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Antonio & Bonanno paint a fairly bleak picture of the trajectory of our current history in the emergent post-Cold War world. They show how three political discourses – Cold War modernization, neoliberal globalization, and neoconservative politics – all draw on particular elements of American Exceptionalism that have shifted us toward imperialist tendencies that “ignore or diminish the importance of substantive equality and social justice.” Although Langman & Burke stop short of making the same final point, their analysis of the weaker sides of the tri-part dialectic – individual/community, toughness/compassion, moralism/pragmatism – is useful in developing Antonio & Bonanno's point a bit further.

Arthur Schlessinger (1983) suggested that the contradictions and paradoxes of American foreign policy reflected contradictions and paradoxes in the underlying character of the people. We would go further to suggest that the early years of colonial life, much like the early years of a person's life, had major consequences ever since. The intersection of Puritanism, available land, and eventually the rise of a commercial culture would forge a unique trajectory of what would be called “American Exceptionalism”, reflecting an “American character”, which itself is subject to three paradoxes or polarities, individualism vs. community, toughness vs. compassion, and moralism vs. pragmatism. The effect of this legacy and the dialectical aspect of American character were first evident when Winthrop proclaimed the city on the hill as the new Jerusalem. The legacy of that vision is taking place today in Iraq.

Simulation technology has been used as a viable alternative to provide a real life setting in teacher education. Applying mixed-reality classroom simulations to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher preparation, this qualitative case study aims to examine how pre-service teachers (PSTs) practice culturally and linguistically responsive teaching to work with an English learner (EL) avatar and other avatar students.

Using an embedded single case study, three PSTs’ teaching simulations and interviews were collected and analyzed.

This study found PST participants made meaningful connections between theory and practices of culturally and linguistically responsive teaching, particularly by connecting academic concepts to students’ life experiences, promoting cultural diversity, using instructional scaffolding and creating a safe environment. Nevertheless, they needed further improvement in incorporating cultural diversity into content lessons, creating a challenging and supportive classroom and developing interactional scaffolding for ELs’ language development. The findings also show that while PST participants perceived simulation technology as very beneficial, expanding the range of technological affordances could provide PSTs an opportunity to undertake a full range of critical teaching strategies for ELs.

This research contributes to broadening the realm of mixed-reality technology by applying it to ESOL teacher education and has implications for both ESOL teacher educators and simulation technology researchers.

Blighted and vacant properties represent a persistent and costly problem for cities and local governments throughout the USA. The purpose of this paper is to identify data needs and requirements for value creation in the context of urban blight. The main assumption is that sharing and opening data through a robust and effective code enforcement program will facilitate more informed management, mitigation and remediation of blighted and vacant properties. Code enforcement programs must be grounded on organizational and technical infrastructures that enable data sharing and value creation for the city and the communities that share its space.

In this paper, the information needs and realities of a city’s code enforcement environment are described, based on data gathered through a series of workshops and focus groups with a range of stakeholders, which included city government departments, police, fire, bank representatives, realtors and community groups.

The analysis reveals key data elements that could potentially help to build a code enforcement program to better manage the cycles and costs of urban blight. Although some of these data elements already exist, and are public, they are not easily accessible to key stakeholders. The paper ends with sets of short-term and long-term recommendations for establishing an information-sharing infrastructure, which would serve as the main conduit for exchanging code enforcement data among a number of city government departments and the public that may play a role in managing urban blight and its consequences.

In this paper, the authors are connecting extant literature on sharing and opening data with literature on the creation of public value. They argue that sharing and opening government data constitute effective ways of managing the costs and cycles of urban blight while creating value. As a result of an initial assessment of data and information requirements, the authors also point to specific data and its potential value from stakeholder perspective.

In this chapter, we review the ways in which scholars have conceptualized and relied on the notion of identity to understand the academic career. We explore the use of identity as a theoretical construct in research about the experience of being an academic. We discuss the individual and organizational factors that scholars have focused on when seeking to understand the role of professional and personal identity in academic careers, as well as recent and emerging shifts in the use of identity within this line of scholarship. Research suggests that if we are to understand the future of the academic career, we must understand the identities of its current and prospective members and, more importantly, how those identities shape goals, behaviors, and outcomes. We close with recommendations for future research and theory development.

There is a need to support midcareer faculty who have demonstrated scholarly success but require additional development. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of an initiative for “star faculty” at midcareer, with an emphasis on the role of exceptional others in their professional growth.

This is an exploratory, single-site case study of a midcareer faculty excellence initiative. Data sources include document/site analysis and individual interviews.

Findings reveal the value of “exceptional others” in professional growth among high-performing midcareer faculty. Perceptions about excellence at midcareer emerged as an antecedent to developing midcareer faculty members. Analysis generated themes in behaviors related to supporting midcareer scholars’ professional growth.

This study is an initial step toward refining concepts such as exceptional others, academic stars and scholarly advancement within the academy. There is a need for equity-minded research about these topics. In addition to replication across institutional and disciplinary contexts, there is also a need for longitudinal mixed-methods studies of midcareer faculty mentoring outcomes over time.

The study points to the role of the institution and its senior faculty in fostering midcareer scholarly excellence. Mentoring and development around individualized goals may be of value in addition to an emphasis on clarity around institutional expectations and norms in faculty performance reviews.

Midcareer faculty are a crucial component of the academy, yet they are often overlooked as needing career support, resources and development. This study focuses on mentoring and coaching for postsecondary faculty at midcareer and the role of exceptional others in facilitating faculty professional growth.

The impact of emotional displays on ratings of workplace performance was examined using scenarios presented to college students (N=175). Four scenarios featured either a male or female employee expressing either anger or sadness. Contrary to previous findings in research on gender differences, the only consistent significant finding was the type of emotion displayed. Displays of anger resulted in reductions in perceptions of organizational commitment (F(1,170)=19.78, p<0.001) and job performance (F(1,169)=12.19, p<0.001). The differences in emotion displayed were expected; however, the null findings of gender effects were unexpected and are discussed here.