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In jam festival music scenes, participants build elaborate networks that connect members formally and informally between music events. Largely regional in scope, participants form these networks to develop and perform scene identities and cultivate intimate social relationships. Emerging through cultivated “crews” and “camps,” members build hubs of interaction that sustain and persist well beyond the festival event to create a vital sense of belonging and place. While the affective relationships formed at music festival events tend to be temporary, diffuse, and episodic, scene networks provide a “portable” interactional infrastructure that promotes relational continuity and persistence. These networks also provide more pragmatic benefits to networked members in the form of social and subcultural capital exchanged for symbolic and material rewards within the scene. Drawing from nearly 20 years of formal and informal participant observation in festival scenes, I provide an analysis of these networks and articulate common practices that drive their formation and continuation.

Institutions of higher education are increasingly facing a myriad of challenges emanating from a fast changing higher educational landscape. One strategy colleges and universities adopt as they pursue their missions in a progressively competitive global environment is to form strategic partnerships with other colleges and universities locally and globally. This chapter examines a partnership, anchored in faculty exchange, between an American metropolitan community college, and a public university in the Republic of Kenya, East Africa. The issues discussed include the rationale for the formation of a partnership between a two-year institution and a doctoral-granting institution in spite of their differing missions, the partnership formalization process, types of activities undertaken in each country, program outcomes, and program management and challenges. The chapter concludes with some recommendations that would be useful to anyone considering starting a cross-border faculty exchange program, especially at an institution where infrastructure for internationalization activities is limited.

“Music is Rhythm, Rhythm is Life.” This maxim, uttered by former Motown drummer Bill “Sticks” Nicks to my class and me a few years back, opens a portal to what being human involves. Most accounts of what it means to be human make cognitive capacities, language and reflective thinking, the be-all and end-all of human distinction. But think about it: how many animals do you know who beat rhythm for aesthetic enjoyment and social communion?

In this essay I reflect upon moments from musical experiences, primarily from blues music, to illustrate the place of the spontaneous gesture and ensemble improvisation in interaction, in and out of the music.

Today, I told them…¹…that having left Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (SIUC) in June of 2002, I now have moments of sincere longing for the people and the place that gave me permission to grow into my own, for allowing freedom and giving encouragement to be independent and strong, a scholar with voice. It was a place that reveled in its students’ successes and craved their growth, generally speaking. I left in 2002 ready to face the academic world and all of its challenges. But, there is very little that can prepare one for the adult playground of academe for it is a yard that can be fraught with cattiness, passive aggression, and manipulation that is sycophantic at best and soul compromising at worst.Today, I told them……that in Ronald J. Pelias’ essay, “Making Lists: Life at the University,” he enumerates some of the lessons and observations he has made over his multiple years in higher education. He imparts his sage wisdom to new graduate students and, in turn, teaches them about academic culture. I remember taking that introduction to graduate studies course the first semester of my doctoral program. Ron taught it. I remember sitting in class shocked by the beautiful and beastly practices that constituted the life of a scholar in academe. I wondered: “Do I belong here?” Of course, who doesn’t wonder that in the wake of faculty “doing their job,” reminding graduate students how little they truly know? I had those moments of doubt, too, but the doubt that pressed at the time was whether or not I wanted to romp in an academic park where the see-saw wanted to buck you and the merry-go round caused severe vertigo to one's sense of self. It was a park carpeted with river rock and “red crusher,” not refreshing, cool Bluegrass; it was xeriscaped, needing no attention because little could grow without willfulness to spite the climate. My impressions of academia were altered that day in graduate seminar. I had to consider what I wanted and what obtaining a PhD would mean in terms of the politics of everyday life in a place where “resource management” often brought out the base in people. Those weren’t make-believe tales Ron acquainted us with, they were cautionary ones designed to deconstruct any notions naiveté might hold about higher education and its practices. Racism, sexism, and, most definitely, classism were all doing fine and well in the academy, tucked neatly away in the creases and folds of ambiguous tenure requirements, unfair divisions of labor, and competitive self serving. Of course, the academy is also plump with potential, full as a tick, for exploration of and excitement over ideas and culture. It is a place distended with possibility, glutinous with hope. After all, there were alternatives. There had to be.Today, I told them……that I sat in The Kleineau Theatre for the final professional seminar of the school year. It was the last Friday of the spring 2001 semester and I was glad to be finished with the press of all that had to be done in too short a time. I don’t remember many details about that afternoon – who I sat next to or what questions were asked of the speaker – but I do remember the quiet that settled over the place: all sat mesmerized by a methodology of the heart, a different way to do scholarship, one requiring vulnerability and insisting the human body be present. The heart was declared that day, the heart of Ronald J. Pelias.Today, I told them...…that at the time, I had been a member of SIUC's Department of Speech Communication, as a student (both undergraduate and graduate), since fall of 1993. I transferred from a large, urban junior college in San Antonio, Texas to the unknown solace and earthiness of southern Illinois and completed my undergraduate and graduate education at a university I had never known of until my ex-spouse declared its virtues. I unknowingly started down a road that, in time, would cross the path of my doctoral mentor. Oddly enough, a working class, Mexican–American girl from south Texas, would meet a white, middle class, man teaching in the Midwest and who unknowingly would change her life.Today, I told them……that the etched surface of a life can be amazing, a gorgeous patina of age and experience. But, what bleeds through to the surface from underneath or in front of from behind can be just as mesmerizing, just as charming as a heartfelt embrace between old friends.

This study aims to describe the use of action‐learning projects in 14 regional leadership development programs called public health leadership institutes.

During the period of April through August 2009, directors of the public health leadership institutes were interviewed about the action‐learning project requirement in each of their programs. Notes from these interviews, as well as relevant program materials were reviewed and summarized.

Action‐learning projects are commonly used by the public health leadership institutes to build leadership skills. However, this component of these programs varies considerably across the institutes. Frequently mentioned challenges to using action‐learning projects include lack of time for participants to meet for project work, lack of resources available for team coaching and a perceived higher value of taking action over making time for learning by many participants.

Research shows that most people develop leadership skills from actual work experiences. Action‐learning which focuses on solving complex, real‐world challenges is a common component of leadership development programs. In this paper, the authors describe how this methodology is being carried out in public health leadership institutes and recommend ways to increase the developmental return on these work experiences in public health settings.

These public health leadership programs, partially funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reach health care practitioners in 46 states and the District of Columbia. The application of best practices from these initiatives could lead to increased understanding of how to maximize the return from experiential learning initiatives designed to promote life‐long learning.

The cofounder of Compass Records, a small, independent music-recording company, must decide whether to “produce and own” the next album of an up-and-coming folk musician or simply “license” her finished recording. This case presents information sufficient to build cash-flow forecasts for either investment alternative. Discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis reveals that licensing will be the more attractive alternative unless the student assesses the value of the options for follow-on albums included in the “produce-and-own” contract.

Blues music is in the midst of its second revival in popularity in roughly thirty years. The year 1960 can be identified, with some qualification, as a reference point for the first rise in international awareness and appreciation of the blues. This first period of wide‐spread white interest in the blues continued until the early seventies, while the current revival began in the middle 1980s. During both periods a sizeable literature on the blues has appeared. This article provides a thumbnail sketch of the popularity of the blues, followed by a description of scholarly and critical literature devoted to the music. Documentary and instructional materials in audio and video formats are also discussed. Recommendations are made for library collections and a list of selected sources is included at the end of the article.

The ways that individuals interact with and through music have changed dramatically over the past 70 years. The advent of radio, television, and film brought strange and unfamiliar forms of music into the most remote corners of the world (see Peterson, 2004), profoundly transforming the role of music in everyday life and the spaces in which it is consumed. The rise of the Internet in the past 20 years has highlighted an ever-increasing complexity in communication among people interacting in musical spaces. In the process, music subcultures have become less definitive, static, and exclusive; scenes have become increasingly archetypical and symbolic; while music communities have become more situational and recurring. While each concept highlights a different aspect of music-cultural space, it is important and useful to examine how their evolution highlights the relevance of interactionist approaches to the study of music.