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  Tsong Khapa's Illumination of the Hidden Meaning: Mandala, Mantra, and the Cult of the Yoginis

  David B. Gray

  This is the first in a two-volume annotated translation of Tsong Khapa's Illumination of the Hidden Meaning (sbas don kun sel). A magnificent and massive commentary on the Cakrasamvara Tantra, this is first English translation of a work that marks a milestone in the Tibetan assimilation of the Indian Buddhist tantras.
  
  This first volume, which includes Tsong Khapa's detailed introduction to chapters 1 to 24 of the 51 chapter root tantra, covers the history of the tradition, its interpretation, and a range of topics including the construction of the mandala, the consecration therein, and the decoding of mantras and their ritual applications, as well as extensive details concerning the clans of the yoginis and the procedures to win their favor. David B. Gray situates the work in context and explores in depth the sources used in composing this commentary. He also provides detailed notes, a trilingual English-Tibetan-Sanskrit glossary, and an appendix that includes a translation and a critical edition of the Laghusamvaratantrapatalabhisandhi, a synopsis of the Cakrasamvara Tantra composed by Sumatikirti, which is quoted in its entirety by Tsong Khapa in his commentary. This work will be followed by a second volume of the annotated translation subtitled Yogic Vows, Conduct, and Ritual Praxis (An Annotated Translation of Chapters 25-51) and a third volume that will include a critical edition of the entire Tibetan text.

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  Undocumented and in College: Students and Institutions in a Climate of National Hostility

  Terry-Ann Jones and Laura Nichols

  The current daily experiences of undocumented students as they navigate the processes of entering and then thriving in Jesuit colleges are explored alongside an investigation of the knowledge and attitudes among staff and faculty about undocumented students in their midst, and the institutional response to their presence. Cutting across the fields of U.S. immigration policy, theory and history, religion, law, and education, Undocumented and in College delineates the historical and present-day contexts of immigration, including the role of religious institutions. This unique volume, based on an extensive two-year study (2010–12) of undocumented students at Jesuit colleges in the United States and with contributions from various scholars working within these institutions, incorporates survey research and in-depth interviews to present the perspectives of students, staff, and the institutions.

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  Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820

  Kathryn Kish Sklar, Thomas Dublin, and Barbara Molony

  Through 75,000 pages of highly curated text-based documents, Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires Since 1820–a supplement to Women and Social Movements, International–explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices.

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  Women’s Activism and "Second Wave" Feminism: Transnational Histories

  Barbara Molony and Jennifer Nelson

  Women's Activism and "Second Wave" Feminism situates late 20th century feminisms within a global framework of women's activism. Its chapters, written by leading international scholars, demonstrate how issues of heterogeneity, transnationalism, and intersectionality have transformed understandings of historical feminism.

  It is no longer possible to imagine that feminism has ever fostered an unproblematic sisterhood among women blind to race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality and citizenship status. The chapters in this collection modify the "wave" metaphor in some cases and in others re-periodize it. By studying individual movements, they collectively address several themes that advance our understandings of the history of feminism, such as the rejection of "hegemonic" feminism by marginalized feminist groups, transnational linkages among women's organizations, transnational flows of ideas and transnational migration. By analyzing practical activism, the chapters in this volume produce new ways of theorizing feminism and new historical perspectives about the activist locations from which feminist politics emerged.

  Including histories of feminisms in the United States, Canada, South Africa, India, France, Russia, Japan, Korea, Poland and Chile, Women's Activism and "Second Wave" Feminism provides a truly global re-appraisal of women's movements in the late 20th century.

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  Working Memory

  Birgit Koopmann-Holm and Alexander O'Connor

  The work of memory researchers Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch is a prime example of the ways in which good critical thinkers approach questions and the problems they raise.

  In the 1960s, researchers into human memory began to understand memory as comprising not one, but two systems. The first was a short-term system handling information for mere seconds. The second was a long-term system capable of managing information indefinitely. They also discovered, however, that short-term memory was not simply a ‘filing cabinet,’ as many had thought, but was actively working on cognitive – or mental – tasks. This is how the phrase “working memory” developed. The hypothesis remained unproven, however, presenting Baddeley and Hitch with the problem of working out how to produce definitive evidence that short term memory was a working system that actively manipulated and processed information.

  They responded by designing a series of ten experiments aimed at showing just this – presenting the results in their 1974 article, ‘Working memory.’ The research was a masterpiece of problem-solving that proved revelatory. The authors not only generated new solutions and made sound decisions between alternative possibilities – they also showed that short-term memory is indeed an active system responsible for information processing and managing, while also influencing attention, reasoning, reading comprehension and learning.

  While their work has since been refined by others, Baddeley and Hitch’s problem-solving approach helped to create the dominant understanding of working memory that underpins psychological research throughout the world today.

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  Adolescent Development for Educators

  Allison M. Ryan, Tim Urdan, and Eric M. Anderman

  Designed for both undergraduate and masters-level adolescent development courses. Also appropriate for educational psychology courses for teachers training to teach at the secondary school level.

  This package includes the loose-leaf version and MyEducationLab® with Enhanced Pearson eText.

  An adolescent development text written for educators. The existing textbooks on adolescent development are predominantly written for undergraduate psychology majors and have little to say about what the theories and research mean for teachers in schools working with adolescent students. The key feature that guided the development of this book and that sets it apart from other textbooks on adolescent development is the focus on application of concepts to educational settings and the practical implications for teachers.

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  A Macat analysis of Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch’s Working Memory

  Birgit Koopmann-Holm

  In the 1960s, researchers into human memory began to understand memory as operating under two systems. The first was a short-term system handling information for mere seconds. The second was a long-term system capable of managing information indefinitely. They also discovered, however, that short-term memory was not simply a filing cabinet, but was actively working on cognitive - or mental - tasks. This is how the phrase "working memory" developed.

  Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch wanted to find evidence to prove that short-term memory really could be described as working memory. Their 1974 work presents the results of 10 original experiments and concludes that working memory actually consists of three parts. Two separate components - one handling what we hear, one handling what we see - act as our short-term information storage. The third component is responsible for processing and managing the first two, while also influencing attention, reasoning, reading comprehension, and learning.

  Although evidence from recent experiments has led to some modifications to the Baddeley - Hitch working memory model, Working Memory was and still is a highly influential paper in memory research.

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  Antigay Bias in Role-Model Occupations

  Gary E. Spitko

  From the first game of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs on April 22, 1876, tens of thousands of men have played professional sports in the Big Four—baseball, basketball, football, and hockey—major professional sports leagues in the United States. Until April 29, 2013, however, when National Basketball Association center Jason Collins came out publicly as gay, not one of those tens of thousands of men had ever come out to the public as gay while an active player on a major league roster. Is it because gay men can't jump (or throw, or catch, or skate)? Or is it more likely that the costs of coming out are too high?

  In Antigay Bias in Role-Model Occupations, E. Gary Spitko argues that in the case of athletes, and others in role-model occupations, a record of widespread and frequently systematic employment discrimination has been excluding gay people from the public social spaces that identify and teach whom society respects and whom members of society should seek to emulate. Creating a typology of role models—lawyers/judges, soldiers, teachers, politicians, athletes, and clergy—and the positive values and character traits associated with them, Spitko demonstrates how employment discrimination has been used for the purpose of perpetuating the generally accepted notion that gay people are inferior because they do not possess the requisite qualities—integrity, masculinity, morality, representativeness, all-American-ness, and blessedness—associated with employment in these occupations.

  Combining the inspirational stories of LGBT trailblazers with analysis of historical data, anecdotal evidence, research, and literature, Antigay Bias in Role-Model Occupations is the first book to explore in a comprehensive fashion the broad effects of sexual orientation discrimination in role-model occupations well beyond its individual victims.

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  Art and the Sacred Journey in Britain, 1790-1850

  Kathryn R. Barush

  The practice of walking to a sacred space for personal and spiritual transformation has long held a place in the British imagination. Art and the Sacred Journey in Britain examines the intersections of the concept of pilgrimage and the visual imagination from the years 1790 to 1850. Through a close analysis of a range of interrelated written and visual sources, Kathryn Barush develops the notion of the transfer of ‘spirit’ from sacred space to representation, and contends that pilgrimage, both in practice and as a form of mental contemplation, helped to shape the religious, literary, and artistic imagination of the period and beyond. Drawing on a rich range of material including paintings and drawings, manuscripts, letters, reliquaries, and architecture, the book offers an important contribution to scholarship in the fields of religious studies, anthropology, art history, and literature.

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  Behavioral Risk Management: Managing the Psychology That Drives Decisions and Influences Operational Risk

  Hersh Shefrin

  The psychological dimension of managing risk is of crucial importance, and its study has led to the identification of specific do's and don'ts. Those with an understanding of the psychology underlying risk and the skills to recognize its manifestation in practice, have the opportunity to develop frameworks that embody the do's and don'ts, thereby producing sound judgments and good decisions. Those lacking the understanding and the skills are destined to be more hit and miss in their approach to risk management, doing the don'ts and not doing the do's. Virtually every major risk management catastrophe in the last fifteen years has psychological pitfalls at its root. The list of catastrophes includes the 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and subsequent global financial crisis, the 2010 explosion at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico and the 2011 nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
  
  A critical lesson from psychological studies for those involved in risk management is that people's judgments and decisions about risk vary with type of circumstance. In Behavioral Risk Management readers will learn that there are specific actions that organizations can undertake to incorporate understanding, recognition, and behavioral interventions into the practice of risk management. There are many examples throughout the book that illustrate doing the don'ts. The chapters in the first part of the book introduce the main ideas, and the chapters in the latter part provide insight into how to apply those ideas to the practical world in which risk managers operate.

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  Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America's Nones

  Elizabeth Drescher

  To the dismay of religious leaders, study after study has shown a steady decline in affiliation and identification with traditional religions in America. By 2014, more than twenty percent of adults identified as unaffiliated--up more than seven percent just since 2007. Even more startling, more than thirty percent of those under the age of thirty now identify as "Nones"--answering "none" when queried about their religious affiliation. Is America losing its religion? Or, as more and more Americans choose different spiritual paths, are they changing what it means to be religious in the United States today?

  In Choosing Our Religion, Elizabeth Drescher explores the diverse, complex spiritual lives of Nones across generations and across categories of self-identification such as "Spiritual-But-Not-Religious," "Atheist," "Agnostic," "Humanist," "just Spiritual," and more. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews conducted across the United States, Drescher opens a window into the lives of a broad cross-section of Nones, diverse with respect to age, gender, race, sexual orientation, and prior religious background. She allows Nones to speak eloquently for themselves, illuminating the processes by which they became None, the sources of information and inspiration that enrich their spiritual lives, the practices they find spiritually meaningful, how prayer functions in spiritual lives not centered on doctrinal belief, how morals and values are shaped outside of institutional religions, and how Nones approach the spiritual development of their own children.

  These compelling stories are deeply revealing about how religion is changing in America--both for Nones and for the religiously affiliated family, friends, and neighbors with whom their lives remain intertwined.

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  Collective Identity and Cultural Resistance in Contemporary Chicana/o Autobiography

  Juan Velasco

  The first book length study of this genre, Collective Identity and Cultural Resistance in Contemporary Chicana/o Autobiography facilitates new understandings of how people and cultures are displaced and reinvent themselves. Through the examination of visual arts and literature, Juan Velasco analyzes the space for self-expression that gave way to a new paradigm in contemporary Chicana/o autobiography. By bringing together self-representation with complex theoretical work around culture, ethnicity, race, gender, sex, and nationality, this work is at the crossroads of intersectional analysis and engages with scholarship on the creation of cross-border communities, the liberatory dimensions of cultural survival, and the reclaiming of new art fashioned against the mechanisms of violence that Mexican-Americans have endured.

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  Communication and Information Technologies Annual: Digital Empowerment: Opportunities and Challenges of Inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean Vol: 12

  Laura Robinson, Jeremy Schulz, and Hopeton S. Dunn

  Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), this volume assembles relevant research focusing on ICTs in Latin America and the Caribbean—two understudied areas of global importance. Regarding Latin America, the mobile broadband revolution is taking place and the spread of mobile telephony and broadband Internet is beginning to reach more economically diverse populations. Concerning the Caribbean, this region reflects perhaps the greatest cultural, geographical and linguistic diversity in the Western hemisphere. Because of historical links with Africa, Europe and other metropoles and the region's proximity to the United States and Latin America, the Caribbean offers a unique angle from which to examine the growth of ICTs. The volume features international editorial teams with leading scholars from the Caribbean, Latin America, and North America. Bringing these voices together, the volume sheds light on how existing policies are meeting challenges to digital inclusion, as well as the benefits of connectivity within these societal contexts.

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  Communication and Information Technologies Annual [New] Media Cultures

  Laura Robinson, Jeremy Schulz, Sheila R. Cotten, Timothy M. Hale, Apryl A. Williams, and Joy L. Hightower

  Sponsored by the Communication and Information Technologies Section of the American Sociological Association, this volume examines wide-ranging aspects of culture, communication, and [new] media broadly defined. Themes include the interplay between [new] media and any of the following: culture, communication, technology, convergence, the arts, cultural production, and cultural change in the digital age. Contributions shed light on emergent phenomena that -sociologists, particularly those studying media or communication, culture scholars will find intriguing.

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  Ethnotheatre and Creative Methods for Teacher Leadership

  Jerome Cranston and Kristin Kusanovich

  This book addresses the lived challenges to teacher leadership. It illustrates an arts-based research approach that effectively highlights the broader context of relational dynamics between adults at school, using one-act plays to open up difficult conversations on complex issues. School leadership has, ostensibly, a performative dimension. Teacher leaders enact leadership from a more vulnerable platform than those with administrative positions, while they try to thrive in roles which are not always clear from their pre-service preparation. Early-career teachers are often not aware of the very real hazards that can accompany their initial foray into leadership. This book encourages creative thinking about how to enact the teacher role to better embed and advocate for a supportive and just system.

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  Full of Empty

  Tim J. Myers

  Princess Claire’s smile has flown away like a bird—and now she feels “full of empty.” But there’s a way to bring that smile back . . . if only . . .
  
  Every child gets bored or lonely—and this warm-hearted story teaches parents and children that a parent’s time and full attention are the best remedy. Full of Empty reminds parents that playing with their children is an important form of love. From award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Tim J. Myers, this beautifully illustrated book will bring home the power of quality time.

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  Gender in Modern East Asia: An Integrated History

  Barbara Molony, Janet Theiss, and Hyaeweol Choi

  Gender in Modern East Asia explores the history of women and gender in China, Korea, and Japan from the seventeenth century to the present. This unique volume treats the three countries separately within each time period while also placing them in global and regional contexts. Its transnational and integrated approach connects the cultural, economic, and social developments in East Asia to what is happening across the wider world.

  The text focuses specifically on the dynamic histories of sexuality; gender ideology, discourse, and legal construction; marriage and the family; and the gendering of work, society, culture, and power. Important themes and topics woven through the text include Confucianism, writing and language, the role of the state in gender construction, nationalism, sexuality and prostitution, New Women and Modern Girls, feminisms, “comfort” women, and imperialism. Accessibly written and comprehensive, Gender in Modern East Asia is a much-needed contribution to the study of the region.

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  Graduating with Honor: Best Practices to Promote Ethics Development in College Students

  Thomas G. Plante and Lori G. Plante

  A comprehensive summary of best practices in ethics development on campus, providing a variety of practical ways to promote formation of ethics and character among college students and young adults.

  • Provides best practices on how university students can develop ethical decision-making skills and explains how the college environment can be an excellent place to nurture the development of an ethical imperative in young adults

  • Presents an effective and practical model for personal ethical decision-making that encourages individuals of any age to be thoughtful, intentional, and more likely to maintain one's moral integrity, best interests, and personal sense of honor

  • Documents how a thoughtful approach to the formation of ethics and character during college can impact significant social issues, such as sexual assaults, problematic drinking, cheating on tests, and discrimination, both on-campus and in the general population

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  Internet Law Cases & Materials (2016 Edition)

  Eric Goldman

  This is a casebook for students learning Internet Law, but other people interested in Internet Law may find it interesting. The book covers jurisdiction, contracts, trespass to chattels, intellectual property (copyright, trademarks and domain names), pornography, defamation and other information torts (including limits on web host liability), privacy, spam and the legal issues applicable to blogs and social media. Please note that some of the printed images may be a little blurry. While I’ve done my best to make the hard copy version of the book useful to you, the hard copy is missing some features, such as color images, clickable links and keyword searching. You may find a PDF version of the book helpful to complement your hard copy version. Please email me (egoldman@gmail.com) your hard copy purchase receipt and I will happily email you a PDF at no extra cost to you.

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  Learning Leadership: The Five Fundamentals of Becoming an Exemplary Leader

  James Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

  Learning Leadership: The Five Fundamentals of Becoming an Exemplary Leader is a comprehensive guide to unleashing the inner-leader in us all and to building a solid foundation for a lifetime of leadership growth and mastery. The book offers a concrete framework to help individuals of all levels, functions, and backgrounds take charge of their own leadership development and become the best leaders they can be. Arguing that all individuals are born with the capacity to lead, Kouzes and Posner provide readers with a practical series of actions and specific coaching tips for harnessing that capacity and creating a context in which they can excel., Supported by over 30 years of research, from over seventy countries, and with examples from real-world leaders, Learning Leadership is a clarion call to unleash the leadership potential that is already present in today's society.

  According to Kouzes and Posner, "Leadership makes a significant difference in levels of engagement and commitment and is perhaps the most important asset in every organization, yet recent research points to a shortage of leaders. It is a serious global concern. The world needs more exemplary leaders in order to promote high-performing workplaces and inspire feelings of greater self-worth and meaningfulness. The shortage, however, is not because of the lack of potential talent. The people are out there, the eagerness is out there, and the capability is out there. The shortage results from prevailing myths-myths about talent, strengths, position, self-reliance, and effort-that inhibit the vast majority of leaders from shining and organizations from realizing the full benefits of the talent they already have."

  Learning Leadership provides readers with evidence-based strategies to ignite the habit of continuous improvement and the mindset of becoming the best leaders they can be. Emerging leaders, as well as leadership developers, internal and external coaches and trainers, and other human resource professionals will learn from first-hand stories and practical examples so that they can deeply understand and apply the fundamental for becoming the best leaders they can be.

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  Lesbian Sources: A Bibliography of Periodical Articles, 1970-1990

  Linda Garber

  First published in 1993.

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  North from Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States, 3rd Edition

  Carey McWilliams, Matt S. Meier, and Alma Garcia

  This single-volume book provides students, educators, and politicians with an update to the classic Carey McWilliams work North From Mexico. It provides up-to-date information on the Chicano experience and the emergent social dynamics in the United States as a result of Mexican immigration.

  • Provides readers with an in-depth understanding of the changing demographics of the Mexican immigrant population in the United States

  • Analyzes the major trends in U.S. immigration, including anti-immigrant policies, issues facing the unauthorized immigrant population, and the development of the immigrant rights movement

  • Examines the complex interrelationship between Mexican immigrants and later generations of U.S.-born Mexican Americans and the U.S. political system

  • Covers important recent topics such as anti-immigration movements, language debates like Prop 227 and other anti-immigrant legislation that address the education of Spanish speakers, cultural developments and art of Mexican Americans, and the changing economic outlook for Mexican immigrants

  • Offers the latest information on the complex interrelationship between Mexican immigrants and later generations of U.S.-born Mexican Americans

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  Philosophy: A Text with Readings (13th Edition)

  Manuel Velasquez

  One need only read a few pages of PHILOSOPHY: A TEXT WITH READINGS, 13th Edition, to appreciate Manuel Velasquez's gift for making complex philosophical concepts accessible to today's students while still exposing them to college-level writing. This book is a perfect choice for first-time philosophy students, as it covers a wide range of topics, including human nature, reality, truth, ethics, the meaning of life, diversity, and social/political philosophy, all supported by nontechnical primary sources. The thirteenth edition includes new features that help students engage with the topics and readings more than ever. Like the previous edition, this new edition includes critical-thinking and argument analysis activities carefully woven into the book's narrative. Whether you are teaching your course online or in the classroom, unmatched support is just a click away with MindTap for PHILOSOPHY: A TEXT WITH READINGS, a powerful course resource system.

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  Politics and Beauty in America: The Liberal Aesthetics of P.T. Barnum, John Muir, and Harley Earl

  Timothy J. Lukes

  This book holds classical liberalism responsible for an American concept of beauty that centers upon women, wilderness, and machines. For each of the three beauty components, a cultural entrepreneur supremely sensitive to liberalism’s survival agenda is introduced. P.T. Barnum’s exhibition of Jenny Lind is a masterful combination of female elegance and female potency in the subsistence realm. John Muir’s Yosemite Valley is surely exquisite, but only after a rigorous liberal education prepares for its experience. And Harley Earl’s 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air is a dreamy expressionist sculpture, but with a practical 265 cubic inch V-8 underneath. Not that American beauty has been uniformly pragmatic. The 1950s are reconsidered for having temporarily facilitated a relaxation of the liberal survival priorities, and the creations of painter Jackson Pollock and jazz virtuoso Ornette Coleman are evaluated for their resistance to the pressures of pragmatism. The author concludes with a provocative speculation regarding a future liberal habitat where Emerson’s admonition to attach stars to wagons is rescinded.

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  Romero & Grande: Companions on the Journey

  Ana Maria Pineda

  On May 23, 2015, Pope Francis beatified Salvadoran martyr Archbishop Oscar Romero who was murdered while presiding at Mass in 1980. Three years before his murder, Rutilio Grande, Jesuit priest and friend of the Archbishop, had been murdered for the same offense--speaking up for the poor and vulnerable. Until this book, the stories about these men have grown elusive and vague. Now, Salvadoran native Ana Maria Pineda once again catapults these martyrs into our collective consciences through a story that is both significantly personal and painstakingly researched during multiple trips to her homeland where she discovered surprising facts very "close to home."

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  Service Learning, Information Literacy, and Libraries

  Jennifer Nutefall

  As the number of service learning courses and their requirements increase, it is essential for academic librarians to partner with faculty and administration to include lifelong research skills components. This crucial book provides insights and case studies that will help you do just that.

  Service learning—defined as community service connected to a for-credit college course—is acknowledged to be a high-impact educational practice. It provides students with opportunities to put what they learn in class into action, to engage problem-solving skills, and to reflect on their experiences. Ideally, in service learning, course materials inform student service, and students' service experiences, in turn, inform academic dialogue and comprehension. But where do academic libraries and librarians fit into this process? This is the first book to provide that missing piece, giving librarians practical information and examples of how to contribute to service learning on their campuses. It begins with an overview of librarian involvement in service learning, highlighting connections between service learning and information literacy pedagogy. Case studies focus on specific aspects of service learning that engage information literacy, illustrating ways academic libraries can partner with service learning initiatives. The book concludes with thoughts on assessment and short essays on the future of libraries and service learning.

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  Draws from the 2014 (inaugural) Colloquium on Libraries & Service LearningOffers a unique take on the role of libraries and librarians in the service learning programs that are increasingly popular in higher education as a way to engage active learning Provides information and insights that will be useful to academic librarians who teach and/or have outreach responsibilities, as well as to academic library administrators and LIS facultyShares reflections on the future of service learning

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  Statistics in Plain English (4th edition)

  Tim Urdan

  This introductory textbook provides an inexpensive, brief overview of statistics to help readers gain a better understanding of how statistics work and how to interpret them correctly. Each chapter describes a different statistical technique, ranging from basic concepts like central tendency and describing distributions to more advanced concepts such as t tests, regression, repeated measures ANOVA, and factor analysis. Each chapter begins with a short description of the statistic and when it should be used. This is followed by a more in-depth explanation of how the statistic works. Finally, each chapter ends with an example of the statistic in use, and a sample of how the results of analyses using the statistic might be written up for publication. A glossary of statistical terms and symbols is also included. Using the author’s own data and examples from published research and the popular media, the book is a straightforward and accessible guide to statistics.

  Statistics in Plain English, Fourth Edition is an ideal guide for statistics, research methods, and/or for courses that use statistics taught at the undergraduate or graduate level, or as a reference tool for anyone interested in refreshing their memory about key statistical concepts. The research examples are from psychology, education, and other social and behavioral sciences.

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  Table Talk: Building Democracy One Meal at a Time

  Janet A. Flammang

  Etiquette books insist that we never discuss politics during a meal. In Table Talk, Janet A. Flammang offers a polite rebuttal, presenting vivid firsthand accounts of people's lives at the table to show how mealtimes can teach us the conversational give-and-take foundational to democracy.

  Delving into the ground rules about listening, sharing, and respect that we obey when we break bread, Flammang shows how conversations and table activities represent occasions for developing our civil selves. If there are cultural differences over practices--who should speak, what behavior is acceptable, what topics are off limits, how to resolve conflict--our exposure to the making, enforcement, and breaking of these rules offers a daily dose of political awareness and growth. Political table talk provides a forum to practice the conversational skills upon which civil society depends. It also ignites the feelings of respect, trust, and empathy that undergird the idea of a common good that is fundamental to the democratic process.