A Narrative Inquiry on the Life History of Betty Siegel

Known for her outstanding achievement in educational policy, Dr. Betty Lentz Siegel was the longest serving female president at Kennesaw State University. In 1981, she assumed the position at Kennesaw State University, which then was a four-year college institution with 4,000 students and 15 baccalaureate degree programs. Under her tutelage, Kennesaw State University achieved its university status with more than 18,000 student enrollees and 55 undergraduate and graduate degree programs (online Golden Key International Honour Society International).It was her vision and leadership that brought the educational institution to its current university status focusing on teamwork through the creation of strong administrative teams and group interaction. With her guidance, the institution implemented several initiatives and high profile activities that created opportunities and recognition of the institution in the local and state communities. In the book Searching for Academic Excellence: T wenty Colleges and Universities on the Move and their Leaders, Dr.Siegel was in a limelight in her accomplishment for Kennesaw State University (online Golden Key International Honour Society International). In her 25 years of service in the institution, Kennesaw State University received numerous recognition and awards for its outstanding achievements (online Golden Key International Honour Society International). Its awards are as follows: †¢ 1987, chosen as one of the top three college colleges and universities in its nationwide competition focusing on â€Å"The President and the Public† by the Council of Advancement and Support of Education (CASE)†¢ 1989 – 1991, Kennesaw State also caught public attention as the US News and World Report acknowledges Kennesaw State’s exemplary programs in minority recruitment and retention, leadership programs for faculty, staff, administrators and students, and international initiatives. US News and World Report di stinguishes Kennesaw State as the country’s â€Å"up and comers† and â€Å"rising stars† in the South’s regional institutions. †¢ 2003, KSU received recognition to become one of twelve founding institution included in the program entitled Foundation of Excellence in the First College Year of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.In addition, this recognition also gave KSU the needed funding to pursue the projects of the RTM Institute for Leadership, Ethics Characters, which Dr. Siegel is the Endowed Chair. †¢ 2006, US News and World Report ranked KSU as number one among the 25 educational institution known for their learning community programs. In addition, the magazine highlights the school’s first year freshman experience program. Academic Background Behind the outstanding accomplishment of KSU is Dr. Siegel’s utmost leadership, dedication, and commitment to education. Dr. Siegel’s academic areas of e xpertise include child psychology and administration.Her outstanding academic achievement also marks her commitment for continuous learning. She received her Ph. D from Florida State University, A Masters in Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a B. A. n English and History from Wake Forest University and an Associate of Arts from Cumberland College. She also has received her two-year post-doctoral study in Clinical Child Psychology at Indiana University. She holds honorary doctorates from Cumberland College in Kentucky, Miami University in Ohio, Eastern Kentucky University, Lynchburg College, Morehead State University, and Southern Connecticut State University.Professional accomplishments Dr. Siegel had been an accomplished educational administrator even before coming to Kennesaw State. She started as a faculty member for several universities such as Indiana University and Lenoir-Rhyne College. And in 1967, she taught at the University of Florida. In 1971 , she became the first woman Dean of Academic Affairs for Continuing Education at the University of Florida. She moved to Western Carolina University in the School of Education and Psychology in 1976 and was also the first woman to hold the position of academic dean for the University.In 1981, she came to Kennesaw State where she has started several programs and later became the first female president. Dr. Siegel was also co-founded and co-directed a non-profit organization chartered in North Carolina since 1982. She worked with an esteemed colleague Dr. William Purkey in establishing International Alliance for Invitational Education. The organization currently has more than 12,000 members of different professionals from over twelve countries, who seek to apply the concepts of invitational education to their personal and professional lives (online International Alliance of Invitational Education).In 1999, the Center for Invitational Leadership was created to advance the model of inv itational education by offering opportunities for professional to participate in leadership development programs. Its mission is to â€Å"to enhance lifelong learning, to promote positive change in organizations, to cultivate the personal and professional growth and satisfaction of educators and allied professionals, and to enrich the lives of human beings, personally and professionally. † (online Radford University’s Center for Invitation Leadership). Moreover, with the high-regards to the accomplishments of Dr.Siegel, she has delivered keynote addresses at hundreds of national, regional, and state conferences throughout United States, Puerto Rico and ten other foreign countries and has lectured for over 120 colleges and universities around the world. She is an internationally- and nationally-known lecturer and motivational speaker on leadership, educational issues, and the concerns of women. She has also served as a consultant to a wide range of businesses such as ed ucational institutions, businesses, non-profit organizations, health-care services, government and socio-civic groups (online Golden Key International Honour Society International).Public Service Dr. Siegel has also worked in community improvement programs of the government. In 1997, Governor Zell Miller appointed Dr. Siegel to represent the State of Georgia on the Southern Growth Policies Board’s 1998 Commission on the Future of the South. Prior to that, she also represented Governor Miller at the Presidents’ Summit of America’s Future held at Philadelphia in 1997. Currently, she has been appointed as to serve as member of Governor Perdue’s Commission for a New Georgia.Her work in the commission was largely publicized as she was the driving force behind the establishment of the Cobb Education Consortium. The Cobb Education Consortium was created to form a collaborative organization among the public educational institution â€Å"to combine the resources, energies, and talents of the member institutions to address areas of common concern in moving public education in Cobb Country from its current level of excellence to the exemplary level which will be needed to prepare students to become responsible leaders, capable workers, and well-rounded human beings.† (online Cobb Education Consortium) In addition, she also served as a chair of subcommittee on post-secondary options for the Georgia P-16 initiative. The initiative aims to a comprehensive and collaborative statewide effort aimed at raising expectations and ensuring student success from pre-school through post-secondary education. The initiative is different than other educational reform efforts because it impacts the entire educational spectrum—not just the parts. (online University System of Georgia)Lastly, she initiated the Northwest Crescent Alliance between the three private colleges and three public institutions. The alliance was formed to develop programs of c ollaboration in economic development, enhancement of the arts, the preservation of Southern/Appalachian culture and history, and the development and promotion of community leadership. (online Northwest Crescent Leadership Alliance) Publications Dr. Siegel has recently co-published with Dr. Purkey entitled Becoming an Invitational Leader. The book offers a fresh and innovative model based on a single theoretical framework.It deviates from the traditional control and dominance model of leadership to one that focuses on connectedness, cooperation and communication. This model has been adopted in the International Alliance for Invitational Education and had been applied in numerous fields including administration, business, nursing, dentistry, counseling, and other professions. Purpose of the Study Successful and well-established teacher on leadership, Dr. Siegel’s life history has been a model for many aspiring leaders. She not only teaches about leadership, but she has embodied what she has taught.Her success has led to many researchers to examine what leadership truly is. Indeed, many have published life-stories and lessons on management’s leadership, but many have looked into it in lens following the theoretical framework of industrial management. The purpose of the study is to examine the perceptions of people surrounding the leadership during the tenure of Dr. Siegel at Kennesaw State University. We will looked at what people think within and outside Kennesaw State University’s phenomenal growth in relation to Dr. Siegel’s leadership.By examining the perceptions of Dr. Siegel in her tenure at Kennesaw State University, trends may emerge regarding leadership attitudes and/or leadership style. In undertaking this study using narrative inquiry, we hope to answer the following questions: 1. What are events and influences that formed Dr. Siegel’s mental model and invitational leadership theory? 2. What are the factors attracted and the perceptions students and alumni with Dr. Siegel’s leadership? 3. What is the value and contribution of Dr. Siegel to the understanding of leadership? Review of Related LiteratureIn the book Telling Women’s Lives: Narrative Inquiries in the history of Women’s Education, Weiler and Middleton (1999) explored the broader questions of gender and power through education. They have in discussing the stories of women as teachers come across on topics of education bureaucracies, material condition of women teachers, and the ways concepts of gender and sexuality have shaped experiences of men and women in the educational state. Indeed, women had not been fairly represented in the leadership of educational institution. Dr. Siegel has been an exception and as our purpose is to understand the success of Dr.Siegel’s, we looked at it in a different lens of leadership framework. We undertake this study using narrative inquiry to understand further the leadership model of Dr. Siegel. General Presupposition on Narrative Inquiry Stories have always been a way to pass on tradition and history of a nation. People love to tell and listen to stories. It is way we communicate and more importantly a way we understand people and events. Hardy (1986) has described narrative as a basic mode of thought, and Brunner (1986) described it as a way of organizing knowledge.Cultures are created and traditions are transferred from generation to generation through narratives. It is through narratives that individuals and society expresses their world views and provide models of identity and agency to their members (Brunner 1996). Narrative inquiry differs from more traditional uses of narrative education, that is, from didactic and strategic uses of narrative. Conle et al. (2000) argues that narrative inquiry retains these qualities in two areas: (1) for research, and (2) for professional development. Narrative in ResearchPolkinghorne (1988) defined narrative as the process that humans use to make sense of their experiences. It is through the application of language and personal reflection that people are able to continually construct and reconstruct significant events in their life and gain a deeper insight of their experiences. Atkinson (1998) argues that people arrange their experiences in a manner that make sense of the events and places the seemingly chaotic world in a coherent order. Thus, narratives are the process by which people make meaning of their own experiences. Denzin (1989) describes narratives as simply stories.Polkinghorne (1988) suggests that these stories convey the organizational scheme used to make meaning out of experiences. Very similar to any story, narratives are thematically organized around a central plot. It in the theme, organization, and the play of language of story that meaning and knowledge is drawn out. That is, we learn and gain insights in the temporal relational nature of the author’s reconstruc tion of events (Polkinghorne 1995). Narratives convey an understanding of environmental and interpersonal context, temporal sequence, and affective domain of the story.Polkinghorne (1995) offered the simple example of the sentence: â€Å"The king died; the price cried. † Taken in isolation, each adequately describes an event. Understood as a narrative story, with a temporal relationship and context, these two sentences describe a son’s response to the loss of his father. They convey emotion and evoke empathy. Conle (2000) describes the two purposes of narratives: (1) to convey meaning to others from unrelated events into a thematic story (Polkinghorne 1995), and (2) to convey norms and values to newcomers on a cultural or community level (Mattingly 1991).Narratives, therefore, are both the process of constructing and reconstructing events into organized schemes and the resulting that conveys the scheme (Polkinghorne 1988). Further, Polkinghorne (1988) explains that nar ratives can be used to either describe or explain an event. Descriptive narrative inquiry reports and interprets existing narratives. Descriptive narrative research describes what underlies the values and assumptions of people within a community by examining several narratives for similarities and themes.Explanatory narratives seek to explain why something happened or to explain an event. It, thus, looks narrative accounts for connections between events and actions that led to a particular occurrence. To put it more succinctly, it looks for casual connection between antecedents and events. Narrative research uses linguistic data in attempt to understand empirical reality from the perspective of the teller. It uses the resulting story to understand the organizational scheme the teller used to make sense of his or her world.In narrative research, then, it is not only the content of the story that helps in understanding the experience, but the way the story is constructed that reveals more about the experience. It therefore looks at the study of ways humans experience the world (Connelly and Clandinin 1990). Thus, narrative research begins with the narrator’s story, but moves the research toward interpretation. Denzin (1989) suggests that interpretation allows researchers to look for and connects patterns of meaning and experience in the respondent’s narratives.Bloom (1998) furthers this discussion by asserting that by connecting patterns and meaning and experiences of respondents, the researcher are able to draw from a wide array of theories to set forth his/her interpretation. Furthermore, Atkinson (1998) advises researchers to examine the respondent’s narratives for ordering of events. Context is revealed by understanding the emotions and values conveyed in the narrative. However, Feldman et al. (1990) cautions researchers on the need to scrutinize the respondent’s use of metaphors, irony, and other rhetorical devices as it may resu lt to misinterpretation.It is therefore, important to understand and gain insight into the mental state of the respondent in order to fully interpret the story. More importantly, the end result should be a synthesis of several stories into one thematic narrative. Interest in the use of narrative research has strong precedents in other fields such as in Psychology, Anthropology, and Educational Research. They use narrative as a medium of data representation and as a guide in the development of methodologies, if they did not want to lose the temporal quality and contextual detail of what they were studying (Fenstermacher 1994).They view narratives as a metaphor for human conduct (Sarbin 1986). Narrative, thus, did not stay confined to data representation, but became an entire mode of inquiry where data analysis and final documents did not have to relinquish their narrative quality. Dewey’s work on time, experience, and sociality had been central for narrative inquiry, which con sists of experiential stories that combine the social and the personal (Dewey 1904).It is these experiential stories without abandoning the particular, the contextual, and the complex events that the inquiry attempts to give voice to tacitly held personal knowledge of the respondents (Polanyi 1966; Schwab 1970). This personal knowledge has practical function or serves as an instrument in order for the researcher to evaluate and explain previously determined outcomes on the subject’s deliberations, intuitive decisions, daily action and moral wisdom. Narrative inquiry, therefore works best in getting such ‘practical knowledge’.In fact, MacIntyre (1981) promotes narratives for the study of practices, of lives and of traditions. The methodology allows the researcher to recover the moral qualities of all aspects of the subject’s contemporary lives, qualities that he sees as practically and theoretically lost. Micheal Connelly’s concept of personal, pract ical knowledge (Connelly and Diennes 1982) combined Polanyi’s sense of the personal with Schwab’s notion of the practical and MacIntyre’s moral intent.Connelly later saw the construction of narrative accounts of experiences as the perfect medium for the study of personal practical knowledge (Connelly and Clandinin 1982). Benefits Narrative Inquiry Conle (1997) notes that the most important contribution that narrative inquiry is a language that implicitly forces the issues of open-ended meanings and of the ‘constitutedness’ of identities, both ethnic and narrator’s identities. Narratives are about temporal events and tell us where and when something happens, in which contexts, who said what to whom, with which feelings and in what mood, and under which moral constraints.Such contextualization on the surface seems to convey facts, but it also potentially subjuntivizes these ‘facts’. If generalization do not accompany the specifics, narrative contextualization limits the factual to the ‘once only’ and to the reliability of observation made by a specific observer at one particular time. If the temporal quality of narrative inquiry is heeded, the tentativeness of conclusions and the open-endedness of stories will prevail. These are much-needed qualities in pluralist societies.It is the open-endedness that allows readers the ability to further interpret and understand the contextual framework of such actions (Conle 2000). Nonetheless, Berstein (1992) cautions that it is equally crucial for a narrative inquiry not to contribute to the rampant relativism, especially more moral relativism and should not deviate against reason. Such relativism can reduce the instrumental rationality of the research and can hinder the ability to draw insights especially in intercultural settings.

Virtual Organization

Virtual Organization Free Online Research Papers The changing dynamic of customer needs and business environment impose new ideas and concepts. One of these is the virtual organization (VO). This type of organization can be established and dissolved quickly to respond to rapidly changing market opportunities. It is hard and sometimes impossible for a single organization to react to market demand and opportunities. Organizations develop a network of corporations that are familiar with each other and then define some rules of co-operation for a specific project, which would help all the involved benefit from the collaboration. The main emphasis of the VO is to complement and share resources in order to improve competitiveness as a whole and enable competition on a larger scale (Ulrich, 2001, p. 50). The enabling factor that allows this form of organization is technology, namely the major advances of the Information and communication technology (ICT). The approach of this briefing paper would be one of a consultant guiding an organization through the process of virtualness. Prior to diving into the key issues that an organization faces and if these key matters are being addressed or not, let us first identify the mechanisms o f a VO. The literature on VO offers a wide spectrum of life cycle models. Sieber (1998) recognized five stages in the development of a VO â€Å"creation of a complementary resource base, co-operation of partners by a common business understanding, integration of the resource base by a transaction governance system, formulation of a common network strategy, and socialization by trust between the partners involved† (Sieber, 1998). Creating a complementary resource base will allow the organization to identify organizations with competencies outside of its own, for partnership potential, if there is a market need. These are different organizations that have different strategies, resources and objectives. They do not necessarily have to be corporation but could also be a group, or an individual. The co-operation of partners by a common business understanding has the underpinning agreement to form a VO from an open-ended network of different organizations, only if there is a market opportunity. The ground rules of participation in the VO are drawn out and agreed upon by all members. Formulation of a common network strategy, in this phase, the members of the network of business partners implicitly agree on the common strategy to use as a VO, the procedures that have to be in place, the way the exchange of knowledge would be carried out especially if patent issues are involved, the use of information and most i mportantly the quality of work. And socialization by trust between the partners involved, in the creation of the network phase, corporations most likely would address these issues of trust and socialization. Prior to initiating the contact with a group, a company or an individual for an operation in which different organizations jointly develop, produce, and market services, they would have known each other from prior collaborations or based on the expectation that together they have the competencies and resources to create added value for a specific customer or group of customers (Saabeel et al., 2002 p. 9). The participants would also bring with them an understanding of the networking phase. Again ICT is a fundamental factor in the coordination of activities in the various partners and each one of them should be able to bridge the difference of time and space for efficient communication. Some key matters organizations face related to virtualness are identified by Ulrich (2001, p. 46): selection of suitable partners and transaction costs resulting from trust development, organizational fit, multiple leaders. Each one of these points should be addressed by the organization as well. T he selection of suitable partners could take a long time but the development and acknowledgement of the company’s core competencies will allow entrance into various networks and build relationships within the network to identify potential partners. Transaction cost for the first time around cannot be avoided because of the relationship building involved and the manpower required setting up everything the face to face required, meetings, correspondences and infrastructure coordination, but from then on, it should be negligible unless it is new partnership. Once potential partners are identified, the technological and sociological factors should be analysed for a good organizational fit. Since the partnership could be between two or more organizations, multiple leaderships could be problematic and organizational boundaries need to be set carefully to efficiently manage the joint project and avoid cross-organizational problems that could translate into more complicated trust t ribulations. (Plant, Murrell, p. 2) identified key aspects of virtualness and organizational culture in relation to innovation. In their analysis, it came clear that an organizational mission statement, vision, and strategy has to incorporate an innovative organizational culture in order to be competitive and survive the ever changing market dynamics, customer requirements and market opportunities. At this age of information technology development, organizations are networked and they maintain their key competencies but are in a relentless quest of new partnerships and co-operation with other companies to reposition themselves, to be effective in the market place, and most importantly be innovative in research and development bringing new products to market. Each one does what they do best and complemented with the work of one or more organizations, they can share cost, resources, and knowledge to create and market new products or respond to a market opportunity. VO supports innovation pursu its and a prerogative to the successful execution of this endeavor is the existence of corporate culture of innovation between the organizations involved or the clear spelling out of this objective in the strategy and objectives of the VO. Innovative pursuits will not be the only outlet for VO; there is a plethora of venues to explore. As long as the strategy of the different organizations embroil a new stratagem for the VO, the goals and objective would be identified and with collaborative interchange of resources, ideas and effective work, communication and efficient use of ICT, success can be achieved by the VO. The effective use of knowledge, whether internal or external to the organization, requires a network. In the era of information technology, networked electronic communities thrive all over the Internet. Competitiveness of an organization whether virtual or not requires an interaction of knowledged-workers, systems and extra-corporate entities. This way, relationships could be formed with other organizations to share information to be more effective and to help position the organizations in short term relationships like virtualness, long-term market share and success. Organizations need to be continually repositioned to be effective in the market place. Skills enhancement is a fundamental activity for organizations that want to gain market share and be successful in the marketplace. The use of knowledge and market information is achieved partly from being a component of a larger network of organizational connectivity centered on the use and manipulation of both internal and exter nal knowledge (Plant, Murrell, p. 4). Tremendous benefits could be realized from successful execution of a virtual operation. Minimizing cost and increasing revenues are some of the main reasons why many corporations are operating, virtualness permits this by partnering with shared resources, cost, and improve competitiveness as a whole, along with the ability to compete at a larger scale than a single company alone could. Virtualness also allows the organization to be flexible and able to rapidly respond to market demands with the co-operation of one or more organizations. Virtualness provides an organization with the optimum value chain and the flexibility to be part of groups to deliver first class products to the marketplace, at the least cost possible, neither of which would have been possible for a single company to undertake. More importantly, being part of a network of large integrated companies helps an organization keep its finger on the pulse of the market place and demand, to leverage opportunities and sat isfy individual customer needs nationally and internationally. VO is such a new field that emerged from the information revolution, it is difficult to find quantifiable data to illustrate its benefits to a corporation. Nonetheless, let’s look at the Dell Computer Corporation (Dell) as an example. Founded in 1984 by Michael Dell, now employs approximately 30,000 employees worldwide and has annual revenue of $12 billion. Dell uses a variety of suppliers and customers order using the Internet from a list of available options. Based on the match of the different components that are specified by the customer, the order is routed dynamically to one of the suppliers that are carefully chosen by Dell and all the interfaces are done through Dell system. This makes Dell a VO because Dell does not carry any inventory but rather uses the suppliers who incur the cost of inventory but are in partnership with Dell, which guarantees a constant flow of orders for the suppliers. The div ersity of suppliers in partnership with Dell enables the organization to be abreast of technological development and innovation, which can in turn better satisfy customer requirements. Dell also aggressively searches for new partners and suppliers within the dynamic networked community (Saabeel et al., 2002 p. 9). VO is a promising organizational form of the 21st century; I would like to make few recommendations for organizations planning to go virtual. Firstly, be flexible, flexibility is essential to innovation although VO supports only certain types of innovations. Going virtual assumes some cultural changes from the departments or individuals that are going to be involved in the VO. The communications that accompany these structural changes are critical to the success of the VO as they provide opportunities for members to understand roles and responsibilities as the organization changes (Grabowski, Roberts, 1998, p. 17). Once roles and responsibilities are known and organizational changes are carefully articulate, the issue of trust will be faced and the best way of dealing with it would be a creating of an effective shared culture. Each organization comes in with its own culture and since culture is tacit, the VO needs to foster a shared culture, group meetings with lateral organizat ion forms would contribute to building this trust and culture. Some factors that would make the VO a failure are: lack of a share vision, not clearly identifying network members selected to participate, and having mission and goals incompatible with individual’s aspirations (Skyrme, 1999, p.6). Reference: Grabowski, M., Roberts, K.H. (1997). â€Å"Risk Mitigation in Virtual Organizations† Journal Of Computer-Mediated Communications Online. Internet. 27 October 2002. Available: ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue4/grabowski.html Plant, R., Murrell, S. â€Å"The Agile Organizations: Technology Innovation† Online. Internet. 27 October 2002. Available: miami.edu/~rplant Saabeel, W., Verduijn, T.M., Hagdorn, L., Kumar, K. â€Å"A model of virtual organisation: a structure and process perspective.† Vol. 4 No. 1 Page: 1-17 (current article). Electronic Journal of Organizational Virtualness. Online. Internet. 27 October 2002. Available: virtual-organization.net Skyrme, D. â€Å"Virtual Teaming and Virtual Organizations: 25 Principles of Proven Practice† Online. Internet. 27 October 2002. Available: skyrme.com/updates/u11.htm Su, Q., Chen, J., Lee, S. â€Å"Quality management systems design for virtual organizations.† Vol. 3 No. 5 Page: 65 79 (current article). Electronic Journal of Organizational Virtualness. Online. Internet. 27 October 2002. Available: virtual-organization.net Ulrich, F. â€Å"The Concept of Virtual Web Organisations and its Implications on Changing Market Conditions.† Vol. 3 No. 4 Page: 43-64 (current article). Electronic Journal of Organizational Virtualness. Online. Internet. 27 October 2002. Available: virtual-organization.net Research Papers on Virtual OrganizationOpen Architechture a white paperThe Project Managment Office SystemIncorporating Risk and Uncertainty Factor in CapitalAnalysis of Ebay Expanding into AsiaMarketing of Lifeboy Soap A Unilever ProductBionic Assembly System: A New Concept of SelfDefinition of Export QuotasThe Relationship Between Delinquency and Drug UsePETSTEL analysis of IndiaResearch Process Part One

The electorate of the people essays

The electorate of the people essays The electorate of the people, Tocqueville and Mill The election of officials is a sticky situation. In a democracy the people rule and elect the officials that they want. But what happens when they start choosing unqualified persons and the quality of the ruling becomes poor? Or what happens when the majority rules over the minority, disallowing the minority to have any say in government? Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill both have suggestions to assuage the problem. In this paper I will approach Tocquevilles comparison of the US houses in congress, in favor of the senates two part election; And Mills large district election. In conclusion I will support Mill because his proportionate representation and weighted voting solve the problems of better qualified officials and electors, and supporting every person even minorities. In the time of Jacksonian Democracy, in which Tocqueville did his research, the mass electorate had taken hold and everyman could rise through the ranks of elected positions in government. With some complaint Tocqueville states, In Europe many people either believe without saying or say with out believing that one of the great advantages of universal suffrage is to summon men worthy of public confidence to the direction of affairs. Further, believing that the people who dont really know how to rule have an instinct that tells them who would be the best ruler and always have a sincere desire to the good of the state. However, though this was the thought in Europe and America at the time, Tocqueville felt bound to disagree with this assessment. "When I arrived in the United States I discovered with astonishment that good qualities were common among the governed but rare among the rulers. In our day it is a constant fact that the most outstanding Americans are seldom summoned to public office, and it must be recognized that this tendency has increased ...

All About Russias Exclave of Kaliningrad

All About Russia's Exclave of Kaliningrad Russias smallest oblast (region) of Kaliningrad is an exclave located 200 miles away from the border of Russia proper. Kaliningrad was a spoil of World War II, allocated from Germany to the Soviet Union at the Potsdam Conference that divided Europe between the allied powers in 1945. The oblast is a wedge-shaped piece of land along the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania, approximately one-half the size of Belgium, 5,830 mi2 (15,100 km2). The oblasts primary and port city is also known as Kaliningrad. Founding Known as Konigsberg prior to Soviet occupation, the city was founded in 1255 near the mouth of the Pregolya River. The philosopher Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg in 1724. The capital of German East Prussia, Konigsberg was the home to a grand Prussian Royal Castle, destroyed along with much of the city in World War II. Konigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 after Mikhail Kalinin, formal leader of the Soviet Union from 1919 until 1946. At the time, Germans living in the oblast were forced out, to be replaced with Soviet citizens. While there were early proposals to change the name of Kaliningrad back to Konigsberg, none were successful. Key History The ice-free port of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea was home to the Soviet Baltic fleet; during the Cold War 200,000 to 500,000 soldiers were stationed in the region. Today only 25,000 soldiers occupy Kaliningrad, an indicator of the reduction of the perceived threat from NATO countries. The USSR attempted to build a 22-story House of Soviets, the ugliest building on Russian soil, in Kaliningrad but the structure had been built on the property of the castle. Unfortunately, the castle contained many underground tunnels and the building began to slowly collapse though it still stands, unoccupied. After the fall of the USSR, neighboring Lithuania and former Soviet republics gained their independence, cutting Kaliningrad off from Russia. Kaliningrad was supposed to develop in the post-Soviet era into a Hong Kong of the Baltic but corruption keeps most investment away. South Korean-based Kia Motors has a factory in Kaliningrad. Railroads connect Kaliningrad to Russia through Lithuania and Belarus but importing food from Russia is not cost-effective. However, Kaliningrad is surrounded by European Union member-states, so trade on the wider market is indeed possible. Approximately 400,000 people live in metropolitan Kaliningrad and a total of nearly one million are in the oblast, which is approximately one-fifth forested.

Sacred Time Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Sacred Time - Essay Example tice, and the art and clearly marked sacred spaces.†1 Many times people have relied on their dreams in order to make predictions or help them in their daily lives by providing them guidance. Dreams can be very helpful to people who are looking for answers in their lives, and dreams were used in several different religions to make sense of the world around the people who were dreaming. My most sacred space in my own personal life is in my room in the house. I always make sure to close the door whenever I come in, so that I don’t let in â€Å"bad airs,† also called malos aires in Spanish. Of course, I’m sure that sounds a little bit superstitious, but I am always careful about things which I see as sacred in my personal life. I regard and take care of stones which have power, and I don’t see anything New-Agey about that at all†¦it is just my way of belief. I believe in the power of stones. Their energies can subsequently help or hurt someone. The truth is, all of life and the entire earth is sacred. We must learn how to use these spaces every

Short Response to event Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Short Response to event - Assignment Example For business communication seeking partners and collaboration in order to achieve some goal is priority. Audience was allowed to communicate in a dialog to members of software companies only before presentation speeches. I talked to some of them, asking questions, gathering information and trying to make contacts, but real interest and good questions logically appear after you’ve heard a presentation speech and understood the subject. But it was jury only allowed to ask speaker questions, so to another part of the audience the main part of the event was a monolog and we were listeners. I suppose that means audience wasn’t considered like a business partner on this event, so jury and App software companies were only interested in each other, and it makes sense according to the kind of event. But I think audience should be allowed to ask questions, because in business you need to think wider. A company can not win the prize pool, but there are potential partners in the au dience, maybe. As a rule audience in such kind of events is professional orientated and someone could be interested in your project, or your company may hear an interesting question and find a partner itself. So I think taking audience into account is important, so I will in my future career. The entire event was pretty much verbal: speakers from App software companies proclaimed speeches 10 minutes long and then answered jury’s questions, audience were listening and we all were wearing tag sticks on our chest with information we had put there etc. I was involved in nonverbal communication nodding as a response on verbal communication, shaking hands with members of software companies I talked before presentation, I was slapping hands etc. About the same did the rest of the audience and jury. Speakers used gestures, voice intonations and posed themselves differently to look confident and professional etc. But mostly I was interested in short videos that were shown as a part of

Interview Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 8

Interview - Essay Example In this way, spirit of each epoch of the 20th century’s American history with its dynamics of a melting pot can be easily senses through musical legacy. Due to impact of social and cultural factors of modern days, our generation has come to give its affiliations mainly to contemporary popular music possessing easy-to-remember tunes, unpretentious lyrics and strong appealing dance rhythm and . Dynamic dance songs accompany us every day in many public places, even if we don’t listen to them willfully: shopping malls, cafà ©s or earphones of our fellow passengers in the underground. Development and popularization of such type of music has been gaining momentum for at least a decade. Pop music in this narrow sense has been a reflection of emotional state of the society and an imprint of its popular culture. On the other hand, each epoch of music history has its underground stage offering an alternative view on contemporary cultural values. However, it has been claimed by researchers, that modern society has become more prone to narcissism with all the more songs containing â€Å"me†, not â€Å"we† and all the more people living and feeling alone. In addition, modern songs contain more antisocial words than songs used to in 1980’s and even 1990’s. Personally, I have always valued various genres and trends in music, considering that they all pose some value for our culture – either supporting modern canons or denying them and adding a pitch of freshness and novelty. However, similar to the lion’s share of our generation, I prefer modern music, that is being â€Å"forged† in the present-day cultural and social environment – including both popular and underground music. However, my friend and interviewee called Tao Yi has a different type of affiliations, being a passionate fan of â€Å"old school† rock music that used to rock the world between mid-1970’s and late