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The World Trade Center disaster generated many of the features seen in other disasters in the U.S., including post-disaster convergence. We conceptualize emergency management activities as taking place within a multilocational “response milieu,” and we suggest that the study of convergence should focus on the negotiated legitimacy of people in and wishing to enter it. We discuss the five types of personal convergers and how the access of each of these groups to the response milieu was related to their legitimation status. We then identify two additional forms of convergence: supporters or fans, and those who came to mourn or to memorialize. We conclude by discussing implications for policy.

Things will never be the same, some say, because of 9.11. We feel more vulnerable, more threatened, more at risk. It was the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, goes the refrain. It was dramatic beyond our worst nightmares. Like millions of others, I watched the events of that lovely morning unfold on television. When the South Tower fell for a few seconds I could not see it collapsing. My blindness wasn’t because of the smoke and dust. It was a cognitive blindness. I could not believe my eyes and so, somehow, my mind denied my brain the truth of the moment.

Intellectual humility and religious conviction are often posed as antagonistic binaries; the former associated with science, reason, inclusive universality, and liberal secularism, the latter with superstition, dogma, exclusive particularity, and rigid traditionalism. Despite popular images of white American evangelicals as the embodied antithesis of intellectual humility, responsiveness to facts, and openness to the other, this article demonstrates how evangelicals can and do practice intellectual humility in public life while simultaneously holding fast to particularistic religious convictions. Drawing on textual analysis and multi-site ethnographic data, it demonstrates how observed evangelical practices of transposable and segmented reflexivity map onto pluralist, domain-specific conceptualizations of intellectual humility in the philosophical and psychological literature. It further argues that the effective practice of intellectual humility in the interests of ethical democracy does not require religious actors to abandon particularistic religious reasons for universal secular ones. Rather, particularistic religious convictions can motivate effective practices of intellectual humility and thereby support democratic pluralism, inclusivity, and solidarity across difference. More broadly, it aims to challenge, or at least complicate, the widespread notion that increasing strength of religious conviction always moves in lockstep with increasing dogmatism, tribalism, and intellectual unreasonableness.

My warm thanks to Dean James Hunt, Provost, and Professor Jacqueline Muir-Broaddus, Chair of the Psychology Department, for making a home at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas, for cultural ergonomics and the International Center of Cultural Ergonomics, and for facilitating preparation of this book. Southwestern students Kendra Francisco, Staci Benson, and Ellen Gass contributed helpful assistance. At Elsevier, Fiona Barron, Publishing Editor, has been extraordinarily helpful, and the consideration and support there from Becky Lewsey and Deborah Raven have been particularly noteworthy. Dr. Pierre Falzon, Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris, made possible the acquisition of documents written by Professor Alain Wisner, who died recently. Computer advice and assistance provided by Richard H. Troxell have been invaluable. Communication and interchange of documents and information with Dr. Eduardo Salas at the University of Central Florida were facilitated by Marcella Maresco and Diana Furman.

Crisis management (CM) has gained prominence in the last decades, as the complex global business environment has forced executives to pay attention to practices that may safeguard organizations against potential crises. However, despite the fact that various scholars point to the need for autonomy and delegation of authority when responding to crises, it appears that the overarching rationale in the crisis literature is geared toward a centralized approach. This suggests that preventive actions and response to crises lie mainly with the leader of the organization and with designated crises teams. It is also apparent that this literature places too much weight on contingency plans and classification schemes. Although behavioral factors have been discussed by some authors as a fundamental element in dealing with crises, it is not clear how to develop these traits. It is our contention then that these conventional perspectives, although valuable to CM, are insufficient to deal with the uncertainty that characterizes global business today where firms must be prepared for the unexpected. We discuss the limitations of this traditional approach and argue for a combination of central control with decentralized execution when responding to unexpected crises situations. This enables management to better comprehend the complexity embedded in any crisis and allows adaptive practices to emerge throughout the organization. An analysis of two cases paired with empirical field studies support our proposition.

Although the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 explicitly recognizes the need for psychosocial support and mental health services, the focus of this and many disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) plans lies in the response, recovery, and rehabilitation phases. Less attention has been given to how mental health aspects affect the predisaster phase. This chapter explores the less understood concept of “resistance” in the perspectives model of disaster mental health, which is related to DRRM themes of “prevention and mitigation” and “preparedness” interventions. Four strategies are identified by which DRRM interventions can contribute to psychosocial support and mental health: increasing stress resistance, fostering cohesion and social support, fostering positive cognition, and building self-efficacy and hardiness. We review the cases of the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand and report existing socio-political DRRM initiatives for prevention, mitigation, and preparedness that can potentially enhance resistance as a predisaster intervention. Beyond medical services or clinical mental health interventions for select populations, DRRM interventions can benefit the general public. Despite natural intersections, there remains a need for deliberate and targeted initiatives that explore how vertical pyschosocial care programs can be created to straddle both DRRM and health sectors in practice.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic certainly exacerbated the teacher shortage in the United States for all racial/ethnic groups, but especially for Black teachers. Black teachers account for 7–8% of the total teacher population and this percentage is the direct result of decades of systemic and structural barriers set against Black teachers in the form of racism. Still, Black teachers who enter the profession do so with the willingness to support all students and uplift Black students who often go years without seeing a teacher that looks like them. Black teachers often face different expectations than their white counterparts and these expectations, without the proper support, lead to Black teachers burning out at higher rates. In an effort to understand Black teachers' and the experiences that contribute them remaining in the classroom, the researchers explored Black teachers' working conditions through a phenomenological approach. The findings of this study suggest that Black teachers deserve working conditions that nurture who they are culturally and professionally, that reject actions of oppression toward them – both implicitly and explicitly, and offer spaces for Black teachers to be authentically heard.