Literacy is a powerful instrument to boost the economy in the form of providing positive attitudes and perceptions that can contribute to an improved daily life. Further, it plays an important role in determining the ecological condition, use and uptake of health-care facilities, awareness of different aspects of socio-religious and taboo…

The question of the value of higher education is today set in the context of an unprecedented banking and financial crisis. In this context of fundamental change and financial realignment, it is important that we as members of the university remake our case for why the university deserves to be considered alongside all those other worthy causes…

The 2001 recession had a major effect on Georgia's fiscal condition. We explore how economic conditions affected state and local financing of K-12 education in Georgia. We find that the magnitude of postrecession cuts in state real revenue per student varied widely across the local school systems in Georgia. We then examine whether and how cuts in…

Higher energy prices and the growing concern about global warming have led to a number of policy goals and targets designed to curb global warming and/or the development of alternative sources of energy. However, the Tinbergen Rule states that for each and every policy target there must be at least one policy tool. If there are fewer tools than…

The global economic crisis has accelerated the need for Asian universities not only to engage internationally, but also to create regional mechanisms through which students and faculty members can move more easily from one country to another, said Asian university presidents at a conference here in April. The importance of internationalization to…

This literature review identifies characteristics of ethical business cultures, describes factors, considered to be important in developing such cultures, describes current practices of developing ethical culture programs, and discusses the role of HRD in developing ethical business cultures. We argue that ethical thinking and behavior can be…

Even though principles to guide practice are crucial, there are no hard-and-fast rules for resolving ethical issues--dilemmas that are not easily resolvable because they present opposing values and outcomes that may harm to certain groups of people if not properly considered. This article describes a number of ethical dilemmas faced as a workplace…

Academic work is becoming increasingly restrictive and controlled as tertiary institutions move towards a more corporate managerialistic mode of operating. This paper uses a narrative lens to explore the ways in which academic staff make sense of this new environment. In particular, it compares academic staff's stories of their worklife with the…

There is a tendency in a good economic climate for research to focus on the sources of economic growth. Reactions to what is commonly called the credit crunch are worth having a look at. At first, analysts believed this crisis would be short-lived and that some adjustments would correct external turbulences. Then, the idea emerged that the…

House Bill 1 became a major piece of legislation in Texas a few years ago. It was designed primarily to address public school finance, property tax relief, public school accountability, and education-related matters. This piece of legislation has forced districts to manage their finances very differently, undergo budget reductions, and continue…

Based on the reflections and insights of a sociologist teaching in a school of management, this article invites management educators to rekindle the "sociological imagination," which, albeit more than five decades old, is a concept that has not lost its relevance to make sense of organizational phenomena. It is my contention that C. Wright Mills's…

In this activity, a possible problem related to global warming is clarified by the principle of states of water. The activity consists of an experiment that includes three scientific principles: Archimedes' Principle, the Law of Conservation of Matter, and the fluidity of liquids. The experiment helps students raise questions and open new horizons…

For five decades, the University of Louisville men's basketball team has played its home games at the state's fairgrounds, in a modest arena originally built for horse shows. And for just as many seasons, the team's toughest competition for scheduling has come from the livestock--and the flea markets and tractor pulls that also vie for the space.…

The authors present an activity to help high school students conceptualize the sociopolitical complexity of global warming through an exploration of varied perspectives on the issue. They argue that socioscientific issues such as global warming present important contexts for learning science and that the social and political dimensions of these…

As the oldest implementation of Web 2.0 technologies, blogs present an opportunity to understand how community college administrators are addressing two conundrums: conundrum of control and the conundrum of adaptability. These problems arise from the need of leaders to put organizational controls in place even as these controls limit the tool's…