadgets have been built in such a way that they can illustrate the amalgamation of technological knowledge and emotional quotient (see Figure – 1). These gadgets (which are supplied with specialised electronic effectors and receptors) can be programmed to respond towards sound, light, Internet chatting, users’ commands, etc. The responses are expressed as motions. (Baskinger and Gross, 2010) Figure – 1: Designs adaptable with users’ gestures (Baskinger and Gross, 2010, p. 9) Advantages of Physical Interaction Physical interaction design is based on models and gadgets that can respond to the user’s physical gestures. Physical gestures can engage the whole body of the user. Hence, interactive platforms involving physical gestures can be pleasing and interesting. Physical interaction, when synchronised with biometrics and electronics, can help the designers to innovate intelligent exercising machines for enhanced biomedical/biomechanical usage. (Norman, 2010) If aspectual paradigms of physical interactions are e xplored, we can take numerous ideas from existing machines and gadgets. These ideas can be interpreted with more stress on interactivity and uniqueness of design. In 2009, Sobolewska, Smith and Turner partook in a survey-cum-experiment involving a diverse group of students (most of them had undergraduate computing degrees). Each of them was given the task of describing an electronic gadget of his/her choice. In the course of this research, one of the students described a K10D midsized digital SLR as â€Å"very solid† (Sobolewska, Smith and Turner, 2009, p. 95), in which all the openings are sealed to protect the gadget from temperature, dust, etc. Importantly, â€Å"The camera has a large right hand grip, so it’s easy to hold† (Sobolewska, Smith and Turner, 2009, p. 95). This is how the basic paradigm of physical interaction design evolves: The gadget must be made not only easy but also pleasurable and comfortable to handle. Figure – 2: The large right ha nd grip of a K10D digital SLR camera (Adapted from Letsgodigital.org, 2012) Contextually, Baskinger and Gross (2010, p. 9) have illustrated the example of â€Å"Hit Me Interactive† lighting device in their research. This model lamp with LED display instantaneously responds to touch and gestures of hands and fingers (Figure – 3). This sort of gadgets can be used to manufacture convenient and high speed signalling systems. Figure – 3: The Hit Me Interactive device that can be used

Emergence of Global Markets (BUS 250) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Emergence of Global Markets (BUS 250) - Essay Example Technological developments have been immense over the years in all sectors. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages. This essay aims at understanding the effects of technological developments. Technology can be a rather empowering at times but often can also be very frustrating. The computer related technology is becoming one a very important part of the society, and the usage of these technologies has increased a lot over the past few years. With the introduction of Internet there has been a great improvement in the overall lives of many. Internet has infiltrated almost every aspect of life, making it a necessity rather than a luxury. The internet has to a great extent provided a strong ability for globalization. As discussed, the technological developments have been immense over the years in all sectors. The technological developments over the past few years have been immense in almost every field. These developments have been clearly noted a transformation in the commun ication, transport and travel industries and has also led these industries towards a converging harmony. The technological development has been able to push and force attention to the isolated ‘Third World’ Societies into contact with the products of modernity and globalised products. As mentioned earlier, the access to higher and more advanced technology has led to the ability for the industrial activities to flow easily within the markets. It has also provided a chance to allow for better and more flow of finances across the industries. Also it allows for hampering the national government controls. This in simpler terms means that the companies are able to now take on a different approach. Instead of providing customized items, companies have now led to developing more standardized products to meet the global standards. The focus is to provide

Self-esteem - motivation Essay Example for Free

Self-esteem motivation Essay Introduction: According to Saint Exupery in The Halo (2006), â€Å"Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something moulded. † The meaning of life has a no specific definition; it depends on how each individual give meaning to their lives. It is a natural thing for an individual to curiously know about their life since their birth till death. Moreover, human beings are also curious to find out why they were put in this earth that is why babies keep touching everything in order to experience all their surroundings from the very beginning (Taylor, 2000). In this essay, the concept of meaning will be significantly analysed. Firstly, by defining the meaning which will secondly be followed by discussing the different types of needs an individual must meet to experience the meaning of life. Thirdly, the types of things that enhance and curb the experience of the meaning of life will be highlighted. Lastly, various practical steps will be described to enhance the experience of the meaning of life. This essay will be intertwined with personal reflections and aspirations that have enhanced the meaning of life for the writer. What is the meaning of ‘meaning’? Subjectivism: According to Eagleton (2007), everyone adds their own meaning to life. The meaning of life is never universal or complex. The meaning of life is very simple and people experience it when they understand the universe, themselves, their identity and their goal in life (Bennet, 2005). Subjectivists state that the meaning differs with individuals’ psychological and mental states and their desires and goals. For example one individual can find meaning of life in music or art while other may find it in attaining goals or in religion (REF). In addition to this, (REF) states that life only becomes meaningful when all the needs and wants are fulfilled and when the individual is content and satisfied with themselves. Super naturalistic views: On the other hand, spiritual beings consider their lives to be consequential and significant when they can reach the pious pathway God has set (REF). The God-centred view points out that the definitive meaning of life is holistically attained. Moreover, an individual will only figure out the meaning of life when they are not attached to the worldly desires (REF). Personal reflection: Personally, the meaning of life for me is constantly being in search for my identity and accomplishing the goals I have set in life. I explore my identity through my art work as it helps me express my feelings and emotions about everything. My art work makes me realize who I am as a person and what people interpret me as a person through my paintings. What types of needs must be met for a person to experience meaning in life? Searching the meaning of life is a motivational force in an individual however; the degree of motivation to which they search the meaning of life differs in all individuals (REF). Despite individuals having different degrees of motivation, there are some needs and conditions that must be met for the individuals to experience the meaning of life. Individuals do not necessarily have to meet the same needs and conditions to experience the meaning of life. Some individuals are inspired by other individuals like great artists, inventors and thinkers, some individuals need sense of belonging, some need to experience certain events to make sense of life while others need to attain autonomy and self efficacy to experience the meaning of life. In short, individuals can discover the meaning of life through social work, experiencing something or someone or reactions towards unavoidable circumstances (REF). For example, an individual who is very emotional needs to experience the need of belonging in order to experience the meaning of life. They need to have many friends and a good relationship with their family in order to satisfy their need of belonging; this helps the individual to live a happy and full life. However, if they do not feel the sense of belonging, they have no hope hence do not have anything to look forward to and see no point of living. Conversely, not all individuals need to meet the need of belonging to experience the meaning of life. Some may have to experience the need of autonomy and self efficacy. These types of individuals usually have certain goals and tasks in life which they believe they can attain thus that would help them experience the meaning of life. For example, an individual whose goal is to become a doctor tries to attain that goal by being a hard worker and devoting all his time to attain their goal. They would experience the meaning of life when they achieve the title of the doctor as it would help them conquer a place in the community and gain some prestige. In addition to this, if an individual fails to attain this need might gain a very low self esteem which would then impact on the choices they makes in life. They would become very dependent on others and would not be able to cope with that leading them to suffer from various health issues. What types of things enhance the experience of meaning in life? The meaning of life can be enhanced by sustaining life, accepting a teaching, giving life or creating wisdom (REF). For example things that would enhance the meaning of life for mothers, doctors and nurses is when they deliver as links in a biological chain by giving life from one generation to the other. Young artists are inspired and enhance their meaning of life when they authorize and respect and accept their teacher’s work (REF). Personally, as an artist, the meaning of life for me is enhanced when I can appreciate the work of different artists and what they are trying to express in their paintings. Art work makes me understand the different feelings individuals go though and how they express it through drawings. It also makes me see different viewpoints of life and experiences people are going through. Despite all individuals having different needs to discover the meaning of life, there are certain things that all individuals require to enhance the meaning of life like: Hope Inspiration Goals High self esteem. What types of things curb the experience of meaning in life? Many individuals curb their experiences of the meaning in life due to: No inspiration or goals and failure: If an individual constantly fails and has no potential and inspiration of achieving his goals may feel ineffective and hopeless. They may start feeling that they have no purpose in life and life is completely meaningless for them. Loss of loved ones: loss of a loved one through death or divorce may affect an individual mentally and emotionally. They may feel the are not loved and do not belong anywhere as their loved one does not exist anymore. The loss brings suffering and misery which makes an individual believe that like if meaningless. Lastly, experiences like these pushes an individual to have a low self esteem and become reserved (REF). Personal Reflection: If individuals are not open, emotionless or afraid to be seen as themselves due to low self esteem cannot enhance their meaning of life and hence would curb this experience. As an artist, my goal is to become an art teacher and help other children to express their feelings through painting if they cannot through words. However, I have a clear goal and always have been inspired by my father to attain this goal. If I had a low self esteem and did not believe in myself, I would have no hope hence that would curb the search of meaning of life as I would feel I am worthless Practical steps to enhance the experience of a meaningful life As mentioned above, many individuals curb their experiences of the meaning in life due to low self esteem, no inspiration, no goals and being reserved. However, they can enhance their experience firstly by accepting and believing in themselves. This would help them make a contribution to life and share their best. According to (REF) self-destructive behaviour can be conquered by increasing self-efficacy and self-esteem. This can be done through counselling so that they can start believing in themselves. Individuals who need the sense of belonging to experience the meaning of life should try and fit in and socialize with people they are close to and have good relationships with them all. Furthermore, individuals who are trying to attain a specific goal should always reward themselves every time they are a step closer towards the goal. This would keep them motivated and not lose hope. Personally, I enhance my experience by acknowledging the great artists and how they are an inspiration to other young artists. Conclusion Finally as mentioned there is no specific meaning of life. All individuals need to meet different types of needs such as the need of belonging, experiencing life threatening incidents, need of autonomy and self efficacy to experience the meaning of life. An individual’s perception, values, needs and feelings centre him and help in organizing the world around him. Feelings help in expressing oneself. If an individual has a great skill in expressing himself, he can change the larger world. Great artists found expressions in their art work which helped them change the world that came after them. The creations around us are the different individuals trying to express themselves and their experiences of the meaning of life. All the inhibitors that we posses such as low self esteem and inner struggles should be resolved to make life more creative and enhance the meaning of life.

Financial Fraud Case Study: Stephen Richards

Financial Fraud Case Study: Stephen Richards Table of Contents Executive summary Problem Statement Company overview Case Analysis Questions A letter from prison Executive summary This case study is about the former global head of sales Stephen Richards at the Computer Associates, Inc. (CA), who is serving a seven year prison sentence for financial fraud. In addition to this, Stephen Richards responds to the number of the questions asked by the Eurenge Soltes about the responsibilities of the managers as well as the handling of the financial activities in a letter written to a graduate student. Moreover, Stephen Richards joined the Computer Associates, Inc. (CA) in the year 1988 immediately after graduating. He has achieved continuous promotions in the company throughout his time period in the Computer Associates. As, Stephen Richards gets prompted within two years’ time period after his joining to operate New Zealand’s and then promoted to the Australian site of the company. Stephen Richards becomes the vice president of the Pacific region and is a leading regional figure for the Computer Associates, Inc. (CA). The company has acquired various competitors as well as firms that are producing complementary software products during the time duration between 1980s and 1990s.In addition to this, the company has around 18,000 employees and subsidiaries in approximately in 100 countries in the late 1990s. The company recorded its NPVof the licensing contract in the quarter when the revenue recognition criteria are met in accordance with the GAAP regulations. Problem Statement Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) is currently facing the problems related to the financial fraud allegations against the company.As, the company finds it more difficult to accurately forecast the revenues as well as earrings for each quarter of their sales targets. Company overview Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) is founded by the Charles Wang in the year 1976 in order to meet the growing needs of the mainframe computing software for IBM computers. Moreover, the company offers a variety of products that include database, application and financial management software in order to meet the computing necessities of the businesses. The most of the software products are sold by the sales team of the Computer Associates to the clients who buy a license to use the product for a period between three to ten years. Additionally, Computer Associates provides the software updates and technical support to its clients during the period of licensing. The fee of the licensing charged by the Computer Associates to the clients increases with the length of the contract as well as each additional licensing year was priced lower as compared to the previous year in order to reflect software oldness. The amount of the fee that is charged by the company to its clients could be amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Computer Associates distributes the revenues to licensing fees as well as to usage and maintenance fees once the contract of the license between the company and the client is finalized. Mostly the 80% of the revenue is allocated to the licensing fee. The significant part of the company revenue is normally booked during the final week of the quarter. During each quarter the management sets internal sales targets for the sales team with the sales incentives are given to the immune pressure to meet these sales targets. The company showed huge growth during the 1990s, even with the challenges and pressures. Case Analysis The case analyzes the overall situation of the Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) related to the allegation about the financial fraud within the company by a few executives of the Computer Associates. The management of the company found it hard to forecast accurate results for the revenues and earnings for each quarter in the year. As, before the end of the quarter, the management of the company found it incompetent to warn the specialists about the unexpected shortfalls in the revenue. Additionally, the various larger contracts resulted in the shortfall in the revenue of the company’s products as these contracts are those that are close on the final day of the quarter. Due to the decrease in the revenue of the Computer Associates affected the stock price of the company that reduced the Computer Associates stock by 42%. There is an allegation about the company that is published in an article in the New York Times, and according to this, Computer Associates have excessively implemented the approach of aggressive accounting practices in order to boost the earnings. But there are several evidence that proves that all the accounting practices of the company are according to the generally accepted accounting principles. This allegation also gets the attention of the federal investigators who showed dissatisfaction with the internal investigation of the company. Due to this allegation the company has faced much criticism that greatly impact the standing of the Computer Associates (CA) and requires other ways to make investigation done efficiently so, the company hire the prestigious law firm in order to investigate more aggressively. It is determined from the investigation that the few employees of the Computer Associates (CA) had backdated the some of the contracts as well as it also appeared that the revenues related to such contracts had been recognized after the end of the quarter. While, the revenues linked with these software contracts must be recognized in the in the quarter in which the contract has been signed. Therefore, the three executives of the company are forced to give the resignations due to this improper revenue recognition. In addition to this, six executives along with the Richard are caught to be involved in the financial fraud due to which Richard the SEC filed a formal complaint against the Richards and at the same time he resigned from the Computer Associates International Inc. Questions: How serious were Stephen Richards’ actions? Why? Stephen Richards’s actions were extremely serious; Richard in his letter writes that his self and the CEO exerted significant pressures on their team to meet the goals that they had set for themselves; also Richard mentions that performance was measured by internal goals Stephen Richard’s actions are notably serious because he had knowledge of the wrongdoings and he was in a position to report it, but he chose not to. Richards’ action together with other CA’s executives seriously victimized the shareholders as they suffered enormous losses once the practices were revealed. Therefore, â€Å"Richard was ordered to pay $29 million in restitution.† (Weidlich)  manipulating Computer Associates’ quarter end cutoff to align CA’s reported financial results with market expectations by violating the generally accepted accounting principles and their financial reporting responsibilities. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Richards with other CA executives extended CA’s fi scal quarter, â€Å" instructed and allowed subordinates to negotiate and obtain contracts after quarter end while knowing, or recklessly disregarding the fact that, CA would improperly recognize the revenue from those contracts, and failed to alert CA’s Finance or Sales Accounting Department that CA salespersons that reported to Richards were obtaining contracts with backdated signatures dates after quarter end.† (Release) in accordance with the expectation set by outside parties, analyst community, specifically to meet Wall Street quarterly per-share earnings estimates, â€Å"a key to keeping a company’s stock price rising.Richards with the CEO allegedly met routinely and conferred with each other and with (CFO) during the week following the end of fiscal periods, including during the â€Å"flash period†, the three business days after the end of fiscal quarter, to determine whether CA had generated sufficient revenue to meet the quarterly projections, and closed CA’s books only after they determined that CA had generated enough revenue to meet the quarterly projections, this practice, which was sometimes referred to within CA as the â€Å"35-day month† or the â€Å"three-day window†, violated GAAP and resulted in the filing of materially false financial statements. The goal of the 35-day month was to permit CA to report that it met or exceed its projected quarterly revenue and earnings when, in truth, it had not. (DOJ) Referring to the Scheme to Defraud, Richard instructed CA sales managers and salespeople to negotiate and finalize additional license agreements, which were backdated to cover the fact that the agreements had been finalized after the end of the fiscal quarter. At the end, these actions led to â€Å"overly aggressive accounting practices† to boost CA’s reported earnings and the managerial use of discretion to greatly influence reported earnings was not only used by Richards’, but it had become a company-wide practice. As Mark Director of the SEC’s Northeast Regional Office, said about CA’s fraud â€Å"Like a team that plays on after the final whistle has blown, Computer Associates kept scoring until it had all points needed to make every quarter look like a win.† (Wharton) As the result, CA fraudulently recorded and reported in the earlier quarter revenue associated with the backdated agreements. Stephen Richard’s actions are notably serious because he had knowledge of the wrongdoings and he was in a position to report it, but he chose not to. Richards’ action together with other CA’s executives seriously victimized the shareholders as they suffered enormous losses once the practices were revealed. Therefore, â€Å"Richard was ordered to pay $29 million in restitution.† (Weidlich) 2. If Computer Associates achieved the same financial results through GAAP flexibility, does your answer to question 1 change? No, with the flexibility of GAAP the risk of manipulation was that CA could have more likely made reporting mistake that would lead to legal problems and enormous losses. As long as the CA’s executives including Richards had the intention of wrongdoing actions they would cause massive losses to the shareholders of the company and to the SEC. Though such manipulations and fraud resulted CA to payback â€Å"$225 million for the purposes of compensating shareholders for losses arising out of the company’s criminal conduct.† (DOJ) Seeing that, the evidence and investigation on Computer Associates shows that the CA didn’t make false transaction and actual transaction and business deal had happened, but the problem of fraud was that CA’s executives were backdating the agreements in order to prematurely recognize revenue from contracts that had not yet been executed by both CA and its customers in violation of GAAP. Under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), four conditions were required to be met in order for revenue associated with a software license agreement to be recognized: 1- persuasive evidence of an arrangement was required to have existed, 2- delivery of the licensed products was required to have occurred, 3- the license fee was required to have been fixed or determinable, 4- the collectability of the license fee was required to have been probable. 3. Suppose you were placed in Stephen Richards’ position at computer Associates and were under pressure to extend the fiscal quarter. How would you handle the situation differently? What would be the expected consequences? I would not have extended the fiscal quarters of knowingly or encourage the backdating of agreements, regardless of the overwhelming pressures by the Wall Street estimates which Richard points to analyst community in his letter. CA regularly issued public predications at the outset of each fiscal quarter of the revenue and earnings it expected to earn during that quarter. Based on these predictions, professional stock analyst estimated what they believed would be CA’s total revenue during the period and predicted the earnings per share of CA stock. CA’s executives including Richards understood that CA’s failure to meet or exceed the consensus estimate for a quarter would likely result in a substantial decrease in the company’s stock price. (NY) I think too much emphasis was placed on the achieving financial gains improperly, for Richards and other members of management, without planning the proper ethical and legal strategy necessary to achieve CA’s goals for success. Performance measurement was a key level of concern in this case which alerted the key ingredients for financial statement fraud and fraud triangle. The sales managers and salespeople were used as enablers to negotiate and finalize additional license agreement while keeping the accounting books open after the end of the fiscal quarter. Richard also emphasizes on the â€Å"compensation is important, but the recognition of your performance is sometimes even more important. Actually, according to Richard in his email he writes that â€Å"we have created a performance driven culture without the necessary control framework for people to operate within† this shows that there was no real structure as far as milestones for growth. That is how CA pushed as much as to reach its goal of estimated earnings regardless of considering any rule or regulation type of culture attitude, which led CA to tragic results relating from poor decision making and lack of organizational structure and control. Instead CA could have placed better accounting controls to recognize and issued realistic and accurate public predications at the outset of each fiscal quarter of the revenue and earnings it expected to earn during that quarter, this way they would have not faced the legal troubles that they led themselves to. Even in such a situation for a healthy company to minimize the risk of this downward slide is encouraging and protecting whistleblowers. That way, problems ar e addressed internally- well before they become big enough to drag the entire company over the cliff.

Quasars and Active Galaxies Essay -- Essays Papers

Quasars and Active Galaxies The astronomical world is full of phenomena beyond the average person’s imagination. The technical tools and analytical methods astronomers use are very complex. The enormous numbers and distances are mind boggling. Theories behind astronomical phenomena are based on yet another theory. In order to understand the concept of quasars and active galaxies, one must first have a feel for the astronomical numbers involved. Secondly, a basic knowledge of the tools of the trade, and finally, a working knowledge of astronomical jargon. Once there is a working knowledge of the aforementioned factors, then there is the chance that one could be able to assimilate the complex theoretical properties that are used to discuss quasars and active galaxies. In order to understand the large numbers used to express the vast distances discussed in astronomy, one needs to relate these numbers to everyday life. During everyday conversation, people may say things like â€Å"the national debt is trillions of dollars,† â€Å"the lottery is up to 31 million dollars,† or â€Å"John Doe is a billionaire.† An astronomer might say that â€Å"one astronomical unit equals 93,000,000 miles or that a light-year is 5,870,000,000,000,000 miles.† The human comprehension level of all of these terms is probably nowhere near the actual truth behind how large these numbers really are. To obtain a feel for these gigantic distances used by astronomers, Astronomy Magazine writer, John P. Wiley says it may be helpful to keep in mind that it takes thirty-one years to count to one billion at the rate of one number per second. He also puts a voyage to a galaxy that is a billion light-years away into perspective by calculating how long it would take to get there in a vessel speeding along at 18,000 miles an hour. The trip would take 37 trillion years. When discussing galaxies and quasars, billions are the smallest numbers used (56,57). The theory of how quasars are created is based on the idea that the universe is expanding. Among astronomers, the popular consensus is that the Earth is in an expanding universe in which the laws of physics will hold true beyond this planet as well. G. Mark Voit, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, believes that the beginning of the universe was a time when many galaxies would be visible to the naked eye b... ... telescopes like Hubble, and the Very Long Baseline Interferometry Space Observatory (VSOP), have also proven useful analytical tools for astronomers. Black holes and quasars are interdependent theories. The explanation of black holes leads to an explanation for quasars. These phenomena lead astronomers to believe that there may be places in the universe where the laws of physics may break down, opening doors to new theories for future astronomers (Hawkings). Works Cited Bartusiak, Marcia. â€Å"Outsmarting the Early Universe.† Astronomy 26.10 (1998): 55-59. Chaisson, Eric., and Steve McMillan. Astronomy Today. 3rd ed. Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1999. Disney, Michael. â€Å"A New Look at Quasars.† Scientific American 278.6 (1998): 52-57. Hawking, Stephen. â€Å"Universe.† PBS Home Video. BBC-TV, 1997. Olsen, Steve. â€Å"Black Hole Hunters.† Astronomy 27.5 (1999): 48-55. Peterson, Ivars. â€Å"The Birth of Twin Quasars.† Science News 137.4 (1990): 60. Voit, G. Mark. â€Å"The Rise and Fall of Quasars: Dormant Monsters May Lie Sleeping in Nearby Galaxies.† Sky & Telescope 97.5 (1999): 40-46. Wiley, John P. Jr. â€Å"A Googolplex of Galaxies.† Astronomy 27.5 (1999): 56-57.

Health and Safety Program Essay

With the aim to align with the standards set by the OSHA and ensure employee safety and protection, the company has decided to create a (1) formal safety program for employees and (2) reduce workers’ compensation cost. Given such changes, the company shall elaborate on important guidelines and information needed by each employee to actively avail of such incentives. The next section will highlight the coverage of such amenities and benefits Workers’ Compensation and Safety The creation of the workers’ compensation and safety plan seeks to ensure a fair practice among the employers and the employees with the aim of creating compromise between two parties in each ones needs. The following are included in the overall program: 1. Rehabilitation of Injured Employee 2. Insurance Coverage 3. Cost Allocation Workers Compensation Insurance With the formalization of compensation policies, the company will provide insurance to its employees based on the following: a. the company will use self-insurance as its form of option b. the determinant for premium rates shall be computed based on a manual rating and shall be determined by the Manager of Health and Safety Please note that casual employees (part-time) and contractors & subcontractors are not subject to such changes. Coverage of Insurance and Safety Benefits The company will compensate workers and shoulder the expenses of employees who fit in the following categories: (1) Out of Employment Injuries, (2) Injuries during course of employment, (3) temporary disability and (4) permanent disability. With such initiative in mind, the company seeks to extend its arm towards its employees and wishes to assure each one that their welfare is taken care of. For the benefit of the workers and the growth of the company.

Communications and Information Technology and Legislation

Aistear is the curriculum framework for children from birth to six years. The Framework helps children grow and develop as confident and competent learners through fun, interesting and challenging experiences. The Aistear Toolkit is the place where you can access lots of practical resources online to help you get started with using Aistear. One of the topics discussed on the Aistear toolkit is learning through play. Children love to play and these resources will help a teacher to support children to learn through their play as suggested throughout the curriculum. We will now review one of the Aistear videos named Planning and Organising Play. The video is produced by an infant teacher. The teacher looks at pedagogical framing and her experiences of planning and organising her own classroom. There are many excellent suggestions as to how to set up play in a class room environment which I will explain next, however there are one or two weaknesses that if I was given the opportunity I would change to this video. Overall the video is very helpful and it does give excellent advice from an experienced infant teacher that would be like gold dust to an inexperienced teacher new to this profession. We will name the teacher Mary for the purpose of this critique as Aistear does not state the name of the presenter. Mary looks at pedagogical framing which she states lays the foundations for play. She calls it behind the scene work. According to Mary it includes the provision of resources, arrangement of space, and the establishment of daily routines, thematic planning and assessment. Mary communicates her message across in an orderly and mannerly tone. She is easy to listen to and reminds me of a teacher that I had many years ago wise and well experienced. I would be confident to implement her suggestions just by the tone of her voice. If I had one negative point in relation to the speaker that would be that she does not appear at any point throughout the video. It would be nice to be able to connect with her as she explains her view. The video has many strengths and I found many parts very helpful for planning play activities in the past. Mary uses her past experiences to help give advice with planning and organising a class room. The video starts by recommending different play areas that could be introduced into the classroom, Mary recommends that the teacher should choose five or six areas for the academic year. Such as sand area, water area, block area, small world, creative and social dramatic areas. Mary takes each play area that she recommends and explains the benefits of using these for the children’s learning and development. Using her experience she explains that the sand area works very well in her classroom, she goes on to explain that sand areas are excellent for small group play and that it encourages the children to use their imagination. Her advice is very helpful when she suggests that the children should select other resources from other types of play e. g. small world. I found her suggestions very helpful when planning my own activities and my learning goals were achieved when using the ideas from this video. The video explains the learning goals that can be achieved using these play areas such as having a sand area in the class room creates a learning environment, children learn sorting, counting and learn mathematical questions naturally. When I was planning activities and trying to introduce the Aistear themes such as Exploring and Thinking I introduced the sand activity to help the children understand concepts such as matching, ordering, counting, sorting, and capacity in an enjoyable and meaningful way. Mary explains that by using a water area for play it arouses the children’s curiosity and that whilst children play in the water area they are verbally interacting together. Asking questions and making comments bring forward ideas and suggestions and helps groups agree on solutions. She talks about real life or imaginative experiences using the blocks area. That play must be purposeful. This is very relevant to Aistear as throughout the Aistear curriculum it is suggested that play must have meaning so that the children will achieve there learning goals. Mary explains all the areas of play in great detail and links are evident throughout that the Aistear Curriculum is at the heart of this video, however if you as a viewer were not familiar with the curriculum and were using this video to help you to create your activity plans your plans would not meet the level that the curriculum would expect because the video does not make any distinct links to the actual layout of the Aistear curriculum. She does not mention the themes such as Well-being, Identity and Belonging, Communicating or Exploring and Thinking. The play areas that are mentioned do cover the learning goals for the themes and for an inexperienced person training to be a teacher they would not make this connection. If the video had captions throughout of the themes it would link the curriculum and the video perfectly. The Curriculum is designed around different age groups (birth to six years). The video does not mention the age groups or how each play area could be used for the different age categories. Throughout the Aistear Curriculum examples are given for babies, toddlers and young children and Mary does not implement this important distinction in the video once. The video suggests types of play that are low cost for materials and easy to set up using everyday items. The teacher recommends that the play areas be changed annually to prevent boredom for the teacher and the children. However the teacher recommends that the socio dramatic area should always be present in the classroom but does not explain why. Mary talks about the physical layout of the classroom finally which I feel was not necessary as there is a separate video in the toolkit which explores this topic in great detail. The video in my opinion is not long enough for this topic to be mentioned. This time could have been allocated to the Aistear themes and how they were achieved using the play areas discussed throughout the video. Overall the video has many useful ideas that can easily be taken and used to create a playful environment but I feel from all the information available to me that there is not a strong enough connection between the actually hard copy of Aistear and the video. References: Aistear Curriculum www.ncca.ie Aistear Toolkit www.ncca.ie/aisteartoolkit‎ Video: Planning and Organising Play http://vimeo.com/21112275

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet Essay

One should not stop going for what they want. Through the struggles and obstacles being thrown at two people who are in love but the others may not be able to see it, they will always find a way back to each other. This book demonstrates the hardship two young people who are in love to find a way to each other even though at the time, interracial dating was not very common and looked down upon. During the Japanese internment in WWII, Henry, who is a first-generation Chinese American, went to an only non-white school was forced to work in the kitchen during lunch and clean after school because that was how his â€Å"scholarship† was being paid for. At that school, he met a Japanese-American girl named Keiko and became friends instantly. Even though Henry’s father was not very fond of the â€Å"enemy† Japanese people, that did not stop Henry from being her friend. One night, both Henry and Keiko snuck out to see each other. When they saw each other, Keiko gave him her family pictures because all Japanese had to get rid of any possession that could link them being known as Japanese so they could avoid being taken away. Japantown was filled with families and businesses who were forced to shut down and leave to the safer internment camps. Henry had to go through that pain of watching Keiko’s entire family leave, he was helpless to stop them but at the same time afraid that he would be herded with them for his similar physical appearance. Because it was a tradition for the Chinese to send their children back to China to complete their schooling, that is what Henry’s father did. He sent him back to China. He agrees to go if his father saves the Panama Hotel where Keiko’s family stored a lot of their belongings when they were shipped to the internment camps. While sending letters back and forth letters to Keiko, that is how Henry met the women he ended up marrying, Ethel. She worked at the post office and befriended him. As the war was going on, Keiko’s letters stop coming. The only reason why Keiko’s letter stops coming because his father interfered with the delivery of the mail for Henry’s own good. That is when Henry eventually moves on with his life, finishes school and marrying Ethel, but does not forget about Keiko. After the wife dies of  cancer he tries to find meaning for living. By doing so he goes back and visits the last Japanese habitation, which was the Panama Hotel. He never really forgot about Keiko, that was his first love. Even though Henry’s son, Marty, and Henry were not close, slowly but surely he eventually told him about Keiko. Marty and his fiancà © go out finding Keiko and sends Henry to New York to be reunited with his first love, Keiko. Being in Henry’s father’s shoes, I could see why he stopped the communication between Henry and Keiko. He was really just doing what is best for his children. At that time interracial relationships were not common but I guess nowadays parents cannot really choose who is going to marry their children. You cannot help how you feel and when you feel a certain way you will do whatever it takes to be back with the one you love. I think it was so cute how Keiko and Henry sent letters back and forth, nowadays it is only text messages or snapchats being sent. There was no sentimental feeling like there was before. Now we rely on technology as our form of communication and that is why some relationships fail. It is hard bringing your culture to America especially when you want to live the American lifestyle or culture. I know Henry’s father did not want him speaking Cantonese at home because if he spoke English, he would be more acceptable as an American. He was proud that Henry was going to an American school but of course he was not going to let some of the traditions go so therefore sends him to China. Henry’s father’s morals are very different with Henry as he grows up to being a father. When Henry has a son who is planning on marrying an American girl. At that time, dating outside the race is more acceptable. With me dating outside the Filipino race, my parents are okay with that. To them race does not matter. What matters is how the other person feels about you and vice versa. One that cares for you, takes care of you, and how they treat you should be the bigger concern and not the race. I always thought I would have to date within my race because I know that is what my parents would want, but they told me race should not matter. It is just how the other person can make you feel that matters the most. As long as I am happy, my parents are happy. I wish Henry’s father saw that Henry was happy with Keiko, but since his father was not very fond of the  Japanese, he did everything he can for them not to keep in contact. The story ends on a sweet note. The first thing Henry says when they meet was a Japanese phrase to tell her how beautiful she was, that he learned when he was a boy. Through the search from the city and pain and memories Henry had in the past, finding Keiko was the main purpose in his life. He wanted to be rekindled with his first love again. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet did a good job at alternating between telling the story at adolescent Henry’s war years with his later life in 1986. The author manages to tell the story of the Japanese evacuation, of the struggles between generations in immigrant families, and of the friendship that later turned into love between Henry and Keiko. This book also tells an important story, that of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and it was heartbreaking to watch Keiko’s family as they were evacuated, despite the fact that her family was more â€Å"American† than Japanese, and that Keiko was born in the U.S. Keiko’s frustration at seeing those of Japanese heritage taken away and her family’s strength as they are forced to leave behind their entire life is hard. I cannot image being taken to an unknown place with my family because of who we were. I liked how the author incorporated the generation of Chinese-American Henry and his immigrant parents. Henry’s father demands that he speak only English in their home, despite the fact that this leaves Henry unable to communicate with his parents but be more acceptable to the American culture. This book was overall a touching book. It was more than a love story between two people, it was the hardships that was going on during the WWII that kept those two from being with each other and with Henry’s father stopping communication between Keiko and Henry. I had mixed emotions because I was happy they found their way back to each other but at the same time I was upset because I wanted to know what would happen next.