Search

Many competing factors are now affecting how students think about higher education. One primary factor is the use of a business model for education--highlighting profit, patents, commercial investments, and the use of market competition, for example--appears to have become commonplace. Boards of education and university presidents now include a high number of business executives and corporate employees. This model has had some negative effects on traditional institutions of teaching and learning in higher education--including disintegration of tenured positions, overemphasis on efficiency and standardization, and the marketing of education as a commodity to "student-consumers" who view a "degree", not an "education", as the goal. Other factors affecting students' attitudes and expectations in school include the changing uses of technology for teaching and learning, budget cuts, suppressed enrollments, the increasingly fast-paced flow of information, and a sense that planning for a particular career may be an outdated notion. So what, then, is the place of education today? Jerry Farber presents a model of episodic learning--the contextualized (in intellectual and physical space), present, deep, robust, and substantive experience of learning communally and specifically. It is this sort of engagement in discourse--within a context, face-to-face, interpreting the intentionality of speakers, and the purposefulness of the constructive and collective learning activities--that drives the purpose for education. This episodic learning is necessary in that it mirrors the larger social/cultural world of shared collective/public experiences (learning in a classroom, standing in line at the grocery store, attending a concert, driving on the freeway). To learn, or to become educated, then, involves the ability to critically reflect and deconstruct those experiences, not simply to have them. Education provides the opportunity to engage in the world, not simply to exist in it in predetermined ways. In this article, the authors advocate for the preservation of the formerly understood purpose of a higher education--as transformative and as a road to enlightenment. Even in the current corporate state business model, and high-tech world of today's higher education, the authors advocate for a conscious investment in thinking that is precipitated by the goal of lifelong learning, not simply education as a pathway to a career, or education as a checklist of degree requirements.

Evaluates the relevance of rational decision-making models in explaining the needle sharing behavior of drug injectors in Perth, Western Australia. Types of RDM models use tp explain AIDS-risk behaviors; Characteristics of participants; Rationality of needle sharing.

More than just a degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents updates on the African Violet Society of America (AVSA). He reminds members of AVSA to register for the AVSA Philadelphia Convention to be held on May 15-22, 2011. He details his plans when he visits Philadelphia for the convention, which include touring Longwood Gardens. He also encourages members to nominate someone for the future directors and officers of AVSA.

The author offers information on the activities of the African Violet Society (AVS) in December 2010. In addition to the series of trade shows around the country, the AVS has started accepting nominations for the annual awards. The executive and Internet committees have teamed up to make the web site available by January 1, 2011 and provide details on the convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A holiday discount is given to those who want to purchase the AVS calendar while stocks last.

The article presents an update on activities of the African Violet Society of America (AVSA). It shows the discounted prices for the 2010 AVSA calendar and provides information on the completion of the CDs and DVDs of the AVSA 2009 Reno Convention and Show in Nevada. Also noted is the holding of the 2010 AVSA Convention which will take place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey from May 14 to 21, 2009. Changes to the magazine's format, including a removal of the convention insert "Purple Pages," are also indicated.