The article draws attention to the fact that in accordance with international documents in the detention of prisoners and the provision of places for sleep it is necessary to treat them with respect for human dignity, with the possibility of seclusion in a separate room. Meanwhile, the criminal-executive legislation of Ukraine, the practice of punishment in the form of imprisonment, the spatial structure of correctional colonies do not provide such an opportunity. Since its introduction in 1920, imprisonment only involves collective retention of the convicts first in the barracks, now in the dormitories, that is the material embodiment of the idea of correction of the convicts «in the collective and through the collective.» It is not about any personal space of the convicted person, since placement in dormitories, where the living space is provided in 4 m2, excludes the possibility of solitude neither in the daytime nor at night. Under such conditions, the result of living of prisoners in dormitories due to the large crowding of people in a confined space is a manifestation of anxious-depressive, negative-depressive and negative-hysterical reactions among them. Accommodation in such dormitories causes irreparable harm to the individual, contributing to the development of psychological fatigue, alienation, tension, irritation, anxiety and depression, that leads to neuro-psychological overload, conflicts and breakdowns. Prolonged being of convicts in an aggressive environment of their own without any possibility of seclusion with inevitability leads to psychosomatic changes, that become irreversible after 5–6 years of imprisonment. Thus, the placement of convicts in dormitories acquires signs of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The purpose of the article is to develop proposals aimed at eliminating the shortcomings of imprisonment with serving it in correctional colonies, in order to replace the deprivation of liberty, that involves the residence of prisoners in dormitories, with imprisonment. that provides private space in a separate room for each prisoner. This material allows to submit the following proposals: it is necessary to abandon such a type of punishment as imprisonment introduced in 1920 by the Provisional Instruction of the People's Commissariat of Justice; instead of imprisonment, there should be punishment in the form of imprisonment only for violent crimes against a person; taking into account the negative impact on the health of a person of a prolonged isolation, the maximum term of imprisonment may not be more than five years; the possibility of imprisonment for minors should be ruled out; there is a need to abandon the «ideal zone» and introduce a new for Ukraine architectural model of a prison where there would be no placement of convicts in dormitories, and each prisoner would be provided with a living room of a hotel type that complies with the European prison rules, with sanitary compliance of the hygienic requirements to the living space and the cubic area at least at the level of the nineteenth century, which was in solitary cells of the royal prisons, that is, an area of at least 10 m2 and, accordingly, a cubature not less than 28 м3. ; В этой статье обращается внимание на тот факт, что согласно международным документам при размещении заключенных, предоставлении места для сна, надо относиться к ним с уважением человеческого достоинства с обеспечением возможности уединения в отдельном помещении. Между тем уголовноисполнительное законодательство Украины, практика исполнения наказания в виде лишения свободы, пространственная структура исправительных колоний не предоставляют такую возможность. С момента своего введения в 1920 году лишение свободы предполагает только коллективное содержание осужденных сначала в бараках, теперь в общежитиях, которые являются материальным воплощением идеи исправления осужденных «в коллективе и через коллектив». Ни о каком личном пространстве осужденного речь не идет, поскольку проживание в общежитиях, где жизненное пространство предоставляется в 4 м2, исключает возможность уединения как днем, так и ночью. При таких условиях, результатом проживания осужденных в общежитиях из‑за большой скученности людей в ограниченном пространстве имеет место проявление среди них тревожно-депрессивных, отрицательно-депрессивных и нервно-истерических реакций. Проживание в таких общежитиях причиняет невосполнимый ущерб личности, способствуя развиию психологической усталости, отчуждению, напряжению, раздраженности, тревожности и угнетенности, что приводит к нервно-психическим перегрузкам, конфликтам и срывам. Длительное нахождение осужденных в агрессивной среде себе подобных без возможности уединения с неизбежностью приводит к психосоматическим изменениям, которые через 5–6 лет лишения свободы приобретают необратимый характер. Таким образом, размещение осужденных в общежитиях приобретает признаки жестокого и унижающего достоинство обращения. Целью статьи является разработка предложений, направленных на преодоление недостатков лишения свободы с отбыванием его в исправительных колониях для того, чтобы на смену лишению свободы, предусматривающему проживание осужденных в общежитиях, пришло тюремное заключение, предоставляющее личное пространство в отдельной комнате каждому заключенному. Изложенный материал позволяет дать следующие предложения: необходимо отказаться от введенного еще в 1920 г. Временной инструкцией Наркомъюста такого вида наказания, как лишение свободы; вместо лишения свободы должно быть наказание в виде тюремного заключения лишь за насильственные преступления против личности; с учетом отрицательного влияния на здоровье человека длительной изоляции максимальный срок заключения не может быть более пяти лет; необходимо исключить возможность применения тюремного заключения к несовершеннолетним; возникла необходимость отказаться от «идеальной зоны» и внедрить новую для Украины архитектурную модель тюрьмы, где не будет размещения осужденных в общежитиях, а каждый заключенный будет обеспечен для проживания отдельной комнатой гостиничного типа, что будет соответствовать Европейским тюремным правилам, с соблюдением санитарно-гигиенических требований к жилой площади и кубатуре помещений хотя бы на уровне ХІХ столетия, какой был в одиночных кельях царских тюрем, то есть площадью не менее 10 м2 и соответственно кубатурой не менее 28 м3. ; У статті звертається увага на те, що за міжнародними документами при розміщенні ув'язнених, надання місць для сну, необхідно ставитися до них з повагою людської гідності із забезпеченням можливості усамітнення в окремому приміщенні. Між тим кримінально-виконавче законодавство України, практика виконання покарання у виді позбавлення волі, просторова структура виправних колоній не надають такої можливості. З моменту свого запровадження у 1920 році позбавлення волі передбачає лише колективне утримання засуджених спочатку у бараках, тепер у гуртожитках, що є матеріальним втіленням ідеї виправлення засуджених «в колективі і через колектив». Ні про який особистий простір засудженого не йдеться, оскільки розміщення у гуртожитках, де житлова площа надається у 4 м2, виключає можливість усамітнення як удень, так і вночі. За таких умов результатом проживання засуджених у гуртожитках через велику скупченість людей в обмеженому просторі є прояв серед них тривожно-депресивних, негативно-депресивних і негативно-істеричних реакцій. Проживання в таких гуртожитках завдає непоправної шкоди особистості, сприяючи розвитку психологічної втоми, відчудження, напруження, роздратування, тривожності і пригніченості, що призводить до нервово-психічних перевантажень, конфліктів і зривів. Тривале перебування засуджених в агресивному середовищі собі подібних без можливості усамітнення з неминучістю призводить до психосоматичних змін, які через 5–6 років позбавлення волі набувають незворотного характеру. Таким чином, розміщення засуджених у гуртожитках набуває ознак жорстокого, нелюдського і такого, що принижує гідність поводження. Метою статті є розробка пропозицій, спрямованих на усунення недоліків позбавлення волі з відбуванням його у виправних колоніях, для того, щоб на зміну позбавленню волі, що передбачає проживання засуджених у гуртожитках, прийшло тюремне ув'язнення, яке надає особистий простір в окремій кімнаті для кожного ув'язненого. Викладений матеріал дозволяє надати такі пропозиції: необхідно відмовитися від запровадженого ще у 1920 р. Тимчасовою інструкцією Нарком'юсту такого виду покарання, як позбавлення волі; замість позбавлення волі має бути покарання у виді тюремного ув'язнення лише за насильницькі злочини проти особи; з урахуванням негативного впливу на здоров'я особи, тривалої ізоляції максимальний строк ув'язнення не може бути більше п'яти років; необхідно виключити можливість застосування тюремного ув'язнення до неповнолітніх; настала потреба відмовитись від «ідеальної зони» і запровадити нову для України архітектурну модель в'язниці, де не буде розміщення засуджених у гуртожитках, а кожний ув'язнений буде забезпечений для проживання окремою кімнатою готельного типу, що відповідатиме Європейським тюремним правилам, з дотриманням санітарно-гігієнічних вимог до житлової площі і кубатури приміщеннях хоча б на рівні ХІХ ст., який був в одиночних келіях царських тюрем, тобто площею не менше 10 м2 і відповідно кубатурою не менше 28 м3.
Cholera is a contagious diarrhoeal disease affecting only human, caused by Vibrio cholerae, a gram-negative bacillus. The disease results in profuse watery diarrhoea sometimes accompanied by vomiting, occurring after a few hours or a few days after the ingestion of food or water soiled by V. cholerae. In the environment, Vibrio cholerae is found in brackish water of estuarine zones where it colonizes the surface of algae and copepods, persisting in the absence of men for prolonged periods of time. So is the situation in the estuarine zones of South-East Asia such as the Bay of Bengal where the disease is known since the highest antiquity. After having been relatively spared by the first six pandemics, continental Africa was stroke in 1970 by the spread of the 7th pandemic of cholera. Since this date, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 90 % of the cases of cholera were reported by Sub-Saharan African countries. Among them, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is one of the most affected countries. In DRC, from 2000 to 2008, 208,875 cases and 7,335 deaths (case fatality rate: 3.51 %) of cholera were reported to WHO, that is to say about 15 % of the cases and 20 % of the deaths observed worldwide during the same period. These cholera cases were mostly notified in the provinces of the East of the DRC, next to the African Great Lakes area. After more than 30 years of fight against cholera in DRC, an epidemiological study of the dynamics of cholera was set up in this country in order to better understand the epidemic factors of recurrence and to perform adjustments for the operational approaches. The main results of this research work have highlighted that less than 10 % of the health zones, all bordering lakes located in the East of the DRC, play the role of sanctuary zones for cholera. These results have also highlighted the seasonal variations of cholera, with fewer cases during the dry season, and the specific role of the fishermen populations, tradesmen and traditional minors in the restarts and diffusion of cholera epidemics. It was also shown that the cholera is not endemic all over of the East of the DRC. Overall, functioning of cholera in this area of Africa is mostly unstable, with epidemic flare-ups followed by relatively prolonged phases of extinction; this behaviour of cholera and its epidemic flare-ups is therefore characterized by a metastable state. However, it was also shown that some areas, namely Kalemie and Goma areas, functioning until there on a metastable mode have now changed for some years for an endemic mode. On the basis of these results, the implementation of a project of fight against cholera was recommended which aims to eliminate this disease from the whole DRC. This plan will concentrate the fight on the seven identified sanctuaries zones, giving priority to drinking water supply among the ranges of existing means of fight. The first actions implemented on the pilot site of Kalemie have yet modified the dynamics of cholera in this area. Indeed during the phase of intensification of the water supply activities in Kalemie the number of suspected cholera cases dramatically decreased while microbiological tests showed that the few remaining diarrhoeas cases were due to bacteria other than Vibrio cholerae. The epidemiology of cholera, as we observed it in the African Great Lakes area is different from the one described in South-East Asia estuarine zone. Even if several questions remain unsolved, such as the role of the lakes as a reservoir of V. cholera strains, -18- the results of this work open a new hope on the revival of the fight against this neglected disease. ; Le choléra est une maladie diarrhéique contagieuse strictement humaine, causée par Vibrio cholerae, un bacille gram négatif. La maladie se traduit par une diarrhée acqueuse profuse parfois accompagnée de vomissements survenant quelques heures à quelques jours après l'ingestion d'eau ou d'aliments souillés par V. cholerae. Dans l'environnement, V. cholerae est retrouvé dans les eaux saumâtres des zones d'estuaire où il colonise la surface de certaines algues et de copépodes, pouvant ainsi persister en l'absence de l'homme pendant des périodes de temps prolongées. C'est le cas dans les zones estuariennes d'Asie du Sud-Est telle que la région du golfe du Bengale, où la maladie est connue depuis la plus haute antiquité. Après avoir été relativement épargnée par les six premières pandémies, l'Afrique continentale a été frappée par la 7ème pandémie en 1970. Depuis cette date, selon l'Organisation Mondiale de la Santé (OMS), plus de 90 % des cas de choléra sont rapportés par l'Afrique sub-saharienne. La République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) fait partie des pays les plus touchés. En RDC, de 2000 à 2008, 208 875 cas et 7 335 décès (létalité de 3,51%) dus au choléra ont été notifiés à l'OMS, soit 15 % des cas et 20 % des décès rapportés dans le monde pour la même période. Ces cas de choléra touchent essentiellement les provinces de l'est de la RDC, situées dans la région des grands lacs. Après plus de trente ans de lutte contre le choléra en RDC, une étude épidémiologique de la dynamique du choléra a été initiée dans ce pays dans le but de comprendre les facteurs de récurrence épidémique et de proposer des ajustements sur les approches opérationnelles. Les principaux résultats de ce travail de recherche ont permis de mettre en évidence qu'à peine 10 % des zones de santé, toutes situées à proximité des lacs de l'est de la RDC, jouent le rôle de zones sanctuaires pour le choléra. Ces résultats ont également permis de mettre en évidence la saisonnalité du choléra, avec moins de cas en saison sèche, et le rôle spécifique des populations de pêcheurs, de commerçants et de mineurs artisanaux dans l'émergence et la diffusion des épidémies de choléra. Il a également été démontré que le choléra n'est pas endémique dans toutes les régions de l'est de la RDC. Le fonctionnement du choléra dans cette région d'Afrique est globalement instable avec des flambées épidémiques suivies de phases d'extinction relativement prolongées, les flambées épidémiques se produisant selon un mode métastable lorsqu'on considère l'Est de la RDC dans son ensemble. Cependant, il a aussi été montré que certains foyers fonctionnant jusque-là sur un mode métastable sont, depuis quelques années, passés à un fonctionnement endémique. C'est le cas des foyers de Kalemie et de Goma. Sur la base de ces résultats, il a été recommandé la mise en place d'un projet de lutte contre le choléra avec pour objectif d'éliminer cette maladie de l'ensemble de la RDC. Ce plan vise à concentrer les efforts de lutte sur les sept foyers sanctuaires identifiés en privilégiant les apports en eau potable parmi l'éventail des moyens de lutte existant. Lorsque les premières actions ont été mises en oeuvre sur le site pilote de Kalemie, nous avons constaté une diminution importante de l'incidence du choléra, tandis que les examens microbiologiques ont confirmé que les quelques cas de diarrhée encore rapportés à Kalemie n'étaient plus dus à V. cholerae mais à d'autres bactéries. L'épidémiologie du choléra telle que nous l'observons dans la région des Grands Lacs africains est différente de celle décrite en zone estuarienne d'Asie du Sud-Est. Même si plusieurs questionnements subsistent concernant les modes de persistance du choléra dans les zones lacustres ou la pérennité du V. cholerae dans les eaux des lacs, les résultats de ce travail sont porteurs d'un nouvel espoir pour la relance de la lutte contre cette maladie négligée.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - Iowa was a tobacco control leader in the 19th Century. In 1897 the General Assembly completely prohibited the use, sale, and possession of tobacco products in the state. When the law was repealed in 1921, the General Assembly enacted strong measures to prevent tobacco use by minors. In 1921 Iowa passed the first state cigarette excise tax (2 cents). - Tobacco control reemerged in the 1970s, however a coalition of health groups were consistently outmaneuvered by tobacco industry lobbyists. - In 1990 health groups attempted to strengthen Iowa's Clean Indoor Air Act (passed in 1987), however the tobacco industry, represented primarily by Charles Wasker, co-opted the bill, stripping meaningful tobacco control provisions and using it to include ambiguous language to preempt localities from passing clean indoor air laws, which chilled local clean indoor air action for a decade. - In 1993 the voluntary health organizations founded Tobacco Free Iowa (TFI), a dedicated statewide tobacco control coalition to advocate for tobacco control policy change. In 1995 TFI hired Serge Garrison, a former R.J. Reynolds (RJR) lobbyist, to lobby to repeal clean indoor air preemption. Garrison, who helped draft the preemption clause when working for RJR, questioned whether Iowa's ambiguously worded clause actually preempted local clean indoor air action. - Iowa, represented by Attorney General Tom Miller (D), was a party in the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. Miller and the Iowa Attorney General's Office, have been strong allies to tobacco control in Iowa. - After the MSA, in 2000, Iowa created the Division of Tobacco Use Prevention and Control within the Iowa Department of Public Health to implement a state tobacco control program funded with MSA revenue. - In 2001 the General Assembly passed legislation to securitize the MSA revenue stream to receive an upfront lump sum in lieu of most future MSA payments. Politicians framed MSA securitization as a way to create stable funding for health programs, including tobacco, but the vast majority of the money went to infrastructure projects. - The Health Iowans Tobacco Trust created through securitization to fund tobacco and other health programs was continually raided by the General Assembly from 2001 to 2008, and zeroed out in 2009. - The Iowa Tobacco Division has never been funded at or near the CDC recommended best practices for tobacco control and tobacco control advocates have not mobilized enough political pressure to demand and protect funding for the Tobacco Division. - From 1998 to 2008, $44,577 in campaign contributions were given to Iowa legislative candidates and party committees by five tobacco companies: Altria/Philip Morris, Farner-Bocken (an Iowa-based distributor), Myers-Cox Company (an Iowa-based distributor),R.J. Reynolds, and US Smokeless Tobacco. - Tobacco industry contributions spiked in 2000 when the Iowa General Assembly was considering legislation to create the Iowa Tobacco Division and deciding the use of their MSA payments. Contributions dropped in 2004 after the General Assembly mandated that the Tobacco Division have a youth focus (a pro-industry position) and securitized most of their MSA revenue. In 2004, industry contributions jumped back up (and steadily increased though 2008) concurrent with an increase in the introduction of tobacco control initiatives (which were repeatedly killed until 2007). - The tobacco industry focused contributions on legislative leaders. Rep. Christopher Rants(R-Woodbury) former Iowa House Majority Leader (1999-2003) and Speaker of the House (2003-2006) received the most industry money from 1998-2008 ($7,397). Rants was a key player in killing tobacco tax and local control bills throughout the 2000s. Representative Jamie Van Fossen (R- Scott) who served as the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee received the second greatest amount ($6,050), followed by Sen. Stewart Iverson, Jr. (R-Wright), Senate Majority Leader from 1997-2006 ($2,220). - From 1998 to 2008, tobacco industry contributions to Republican candidates and the Republican party ($27,947) far outweighed contributions to their Democratic counterparts($15,130). From 1998 to 2007, Republicans controlled both houses (except in 2006 when the Senate was tied). - Republican legislators were significantly more pro-tobacco than Democrats. - Legislators who accepted campaign contributions from the tobacco industry were significantly more pro-tobacco than those who did not, controlling for party. - The tobacco industry maintains a significant lobbying presence, between 2003 and 2008 the tobacco industry reported $667,875 in lobbying expenditures in Iowa. - After an inquiry prompted by Serge Garrison in the late 1990s, Attorney General Tom Miller (D) issued an opinion in November 2000 stating that state law did not preempt local clean indoor air ordinances. - From 1999 to 2003 there was a tide of local clean indoor air action. In March 2002, Ames passed Iowa's first clean indoor air ordinance. Ames' ordinance included a tobacco industry inspired "hours" provision that allowed smoking after 8:30pm, advocated for by hospitality interests, making the ordinance weak. Its passage created momentum for other localities to pass clean indoor air measures. - In January 2002, Iowa City passed Iowa's first 100% smokefree restaurant ordinance. Other localities, aided by the Iowa Attorney General's Office and TFI, began considering ordinances and enactment of voluntary clean indoor air policies. - Local clean indoor air progress was blocked in 2003, after a group of Ames business owners, funded by Philip Morris, challenged the Ames ordinance in court. In May 2003, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the 1990 Clean Indoor Air Act was preemptive. - In 2003, TFI collapsed, leaving Iowa without a functioning tobacco control coalition until 2006. In 2003 some advocates reorganized to create CAFE Iowa and CAFE Iowa CAN, primarily to repeal preemption. - Beginning in 2005, under the direction of Iowa Tobacco Division Director Bonnie Mapes, Iowa advocates reorganized and created a strategic plan. In 2006 the Iowa Tobacco Prevention Alliance was created to assume the role of Iowa's statewide tobacco control coalition. - The combination Democrats taking control of the legislature in 2007 and the reorganization of tobacco control advocates in 2006 led to substantial tobacco control policy changes. - In 2007 the Iowa General Assembly passed a $1 increase in the cigarette tax, the first increase in 16 years. - In 2008 the General Assembly passed the strong Iowa Smokefree Air Act that extended smokefree environments to 99 percent of Iowa employees and repealed preemption. - Following the 2007 tax increase, adult smoking rates in Iowa fell from 18 to 14% in two years (2006 to 2008). - Youth smoking rates increased from 2004 to 2006 following a substantial cut in allocations to the Tobacco Division in 2002, leading to a substantial decrease in expenditures for Just Eliminate Lies, Iowa's youth counter-marketing campaign. - Tobacco control advocates must make securing and maintain adequate funding for Iowa's Tobacco Division a top priority. The CDC recommends that tobacco control programs in Iowa be funded at $36.7 million per year. In FY 2009, the Tobacco Division received only $11.0 million, less than a third of the CDC recommended level. An increase in funding is particularly important because of the increase in youth smoking rates since JEL's 2002 funding cut. - Given the Tobacco Division's limited budget and the increasing levels of youth and young adult smoking, the Tobacco Division should focus less on funding individual level cessation services (other than the Quitline, which is a public health intervention) and instead increase its emphasis on media and community-based programs that are more cost effective public health interventions to reduce tobacco use. - Advocates should work to require health insurance to provide cessation services through the medical services budget, not public health. - Advocates need to expand their base beyond major cities to rural areas of Iowa to broaden the base of support for smokefree environments and expand the political base to maintain and expand funding for tobacco control efforts.
Aunque el reconocimiento de los derechos de los pacientes a decidir sobre su salud se inicia en la década de los 70 del siglo pasado, el respeto a la capacidad del menor de decidir en el ámbito sanitario no se hace realidad en España hasta el año 2002, con la promulgación de la Ley 41/2002, de 14 de noviembre, básica reguladora de la autonomía del paciente y de derechos y obligaciones en materia de información y documentación clínica. En ella, se regula el derecho del menor a recibir información, a escuchar su opinión, y a decidir ante cualquier procedimiento diagnóstico o terapéutico a que vaya a ser sometido, responsabilizando al profesional sanitario en muchas situaciones, fundamentalmente el médico, de establecer en qué situaciones el derecho a recibir información o a decidir por parte del menor ha de ser respetado o no. Esta innovación legislativa no se ha acompañado ni de una mayor tranquilidad en el quehacer diario de los profesionales sanitarios, planteándose dudas sobre derechos y deberes, tanto de los propios menores como de sus padres o tutores, ni de un mayor respeto a los derechos del menor, no manejándose siempre con claridad conceptos tales como la confidencialidad, el consentimiento informado y la capacidad de toma de decisiones sanitarias. Así surgen dudas como: ¿Son los menores de edad titulares del derecho a la información?, comprenden la información que les proporcionamos?, ¿son titulares en lo que respecta al consentimiento informado?, ¿el profesional sanitario debe informar a todo menor?, ¿debe contar su opinión?, ¿puede decidir libremente?, ¿cuándo se ha de acudir a los padres o tutores?, ¿puede negarse a recibir un determinado tratamiento médico?. No es posible decidir sin comprender la información y sin tener la suficiente capacidad para ello, de modo que el facultativo deberá asegurarse de que el menor ha recibido toda la información necesaria de modo adecuado y que es maduro para tomar una decisión. El menor, ante todo, debe ser capaz de comprender la información que sustenta la decisión a tomar. En esta investigación hemos realizado un análisis detallado del proceso de información sanitaria y toma de decisiones en el menor de edad, en base a las opiniones tanto de los menores como de sus padres. Con respecto al adolescente, tratamos de conocer la mayoría de edad sanitaria, basándonos en la capacidad de comprensión de la información proporcionada por el médico, de los pros y los contras de la enfermedad y su intervención. Así mismo es nuestro objetivo determinar el grado de información recibida, y si esta información fue expuesta de una forma comprensible y adecuada a la edad del paciente. Analizamos el cumplimiento del derecho a ser oído y a decidir sobre su salud, su opinión acerca de su propia capacidad, y evaluar el grado de conocimiento de la legislación vigente. Con respecto a los padres intentamos determinar su grado de comprensión de la información proporcionada por el médico y el nivel de conocimiento de la legislación vigente. Tratamos de profundizar en la opinión sobre la mayoría médica de su hijo/a, aprovechar su experiencia como padres para obtener una aproximación a su idea de mayoría sanitaria general, y obtener una valoración de la participación del menor en la toma de decisiones. Para ello se ha realizado un estudio observacional descriptivo, en pacientes mayores de 12 años y menores de 18 años de edad que fueron sometidos a una intervención quirúrgica en el Servicio de Otorrinolaringología del Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Cartagena y en el Servicio de Cirugía Maxilofacial del Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Arrixaca de Murcia, acompañados de sus padres o representantes legales. Se han diseñado dos cuestionarios independientes, el primero dirigido a uno de los padres del menor en cuestión y el segundo al menor de edad. Como conclusión nos encontramos ante un entorno de gran complejidad que no debe ceñirse a binomio madurez-inmadurez. En este sentido, el proceso deliberativo de la relación clínica, en el que participa el profesional sanitario junto al menor, y el progenitor siempre que el menor lo permita, es trascendental para evaluar el nivel de capacidad del menor en el proceso de toma de decisiones. Todo ello abandonando posiciones paternalistas tradicionales. Palabras clave: menor de edad, toma de decisiones sanitarias, consentimiento informado. SUMMARY Although the recognition of the rights of patients to decide about their health started in the 70s, respect for the child's ability to decide on the health sector in Spain was not actually implemented until 2002, with the enactment of Law 41/2002, of 14 November, regulating patient autonomy and rights and obligations regarding clinical information and documentation. In this law is regulated the child's right to be informed, to listen to their opinion, and the right to decide before any diagnostic or therapeutic procedure that performed, establishing also that the healthcare professional in most situations (usually the doctor), has to determine in what situations the minors right to receive information or to decide by themselves must be respected or not. This legislative innovation has not produce an easier and safer the daily work decision making for health professionals, raising questions about the rights and duties of both the children themselves and their parents or guardians. It has not created a greater respect for children's rights because is does not always express clearly concepts such as confidentiality, informed consent and the ability of healthcare decision making. This has created questions to arise like: do those under age entitled to the right to information?, do they comprehend the information we provide them?, are they entitled of the right to sign the informed consent ?, should the clinician inform every child ?, Should the clinician always listen to their opinion ?, can they freely decide ?, when should it be indicated to go to the parents or guardians ?, are they entitled to refuse to receive certain medical treatment? . You are not free to decide without understanding the information and without sufficient capacity to do so, the physician must ensure that the child has received all the necessary information adequately and that is mature enough to make a decision. Most importantly the minor should be able to understand the information supporting the decision to take. In this research we have conducted a detailed analysis of the process of informed consent and decision-making in the minor, based on the views of both children and their parents. Regarding teenagers, we have tried to find the age of capacity based on the ability to understand the information provided by the physician, the pros and cons of the disease and its intervention. We also tried to determine the degree of information received by them, and whether this information was exposed in an understandable and appropriate way for the patient's age. We have analyze the fulfilment of the right to be heard and decide about their health, their own opinion about their own ability to decided, and tried to assess their level of knowledge of the law. With regard to parents we tried to determine their understanding of the information provided by the doctor and the level of knowledge of the law. We also tried to deepen into their opinion on the capacity of their son / daughter, and use their experience as parents to obtain an approximation to their opinion of which should be the age of capacity, and obtain an assessment of the child's participation in decision making. To do so we performed an observational descriptive study, in patients older than 12 and younger than 18 years who underwent surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University Hospital of Cartagena and the Maxillofacial Surgery Department in the University Hospital Virgen de la Arrixaca of Murcia, accompanied by their parents or legal guardians. We have designed two separate questionnaires, one directed to obtain information from one of the parents of the child and the second for minor in question. In conclusionIn conclusion we have a highly complex work environment so we shouldn't just stick to the binomial maturity-immaturity. In this sense, the deliberative process of creating a clinical relationship, in which the participation of the health professional and the minor is crucial, and the inclusion of the parent provided the acceptance of the minor, will be essential to be able to assess the skill level of the child in the process of decision making . We should leve behind all traditional paternalistic positions used in the past. Key Words: minor, informed consent, and healthcare decision making.
International audience ; The Jews of Algeria, who had been full French citizens since the « Crémieux decree » of October 24, 1870, were brutally relegated to the condition of simple "French subjects" by the Vichy regime's law of October 7, 1940 which repealed the decree which had originally collectively awarded them full citizenship. The Jews who were natives of the three districts of Algeria (the « departments » of Algiers, Oran and Constantine) remained French subjects whose civil rights, and effective and personal statuses remained dependent on French law But stripped of their French citizenship, their political rights were aligned on the lower status of Algerian Muslim natives. Those who resided in metropolitan France in 1940 were moreover victims of German decrees of exclusion in the directly German-administered areas of northern France, and of Vichy edicts in both the north and south of the country, aimed at excluding Jews from the national community. The measures of anti-Jewish legislation included a specific census of Jews, the special marking of their identity and rationing documents economic spoliation, the compulsory wearing of yellow stars, arrests, round-ups and internment. It is thus that Algerian Jews who had resided in metropolitan France for years, and sometimes for decades, or were simply caught up passing through there at the time, were among the six million Jews killed during the Shoah.According the historian Serge Klarsfeld, nearly 76,000 Jews then in France were deported, mostly to Auschwitz death camp. Only 3,860 survived. One should add that a further 3,000 Jews died in internment camps in France itself. Among these 80,000 victims, S. Klarsfeld estimated that there were 24,500 French Jews or French Jewish subjects, the rest being of other nationalities. Among the 24,500, there were about 1,500 natives of Algeria. Ever since the very first deportation convoy of March 27, 1942, French Jews and immigrants of other nationalities found themselves side-by-side in the same railway carriages. Among the internment records opened in their names in the "Fichiers juif" (listings of Jews), or on the lists of deportees, French Jews appear as "French subjects" (SF) or "Of French origin" (FO), or sometimes, as "French protégés." In Marseilles, many Jews were arrested during « Aktion Tiger », the code name given to the round-up carried out in the "old harbor" area of the city in January 1943. These Jews made up a majority (780 among 994 deportees) of the deportees sent by convoy number 52 to Sobibor death camp on March 23, 1943. Some 571 of these deportees held one of the multiple forms of legal attachment to French nationality: They were either born French or had opted to become French, or were French by marriage, or were naturalized or declared French, or were French protégés or French subjects. Some 212 of them, including 198 who were resident of, or refugees in, Marseille, were originally from Algeria. There were no survivors from this convoy.The total number of Jews deported who were from the Constantine district, ie the subject of this study, was 218 including 139 men, 58 women and 21 minors aged under 18 including some very young children. The highest number of deportees (86) was from the city of Constantine itself; 45 men, 30 women and 11 children. Just 13 survived. The number from other cities in the Constantine district were 30 from the city of Bône, 17 from Bougie, 12 from Sétif and 11 each from the towns of Aïn Beïda and Guelma. There were ten deportees each from the cities of Batna and Philippeville. Many individual records from the "listings of Jews" kept by the French National Archives at the Paris Shoah Memorial show that in a way, the victims sought to resist their fate: One sometimes reads "CA" (Married to an Aryan), "half-Jews," "says he (or she) is not Jewish", (Christian) "Orthodox", "Copt," "Muslim," "Ward of the Nation" or even "Spanish subject". All these self-descriptions concerning other nationalities or religions were aimed at avoiding deportation. Right to the end, the Jews of Constantine, of Algeria and of elsewhere did all they could, alas often without success, to defeat the exterminating logic of the Third Reich which was largely helped by the zealous leaders of the French (Vichy) state. Alas, only very few of the individual records carry at the top of them the word: "Escaped." ; Citoyens français depuis près d'un siècle, en vertu du décret Crémieux du 24 octobre 1870, les Juifs d'Algérie, où qu'ils vivent, se voient brutalement relégués à la condition de simples « sujets français » par la loi du 7 octobre 1940 qui abroge le décret de naturalisation collective. Les Juifs indigènes des trois départements restent des sujets français dont les droits civils, le statut réel ainsi que le statut personnel demeurent réglés par la loi française. Mais, déchus de leur citoyenneté française, leurs droits politiques sont désormais alignés sur ceux des indigènes musulmans algériens. Ceux d'entre eux qui vivent en France métropolitaine en 1940 ont, au surplus, été victimes, des mesures d'exclusion allemandes (en zone nord) et vichyssoises (dans les deux zones) visant à éliminer les Juifs de la communauté nationale : législation antijuive, recensement, marquage des papiers d'identité et d'alimentation, exclusions professionnelles, spoliation économique, port de l'étoile jaune, arrestations, rafles et internement. C'est ainsi qu'établis en France depuis plusieurs années, voire des décennies, ou simplement de passage, des Juifs d'Algérie s'inscrivent parmi les six millions de morts de la Shoah.Suivant les recherches entreprises par l'historien Serge Klarsfeld, près de 76 000 Juifs de France furent déportés, la plupart vers Auschwitz ; seuls 3 860 d'entre eux environ survécurent. Il faut y ajouter quelque 3 000 Juifs qui moururent dans les camps d'internement en France. Sur ces 80 000 victimes au total, S. Klarsfeld dénombre environ 24 500 Juifs français ou sujets français, dont environ 1 500 natifs d'Algérie. Dès le premier convoi de déportation, le 27 mars 1942, des Juifs français et immigrés se sont côtoyés dans les mêmes wagons. Sur les fiches d'internement établies à leurs noms dans les « Fichiers juifs » ou encore sur les listes de déportation, ils figurent comme « sujets français » (SF), « Français d'origine » (FO) ou parfois, « protégés français ». À Marseille, de nombreux Juifs sont arrêtés au cours de l'« Aktion Tiger », nom de code donné à la rafle du Vieux-Port de la fin janvier 1943. Ils constituent la grande majorité des déportés du convoi n° 52 parti le 23 mars 1943 vers le camp de Sobibór (780 sur 994). La plupart des déportés, soit 571, possédaient l'une des multiples formes juridiques de rattachement à la nationalité française : Français d'origine, Français par option, Français par mariage, Français naturalisé, Français par déclaration, protégé français, ou encore sujet français. 212 d'entre eux étaient natifs d'Algérie, dont 198 domiciliés ou réfugiés à Marseille. Aucun déporté de ce convoi n'est revenu.Le bilan de la déportation des Juifs originaires du Constantinois – objet de cette étude –, se monte à 218 personnes : 139 hommes, 58 femmes et 21 enfants de moins de 18 ans, parmi lesquels de très jeunes enfants. Le nombre de déportés (86) est le plus élevé pour Constantine-même : 45 hommes, 30 femmes et 11 enfants. Seuls 13 d'entre eux survécurent. Suivent les villes de Bône (30 déportés), de Bougie (17 déportés), de Sétif (12 déportés) puis les deux localités d'Aïn Beïda et de Guelma, avec chacune 11 déportés. Les villes de Batna et de Philippeville enregistrent respectivement 10 déportés. Nombreuses sont les fiches des « Fichiers juifs », conservées par les Archives nationales au Mémorial de la Shoah qui témoignent, à leur façon, de leurs tentatives de résistance : on y lit parfois sur leurs en-têtes, des mentions telles que "CA" (conjoint d'aryen), "demi Juif", "se dit non Juif(ve)", "orthodoxe", "copte", "musulman", ou "pupille de la nation", ou encore "citoyen espagnol" – autant de situations, autant de nationalités ou de confessions, censées les épargner de la déportation. Jusqu'au bout, les Juifs de Constantine, d'Algérie et d'ailleurs ont tout fait pour déjouer la logique exterminatrice impulsée par le Troisième Reich à laquelle ont largement collaboré les dirigeants zélés de l'État français, trop souvent, hélas, sans y réussir. Sur peu, trop peu de fiches, figure en en-tête, la mention "évadé".
Dissertação de mestrado em Medicina Legal e Ciências Forenses, apresentada à Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Coimbra. ; Violence against women is a widely spread phenomenon that still persists in actual societies, being currently recognized as a violation of human rights. Most of the times, it occurs within the family (domestic violence) and more specifically, within abusive intimate relationships - intimate partner violence (IPV). Considered as a priority in the political and national setting, many policies have been defined to prevent IPV. IPV is an important cause of women´s health problems, being the most extreme one the victim's homicide. The role of forensic pathology in these cases is crucial, constituting a priority in scientific research. Accordingly, the main objective of this study was to contribute to a better knowledge on fatal IPV in Portugal, concerning a forensic medicine perspective. This first national retrospective autopsy-based and judicial-proved study was based in fatal cases of women due to IPV-related homicide perpetrated by intimate partners and was conducted, based in the statistics of the National Institute of Legal Medicine (which covers 83.4% of the total Portuguese population), between 2005-2007. The main findings of this study were: 1. At least 62 women were killed by current or former men-intimate partners, corresponding to an IPV-related female mortality rate of 0.44 per 100.000 women aged 15 years old or older; 2. Fatal IPV constitutes an important part of forensic autopsies' case load (13%), representing the most common type of women's homicide (61%); 3. The typical Portuguese victim is a young adult woman, employed, killed by a current husband in a long-term relationship, usually with offspring in common and most of the times with a history of previous IPV (79%); 4. The typical Portuguese perpetrator is a man, older than the victim, employed, usually with a history of substances abuse and psychiatric problems, owning a firearm and without criminal records; 5. Most fatal events took place in the summer, during the weekend, in homes shared by the victim and perpetrator and were triggered mostly by a context of separation (39%) or jealousy (32%); 6. Some perpetrators attempted (23%) or committed suicide (24%) afterwards, other multiple victims occur as 2 attempted and 6 consummated homicides and 21% of the events occurred in the presence of minors; 7. Most women were killed by gunshot trauma (45%), especially in the thorax (49%), with multiple fatal injuries (55%) and 57% also presented non-fatal IPV related injuries (including defense wounds in 73%), particularly due to blunt trauma (63%); 8. Only some victims presented positive toxicological exams for alcohol (17%) and abuse drugs (7%) while all DNA samples which were collected in suspected sexual assault cases (15%) were negative; 9. Perpetrators, who did not die, were prosecuted and convicted of murder in 98% of the cases. Despite the absolute number, and also the correspondingly mortality rate of IPV-related homicide of women being low (when compared with published data), the respectively prevalence among women´s homicides is high. Discrepancies among national and international prevalence are mainly explained due to the use of distinct definitions of intimate relationships and different research methodologies. The lack of some information on the victims, perpetrators and results of the criminal investigation, found in this study, obligates to a better search during the forensic medicine approach. Our analysis and those of others suggest that: (a) Detecting timely high-risk IPV situations (which allow DV protective measures to be applied); (b) Preventing alcohol abuse; (c) Improving mental health care services; (d) Controlling access to firearms; and (f) Recognizing previous IPV, should have a positive impact in decreasing and preventing IPV fatal outcomes. This work also emphasizes the need to deepen the research on this issue, adopting standard comparable definitions and eventually to create a national homicide database, with the final aim of preventing both fatal and non-fatal cases IPV-related. ; A violência contra a mulher é um fenómeno universal que ainda persiste nas sociedades actuais, sendo actualmente reconhecido como uma violação dos direitos humanos. Geralmente, este tipo de violência ocorre no contexto familiar, correspondendo a uma situação de violência doméstica, mais especificamente no contexto de relações íntimas abusivas - violência nas relações de intimidade (VRI). Considerada uma prioridade no contexto político nacional e internacional, várias medidas têm vindo a ser implementadas para prevenir a VRI. A VRI é uma importante causa de problemas de saúde nas mulheres sendo a sua consequência mais extrema a morte da vítima por homicídio. Nestes casos, o papel da Patologia Forense é crucial, tornando este tópico uma prioridade em termos de investigação científica. Assim, o principal objectivo deste estudo foi contribuir para um melhor conhecimento sobre a temática dos casos mortais de vítimas de VRI em Portugal, segundo uma perspectiva médico-legal. Trata-se do primeiro estudo nacional e retrospectivo de autópsias médico-legais de mulheres vítimas de homicídio no contexto de uma relação de intimidade, perpetrado por parceiros homens, comprovados judicialmente e com base na casuística do Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal (que abrange 83.4% da população Portuguesa), entre 2005-2007. As principais conclusões deste estudo foram: 1. Pelos menos 62 mulheres foram mortas no seio de uma relação de intimidade (actual ou passada), correspondendo a uma taxa de mortalidade de mulheres por VRI de 0.44 por 100.000 mulheres com idade igual ou superior a 15 anos; 2. Os casos mortais de VRI constituem uma importante fracção de todas as autópsias médico-legais (13%), representando o principal tipo de homicídio nas mulheres (61%); 3. O perfil mais habitual da vítima Portuguesa é o de uma mulher adulta jovem, empregada, numa relação conjugal de longa-duração, geralmente com filhos em comum e maioritariamente, com uma história prévia de VRI (79%); 4. O perfil mais habitual do perpetrador Português é o de um homem mais velho que a vítima, empregado, geralmente com história de abuso de substâncias e problemas psiquiátricos, detentor de arma de fogo e sem registo criminal; 5. A maioria dos eventos fatais ocorreram no Verão, durante o fim de semana, nas casas das próprias vítimas e perpetradores e foram desencadeados num contexto de separação (39%) ou ciúme (32%); 6. Posteriormente, alguns perpetradores tentaram (23%) ou consumaram o suicídio (24%); concomitantemente ocorreram 2 tentativas de homicídio e 6 homicídios consumados; 21% dos eventos foram presenciados por menores; 7. A maioria das mulheres foi morta por arma de fogo (45%), sobretudo no tórax (49%), envolvendo múltiplas lesões (55%) e 57% apresentavam lesões associadas não fatais produzidas por VRI (incluindo 73% com lesões de defesa), especialmente por traumatismo contundente (63%); 8. Apenas algumas mulheres apresentaram exames toxicológicos positivos para álcool (17%) e drogas de abuso (7%) enquanto todas as amostras colhidas de ADN nos casos suspeitos de abuso sexual (15%) foram negativas; 9. Os perpetradores que não morreram antes do julgamento, foram acusados e condenados de homicídio em 98% dos casos. Apesar do número absoluto e da correspondente taxa de mortalidade de mulheres por VRI ser baixa (quando comparada com a literatura publicada), a respectiva prevalência em relação ao total de homicídios de mulheres é alta. As discrepâncias nas prevalências encontradas em estudos nacionais e internacionais podem ser explicadas, sobretudo, pelas distintas definições de relações de intimidade e diferentes metodologias usadas. A informação em falta detectada durante o estudo, sobretudo relacionada com as vítimas, perpetradores e investigação criminal, suscita que se atribua uma maior atenção no que se refere à obtenção de informação circunstancial durante a intervenção médico-legal. A nossa análise e a de outros sugere que a: (a) Detecção atempada de situações de VRI de alto risco (que permitam a oportuna aplicação de medidas de protecção de vitimas); (b) Prevenção de abuso de álcool; (c) Melhoria dos serviços de saúde mental; (d) Acesso controlado a armas de fogo e (f) Reconhecimento de história prévia de VRI, podem ter um impacto positivo na diminuição e prevenção dos casos mortais nas relações de intimidade. Este estudo enfatiza, ainda, a necessidade de uma investigação mais profunda desta problemática, com adopção de definições comparáveis e eventualmente, a criação de uma base de dados nacional de homicídios, com o objectivo final de prevenir ambos as situações de VRI fatal e não fatal.
Introduction New Horizons is a Seattle-based organization focused on meeting the basic needs of homeless young adults ages 18-25 through food, shelter, clothing, health clinics, and social work appointments. To help their clients achieve a sustainable lifestyle, New Horizons addresses the most challenging obstacles including job and house hunting through an innovative apprenticeship program through their café, Street Bean Coffee Roasters. Clients can learn skills transferable to other careers, including barista basics, work experience, and networking. Our project is to help New Horizons find volunteers or employees for their apprenticeship program. In finding volunteers or employees for the café, we are providing professional training and networking opportunities for the apprentices so when the apprenticeship program is completed, the participants have job experience for their resume and connections to assist in their job search. In addition to recruiting staff for the café, we are also building a connection between New Horizons and Seattle Pacific University's (SPU) volunteer groups in hopes of providing more volunteer opportunities and creating a quarterly volunteer event. Background Homelessness is a local and national crisis, disproportionately affecting Black, Native American, Hispanic, and LGBTQ populations (Huffman et al., 2021). According to the National Conference of State Legislators (NSCL, 2022), an estimated 4.2 million youth and young adults experience homelessness each year. Of these, about 700,000 are unaccompanied minors, meaning they are not part of a family or accompanied by a parent or guardian. In Seattle, the homeless population has risen exponentially. According to New Horizons (2018), "The number of unstably housed persons in King County has steadily risen by roughly 20% each year for the past three years"; over 1,500 youth in King County are affected by homelessness. The barriers the homeless youth encounter can be divided into four groups: domestic, health, bureaucratic, and social support (Huffman et al., 2021). Issues identified within these categories include maintaining personal hygiene, inability to find and receive proper medical treatment, education and employment gaps, criminal records, and limited support from potential employers. These issues are multifactorial, overlapping and intersecting on multiple planes, "mutually reinforcing the structures undergirding work and home" (Huffman et al., 2021), creating the 'scaffolded city' phenomenon the homeless population lives within. A survey conducted to analyze the needs insecurity among Florida college students identified extensive support programs as essential to the inclusion of students traditionally excluded by higher education via remediation, transfer, vocational training, and contract education (Nix et al., 2021). New Horizons confronts most of these challenges by providing an abundance of holistic resources for the homeless youths of Seattle. Although there is a lot known about the social inequities that the homeless youth population face, there is not much information regarding sustainable resources to transition off the streets and become included in the socioeconomic world. A quasi-experimental longitudinal study aimed to assess the feasibility of improving socioeconomic inclusion outcomes by supporting identity capital in youths who struggled to shake the identity of homelessness (Thulien et al., 2021). Identity capital includes fostering hope, focusing on personal strengths, and improving self-esteem. Most notably, many participants expressed gratitude for the normalization of strategies and skills they learned, framing them as something one needs (Thulien et al., 2021). These findings suggest that targeting identity capital is feasible and may be a promising approach to incorporate into a more complex intervention that includes housing, education, and employment resources to help youth transition out of homelessness. New Horizons offers an apprenticeship program through Street Bean Coffee that gives a chance to gain work experience and skills, but also provides networking opportunities and higher chances of long-term employment. Activities with Rationale To support the community of New Horizons our group has developed flyers with QR codes and other deliverables to help find adequate staffing, volunteers, and providing supplies. The QR codes itself has direct links to their amazon wish list, donation needs, volunteer page, street bean coffee roaster barista position. With these codes people can access their website to not just look for a job position but it provides awareness to a community in need of support. We also were able to connect New Horizons with SPU's volunteer programs Latreia an Urban Involvement. Our group provided resources and points of contact to the coordinator of these SPU volunteer programs in hopes the relationship between New Horizons and SPU would strengthen. This connection allows for there to be volunteer events to better assist and help serve the community. Outcomes We had short term goals of providing for the population of New Horizons through creation of resources so that they can utilize them to cater to their needs and New Horizons will receive student volunteers from Latreia before March 9th 2022. Our long-term goals were to have the homeless youth population located around New Horizons gain more knowledge regarding resources that are available to them, such as job opportunities via Street Bean Coffee Roasters within 3 months and have New Horizons obtain a consistent flow of volunteers and resources via collaboration with SPU's Urban Involvement, quarterly. These short term goals were both met while the long term goals are still in progress. Evaluation The utilization of mixed methods, both qualitative and quantitative data, proves to help evaluate the success of our interventions more efficiently (Abilgaard et al., 2016). The qualitative data analyzed was whether the barista position was filled and whether SPU's volunteer programs formed a connection with New Horizons. After the initiation of our interventions, there was the removal of the job application on New Horizons website, the barista position filled, and Latreia partnering with New Horizons where a group of SPU volunteers painting their garage to be used as a blank canvas for young adults to do graffiti artwork. These outcomes display evidence of an effective relationship between SPU's volunteering programs and New Horizons and our goals being met. The quantitative data analyzed was the number of people that attended the Latreia event and how many people scanned the flyer QR codes. Ten volunteers attended the event compared to their average range of 10-15 people that regularly attend their events. Data collected from the QR code tracking website suggested that 34 people scanned the QR code for the barista position, 28 people scanned the QR code for New Horizon's Amazon wish list, and 27 people scanned the QR code for the volunteering page. These evaluations proved that the SPU community interacted with the flyers and were successful in bringing attention to New Horizons' needs. Conclusion To help New Horizons and the community they serve we were able to help them form long term relationships that will continue on when we leave. By creating this relationship with SPU volunteer programs and access to a new barista, New Horizons can better serve the population of homeless youth through job training and acts of service. With the aid of our interventions bringing awareness to New Horizons by various means, we were able to engage with their culture to help change their world. Limitations of Research There are limitations to our project and research. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a limited amount of recent national and local research and statistics available to analyze and collect around homelessness (NSCL, 2022). Due to social distancing and isolation precautions, surveys and data collection cannot be completed or are very limited (NSCL, 2022). The small sample size or cross-sectional instead of longitudinal methods can limit a study. Diversity in age groups and selected sample size may not represent the total population (Thulien et al., 2021). Different geographic locations or urban vs rural areas may affect the availability of resources, programs, or tactics utilized based on the prevalence of the homeless population. In Nix et al. (2021), the inadequacy of faculty and staff training was evident in varied faculty and staff awareness of basic need opportunities. For future interview-based studies such as Huffman et al. (2021), training young adults who have experience being homeless to conduct the interviews may mediate socioeconomic differences between interviewers and interviewees, allowing for more fully open reflection, trust, and nuanced interpretation. Shared experiences between the interviewers and interviewees may also demonstrate effectiveness of apprenticeship programs for homeless youths while providing a supportive role model who has transitioned from their homeless identity into a successfully employed individual with professional networking connections. References Abildgaard, J., Saksvik, P., & Nielsen, K. (2016). How to measure the intervention process: An assessment of qualitative and quantitative approaches to data collection in the process evaluation of organizational interventions. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 1380. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01380 Huffman, T., Leier, C., Generous. M., Hinrichs, M., & Brenneman, L. (2021). Climbing the 'scaffolded city': Tactics used by homeless young adults to navigate employment barriers. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 49(2), 148-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2020.1839119 National Conference of State Legislatures. (2022). Youth homelessness overview. National Conference of State Legislatures. https://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/homeless-and-runaway-youth.aspx New Horizons. (2018). About: Youth homelessness. New Horizons. https://nhmin.org/youth-homelessness-seattle/ Nix, A., Bertrand Jones, T., Daniels, H., Hu, P., & Hu, S. (2021). "There's so much that we're doing": How Florida college system institutions address basic needs insecurity among students. Community College Review, 1, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/00915521211047674 Thulien, N., Wang, A., Mathewson, C., Wang, R., & Hwang, S. (2021). Tackling exclusion: A pilot mixed method quasi-experimental identity capital intervention for young people exiting homelessness. PLoS ONE, 16(8), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256288
The main focus of this thesis is the evaluation of crowdsourcing techniques to measure personalization on the Web. Overall, I apply my methodology in four different aspects on the Web. (1) First, I investigate price discrimination and how personal data can influence online pricing. (2) Then, I turn my attention on targeted web advertisements and investigate how targeted ads can be detected in real-time. (3) Next, I focus on web tracking and develop a methodology to measure the levels of compliance as defined by the new European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with respect to the physical location of the tracking servers. (4) Finally, I measure the extent of web tracking on sensitive topic websites as defined by the new EU GDPR regulation. Towards that end, I develop a methodology to identify specialized trackers that operate exclusively on such websites. (1) For the first aspect, related to price discrimination, I present the design, im- plementation, validation, and deployment of the Price $heriff, a highly distributed system for detecting various types of online price discrimination in e-commerce. The Price $heriff uses a peer-to-peer architecture, sandboxing, and secure multiparty com- putation to allow users to tunnel price check requests through the browsers of other peers without tainting their local or server-side browsing history and state. Having operated the Price $heriff for several months, with approximately one thousand real users, I identify several instances of cross-border price discrimination based on the country of origin. Even within national borders, I identify several retailers that re- turn different prices for the same product to different users. I examine whether the observed differences are due to personal-data-induced discrimination or A/B Testing, and conclude that it is the latter. (2) The second aspect is related to targeted ads on the Web. In more details, be- ing able to check whether an online advertisement has been targeted is essential for resolving privacy controversies and implementing in practice data protection regula- tions like GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In this work, I describe the design, im- plementation, and deployment of an advertisement auditing system called eyeWnder that uses crowdsourcing to reveal in real-time whether a display advertisement has been targeted or not. Crowdsourcing simplifies targeted advertisement detection but expects users to report back encountered advertisements, thereby incurring privacy risks. I break the deadlock with a privacy preserving data sharing protocol that allows eyeWnder to compute global statistics required to detect targeting, while keeping the advertisements seen by users and their browsing history private. Using a total popu- lation of 100 users I show that eyeWnder permits end users to audit in real-time any advertisement that may appear on their browser, without jeopardizing their privacy. eyeWnder can even detect indirect targeting, i.e., marketing campaigns that promote a product or service whose description bears no semantic overlap with the targeted audience. (3) The third aspect is related to web tracking and the new EU GDPR. Towards that end, I define a tracking flow, as a flow between an end user and a web tracking service. I develop an extensive measurement methodology for quantifying at scale the amount of tracking flows that cross data protection borders, be it national or international, such as the EU28 border within which the GDPR applies. My methodology uses the eyeWnder browser extension to fully render advertising and tracking code, various lists and heuristics to extract well known trackers, passive DNS replication to get all the IP ranges of trackers, and state-of-the art geolocation. I employ my methodology on a dataset from 350 real users of the browser extension over a period of more than four months, and then generalize my results by analyzing billions of web tracking flows from more than 60 million broadband and mobile users from 4 large European ISPs. I show that the majority of tracking flows cross national borders in Europe but, unlike popular belief, are pretty well confined within the larger GDPR jurisdiction. Simple DNS redirection and PoP mirroring can increase national confinement while sealing almost all tracking flows within Europe. Last, I show that cross boarder tracking is prevalent even in sensitive and hence protected data categories and groups including health, sexual orientation, minors, and others. (4) Finally, the last aspect is related to sensitive categories as defined by the GDPR. In this work I turn my attention to the elephant in the room of data protection which is none other than the simple and obvious question "Who is tracking sensitive domains". Despite a fast growing amount of work on more complex facets of the interplay between privacy and the business models of the Web, the obvious question of who collects data on users in domains where they would rather not be seen, has been largely ignored. I develop a methodology for discovering the trackers operating at sensitive domains, both those collaborating directly with publishers, as well as those appearing implicitly through recursive inclusions. I identify several trackers that specialize on specific sensitive categories, such as sexual orientation in adult content websites. I also investigate if there is exchange of information between such specialized trackers and other more mainstream advertisers and marketers. ; Der Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit liegt auf der Evaluation von Crowdsourcing-Verfahren zur Messung von Personalisierung im Web. Wir wenden unsere Methodik auf vier ver- schiedene Aspekte im Internet an. (1) Erstens untersuchen wir Preisdiskriminierung und den Einfluss persönlicher Daten auf Online-Preissetzung. (2) Danach richten wir unsere Aufmerksamkeit auf zielgerichtete Werbung im Web und untersuchen, wie wir diese in Echtzeit erkennen können. (3) Im Anschluss daran legen wir den Schwerpunkt auf "Web Tracking" und entwickeln eine Methodik zur Messung der Einhaltung der Vorgaben der neuen EU Datenschutz-Grundverordnung (DS-GVO). Dies basiert auf der Ermittlung der physischen Standorte jener Server, die ein entsprechendes Tracking durchführen. (4) Zuletzt messen wir das Ausmaß von Web Tracking im Zusammen- hang von Webseiten, die gemäß der DS-GVO als sensibel ("sensitive topic websites") definiert wurden. Hierfür entwickeln wir eine Methodik um spezielle Tracker, die aus- schließlich auf entsprechenden Webseiten aktiv sind, zu identifizieren. (1) Im Rahmen des ersten Aspekts präsentieren wir im Bezug auf Preisdiskrimi- nierung Design, Implementierung, Validierung und Bereitstellung von Price $heriff, einem hochgradig verteilten System zur Erkennung verschiedenster Arten von Online- Preisdiskriminierung im E-Commerce. Das Price $heriff System basiert auf einer Peer- To-Peer Architektur, Sandboxing, und sicherer Mehrparteien-Berechnung. Auf diese Weise werden Nutzern Preisabfragen mittels Tunneln durch die Browser anderer Peers ermöglicht, ohne dass hierdurch deren lokale oder serverseitige Browsing-Verläufe be- einflusst werden. Nach mehrmonatigem Betrieb des Price $heriff Systems mit circa 1000 realen Nutzern stellen wir mehrere Fälle von grenzüberschreitender Preisdiskri- minierung auf der Basis des Ursprungslands fest. Selbst innerhalb nationaler Grenzen identifizieren wir mehrere Händler, die unterschiedlichen Nutzern unterschiedliche Preise für dieselben Produkte angeben. Wir untersuchen zudem, ob die beobachteten Preisunterschiede auf Diskriminierung auf der Basis personenbezogener Daten oder auf A/B Tests zurückzuführen sind. Wir folgern schließlich, dass es sich um Letzteres handelt. (2) Der zweite Aspekt bezieht sich auf gezielte Werbung im Web. Genauer gesagt, die Fähigkeit herauszufinden, ob Online-Werbung zielgerichtet erfolgt. Dies ist un- erlässlich um Kontroversen hinsichtlich der Privatsphäre aufzulösen und auch um Datenschutzregulierungen wie die DS-GVO, den "California Consumer Privacy Act" und den "Children's Online Privacy Protection Act" in der Praxis zu implemen- tieren. In dieser Arbeit beschreiben wir Design, Implementierung und Bereitstellung eines Revisionssystems für Online-Werbung namens "eyeWnder". Dieses System nutzt Crowdsourcing um in Echtzeit herauszufinden ob eine Werbung zielgerichtet ist oder nicht. Crowdsourcing erleichtert die Erkennung zielgerichteter Werbung, beruht je- doch darauf, dass Nutzer Bericht über aufgetretene Werbung erstatten. Hierdurch können Risikenfür die Privatsphäre der Nutzer entstehen. Durch ein Protokoll, das die gemeinsame Datennutzung unter Wahrung der Privatsphäre ermöglicht, finden wir einen Ausweg aus dieser Sackgasse. Das Protokoll erlaubt eyeWnder globale Sta- tistiken zu berechnen, die zur Erkennung von zielgerichteter Werbung notwendig sind, wobei gleichzeitig sichergestellt werden kann, dass die Werbeanzeigen der jeweiligen Nutzer und deren Browsing-Verläufe privat bleiben. Unter Rückgriff auf eine Po- pulation von 100 Nutzern zeigen wir, dass es eyeWnder Endnutzern ermöglicht in Echtzeit jegliche Werbung, die innerhalb ihres Browsers erscheint zu prüfen ohne dass dabei ihre Privatsphäre gefährdet wird. eyeWnder kann darüber hinaus sogar indirekt zielgerichtete Werbung (d.h. Marketingkampagnen, die ein Produkt oder ei- ne Dienstleistung bewerben deren Beschreibung keinerlei semantische Überlappung mit der Zielgruppe aufweist) erkennen. (3) Der dritte Aspekt bezieht sich auf Web Tracking und die neue EU DS-GVO. Hier- für definieren wir einen "Tracking Flow" als einen Flow zwischen einem Endnutzer und einem "Web Tracking" Dienst. Wir entwickeln eine umfangreiche Messmetho- dik um eine große Anzahl solcher "Tracking Flows", die sowohl nationale als auch internationale (z.B. den EU28 Raum innerhalb dessen die DS-GVO Anwendung fin- det) "Datenschutzgrenzen" überschreiten, quantitativ zu erfassen. Unsere Methodik verwendet die eyeWnder Browser-Erweiterung um Werbung und Tracking-Code voll- ständig auszuführen sowie verschiedene Listen und Heuristiken um bekannte Tracker zu identifizieren, passive DNS Replizierungen um alle relevante IP Adressbereiche der Tracker zu ermitteln, sowie neueste Ansätze zur Geolocation. Wir wenden unsere Methodik auf einen Datensatz bestehend aus 350 realen Nutzern der Browsererwei- terung über einen Zeitraum von über vier Monaten an. Wir verallgemeinern dann unsere Resultate durch die Analyse von Milliarden von Web Tracking Flows von mehr als 60 Millionen Breitband- und Mobilfunkkunden von vier großer europäischer ISPs. Wir zeigen, dass der Großteil der Tracking Flows nationale Grenzen in Europa überschreitet; entgegen weit verbreiteter Ansichten sind diese jedoch weitgehend auf den Geltungsbereich der DS-GVO beschränkt. Auf der Basis einfacher DNS Uml- weitungen und PoP Mirroring Mechanismen kann die Beschränkung auf nationale Grenzen erhöht und darüber hinaus fast alle Tracking Flows innerhalb von Europa gehalten werden. Schließlich zeigen wir, dass grenzüberschreitendes Tracking selbst in sensiblen und daher geschützten Datenkategorien und -gruppen wie Gesundheit, sexuelle Orientierung, Minderjährige, etc. vorherrscht. (4) Abschließend bezieht sich der letzte Aspekt auf die durch die DS-GVO als sensibel definierten Kategorien. In dieser Arbeit richten wir unsere Aufmerksamkeit auf die größte Herausforderung des Datenschutzes welche keine geringere ist als die einfa- che und doch offensichtliche Frage "Wer trackt sensible Domains?". Trotz der rasant wachsenden Mengen an Arbeiten zu komplexeren Aspekten des Zusammenspiels zwi- schen Privatsphäre und webbasierten Geschäftsmodellen, wurde die offensichtliche Frage danach, wer Daten über Nutzer in Domains sammelt wo diese lieber nicht ge- sehen werden würden, weitgehend vernachlässigt. Wir entwickeln eine Methodik um Tracker die an sensiblen Domains arbeiten aufzuspüren; sowohl jene die direkt mit den Herausgebern kooperieren als auch jene die implizit durch rekursive Einbeziehung auftauchen. Wir identifizieren mehrere Tracker die auf speziellen Dienstkategorien wie sexuelle Orientierung auf nicht jugendfreien Webseiten spezialisiert sind. Wir unter- suchen zudem, ob es einen Austausch zwischen solchen spezialisierten Trackern und weiteren, eher dem "Mainstream" zuzuordnenden Werbetreibenden und Vermarktern, gibt. ; EC/FP7/607728/EU/Measurement for Europe: Training and Research for Internet Communications Science/METRICS ; EC/H2020/679158/EU/Resolving the Tussle in the Internet: Mapping, Architecture, and Policy Making/ResolutioNet
This article describes the Spanish for Specific Purposes Certificate (SSPC) program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), the first undergraduate certificate at the University, which was established in 2007. The SSPC caters to the professional needs of both traditional, degree-seeking students and non-traditional local professionals. The SSPC coexists with the long-established major and minor programs in Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. The goal of the SSPC is to fulfill the needs of its dynamic, millennial students and of the increasingly diversified community. ; To cite the digital version, add its Reference URL (found by following the link in the header above the digital file). ; SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 62 The Spanish for Specific Purposes Certificate (SSPC) Program: Meeting the Professional Needs of Students and Community Lourdes Sánchez-López University of Alabama at Birmingham Abstract: This article describes the Spanish for Specific Purposes Certificate (SSPC) program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), the first undergraduate certificate at the University, which was established in 2007. The SSPC caters to the professional needs of both traditional, degree-seeking students and non-traditional local professionals. The SSPC coexists with the long-established major and minor programs in Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. The goal of the SSPC is to fulfill the needs of its dynamic, millennial students and of the increasingly diversified community. Keywords: Business Spanish, certificate programs, languages for specific purposes (LSP), medical Spanish, Spanish for occupational purposes, Spanish for specific purposes (SSP), translation and interpretation, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Introduction Society is changing rapidly and drastically. In a world that is no longer round but flat (Friedman, 2005), students prepare for a globalized job market that is open to anyone in the world. This means that the jobs that once were available to only a few, now are available to millions. And, often times, the decisive factor for an employer is the multilinguistic and multicultural qualifications of applicants. Recent studies and their data suggest a pressing need to revise foreign language curricula in the United States to better meet the needs of students and society ("Foreign Languages and Higher Education," 2007; "Report to the Teagle Foundation," 2009). Many university programs in the US are responding to these needs by adapting existing language programs or developing new ones (Doyle, 2010; Jorge, 2010; Sánchez-López, 2010). Two decades ago Grosse and Voght (1990) reported the results of the first extensive survey conducted in 1988 in the US regarding the status of languages for specific purposes (LSP) nationally. Linking their study to a report from the President's Commission on Foreign Languages and International Studies (1980), Grosse and Voght reported that LSP courses had gained a place in the higher education curriculum since the 1980s in the US. Their study suggested a decline of foreign language skills in the US and a need of language courses specific for the professions, and their survey results indicated that over 60% of language departments offered some type of LSP courses. However, these data also suggested that LSP still had a minor role in the foreign language curriculum overall. In a recent survey study by Long and Uscinski (2012) and following the model of Grosse and Voght, the authors report that the current "presence of LSP courses in colleges and universities across the United States has remained about the same over the past 30 years." (p. 175). There is no significant difference in the number of institutions that offer LSP courses. However, Long and Uscinkscy's timely study sheds new light on the type of LSP programs (e.g., majors, minors, certificates or graduate programs) that are offered SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 63 nationally. The results of their study suggest that 27% of the respondents offer some type of LSP program, most of them at 4-year universities. The authors conclude that LSP has steadily and quietly settled in as another curricular option, beside literature, cultural studies, and linguistics, in institutions where students demand it, thus providing the students who are motivated to enter these fields with valuable applied skills in both language and cultural understanding. We predict a continued steady presence of LSP in university curricula for years to come. (Long & Uscinski, p. 188) Two decades ago Grosse and Voght (1990) optimistically predicted growth of LSP in the US that, according to Long and Uscinkscy (2012), has not materialized yet. However, according to both of these studies, the status of LSP in the US is strong and has become slowly more visible with time, with dozens of new LSP programs that cater to new societal needs (for a list of some of these programs see Sánchez-López, 2010). One of these new programs is the Spanish for Specific Purposes Certificate (SSPC) program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), which was established in 2007 and was the first undergraduate certificate at the University. The SSPC caters to the professional needs of both traditional, degree-seeking students and non-traditional local professionals. The SSPC coexists with the long-established major and minor programs in Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures (DFLL), and it attempts to fulfill the needs of its dynamic, millennial students and of the increasingly complex community. Background The University of Alabama at Birmingham is a medium-sized (about 18,000 undergraduate and graduate students) public university in Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham is a metropolitan city with a rapidly growing Hispanic population over the last three decades. Just recently, the state's Hispanic population grew from 1.7% in 2000 to almost 4% in 2010, a nearly 145% increase (US Census Bureau, 2010). Because of this, hospitals, clinics, police and fire departments, government offices and local businesses have seen the increasing need to be able to communicate with Hispanic patients, customers and clients in Spanish. However, this rapid and steady growth has recently and abruptly come to a halt due to a newly passed state immigration law. In June 2011, the state of Alabama Government passed the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, commonly known as H.B. 56 (State of Alabama, 2011). This is one of the strictest immigration laws in the country, which has led to a general state of fear among undocumented individuals. It has already impacted demographics of the state with a significant decrease on the growth of Hispanics in the state, including children (Center for American Progress, 2011; Novak, 2012; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2011). UAB was established in 1945 originally as the Medical Center of Alabama. The academic side of campus was later established in 1969, branching off from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. For decades both the medical and the academic sides functioned as two almost independent units, with very little interaction between them. Today, although most faculty, students and staff still refer to the west or the east side of campus SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 64 (or the medical and the academic side of campus), institutional efforts attempt to portray both sides of the University as one unit, with a synergetic relationship, interdependent, with everyone on board moving in the same direction. Health-care and diversity are two of the best-known and most marketed landmarks of the University. The UAB vision is: "A world-renowned research university and medical center—a first choice for education and healthcare" (UAB Vision, 2012). In addition, The Princeton Review has ranked UAB as the 5th most diverse campus nationally in 2011 (The Princeton Review, 2013). Many undergraduate students choose UAB because they would like to pursue a career in a health-related field. Pre-medicine is a popular track among UAB undergraduate students with an annual average of 44% of entering students who declare a pre-medicine track (UAB Office of Planning and Analysis, 2012). The UAB Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures (DFLL) was established in the late 1960s as most languages departments were at the time, with a focus on language, literature and culture. UAB had a language requirement for the core curriculum up to the late 1990s, when it was eliminated. Since then, there is no language requirement at UAB. In the early 2000s, the DFLL combined their two majors in Spanish and French into a major in Foreign Languages (with Spanish and French tracks), largely due to a state requirement for viability. In addition, the DFLL also offers minors in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. A large percentage of students in the major are double majors in Spanish or French and another disciple (biology, chemistry, criminal justice, international studies, pre-medicine, pre-nursing coupled with Spanish are some of the most common double majors). With an eye toward the long-term needs of the department in 2001 the UAB, DFLL hired me as the first applied linguist for a dual purpose. I was charged with developing linguistics courses at all levels and with developing and teaching certain Spanish for Specific Purposes (SSP) courses, such as medical, business, professional Spanish and translation and interpretation. All of these courses (linguistics and SSP) were never intended to replace the existing literature and culture courses, but rather, to expand the repertoire of offerings to cater to a larger pool of students and professional interests. The SSP courses were well received and offered on demand with regularity. After a few years, additional instructors were asked to teach these courses as well, becoming specialists in the different areas, such as business, health and translation and interpretation. However, the vast majority of students enrolled in the SSP courses were regular UAB students (either majors or minors, or students who took one or two of these courses as electives). The Department received frequent inquiries from individuals in the community and local businesses wishing to learn occupational Spanish, but, unfortunately, the University admission system did not make it easy for them to enroll as non-degree seeking students. Faculty also received almost daily requests from the medical side of campus, from other hospitals and clinics, from government agencies, from court services, and from different local businesses asking for translation and interpretation assistance. Faculty and/or students would help depending on the situation. As these challenges increased over the years, the DFLL decided to explore other options to better meet the needs of the community and the local professionals; and at the same time to reward the regular students who were successfully completing many or all of the SSP courses, but were not receiving any particular degree or recognition in SSP. At such point, offering a certificate program SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 65 in SSP was an interesting and promising idea, which materialized in the fall semester 2007. A Journey to the Spanish for Specific Purposes Certificate: Program Design: Approval and Description Due to the success and high demand of the SSP courses offered in the UAB DFLL and to the increasing requests for assistance with translation and interpretation to cater to the Hispanic community, in 2005 I was asked by my chairperson, Sheri Spaine Long, who sought to respond to societal trends, to investigate models of certificate programs worldwide and to explore if a certificate program in SSP would meet the specific needs of the DFLL, the UAB undergraduate population and those of the community. Over the course of several months, I investigated models of certificate programs and other types of languages for specific purposes programs nationally and internationally. Based on a careful assessment of the information gathered, the chairperson and I decided that a certificate program was an optimal option for UAB and for the Birmingham community. Then, the second and most detailed stage of the process started: the design of the program and the development of a program proposal. I was asked to design a program that utilized the resources of the DFLL and the courses that were already offered, at least at the outset. I met with a variety of institutional constituents (Office of Admissions, Office of Undergraduate Affairs, and Office of Undergraduate Policies and Procedures) at different stages during the design of the program proposal. These constituents gave me valuable advice on how to craft the program and what the prerequisites should be. Over the course of the following year, the SSPC proposal was approved at each stage by the DFLL, the School of Arts and Humanities Curriculum and Educational Policies Committee, the University Office of Undergraduate Policies and Procedures, and, finally, by the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama System in May 2007. The SSPC was the first undergraduate certificate at UAB, and it was first implemented in the Fall 2007. It was lauded as a model program to meet societal needs and consolidate and expand language enrollment. The SSPC program was designed for traditional as well as non-traditional students. The main objective of this program was, and still is, not only to fulfill UAB students' academic needs for their future, but also to create connections with local professionals. Because of the steady growth of the Hispanic population in the nation, with almost 17% percent of the population (US Census Bureau, 2012), each day more and more pro-fessionals, such as teachers, medical care professionals, business people, law enforcement officers and others, have the need to communicate with the Hispanic community. The courses are content, vocabulary and culture-based. Students learn the vocabulary, language and cultural background that they use in their professional field through extensive practice in the classroom and also out of class through service-learning opportunities. Publication and promotion of a new program is paramount for its success. An easy to navigate and informative website is critical for the SSPC (http://www.uab.edu/languages/ssp). The website houses the necessary documents that offer information to prospective students and local professionals, and a detailed description of the application process can also be found there. Once the website and all SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 66 documentation (e.g., program application form, student manual, checklist, and flier) were created, the program was ready for promotion and student recruitment. Promotion and recruitment efforts included regular information sessions (2–3 per semester) open to all students and the general public; briefings at academic advisors general meetings; presentations at specific business, health and international studies classes; and announcements in local newspapers, magazines and UAB's website and newspapers. The SSPC program requires completion of a minimum of six classes (18 credits) in SSP, of which at least 12 credits must be at the advanced level. Students may choose classes within the professional track of their interest (e.g., health care, business or translation and interpretation), but they are required to take a phonetics and phonology course and a foreign language service-learning course for the completion of the SSPC requirements. The foreign language service-learning course must be taken towards the end of the program to ensure that students have the desired occupational language skills to function well working with a community partner.1 Students must receive an A or B grade in all courses and maintain a minimum of 2.8 GPA in Spanish to maintain a "good standing" status. They can retake courses for a higher grade if necessary. The final program requirement is to pass an oral interview at the level of intermediate-mid or above, according to the ACTFL speaking guidelines.2 There is a program application process that is open all year. Regular UAB students must submit an electronic application. Local professionals must first be admitted as non-degree seeking students at UAB before they can apply for the SSPC.3 The SSPC program director reviews applications and sends acceptance or rejection letters. Then, she communicates with the UAB Director of Academic Records who updates the students' records and transcripts. SSPC candidates are asked to meet with the SSPC advisor at least once a year for an advising session, although many students choose to meet more frequently. Outcomes, Program Assessment and Outgrowth The SSPC has become a popular program in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. In its five years of existence, the program has enrolled 86 students, of which 27 have already successfully graduated from the program. The program offers three tracks: health care, business, translation and interpretation. Each track offers two courses, one at the intermediate and one at the advanced levels. Not surprisingly, due to the specific context at UAB and in the Birmingham area, the most popular and highest enrolled courses have usually been the Spanish for health professional classes, which are offered every semester (three times a year). The rest of the classes are offered once or twice a year, depending on demand and instructor availability. Because some of these courses are not offered every semester, it is very important that SSPC candidates meet regularly with the SSPC advisor to ensure that they graduate in a timely manner. One of the main and most visible successes of the SSPC are the collaborations that have been established with other units on campus, such as the Schools of Business, Dentistry, Health Professions, Nursing and Medicine. The advanced Spanish for Health Professionals course is offered cross-listed with the School of Nursing courses, creating a unique and enriching learning environment for all students, who share the same classroom. The SSPC faculty design and teach courses for students in the Schools of SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 67 Dentistry and Medicine with regularity. Recently, a former Spanish major from the DFLL and a current medicine student, partnered with the DFLL and the SSPC to organize a short Spanish course for medical students. The course was designed and taught by an SSPC faculty and offered during the winter break between sessions in the School of Medicine (Davidson & Long, 2012). Furthermore, weekly Spanish conversation tables are offered by SSPC faculty, which are open to any student on campus with an interest in health related professions. In addition, the Graduate Student Associations of the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry have separately organized weekly Spanish conversation tables led by SSPC faculty and students. All of these efforts clearly indicate the high level of interest to learn Spanish from the part of the students in health-related professions, who are doing whatever they can to include some level of medical Spanish study in their busy academic schedules. Another success of the SSPC is the quality of student research, which is linked to the professional interest of the student within a local context. Two illustrative examples, from the inception of the program to the most recent are "Legalese and Spanish: The Hispanic Immigrant Experience with the Legal System in Birmingham, Alabama" (Hall, 2007) and "H.B. 56 and Its Impact in the State of Alabama" (Novak, 2012). In the former, SSPC and Spanish Honor's student Brittlyn Hall conducted a survey study among law firms in Birmingham to investigate the level of legal support offered to the Hispanic population and the specific Spanish needs of these firms. In the most recent, SSPC graduate and current MBA student in the School of Business investigated the economic impact of the new State immigration law known as H.B. 56 mentioned earlier (Novak, 2012). Both studies linked the students' professional interest to their community. The studies taught them not only valuable information about their professions and future careers, but also gave them firsthand experience about how their professions interact with their community and the synergistic relationships that are born from such interactions. An integral part of the long-term success of a new program is periodic program evaluations to assist in implementing necessary modifications. At the end of the program students are asked to complete an SSPC Exit Survey, in which they provide useful feedback about the program. This is mainly a demographic and a student satisfaction survey (see survey in the Appendix) used to get to know our students, their needs and their expectations better and to make adjustments as necessary. One important modification that has already been implemented in light of the students' feedback is an additional course on translation and interpretation at the intermediate level (the original certificate only offered advanced translation and interpretation). This new course was necessary as a stepping-stone to the advanced course, which was regarded as too challenging by many students. Another important addition to the program occurred in 2010. The SSPC and the Department of Art and Art History partnered to have a student competition to design a logo for the SSPC. As a class requirement, all students in an advanced graphic design class were asked to design a logo. This was a unique and incredible experience for students, since not only was this their first real assignment, but they also were competing for the first time for a real client. There were 27 entries. Graphic design students met with the SSPC Director and explained their logo, motivations and meanings. After that, the SSPC Director asked all faculty in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures to vote on their first three choices. The logo with the most votes was selected as the SSPC official logo (see logo at http://www.uab.edu/languages/ssp).4 SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 68 In an effort to strengthen the business Spanish track of the SSPC, in 2010, the interim chairperson of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures John K. Moore and the SSPC Director met with administrators in the School of Business to discuss ways in which to collaborate. After several meetings, it was clear that there was a need and an interest for Spanish (and Chinese) in the business world. However, the business curriculum at UAB is rather inflexible due to their accreditation limitations. Because business students at UAB are unable to incorporate the SSPC program into their regular curriculum, the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures offered to design a new and shorter 12-credit program catered to business majors: a new minor in Spanish for Business. The new minor employs courses already existing in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures: Spanish for the Professions, Business Spanish and any other two intermediate or advance Spanish courses. The proposal was approved by the University in April 2011 and was first implemented in the fall of 2012 (for an overview of the program, visit: http://www.uab.edu/languages/images/pdfs/news/Minor_Spanish_for_Business.pdf). As this new program is in its first year, it is still premature to make an accurate evaluation. However, due to the overall success of the SSPC and to the growing globalized economies and markets, we predict a successful prospect for this new program. We look forward to report related findings in the near future. Conclusions and Future Directions As the results of surveys by Grosse and Voght (1990) and recently by Long and Uscinski (2012) have demonstrated, LSP courses and programs in the United States are no longer peripheral within the educational curriculum in higher education. They have become highly demanded by a dynamic student population that is in charge of their own learning and wish to be well prepared for an extremely competitive future in a globalized world. This article has described the recently established Spanish for Specific Purposes Certificate program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham within a local context. This program caters to traditional and non-traditional students who share educational goals and classroom experiences. Because it is a highly practical and applicable program in real life, and because it is available to all students and local professionals, the SSPC has become one of the fastest growing programs at UAB with almost 30 graduates in its short existence. Most importantly, the program has created strong and synergistic connections and collaborations with local companies (e.g., hospitals, clinics, charity organizations, banks, libraries, law firms, government offices, schools and early learning centers) through the foreign language service-learning course required for the SSPC. In addition, the SSPC has established collaborations with other units on campus, such as the Schools of Business, Dentistry, Health-Professions, Nursing and Medicine. Furthermore, SSPC students produce high quality research linking their professional interest to their communities and exploring its synergetic relationships. SSPC graduates move on to a variety of professional fields in health, business and translation and interpretation services, or to graduate programs in related fields in which their knowledge of occupational Spanish is (or will be) useful and beneficial to them, their companies and their community. SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 69 One significant outgrowth of the SSPC is the new minor for Business Spanish established in fall 2012 utilizing SSPC resources. This new program seals collaborative efforts between the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and the School of Business and aims to cater primarily to Business students, but is also open to any student with an interest in pursuing an international career. As mentioned earlier, an integral part of a successful program is periodic program assessment. The SSPC Exit Survey taken by graduating students gives the SSPC director and faculty regular opportunities to reflect upon the progress of the program, and thus, to make revisions where necessary. In addition to this informal form of student satisfaction evaluation, it is important to conduct some type of performance assessment to investigate the impact that the SSPC classes have on students' Spanish performance. This performance program assessment has been projected to take place within the next academic year and we look forward to new findings. Acknowledgments I would like to sincerely thank former UAB DFLL chairperson Sheri Spaine Long for her full and constant support in the creation, development and implementation of the SSPC and for her always brilliant ideas, as well as for her input on earlier drafts of this paper; to former UAB DFLL Interim chairperson John K. Moore for his full support in the continuation of the SSPC and his critical role in the conceptualization and establishment of the new minor for Business Spanish; to SSPC faculty María Jesús Centeno, Krista Chambless, Brock Cochran, Belita Faki and Malinda O'Leary for their extraordinary work teaching the SSPC courses—the program would not be the same without these remarkable instructors; to all SSPC students who are our source of inspiration every day; and finally, I am grateful to the reviewers of earlier drafts of this paper for their accurate feedback. Notes 1For a detailed description and a sample syllabus of the Foreign Language Service-Learning course required for the SSPC, see Sánchez-López (2013; forthcoming). 2American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages proficiency guidelines can be found at http://www.actfl.org/files/public/Guidelinesspeak.pdf. 3Non-degree seeking students must have a minimum of 12 credit hours of successful college level work (grade C or above in all courses), with the following distribution (minimum): at least 6 credit hours in Area 1 (English Composition), at least 3 credit hours in Area 2 (Arts and Humanities), and at least 3 credit hours in Area 4 (Social Sciences). 4The artist of the SSPC logo is UAB's graphic design student Alan Heiman. The faculty member of the graphic design class that participated in this project is Professor Douglas B. Barrett. References American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages Proficiency Guidelines (1999). Retrieved from http://www.actfl.org/files/public/Guidelinesspeak.pdf SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 70 Center for American Progress (2011). Retrieved from http://www.americanprogress.org/ Davidson, L., & Long, S. S. (2012). Medical Spanish for US medical students: A pilot case study. Dimension, 1–13. Retrieved from http://scolt.webnode.com/ Doyle, M. S. (2010). A responsive, integrative Spanish curriculum at UNC Charlotte. Hispania, 93(1), 80–84. Foreign languages and higher education: New structures for a changed world. (2007) MLA ad hoc committee on foreign languages. Profession published by the Modern Language Association, 2007 (May). Retrieved from http://www.mla.org/flreport Friedman, T. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the 21st century. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. Grosse, C., & Voght, G. (1990). Foreign language for business and the professions at US colleges and universities. The Modern Language Journal, 74, 36–47. Hall, B. (2007). Legalese and Spanish: The Hispanic immigrant experience with the legal system in Birmingham, Alabama. Unpublished paper. Jorge, E. (2010). Where's the community? Hispania, 93(1), 135–138. Long, M., & Uscinski, I. (2012). Evolution of languages for specific purposes programs in the United States: 1990–2011 [Special Issue]. The Modern Language Journal, 96, 173–189. Novak, J. (2012). H.B. 56 and its impact in the state of Alabama. Unpublished paper. President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies (1980). Strength through wisdom: A critique of US capability. The Modern Language Journal, 64, 9–57. Report to the Teagle Foundation on the Undergraduate Major in Language and Literature. (2009). MLA ad hoc committee on foreign languages. Profession published by the Modern Language Association, 2009 (February). Retrieved from http://www.mla.org/pdf/2008_mla_whitepaper.pdf Sánchez-López, L. (2010). El español para fines específicos: La proliferación de programas creados para satisfacer las necesidades del siglo XXI. Hispania, 93(1), 85–89. Sánchez-López, L. (Forthcoming 2013). Service learning course design for Languages for Specific Purposes programs [Special Issue]. Hispania, 96(2). Southern Poverty Law Center (2011). Retrieved from http://www.splcenter.org/ State of Alabama (2011). Retrieved from http://www.ago.state.al.us/Page-Immigration The Princeton Review (2013). Retrieved from http://www.princetonreview.com/TheUniversityofAlabamaatBirmingham UAB Minor in Business Spanish. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.uab.edu/languages/images/pdfs/news/Minor_Spanish_for_Business.pdf UAB Office of Planning and Analysis. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.uab.edu/opa/ UAB Spanish for Specific Purposes program. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.uab.edu/languages/ssp United States Census Bureau. (2010). Retrieved from http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/ United Stated Census Bureau. (2012). Retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html UAB Vision. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.uab.edu/home/about University of Alabama at Birmingham (2013). Retrieved from http://www.uab.edu/ SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 71 APPENDIX The University of Alabama at Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures Spanish for Specific Purposes Certificate (SSPC) Exit Survey Note: This survey is anonymous. Please, be as honest as possible when completing it. Thank you for providing us with valuable information to get to know our students and to improve our SSPC program. I. Personal Information (circle one) 1. Gender: Male Female 2. Age: 18–20 20–23 24–26 27–30 More than 31 3. Regular UAB Student Non-regular UAB student (local professional) 4. Work: Full-time job Part-time job Unemployed 5. Work place: ______________________________; Position: __________________ 5. Race: African American Caucasian Hispanic Indian Asian Other 6. Major/s: ____________________________ Minor/s: ________________ 7. Previous Higher Education Degrees: _____________________________________ 8. Your first language/s is/are:____________________________________________ SSPC related 1. How long did it take you to complete the SSPC program? ____________________ 2. In which of the three tracks did you specialize (health, business, translation & interpretation)?: ________________________________________________________ 3. Please explain why you pursued the SSPC: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Did the SSPC fulfill your expectations? Yes No Please explain why? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ SPANISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CERTIFICATE (SSPC) PROGRAM Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 72 5. Did the SSPC classes fulfill your expectations in general? Yes No Please explain why? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. What did you like the most about the program? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 7. What did you like the least about the program? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 8. Please give us your suggestions on how to improve the SSPC program: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 9. How will the SSPC impact your current or future career? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 10. Would you recommend the SSPC to your friends or colleagues? Yes No 11. Finally, do you give your permission to use the information that you provided above anonymously for statistical and research purposes? Yes No Note: If you have further comments, please use the back of this form. GRACIAS.
Históricamente las acciones en salud pública en los territorios han sido desarrolladas por las entidades territoriales municipales, con un importante componente extramural, especialmente en el Programa Ampliado de Inmunizaciones (PAI). Para su desarrollo, la inversión principal se realizaba con recursos transferidos por la Nación, lo cual fortaleció la implementación del mismo en el país. Esto lo convirtió en un programa de atención obligatoria por los mandatarios municipales, estando siempre incluido en la planeación de las acciones en salud pública a desarrollar durante cada cuatrienio. Para las entidades territoriales municipales (en adelante ETM), el desarrollo del PAI cuyo objetivo principal era del logro de coberturas útiles de vacunación, giraba en torno a dos prioridades: una social y la otra administrativa. La primera, buscaba la protección de los niños y niñas menores de cinco años frente a enfermedades inmunoprevenibles. Con la segunda se esperaba lograr un incremento o, al menos, el mantenimiento en la asignación presupuestal de los recursos provenientes del Sistema General de Participaciones (en adelante SGP) para la financiación de los programas en salud pública municipales. Como incentivo al cumplimiento de las coberturas útiles de vacunación, el Departamento Nacional de Planeación asigna una mayor fracción presupuestal del SGP para el desarrollo de las actividades de salud pública en las ETM. Si no se cumplen dichas coberturas, la consecuencia será una reducción de esos recursos, limitando presupuestalmente el desarrollo de todos los programas de salud pública en los municipios. En 2015, el Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social (en adelante MSPS) mediante la expedición de la Resolución 518, definió que las acciones extramurales del PAI, desde ese momento, estarían a cargo exclusivamente de las Entidades Administradoras de Planes de Beneficios (en adelante EAPB) con cargo a la Unidad de Pago por Capitación (UPC). Esto significó que las ETM ya no tendrían la posibilidad de realizar las acciones necesarias para lograr las coberturas exigidas por el MSPS y, a la vez, proteger a los menores de cinco años contra las enfermedades inmunoprevenibles; y, además, garantizar el flujo de los recursos del SGP para financiar todas las acciones en salud pública en su territorio. Con este trabajo se espera dar respuesta a las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cuál fue (si lo hubo) el posible efecto de la Resolución 518 de 2015 en las coberturas de vacunación de los municipios de Cundinamarca? Y, en ese sentido, ¿Existe alguna correlación entre el cumplimiento de las coberturas útiles de vacunación y el presupuesto en salud pública en los municipios de Cundinamarca para el periodo 2012 al 2018? Para esto, se realizó un estudio ecológico utilizando como fuentes de información las coberturas de vacunación para los municipios de Cundinamarca entre el 2011 y 2017, obtenidas del Programa PAI de la Gobernación de Cundinamarca y Grupo de Financiamiento del DNP. Los datos de las asignaciones presupuestales del SGP se obtuvieron del Sistema de información y consulta de distribuciones de recursos territoriales (SICODIS) y de la Dirección de Financiamiento del Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social. Los datos evidenciaron que el comportamiento temporal de las coberturas de vacunación entre los 116 municipios fue muy variable (entre ellos y dentro de ellos). En ese sentido, al comparar antes y después de 2015 en cada municipio no se pudieron establecer unívocamente magnitud ni dirección de las tendencias porque los mismos biológicos tuvieron comportamientos muy diferentes. Solo se identificaron dos patrones relativamente estables: a) Las coberturas de BCG fueron bajas siempre, y casi ningún municipio las logró. Y b) Un solo biológico se desplomó siempre después de 2015: AntiHepatitis B. Aunque no fue posible establecer la dirección y magnitud del cambio en las responsabilidades de vacunación sobre las coberturas del PAI, los análisis mostraron que el 29,3% (34 ETM) de los municipios experimentó un efecto relativamente negativo sobre sus tendencias vacunales, generando una afectación subsecuente de los presupuestos para el desarrollo de las acciones en salud pública en los territorios. En otros, al parecer aquellos con redes privadas de EPS e IPS, la Resolución 518 aparentemente no tuvo un efecto negativo o se ajustaron rápidamente y las coberturas se sostuvieron o empezaron al alza. Al revisar las asignaciones presupuestales identificamos tres tendencias: 1) municipios que venían recibiendo recursos por el cumplimiento de las coberturas útiles y estas cesaron o bajaron después de la resolución (Caqueza). 2) municipios que no percibieron asignaciones muy altas antes de la resolución y después de esta aumentaron (La Calera, Choachí, Cajicá, Gachancipa). Y unos casos emblemáticos, como Girardot, quien empezó en 2012 con 150 millones y termino con 272 millones, pero, si bien el efecto no fue presupuestal si lo fue en las coberturas de vacunación, que después de la resolución por primera vez bajaron dos años (2015 y 2016) con el aumento del riesgo epidemiológico para su población susceptible. Por lo que este punto evidencia uno de los resultados centrales del trabajo, no es sensato unir la asignación presupuestal a la protección vacunal de poblaciones vulnerables como son los niños y niñas. Esta relación nunca es directa y siempre está afectada por decisiones de cómo y cuántos recursos se asignan, por ejemplo, nunca pudimos establecer el costo de las vacunas. También, se explica por tener o no salas de parto y servicios de vacunación que dependen de lógicas políticas, geográficas y del mismo sistema de salud (el caso de San Juan de Rio Seco, único hospital provincial que no tiene sala de parto para atender a una población de 9.670 según proyección DANE para 2018). Por más mediático que parece, el efecto de la reciente migración venezolana no se identificó porque estos menores no se contabilizan en la población objeto a vacunar con la que se construyen los indicadores de cobertura municipal y sobre la cual se asigna el presupuesto. Finalmente, es importante reflexionar sobre lo inconveniente que es que, tanto los recursos del SGP para la salud pública municipal y la protección específica en los menores de 5 años en los territorios, dependan del desarrollo de acciones extramurales por parte de las EAPB, entidades que han probado dificultades para llegar a los territorios lejanos donde normalmente se encuentra la población más pobre y vulnerable del departamento. ; Historically, public health actions in the territories have been developed by municipal entities, with an important field work component, specially work related to the Expanded Immunization Program (PAI for its initials in spanish). In order to execute the program, the main investment was made with resources transferred by the nation, which strengthened its implementation in the country. In consequence, it was turned into a program of obligatory development by the local leaders, being always included into the public health action plan, every four years. For municipal territorial entities (here in after: MTE), the Expanded Immunization Program´s objective was the achievement of useful vaccination coverage and its development was related essentially around two components: a social and an administrative. The first one had the purpose of protecting children under five years of age against immune-preventable diseases; with the second one, the goal was to increase or, at least, maintain the resources assigned to this program, that came from the General Participation System (here in after: GPS). As an incentive to achieve the ideal vaccination coverage, the National Planning Department allocates a larger budgetary fraction of the GPS for the development of public health activities in the MTE; if such coverage is not fulfilled, the consequence will be a reduction of those resources, limiting budget wise, the development of all public health programs in the municipalities. In 2015, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MSPS for its initials in spanish) Issued the resolution number 518, which defined that the extramural actions of the PAI, would be in charge of the Entities Administering Benefit Plans (here in after: EABP) charged to the Capitation Payment Unit (CPU). This meant that the MTE would no longer have the possibility of carrying out the necessary actions to achieve the coverage required by the MSPS, affecting the protection of children under five years of age against immune-preventable diseases, and at the same time, not allowing the assurance of resources from the GPS to finance all public health actions in its territory. The purpose of this work is to answer the following questions: What was (if any) the possible effect of Resolution 518 of 2015 on vaccination coverage, in the municipalities of Cundinamarca? And, in that sense, is there a correlation between the achievement of ideal vaccination coverage and the public health budget in the municipalities of Cundinamarca between 2012 to 2018? For this purpose, an ecological study was carried out, using as information source, the vaccination coverage for Cundinamarca between 2011 and 2017, obtained from the Cundinamarca´s PAI program and the DNP´s Financing Group. Data from the GPS budget assignment was obtained from the Information and Query System of Territorial Resource´s Distribution (SICODIS for its initials in spanish) and from the Financing Department of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection. Data showed that the temporary behavior of vaccination coverage among the 116 municipalities was variable (between them and within them). In that sense, when comparing before and after 2015 in each municipality, the magnitude and direction of the trends couldn´t be certainly stablished because vaccines had different trends as well. Only two patterns were identified: a) BCG coverage was always low, and almost no municipality succeeded; and b) only Anti-Hepatitis B vaccine always collapsed after 2015. Although, it was not possible to stablish the direction and magnitude of trends in vaccination responsibilities related to the PAI coverage, the analysis showed that 29.3% (34 MTE) of the municipalities, experienced a relatively negative effect on their vaccination trends, generating a subsequent impact on the budget for the development of public health actions in the territories. In other MTE, it seemed that those with private networks of EPS and IPS, didn´t have and effect from the resolution 518; apparently, those MTE didn´t have a negative effect or were adjusted quickly, and the coverage was sustained or started to rise. When reviewing budget assignments, we identified three trends: 1) municipalities that were receiving resources due to the fulfillment of ideal coverage, ceased or lowered after the resolution (Caqueza). 2) municipalities that did not receive very high assignments before and after the resolution increased (La Calera, Choachí, Cajicá, Gachancipa). Some emblematic cases, such as Girardot, who started in 2012 with 150 million pesos and ended with 272 million pesos, although the effect was not budgetary, there was an effect over vaccination coverage, which after the resolution for the first time, fell for two years (2015 and 2016), with an increase in epidemiological risk for its susceptible population. The previous trend shows one of the central results of this work: it is not sensitive to link the budget assignment to the vaccine protection of vulnerable population such as children. This relationship is never direct and is always affected by decisions on, how and how many resources are allocated; for example, we could never stablish the cost of vaccines. At the same time, it is explained by having or not childbirth rooms and vaccination services, that depend on similar political and geographical logics and also have similar health system (the case of San Juan de Rio Seco, the only provincial hospital that does not have a delivery room to attend a population of 9,670 according to DANE projection for 2018). The effect of the recent Venezuelan migration was not identified because these minors are not counted in the population to be vaccinated, with which the municipal coverage indicators are built and taking into account that it is used to the budget is assignment. Finally, it is important to reflect on how inconvenient this problematic is; both the resources from the GPS for public health means and specific protection for children under 5 years of age, depend on the development of extramural actions by the EAPB´s, entities that have had difficulties to reach the distant territories, where the poorest and most vulnerable population is usually located.
This paper aims to discuss how institutional racism plays a part in the continued criminalisation of cannabis in the United Kingdom. I will start with a short history of usage and attitudes toward cannabis in the United Kingdom, mainly England. I will then assess the relationship that the criminal justice system has with cannabis and its users, and delve into how racial bias operates within law enforcement, using stop and search as a point of focus. This paper will explore how these biases lead to a disproportionate application of the law on certain groups of people. It will be argued while using Canada as point of comparison, that cannabis is being used in the United Kingdom as a political tool to favour voters of certain demographics, and that while more research is needed to fully assess the effects of cannabis, the reasoning behind maintaining cannabis' status as a dangerous substance is both absurdly hypocritical and entirely no longer necessary. Medicinal, recreational, and the law The United Kingdom first listed cannabis as a prohibited drug in 1928 by adding it to the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920 in accordance with the International Opium Convention 1912. For an immeasurable amount of time the cannabis plant has been used recreationally, medicinally, and industrially across the planet, including many former British colonies and overseas territories.[1] The Misuse of Drugs Act currently lists cannabis and cannabis derivatives as Class B controlled drugs.[2] This classification means that it is a criminal offence in the United Kingdom to possess, grow, or supply cannabis to others. Section 6 of the act outlines the cultivation of any species of cannabis plant as a specific offence. Cannabis related offences are punishable through schedule 4 of the act. On indictment production or supplying of cannabis could result in up to fourteen years in prison, whilst possession alone, up to five years in prison, (an unlimited fine, or both). In 2004 cannabis was moved from Class B to Class C, which holds less prison time for possession while retaining the same fourteen years penalty for production and supply.[3] This was done after the Advisory Council claimed that even though cannabis was harmful, it was not as harmful as other Class B drugs; amphetamines, methylamphetamine, barbiturates, and codeine.[4] Another driving point was to take the pressure off arrests for possession of small amounts of cannabis to shift the focus of law enforcement toward other more dangerous drugs and crime.[5] This reclassification only stood for five years as cannabis returned to Class B in 2009 against the advice of the Advisory Council.[6] Currently in the United Kingdom a person can get a warning or Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) for possession of small amounts instead of being arrested.[7] The United Kingdom was once the world's largest exporter of cannabis for medical and scientific use, producing around 95,000 kilograms of cannabis in the year 2016.[8] In 2015, that production was at 41,706 kilograms.[9] For a country so determined to prohibit the use and supply of cannabis within its borders, it is quite ironic that businesses are being licensed for production for export, and that production doubled in that year. Law and Enforcement: stop and search and racial bias Canada, having legalised recreational cannabis in October 2018, will be used as a point of comparison to explore the UK's complex legal and political relationship with cannabis. While recreational cannabis is still considered illegal in most of the world, many countries seem to not strictly enforce their laws. In pre-legalised Canada, cannabis use became increasingly socially acceptable. The enforcement of possession laws became less and less important to society, which was reflected in the prioritisation used by the police.[10] While unregulated sales remained illegal post the legalisation of medical cannabis in 2001, there still existed brick and mortar dispensaries where the public was able to purchase cannabis illegally. For the most part, law enforcement would leave them to their business unless they suspected a connection to gang violence, sale to minors, or other crime. It was common to see them reopen after being raided and shutdown.[11] Law enforcement in the United Kingdom has a lot of say about the way that perpetrators of cannabis-related crimes are dealt with. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in the UK released an official policing guideline for cannabis possession for personal use in 2009 following the substance's return to a Class B status in the UK.[12] This document outlines whether a warning or PND should be issued in place of an arrest and explains the 'escalation policy' used to determine which of the three the perpetrator will receive. To determine the severity of the possession they look at 'aggravating factors' such as whether they were caught in a public place, whether a young person is involved or could be exposed to drug use, and repeat offences.[13] This document states the purpose of these 'aggravating factors' as 'The circumstances of the offence form part of the consideration in determining whether an arrest can be made and justified'.[14] So in theory as per this document an adult over the age of 18 with no prior history caught in possession of cannabis for personal use and not falling under any of the aggravating factors should be let off with a warning (which would not show up on a standard criminal record check) even though it is a Class B illicit drug. There are two important points regarding these guidelines. The first is that even though cannabis at this point had returned to Class B status, it was not being treated the same as other Class B substances – it is now being treated more leniently by law enforcement in comparison to other Class B substances. These more forgiving rules send a message to the public that even though cannabis was moved back to Class B status, it is accepted to be not as 'sinister' as the others. It begs the question of whether moving the drug back to Class B even had any bearing or real practical purpose. Herein lies an interesting unsynchronized relationship between the statute regarding the legality of cannabis and the approaches taken by law enforcement. Law enforcement is seemingly doing a better job than legislature at keeping up with public opinion by relaxing their approaches. Secondly, while they cover England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in a uniform manner, they are just that: guidelines. Each local policing authority has the prerogative of deciding how they may deal with a case of cannabis possession.[15] What is evident is that this prerogative is used, to varying degrees. Some policing authorities, such as Durham, have made public statements in which they have announced they will not be targeting individuals for possession for personal use.[16] An article in the Canterbury Journal interviews a resident that describes the city as 'weed central', indicating the city even has its own cannabis club (the Canterbury Cannabis Collective) that lobbies politicians at Westminster.[17] It would suffice to say that being affiliated with this cannabis club would be enough to fulfil the 'reasonable belief' that law enforcement needs to target someone. They are lobbying openly for the legalisation of cannabis, which indicates that law enforcement is largely just allowing it to happen. So, if the people want recreational cannabis legalised (or are indifferent to it), and law enforcement has begun acknowledging that it is not a priority for them to police, why has Westminster not caught up? Interestingly, in the same article another interviewee who is opposed to legalisation said she thinks, 'it'll increase the number of people smoking it by making it socially acceptable, like areas of Canada where people started smoking it openly and regularly once it had been legalised.'[18] This is statistically not true. According to Statistics Canada, self-reported cannabis use amongst Canadians rose from 14.9% before legalisation to 16.8% after legalisation. However, most of that difference of 1.9% could simply be accounted for by less hesitation to admit usage once it was not a criminal offence since results are self-reported. Additionally, respondents were to only report on whether they used in the three months prior to being surveyed.[19] So this is evidence of some apparent misconceptions about legalisation, and while a lax attitude from law enforcement may make cannabis users in those areas very happy, it is arguable that this prerogative in law enforcement's hands is a detriment to equal treatment of perpetrators of the same crime from different backgrounds. There are many facets to consider when discussing the United Kingdom's relationship to cannabis. For one, it is not a plant native to the country and its use was introduced during the colonial period mostly through the Indian subcontinent.[20] In South Asia, cannabis was widely used medicinally and recreationally and is considered in Hindu Ayurveda to be one of five sacred plants that relieve anxiety.[21] While many may think of cannabis in the context of a relaxed Caribbean stereotype (or even particularly Jamaican), the plant was first introduced to the Caribbean through the movement of Indian indentured workers brought there by the British regime.[22] The origins of this plant are culturally and socially connected to (but not exclusively) two racial groups, people of South Asian and of African descent. Its history plays a part in the way that it is viewed socially. It is no secret that both of these racial groups have faced tribulations at the hands of British colonialism, the legacy of which still lingers. One of these tribulations that has spilt into our modern existence is the entrenched racism that plagues the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom, of which law enforcement plays a huge part. The demonisation of dark skin leads to a disproportionate treatment of people of colour by law enforcement, and a disproportionate number of arrests and convictions. Crimes involving cannabis are one of the ways in which this disproportionality is manifested, but it is in no way the only one. Stop and Search, and the Macpherson Report The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, which in 1999 generated the Macpherson Report, followed the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.[23] It was an important conversation-starter on the processes used when investigating a racially charged crime, in this case the murder of a black British teenager by a group of white youths. Under 'stop and search' police officers can search you if they have 'reasonable grounds' to suspect you are carrying illegal drugs (or similar), or without reasonable grounds if it was approved by a senior officer.[24] According to the Home Office, as of the 2011 census, persons of black ethnicity comprise about 4% of the population of the UK, yet the Ministry of Justice reports that they are involved in about 20% of all drug stop and searches as well as prosecutions for cannabis.[25] With people of black ethnicity there is also a higher number of prosecutions than there are stop and searches in comparison with people of white ethnicity. The racial element of these statistics is clear. If only 4% of the population is represented by black ethnicity, why are they involved in 20% of the searches? There is no correlation to suggest people of black ethnicity consume more cannabis in the UK. According to statistics on drug misuse available through the UK Government's website, in the 2018/2019 findings of adults aged 16 to 59, 8% of the white respondents versus 6.7% of the 'Black or Black British' respondents reported use of cannabis in the previous year.[26] Stop and search gives individual police officers the power to use their own judgement to decide whether a person may be involved in a crime of some sort without seeing a crime being committed (in this case, in possession or planning to supply illicit drugs). Stop and search methods have been thoroughly scrutinised and continuously reformed as many do believe that they are not effective or an efficient use of law enforcement's time and resources.[27] The idea of law enforcement being able to search anyone they feel necessary could lead to a gross misuse of power. Figure 1[28] Figure 1 illustrates the bias that exists within this system of law enforcement. The dotted flat line represents the likelihood of a person of white ethnicity being stopped within the years 2014-2016. Every non-white group surveyed had a higher probability of being involved in a stop and search. The black community does not consume more cannabis, and therefore should not be any more likely than someone of white ethnicity to be in possession of cannabis. Yet black individuals are still 6.5 times more likely to be stopped. According to the same data bank, people of black ethnicity used all surveyed drugs (powder cocaine, ecstasy, hallucinogens, amphetamines, mephedrone, ketamine and cannabis) less commonly than those of white ethnicity.[29] The obvious link: racial bias. By this logic, police officers are, even unconsciously, under the impression that a black person is more likely to be involved in something illegal. The result of that is that the black population are being disproportionally affected by the law – a gross miscarriage of justice. We as citizens may want to believe that these statistics are an improvement, that the racial bias in the United Kingdom is a work in positive progress. However, 'figures for 1997/98 show that "black people were, on average, five times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than white people." Black people are also "more likely to be arrested than white or other ethnic groups."'[30] Many of these statistics are also based on self-identified ethnicity, where as to clearly see a bias or prejudice, one must know what others assume that person's ethnicity to be. What they identify themselves as, may be a useful indicator of how others view them, but it does not necessarily facilitate an understanding of the exact impact of racial identity on law enforcement. The Macpherson Report is arguably one of the most important modern documents outlining the racial biases within the UK's criminal justice system. What it found was astonishing evidence exposing racial bias within the response and investigation of the death of Stephen Lawrence. No police officer on the scene performed any form of first aid after finding him, nor did they check his vitals to see if he was still alive.[31] The victim's parents reported being treated unprofessionally with insensitivity and were deprived of information regarding the case which they were entitled to. There was evidence suggesting that the perpetrators were not arrested for the crime, because they were white even though they were suspects with sufficient evidence to procure a warrant. In general, they found that there was a lack of enthusiasm to find the murderers of a black man by white suspects.[32] While murder is beyond the scope of this essay, the findings of this report solidify the notion that in multiple ways people of black ethnicity are victims to the institutional racism present in the criminal justice system. Cannabis and politics The current Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party's political crusade to legalise recreational cannabis use in Canada sat on two very important points: to make it harder for minors to access cannabis, and to tackle gang violence associated with cannabis sales.[33] Legalisation of cannabis was just one of the ways in which Justin Trudeau managed to rally two unlikely voter demographics: people of colour, and young voters between the age of 18-25. This won him two consecutive federal elections, while remaining at the time relatively appealing to the older voters.[34] With the changing demographic in Canada, rallying these voters was, and remains, a key political tool to holding power. He, like his father, former Prime Minister the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, prized multiculturalism in his political platform – a concept very important to the Canadian identity and society. The Canadian Multiculturalism Act is a law passed in 1985 by the late Trudeau outlining all the ways in which it is expected that multiculturalism is to be upheld by the federal government. This includes, but is not limited to, 'ensur[ing] that all individuals receive equal treatment and equal protection under the law, while respecting and valuing their diversity.'[35] This policy of upholding diversity is part of the Canadian constitution. The closest comparable statute existing in the United Kingdom is the Equality Act 2010. This piece of legislation covers a wider breadth of demographical information that may lead to discrimination, including, but not limited to, race, religion, gender, and age. Section 1 of the Act outlines the duty that public figures such as ministers, courts, police, and councils have toward socio-economic inequalities: An authority to which this section applies must, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage.[36] What is compelling is that Section 3 states that any breach of section 1 'does not confer a cause of action at private law,'[37] which limits how these public bodies are held accountable for breaching the Act and is realistically mostly just applicable to employers' relations with employees. The purpose of this act reads like a guide on what your legal options are if you feel that you were wrongly discriminated in the workplace by any of the protected demographics. The purpose of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act is to focus much more on the acts and efforts that are expected of the Federal Government to uphold the integrity of diversity by recognising differences and adopting practices to accommodate them. This also includes promoting the use of languages other than English and French, the two official languages.[38] The entrenchment of this Act into the Canadian constitution, and the language used within it, shows just how important it is to Canadian society, run by a liberal government, as it holds everyone, including federal bodies, accountable for nurturing diversity in Canada. Whether or not it always plays out that way is beyond the scope of this paper. There is a political connection with the way in which cannabis is 'officially' viewed versus the way that it is socially viewed when comparing Canada and the United Kingdom. Dalhousie University in Halifax published a study suggesting that 68% of Canadians (another 6.9% were indifferent) supported the legalisation of recreational marijuana in September 2017.[39] In a poll by YouGov for the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group in the UK, 48% supported legalisation while only 24% opposed.[40] If that was not enough, a government survey found in 2017/2018 that 30% of adults aged 16 to 64 have tried cannabis at least once.[41] If the majority of the country is supportive or indifferent to the legalisation of recreational cannabis, why are the two governments approaching the idea so differently? This puts into question the strength of democracy in the United Kingdom as well, since the existing legislation does not reflect public opinion. In 2019 three Members of Parliament from three parties visited Canada in order to evaluate the legal cannabis sector first-hand. Not surprisingly, the Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs later declared that they would support a change in 'cannabis legislation in the next five to ten years'. Only the Conservative MP did not show support for cannabis legalisation following the visit.[42] The Conservative Party of the UK has historically maintained that cannabis should remain an illegal substance.[43] There have also been allegations of racism linked to the Conservative Party and its leaders. One such point is the commentary on Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968 which, riddled with racist undertones, was aimed against the 1968 Race Relations Bill.[44] This bill made it illegal to refuse employment, public services, or housing to any person based on colour, race, or ethnic origin.[45] More recently, the current Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been quoted numerous times making racist comments. An article for the Guardian mentions that in articles written by Johnson before becoming Prime Minister he has referred to black people as 'piccaninnies with watermelon smiles' as well as claiming that the police were 'cowed' by the Macpherson Report.[46] While these claims were not made while he was in office, they are a glimpse into the rhetoric that has been accepted by the Conservative Party. An NHS study suggested that while around 10% of cannabis users may develop an addiction to cannabis, 32% of tobacco users and 15% of alcohol users will become addicted to tobacco and alcohol, respectively. There is also no recorded case of death caused by cannabis in the United Kingdom.[47] Alcoholchange.org has compiled statistics from the government showing that 24% of adults in England and Scotland regularly drink more than what is considered low-risk[48]; they found that in 2016 there were 9,214 alcohol-related deaths.[49] The Office for National Statistics found that 14.7% of adults over 18 years of age smoked cigarettes in the UK in 2018. In the same year there were 77,800 deaths attributed to smoking tobacco in the UK.[50] So, on the basis of death and addiction, cannabis seems to be relatively low risk compared to two substances that are legal and regulated. Yet, it is health concerns that are repeatedly cited when officials are asked about why there has been no significant movement toward legalisation of cannabis.[51] Conclusion: A long road to legalisation There is a worldwide shift happening in terms of social views of cannabis use. In Canada, while cannabis was still illegal it was clearly not a major concern of law enforcement, and there seems to be a similar attitude in the United Kingdom where other forms of crime take a greater importance. There is a complex web of connection between institutionalised racism, parliament, law enforcement, and politics regarding cannabis. There is a visible lag when it comes to legislation and law enforcement being up to date with social attitudes and there is clearly a disconnect between them. It seems even law enforcement does not stand on the same side of legalisation as current legislation. They seem to be shifting toward polled public attitudes that possession of cannabis and personal recreational use should not be criminalised. Talking about the impact of a law moves far past the wording of the provision or the sentencing for the crime. Law enforcement is a key piece of the system that perpetuates this racial oppression. Even with the public support for cannabis legalisation, changing social attitude, and the prevalence of usage it does not necessarily look like the English Parliament will be pushing any bills forward to make that a reality anytime soon, especially not under a Conservative government. By looking at two multicultural countries we are able to see how political differences impact the legality of cannabis. The uses of cannabis in many other countries are tied to cultural significance as well as social tolerance such as in India, mentioned previously. Cannabis is not the problem; it is the connection to organised crime and violence which can be tackled through government regulation. This has been shown in the data gathered by statistics Canada showing that in every province and territory, legalisation has brought at minimum a 26% decrease in police reported cannabis offences.[52] It is important that we continue to question the legitimacy of the claims the government makes about why they refuse to legalise and regulate cannabis as well as the institutionalised racism involved. There is evidence to suggest that the government has been using cannabis as a proverbial 'garden tool' to weed-out groups that they choose to target, or they believe are less important, and there is plenty of evidence showing that it is the black community that received the short end of that stick. All should be equal before the law, but this is virtually impossible to uphold when the law is represented through people, because people make judgements based on their inherent biases. There is no one statistic, statute, or study that will conclusively prove that politicians through the ages have used cannabis to paint a target on the backs of the black community, but there is evidence of it everywhere. With the information that we do have in consideration, cannabis is no more dangerous to human health than alcohol and tobacco. Continuing to demonise cannabis and insist that it should have no place in the UK's society is hypocritical. Based on the attitudes of the public, as well as law enforcement, its criminal status is also completely unnecessary. There are better things for the justice system to be focusing on, and worse things to be keeping out of society. [1] Mohamed Ben Amar, 'Cannabinoids in Medicine: A Review of Their Therapeutic Potential' (2006) 105 Journal of Ethnopharmacology 1. [2] Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, Schedule 2 Part II. [3] ibid Schedule 4. [4] Patrick McCrystal and Kerry Winning, 'Cannabis Reclassification: What is the Message to the Next Generation of Cannabis Users?' (2009) 15 Child Care in Practice 57. [5] 'Cannabis Reclassification' (Press Releases, 28 January 2005) accessed 20 April 2020. [6] McCrystal and Winning (n 4). [7] Simon Byrne, 'ACPO Guidance on Cannabis Possession for Personal Use: Revised Intervention Framework' (Association of Chief Police Officers, 28 January 2009). [8] '420: Seven Charts on How Cannabis Use Has Changed' (BBC News, 20 April 2019) accessed 12 March 2020. [9] 'Comments on the Reported Statistics on Narcotic Drugs' (International Narcotics Control Board, 18 October 2012) accessed 28 April 2020. [10] Marc I D'Eon, 'Police Enforcement of Cannabis Possession Laws in Canada: Changes in Implementation by Street-Level Bureaucrats' (Master's thesis, University of Saskatchewan 2017) accessed 28 April 2020. [11] Zach Dubinsky and Lisa Mayor, 'Who's Really behind Toronto's Chain of Illegal Pot Shops That Won't Quit?' (CBC News, 19 July 2019) accessed 28 April 2020; Robert Benzie, 'Trudeau urges police to "enforce the law" on marijuana' (The Star, 3 December 2016) accessed 4 May 2020. [12] Byrne (n 7). [13] ibid 4. [14] ibid 9. [15] Tom Harper, 'Police "Going Soft" on Cannabis Users' (The Times, 6 April 2019) accessed 2 May 2020. [16] Damian Gayle, 'Durham Police Stop Targeting Pot Smokers and Small-Scale Growers' (The Guardian, 22 July 2015) accessed 25 April 2020. [17] Pub Spy, 'Canterbury is "weed central" so why don't we just legalise it, say potheads' (The Canterbury Journal, 2 March 2018) accessed 28 April 2020. [18] ibid. [19] Michelle Rotermann, 'What has changed since cannabis was legalized?' (Statistics Canada, 19 February 2020) accessed 28 April 2020. [20] Leslie L Iversen, The Science of Marijuana (OUP 2008). [21] Chris Conrad, Hemp for Health: The Medicinal and Nutritional Uses of Cannabis Sativa (Healing Arts Press 1997). [22] Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith, Drugs and Security in the Caribbean: Sovereignty under Siege (Pennyslvania State UP 1997). [23] William MacPherson, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (The Stationery Office 1999). [24] Government Digital Service, 'Police Powers to Stop and Search: Your Rights' (GOV.UK, February 23, 2017) accessed 28 April 2020. [25] Benzie (n 11). [26] 'Drug Misuse: Findings from the 2018 to 2019 Crime Survey for England and Wales' (Home Office, 19 September 2019), 18. Available at . See Figure 3.1 'Proportion of 16 to 59 Year Olds Reporting Use of Illicit Drugs in the Last Year by Personal Characteristics'. [27] 'Stop and Search: How successful is the police tactic?' (BBC News, 4 April 2018) accessed 28 April 2020. [28] Jodie Hargreaves, Chris Linehan, and Chris McKee, 'Police powers and procedures, England and Wales, year ending 31 March 2016' (Home Office, 27 October 2016), 26. [29] 'Stop and Search…' (n 28). [30] MacPherson (n 23). [31] ibid. [32] ibid. [33] Benzie (n 11). [34] 'Youth Voter Turnout in Canada' (Publication No. 2016-104-E, Library of Parliament, Canada, 13 October 2016). Available at . [35] Canadian Multiculturalism Act 1985 s3(1)(e). [36] Equality Act 2010 s1(1). [37] ibid s3. [38] ibid s3(1)(i). [39] Sylvain Charlebois and Simon Somogyi, 'Marijuana-infused food and Canadian consumers' willingness to consider recreational marijuana as a food ingredient' (September 2017) accessed 28 April 2020. [40] Elena Mazneva, 'U.K. Legalizing Cannabis Supported by Near-Majority of Voters' (Bloomberg, 14 July 2019) accessed 28 April 2020. [41] 'Drug Misuse: Findings from the 2017/18 Crime Survey for England and Wales' (Home Office, July 2018). Available at . [42] Emily Ledger, 'Cannabis Policy of the Political Parties – the Conservatives' (The Cannabis Exchange, 30 November 2019) accessed 26 April 2020. [43] ibid. [44] Michael Savage, 'Fifty Years on, what is the legacy of Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech?' (The Guardian, 15 April 2018) accessed 26 April 2020. [45] Race Relations Act 1968. [46] Frances Perraudin, 'New controversial comments uncovered in Historical Boris Johnson articles' (The Guardian, 9 December 2019) accessed 27 April 2020. [47] Maria Correa, 'How Close Is the UK to Legalising Cannabis?' (The Lawyer Portal, 8 January 2019) accessed 26 April 2020. [48] 'Alcohol Statistics' (Alcohol Change UK, 2 March 2020) accessed 27 April 2020. [49] Melissa Bennett, 'Dataset: Alcohol-related deaths in the UK' (ONS, 7 November 2017) accessed 26 April 2020. [50] Danielle Cornish and others, 'Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2018' (ONS, 2 July 2019) accessed 26 April 2020. [51] Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, 'Cannabis: Classification and Public Health' (Home Office, April 2008) accessed 27 April 2020. [52] Gregory Moreau, 'Police-reported cannabis offences in Canada, 2018: Before and after legalization' (Statistics Canada, 24 July 2019) accessed 27 April 2020.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Argentina accounts for 15% of total tobacco consumption in Latin America and has made the epidemiological transition to an advanced stage in the tobacco epidemic. The Southern Cone region of the Americas leads the hemisphere in tobacco attributable mortality. Argentina is a developing country with economic interests in tobacco growing and rapidly increasing tobacco use in urban areas. In 2000, smoking prevalence was 40.4% among adults- 46.8% of men and 34% of women- and Buenos Aires urban youth (13 to 15 years old) had a 30.2% 30-day smoking prevalence (27.8% male; 31.8% female) compared to 17.7% (17.8% male; 17.7% female) in the United States. Argentina also has a high smoking prevalence among health professionals (30.3% of physicians, and 36.3% of nurses currently smoke). Given the limited smoking restrictions in indoor environments the general population is highly exposed to secondhand smoke both in public and private places. In 2000, the percentage of young people aged 13 to 15 years exposed to secondhand smoke in Buenos Aires was 69.6% at home, 87.6%, in public places, and 27.6% from their friends. A multi-country study carried out in seven Latin American cities in 2004 showed that the city of Buenos Aires had the highest airborne nicotine levels inside hospitals, schools, government buildings, airports, and restaurants observed. According to the National Program on Tobacco Control of the Ministry of Health and Environment of Argentina, tobacco use causes 40,000 deaths per year, including 6,000 due to secondhand smoke. The cost of the treatment of tobacco-related diseases is more than 4,330 million pesos per year, which represents 15.5 % of the total public expenditure on health care. Meanwhile, the tobacco excise taxes collected by the government are only 3,500 million pesos per year. The transnational tobacco companies working through their local affiliates dominate production and marketing of cigarettes in Argentina. Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco, as well as other transnational tobacco companies such as Liggett, Reemtsma, Lorillard, and RJ Reynolds International- through their local subsidiaries Massalín-Particulares and Nobleza-Piccardo- have been actively influencing public health policy-making in Argentina since the early 1970s. These transnational tobacco companies have used the same strategies in Argentina as in the United States to block meaningful tobacco control. Methods This report uses three main sources to describe the interference of the tobacco industry in tobacco control efforts in Argentina. First, we examined the tobacco industry documents in the University of California San Francisco Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu) and British American Tobacco Documents Archive (http://bat.library.ucsf.edu) and in Tobacco Documents Online (www.tobaccodocuments.org). We also used internet resources, major Argentinean newspapers (Clarín, La Nación, Página 12, La Prensa), local magazines (Muy Interesante, Revista 23, Somos, Humor, VEA), and the Argentinean National Congress Library for complete texts of the laws, bills and other tobacco control measures. Finally, we conducted face-to-face interviews with congressmen, public health officials, and tobacco control advocates in Buenos Aires during December 2003. Results • In 1966, the first bill on tobacco regulation was introduced in the Argentinean Congress to adopt a mandatory warning label on cigarette packs, but did not pass. In 1970 the government promulgated Law 18.604 that ended cigarette advertising on radio, television, and in movie theaters, and established fines for violators. This law was in effect only for one year. • In 1973 and 1974, two bills were introduced that would have placed a health warning label on tobacco products and advertisements, but these bills were not approved due to the intervention of the Cámara de la Industria del Tabaco (Chamber of Tobacco Industry), the tobacco industry's national manufacturers' association. • In 1977, as in the USA and other countries, the Chamber of Tobacco Industry created a weak and ineffective voluntary self-regulating code to avoid strong legislated restrictions on cigarette advertising. • In 1976 and 1979, the Ministry of Social Welfare drafted two bills to regulate the content of tobacco and alcohol advertisements and to require a warning label on cigarette packages. Tobacco Industry representatives lobbied government officials claiming that the established voluntary industry code was adequate and both bills died. • In the early 1980s, the Chamber of Tobacco Industry created the "Smoking Controversy Department" to counteract and undermine potential legislation. This department organized "Information Seminars" intended for selective community groups to promote the industry's position that the causal links between smoking and disease had not been proven. Seminars were aimed at the managers of tobacco production associations, agricultural technicians, physicians, scientists, journalists, tobacco advertising agencies, tobacco products distributors, elected officials, and Ministers of Health. The Smoking Controversy Department also produced and promoted literature arguing the industry's position. • During the 1980s, efforts to pass comprehensive tobacco control legislation intensified. These attempts were neutralized by a much better-organized tobacco industry that implemented a public campaign to lobby health authorities and convince journalists and the public that there was a "controversy" about the links between smoking and disease. • In 1986, the National Congress passed Law 23.344 that essentially codified the tobacco industry's ineffective voluntary advertising code and placed the weak health warning label "Fumar es perjudicial para la Salud" (Smoking is harmful to health) print on cigarette packs. Industry representatives had meetings with selected influential federal and provincial ministers, governors, and federal senators to water down the original proposal introduced by Representative Lorenzo Pepe in 1984. • In 1992, the 8th World Conference on Tobacco or Health was held in Buenos Aires. Local tobacco control advocates tried to push for the approval of a new comprehensive tobacco control bill in the Congress introduced by Representative Aldo Neri in 1990. At the same time, Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco worked together to divert the attention of the conference by organizing briefings with friendly journalists to create controversy about secondhand smoke. • In September 1992, the Neri Bill was approved in the Congress. The tobacco industry rapidly organized and orchestrated a major lobbying and public relations campaign to defeat it with the help of front groups (e.g., the International Advertising Association, the Inter-American Press Association, the Inter-American Society for Freedom of Commercial Speech, and the Argentine Association of Advertising Agencies), "scientific" consultants secretly hired and managed by industry lawyers based in the US, and Congressmen from the tobacco growing provinces. Ten days later, on October 10, President Carlos Menem vetoed the law. • Between 1992 and 2000, the tobacco industry supported alternative legislation to write the industry's ineffective voluntary marketing code into law. Even though they were not approved, these bills distracted political and public attention so that all efforts at meaningful tobacco control legislation were neutralized. • Since the mid-1990s, the tobacco industry has been promoting its "accommodation" program "La Cortesía de Elegir" (The Courtesy of Choice), to avoid legislation to end secondhand smoke exposure in restaurants and bars and to maintain the social acceptability of smoking. • Since 1997, the tobacco industry has been promoting ineffective "youth smoking prevention" programs (such as "Yo Tengo P.O.D.E.R." [I Have Power] and "Yo NO Vendo Cigarrillos a Menores de 18 Años" [I DO NOT Sell Cigarettes to Minors under 18]) to preempt meaningful anti-tobacco education by the government and to shift the focus away from the industry's responsibility for increasing youth smoking through its advertising and marketing. • In 2003, the Lower House Public Health Committee drafted a version that consolidated 18 tobacco control bills (including one from Representative Neri) but again, the tobacco industry succeeded in burying the bills. • In September 2003, President Néstor Kirchner signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the first international public health treaty negotiated by the 192 countries under the auspices of the World Health Organization. The ratification process in the Argentinean Senate remained bogged down as of September 2005, with limited efforts to ratify it. It appears that the industry is effectively lobbying Argentinean legislators not to ratify the treaty. • In August 2005, the Ministry of Health and Environment introduced in the Senate a new comprehensive tobacco control bill that follows the minimum standards required by the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, including the creation of smokefree public places (including bars and restaurants) and workplaces, the end of all types of tobacco advertising (except point-of-sale) and sponsorship, and the placement of rotating health warning labels and images in cigarette packages. It also bans misleading descriptors (such as "light") and requires the placement of maximum levels of nicotine and tar print on packages. Recommendations 1. The journalists from print and electronic media, public health advocates, politicians and institutional leaders need to become more aware of how the transnational tobacco industry has manipulated and influenced policy making in Argentina, which affects the health of the public, and report this information to the public. 2. The national government, through the Ministry of Health and Environment, should implement a comprehensive educational campaign to enhance awareness about the health dangers of secondhand smoke and to promote the enactment of city-wide, provincial and national ordinances that prohibit indoor exposure to secondhand smoke. 3. Argentina should implement the principal provisions of the Framework Convention such as increased taxes, a complete advertising ban, and graphic pictorial warning labels on cigarette packages. 4. The federal government and health care industry need to support effective smoking cessation services, such as quit-lines, at minimal cost to all smokers. RESUMEN Argentina representa el 15% del consumo total de tabaco en América Latina y se encuentra en una fase avanzada de la transición epidemiológica en la epidemia del tabaquismo. La región del Cono Sur de las Américas lidera el hemisferio en mortalidad atribuible por tabaco. Argentina es un país en desarrollo con intereses económicos en el cultivo de tabaco y un alto consumo de tabaco en áreas urbanas. En 2000, la prevalencia del consumo de tabaco en adultos fue del 40.4% (46.8% en varones; 34% en mujeres). El mismo año, la prevalencia del consumo de tabaco en los últimos 30 días, en jóvenes de 13 a 15 años de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, fue del 30.2% (27.8 % en varones; 31.8% en mujeres) comparada con 17.7% (17.8% en varones; 17.7% en mujeres) en los Estados Unidos. Argentina posee también una alta prevalencia de consumo de tabaco entre los profesionales de la salud (30% de los médicos y 36.6% de los enfermeros actualmente fuman). Debido a las escasas restricciones al consumo de tabaco en ambientes cerrados, la población general está altamente expuesta al huno de tabaco ajeno, tanto en lugares públicos como en privados. En 2000, el porcentaje de jóvenes de 13 a 15 años expuestos al humo de tabaco ajeno en Buenos Aires, fue del 69,6% en sus casas, 87,6% en lugares públicos y 27,6% de sus amigos. Un estudio multicéntrico llevado a cabo en siete ciudades latinoamericanas en 2004, mostró que la ciudad de Buenos Aires tenía la mayor concentración de nicotina ambiental en hospitales, escuelas, edificios gubernamentales, aeropuertos y restaurantes observados. De acuerdo al Programa Nacional de Control del Tabaco del Ministerio de Salud y Ambiente de la Argentina, el uso de tabaco causa 40.000 muertes anuales, incluyendo 6.000 debido a la exposición al humo de tabaco ajeno. El costo del tratamiento de la enfermedades relacionadas al tabaco es de más de 4.330 millones de pesos por año, el cual representa el 15,5% del gasto público total en salud. Mientras tanto, los impuestos al tabaco recaudados por el gobierno son sólo 3.500 millones de pesos al año. Las compañías transnacionales de tabaco, trabajando a través de sus filiales locales, dominan la producción y la comercialización de los cigarrillos en la Argentina. Philip Morris International y British American Tobacco, así como otras compañías transnacionales de tabaco tales como Liggett, Reemtsma, Lorillard y RJ Reynolds International, a través de sus subsidiarias locales Massalín-Particulares y Nobleza-Piccardo, han influenciando activamente las políticas de salud pública en Argentina desde comienzo de los años 1970s. Estas compañías transnacionales de tabaco han utilizado las mismas estrategias en Argentina que en Estados Unidos para bloquear políticas de control del tabaco significativas. Métodos El siguiente reporte utiliza tres fuentes principales para describir la interferencia de la industria del tabaco en los esfuerzos por controlar el tabaco en Argentina. Primero, examinamos los documentos de la industria del tabaco que se encuentran disponibles en la internet en las bibliotecas Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu) y British American Tobacco Documents Archive (http://bat.library.ucsf.edu) de la Universidad de California en San Francisco, y en Tobacco Documents Online (www.tobaccodocuments.org). También utilizamos otras fuentes de información de la internet, los principales periódicos argentinos (Clarín, La Nación, Página 12, La Prensa), revistas locales (Muy Interesante, Revista 23, Somos, Humor, VEA), y la Biblioteca del Congreso de la Nación de la Argentina para ubicar y analizar los textos completos de leyes, proyectos de ley, y otras medidas de control del tabaco. Finalmente, en diciembre de 2003, realizamos entrevistas cara a cara en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, con legisladores, funcionarios de salud pública y activistas para el control del tabaco. Resultados • En 1966 fue introducido en el Congreso Nacional argentino el primer proyecto de ley para la regulación del tabaco. El proyecto, que no fue aprobado, requería la colocación obligatoria de una etiqueta de advertencia sanitaria en todos los paquetes de cigarrillos. En 1970, el gobierno promulgó la Ley 18.604 que ponía fin a la publicidad de los cigarrillos en la radio, la televisión y los cines, y establecía multas para los infractores. Sin embargo, esta ley estuvo en vigencia sólo durante un año. • En 1973 y 1974 dos proyectos de ley ingresados en el Congreso Nacional requerían la colocación de una etiqueta de advertencia sanitaria en los envases de los productos de tabaco y en su publicidad. Sin embargo, estos proyectos no fueron aprobados debido a la intervención de la Cámara de la Industria del Tabaco, la asociación nacional de productores de la industria del tabaco. • En 1977, de la misma manera que en los Estados Unidos y otros países del mundo, la Cámara de la Industria del Tabaco creó voluntariamente un Código de Autorregulación Publicitaria débil e inefectivo para evitar la aprobación de legislación que contemplara fuertes restricciones a la publicidad del tabaco. • En 1976 y 1979 el Ministerio de Bienestar Social de la Nación preparó dos proyectos de ley para regular el contenido de la publicidad del tabaco y el alcohol y para requerir una etiqueta de advertencia sanitaria en los paquetes de cigarrillos. Representantes de la industria del tabaco ejercieron presión política sobre funcionarios del gobierno reclamando que el ya voluntariamente establecido Código de Autorregulación Publicitaria de la industria era suficiente. Finalmente, ambos proyectos fueron archivados. • A principios de los años 1980s la Cámara de la Industria del Tabaco creó el "Departamento sobre la Controversia del Tabaco" como una herramienta para contrarrestar y menoscabar una posible futura legislación anti-tabaco. Este departmento organizó "Seminarios de Información" dirigidos a grupos específicos de la comunidad para promocionar la posición de la industria por la cual la relación causal entre tabaco y enfermedad no estaba comprobada. Los seminarios estuvieron dirigidos a gerentes de asociaciones de productores de tabaco, técnicos agricultures, médicos, científicos, periodistas, agencias de publicidad del tabaco, distribuidores de productos del tabaco, Ministros de Salud y otros funcionarios gubernamentales. El "Departamento sobre la Controversia del Tabaco" también editó y promocionó publicaciones exponiendo la posición de la industria del tabaco. • Durante los años 1980s se intensificaron los esfuerzos para aprobar una legislación amplia para el control del tabaco. Estos intentos fueron neutralizados por una industria del tabaco mucho mejor organizada que orquestó una campaña pública para ejercer presión sobre las autoridades de salud, y convencer a periodistas y al público en general sobre lo que la industria llamó la "controversia" sobre tabaco y salud. • En 1986 el Congreso Nacional aprobó la Ley 23.344 que esencialmente codificó el inefectivo y voluntario Código de Autorregulación Publicitaria de la industria del tabaco y requirió la colocación de la débil etiqueta de advertencia sanitaria "Fumar es perjudicial para la Salud" en los paquetes de cigarrillos. Representantes de la industria del tabaco tuvieron reuniones con influyentes ministros nacionales y provinciales, gobernadores y senadores nacionales para "suavizar" el proyecto de ley original introducido en 1984 por el Diputado Nacional Lorenzo Pepe. • En 1992 la 8va Conferencia Mundial sobre Tabaco o Salud se llevó a cabo en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Activistas locales para el control del tabaco intentaron presionar para la aprobación en el Congreso de una ley amplia la cual había sido introducida en 1990 por el Diputado Nacional Aldo Neri. Al mismo tiempo, Philip Morris International y British American Tobacco trabajaron juntas para desviar la atención de la conferencia, organizando sesiones informativas con periodistas "amigos" para crear controversia sobre los efectos de la exposición pasiva al humo de tabaco. • El 30 de septiembre de 1992, la Ley Neri fue aprobada en el Congreso Nacional. Sin embargo, la industria del tabaco rápidamente organizó y orquestó un exitoso plan para derrotarla con la ayuda de grupos de fachada (por ej. la Asociación Internacional de Publicidad, la Asociación de Prensa InterAmericana, la Sociedad InterAmericana para la Libertad de Expresión Comercial, y la Asociación Argentina de Agencias de Publicidad), consultores "científicos" contratados y orientados por la industria y legisladores de las provincias tabacaleras, y montó una gran campaña de relaciones públicas y de presión política. Diez días más tarde, el 10 de octubre, la ley fue vetada por el Presidente Carlos Menem. • Entre 1992 y 2000, la industria del tabaco apoyó proyectos de ley "alternativos" que estaban en consonancia con su Código de Autorregulación Publicitaria. A pesar de no haber sido aprobados, estos proyectos sirvieron para distraer la atención política y pública y de esa manera, todos los esfuerzos para el control del tabaco fueron neutralizados. • Desde mediados de los años 1990s la industria del tabaco ha estado promoviendo su programa de "acomodación" conocido como "La Cortesía de Elegir" o "Convivencia en Armonía", para evitar legislación que ponga fin a la exposición pasiva al humo de tabaco ajeno en restaurantes y bares, y para mantener la aceptación social del consumo de tabaco. • Desde 1997 la industria del tabaco ha estado promoviendo programas de "prevención del uso de tabaco en jóvenes" inefectivos (tales como "Yo Tengo P.O.D.E.R." y "Yo NO Vendo Cigarrillos a Menores de 18 Años") para evitar campañas educativas anti-tabaco por parte del gobierno y para desplazar el foco de atanción por la responsabilidad que la industria tiene, a través de la publicidad y comercialización de sus productos, en el incremento del uso de tabaco entre los jóvenes. • En 2003, la Comisión de Acción Social y Salud Pública de la Cámara de Diputados de la Nación escribió un Dictamen Final que consolidaba 18 proyectos de ley para el control del tabaco (uno de ellos del Diputado Aldo Neri) pero una vez más, la industria del tabaco tuvo éxito en cajonear los mismos. • En septiembre de 2003, el Presidente Néstor Kirchner firmó el Convenio Marco para el Control del Tabaco, el primer tratado internacional sobre salud pública negociado por 192 países bajo los auspicios de la Organización Mundial de la Salud. Al mes de septiembre de 2005, el proceso de ratificación en el Senado argentino permanece estancado con pocos esfuerzos para ratificarlo. En vista de los acontecimientos pasados parecería que la industria ha estado ejerciendo presión exitosamente sobre los lesgisladores argentinos para que no ratifiquen el convenio. • En agosto de 2005, el Ministerio de Salud y Medio Ambiente introdujo en el Senado de la Nación un nuevo proyecto de ley amplio para el control del tabaco que está en sintonía con los estándares mínimos requeridos por el Convenio Marco para el Control del Tabaco. El proyecto contempla la creación de ambientes públicos y lugares de trabajo libres de humo de tabaco (incluyendo bares y restaurantes), la prohibición de la publicidad (excepto en los lugares de venta) y el patrocinio y la colocación de etiquetas de advertencias sanitarias rotatorias con imágenes, en los paquetes de cigarrillos. También prohibe la colocación de descriptores engañosos (tales como "suaves") y requiere los niveles máximos de nicotina y alquitrán impresos en los en los envases de tabaco. Recomendaciones 1. Periodistas tanto de los medios gráficos como electrónicos, activistas de la salud pública y líderes institucionales, deberían tomar conocimiento sobre como las compañías transnacionales del tabaco han manipulado e influenciado las políticas de control del tabaco en la Argentina lo cual afecta la salud de la población, y comunicar esta infomación a la población general. 2. El gobierno nacional, a través del Ministerio de Salud y Ambiente, debería implementar una amplia campaña educativa para aumentar la conciencia sobre los daños a la salud provocados por la exposicion pasiva al humo de tabaco ajeno, y promover la aprobación de legislación local, provincial y nacional que impida la exposicion pasiva al humo de tabaco ajeno en lugares cerrados. 3. Argentina debería implementar los estándares principales del Convenio Marco para el Control del Tabaco, tales como el aumento de los impuestos al tabaco, la prohibición total de la publicidad, y la colocación de etiquetas de advertencia sanitarias con imágenes en los paquetes de cigarrillos. 4. El gobierno nacional y el sector privado de la atención de la salud deben apoyar servicios de cesación tabáquica efectivos, tales como las líneas telefónicas de ayuda para dejar de fumar, a un bajo costo para todos los fumadores.
Glatfelter, Charles H.; Oral History Collection To read the transcript and access the audio/video (if available) of this interview at the same time, first download the pdf of the transcript by clicking on the link at the top of this screen. The transcript will open in a separate window. Next, select the or option to the right of the screen to access the media player. Special Collections & College Archives Musselman Library Interview with Michael Birkner Interviewer: Rebecca Duffy Interview Date: November 22, 2013 Interview with Michael Birkner Rebecca Duffy, November 22, 2013 1 Rebecca Duffy: [Today is November 22, 2013. I am Rebecca Duffy and I will be interviewing Professor Michael Birkner in Special Collections at Gettysburg College's Musselman Library.] We will start with you as a student here, so that we can get some insight. I think that's really special that we have an alumnus [that is so accessible] from the 1970s. You graduated in 1972? Michael Birkner: Yes. Duffy: Did you start here in 1968 and go straight through the four years? Birkner: Yes, I did. Duffy: You were a History major. Did you have any other majors or minors? Birkner: Actually, I was a back-ended History major. I was a Political Science major for three years and I intended to go into political journalism. That was my interest. I was always a politics junkie, so it was a natural for me to be interested in that. If you know anything about American History from 1968 to 1972, you know it was a very tumultuous time. Being interested in history as it was being made was particularly attractive to me. But by the time I was finishing my junior year as a student I looked back and thought about what I had done in Political Science and what I still had to do and I wasn't impressed by the coherence of the Political Science major. Specifically, I also had been avoiding a particular faculty member who was terrible and who taught a required course in International Affairs. I thought about it and I said [to myself], "I don't want to take this person's course just for the sake of getting a major that I'm not even convinced is worth having. So I went over to see Dr. [Charles] Glatfelter. I said to him, "I realize I am a second semester junior, but I think I would rather major in history. Is that possible?" [Pause] I don't want to make myself out to be special, but the people in the History department knew me and I had taken courses in history because I had liked history. They [Norman Forness, George Fick, and Charles Glatfelter] pitched to me that I should switch majors and become a history major. The important thing was they said, "if you just take this and this and this, you have got your major." So I did. I had probably seven or eight courses in Political Science, but I didn't [think well enough of my 2 experience to] declare it a minor. I just left and became a History major and then wound up going on to graduate school. Duffy: What were some of the courses that you took in History while you were here? Birkner: Well, I won't go into all the details because that will bog you down, but I will say that the program in History at the time was Euro-centric. If you look at the catalogue you will see that there really was very little World History. You took courses on the western historical tradition, you took courses on the European and British history, and you took courses on American history. There was no Africanist in the department, there was no Latin Americanist, and there was no Middle Eastern person. We did have a person that did Asian history, but half of that person's courses were focused on American diplomatic history which was not unusual at that time. So, essentially outside of the West we actually had half of a person to do anything else in the world. It was a provincial kind of historical learning. I did take a course in Chinese history, but I cannot say I had a good grounding in anything more than the Western traditions. The other thing I can abstract for you about my experience is that I was again unusual in that my interests were American history, but I took more non-American history than American history. My attitude- and I think it was justifiable- was that if I went to graduate school in History, I would be doing almost all American history and why should I not have the opportunity now to get a little wider range. In retrospect now there are all kinds of ways I could have broadened my education in college [with]. I was not adventurous and the college wasn't particularly adventurous in its curriculum. When you think about it, the one smart thing I did was not do all of that American history when I was going to get [plenty of] it in graduate school. Duffy: That Professor that you had for Chinese history, was that Professor Stemen? Birkner: Yes, Roger Stemen. Duffy: He was in charge of anything East Asian, sometimes even Indian history, I think I noticed? 3 Birkner: He might have done that once and that was it. He wasn't really interested in Indian history. We had a woman named Janet Gemmill [whose maiden name was Powers], so [after her divorce] she is Janet Powers. She taught Indian Civilization, but for reasons I have never really understood- this is before my time as a faculty member -I think she and the History department were not on the same wavelength, so she didn't teach it through the History department, she taught it through IDS. Mr. Stemen was the Asianist. He came in 1961 and he was the first to teach that. Duffy: I noticed that. I also noticed that the courses at that time [during the 1960's primarily] were dual courses, such as 201 and 202. Were you required to take both of them if you took one? Birkner: No, but you are right, they were sequenced. I'm guessing a lot of that was because a good percentage of undergraduates in those days went on to social studies education. They probably wanted to fill out a card of having the 201, 202 of History. That wasn't anything that affected me as a student. That wasn't a requirement. [Pauses to collect thoughts] The only requirement where we had to go through both parts of the sequence were interdisciplinary courses called "Contemporary Civilization" and "Literary Foundations of Western Civilization." Duffy: What was required by the History department [when you were a student] was passing a few three hundred level courses, the Methods course and Senior Seminar, right? Birkner: Right. Duffy: So you completed all of those? Birkner: Absolutely. Duffy: Did you have Professor Glatfelter for Methods? Birkner: Absolutely, everybody took Methods with Dr. Glatfelter. Except for the semesters when he was on sabbatical, he was it. Duffy: What was that experience like? How would you have described it when you were in the class? 4 Birkner: Maybe, it was a lot like what you experience with me. However, Dr. Glatfelter was a very different personality than I am . He was very Germanic. He had been trained originally to be a high school social studies teacher. Now he was a very smart man and wound up getting a PhD from Johns Hopkins. You don't do that unless you have some brains. He was one of these people who went by categories--one, two, three- which is not the way I do things. His approach to teaching was not very exciting to me. Just to give you an example of the way he taught Methods, one-third of the course he lectured about the historiography of Western Civilization, the writing of the history of the West from Herodotus until the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. Each day he would come in for seventy-five minutes and lecture about Herodotus or Livy or Gibbon or Voltaire- who was a historian not a very good one, but a historian [none the less]- [hand motions and voice indicating droning on], Prescott and Parkman and Bancroft. Your first big paper in the course was to read three of these historians--one from the Ancient World, one from Early Modern Europe and one from the 18th or 191h century--and write a comparative [paper]. He did that every semester. I benefited from it, though I have not read those historians since. But [in general] this was dull. The second part of the course was more "Nuts and Bolts." That's where he talked about doing footnotes and bibliographies and reference books. Of course [this was] the pre-computer age so he would bring in a cart and show you reference books. Again, it wasn't too exciting. The third part of the course was the "Philosophy of History'' in which he would talk about a range of things from why we do history to the discourses of history. It was very conservative. As I may have said in class, we read one article about Oral History and he basically said, "I made you read this because it is possible this may be interesting, but it is also possible that it may just be a fad." We didn't do anything more with that. We did the same thing with Psychohistory; maybe we read an article on it. Now Psychohistory came and went really, it is not much today talked about. But he was not an adventurous person. So why is it that he is remembered? Because Dr. Glatfelter had extremely high standards and he challenged you to be the best that you could be. He was a very demanding task-master. 5 When you handed in a paper, he read every line and corrected every line. You got away with nothing. He was a person of tremendous integrity and he wanted you to be. That's what really affected me the most, to be honest with you. The specifics of what he was teaching didn't grab me much, but his ethos, that's what really grabbed me. I don't know what students think about me, but I would guess I am considered "old school" and that's okay, because you need to authentic. Dr. Glatfelter was authentic. And I like to think I am. Some students probably think it is good and some maybe think I am too hard [and demand too much work]. Again, I don't know what the word on the street is, but you've got to be what you are as long as you're nice and fair and all those things- some [professors] can be mean and that's not a good thing [chuckles], but I don't think I am that! [In the end] I think I took away [Dr. Glatfelter's] sensibility about doing history and that has always had an impact on me- [even] forty years on. If you talk to other graduates, I bet you would get similar responses. Duffy: That he was a challenging teacher, but certainly worth it in the end for [the experiences] you get out of it? Birkner: Yeah, sure. Duffy: More than [simply] as a historian? Birkner: [Thoughtful] Yeah, absolutely. [Pauses to collect thoughts] He and I were colleagues for a year when I was back in the late seventies teaching here. When he retired [in 1989], I took his job. We became close [friends] and for the last 24 years of his life- he died in February [2013]- we did a lot of things together. For [many] years I brought him into the Methods class to talk to the students about a specific project or brought the students down to Weidensalllobby to talk with him if they had questions about a particular topic. He was wonderful. Duffy: What was that like when you first came back here having Professor Glatfelter and I can't remember exactly who was still here then who had been here when you were a studentBirkner: Everyone 6 Duffy: Everyone? Birkner: Everybody. Duffy: [So then,] what was that department dynamic like when you joined, having your old professors [as colleagues]? Birkner: . As a student was I was very close with faculty, more close than I think [most] students are today. Just to give you an example, there was no Specialty Dining in those days, there was the Bullet Hole- [though] it was in a different part of the CUB- and there was a group of about 8-10 faculty that ate there every day and talked politics- remember, it's a very interesting time- and they talked campus business as well. They invited me to eat lunch with them. So, I ate lunch in the Bullet Hole every day with the faculty. Now, you say you already know a creepy amount of information about me, but one thing [is that] I belonged to a fraternity. The fraternity I belonged to only ate dinner together in our house; we didn't eat breakfast or lunch together. We were on our own for lunch. Most of my fraternity brothers after class went back to the house and ate lunch together; probably watched Jeopardy or something and just hung out. I never did. I always went to the Bullet Hole and ate lunch with the faculty. Secondly, I was the editor of the Gettysburgian. At the time newspapers were different then they are now. They were really newspapers as opposed to mostly opinion. [Pauses to collect thoughts] The paper [during my years in college] was well respected. So, faculty members wrote for it, faculty members called me up. I had a kind of elevated sense of myself. To answer your question, it wasn't a hard transition to come back in 1978 to teach because people had always treated me collegially as opposed to say you were simply a student. Duffy: As a subordinate71 Birkner: Yeah, well [Pauses to collect thoughts] I hope I don't treat you [quite] like that. We all have different roles to play. It was an easy transition is the short of it. 1 Intended to say something which more conveyed the mentor-student relationship 7 Duffy: What about the transition that we started to talk about before- when you took over the Methods class? What was that like? Did you see that you wanted to make a lot of changes? Did you make them right away? Birkner: That's a good question. Dr. Glatfelter was not a controlling person, but on the other hand he was a very "tracked" person. As I said there wasn't a lot of change [over time] . I was hired, in some measure, because [members of the History department] felt the Methods course was an important course and they felt that I would be the person who could make it matter in the future. When I came back, Dr. Glatfelter said [something like], "You do what you want with the Methods course, but here's the way I do it." The first year I tried to teach it along the track he laid out. I used some different books, but I basically had the same structure he had. I was bored teaching it! Teaching about Medieval historians and giving students bits and pieces about historians -I could see that nothing was going to stick with them. I just said [to myself], "I can't do this!" That's when I said to myself, "this course is going to need re-tooling." That's how you have more or less greater extent what you are experiencing [this semester in Methods]. Dr. Glatfelter was the one who had the three projects and I have three projects, but he never would have assigned an Oral History! Here's the other interesting thing, he didn't assign any manuscript, original material research because we didn't have an archive for the students to work in! We really couldn't do a lot of that. Dr. Glatfelter's laboratory was the Adams County Historical Society where he was the director. He never had the students [go there]. I was surprised about this because we could have done that. We had an archive [at the college]; it just wasn't a place where you could work. He could have assigned us to have stuff to work on and under controlled conditions we could have done it. He just never did it. The part that really surprised me was that here he is the director of the Adams County Historical Society, which has tons of great [material] to work on. I've used it many times in my Methods class- just not this semester because they have had some difficulties moving out of the old Schmucker building [and into a much smaller facility]. So, one of the things I said was that 8 were going to start doing this! What I did [was encourage the creation of a facility for storing a working with archival material on Gettysburg College's campus]. I had something to do with the fact that this [special collections research room] exists because [as department chair] I was able to get a very unusual bequest which had not originally been directed to Gettysburg College. I was able to convince Homer Rosenberger's executor [Attorney William Duck of Waynesboro, PA] that Gettysburg College would be the place to house the Rosenberger Collection, with the idea we would get his estate. The money we got from that estate allowed Robin Wagner, the library director, to hypothecate into other money which enabled them to build this room- which is an enormous asset to students of history, and not just in Methods. Plus we have all of these great internships etc. which we didn't have before that. So, [to go back for a second] in 1990-1991, which was my second year here, I revamped the course really along the lines of what you are taking now. Duffy: So has it not changed so much in the past few decades? What would you say has changed? Birkner: What has changed in part is that the discourses in history have grown increasingly focused on anthropology. The opportunity for students to do more intensive work in Special Collections has probably been the biggest change. They can do much more in Special Collections than they could when I first started teaching here. The idea is always to give students opportunity to work with the stuff of history and be historians rather than just write about [secondary works]. I'm a little off sync with some of my colleagues who are so emphatic that what students need to learn is historiography and what I think is what students need to learn is to feel confident about doing history and that means doing it, instead of writing about historians doing it. I want you to do it. Now, of course the two are not mutually exclusive. You should learn that history is an evolving discipline and there is always an on-going dialogue -that's of course important. But to me, for the Methods course, what's really important- if I can put it this way- is to get your hands dirty doing it, [for example] have that one-on-one experience doing an Oral History with a senior citizen; it will stick with you for a long time. 9 Duffy: Definitely. I think I have noticed that. I feel like I live in Special Collections sometimes! Birkner: And that's a great thing because it is your laboratory! You may have friends that are Environmental Science majors, they're working in a lab. Your lab is right here. Duffy: [Pauses] [So then,] If we could just go back one moment to when you were a student and there weren't as many opportunities [to research in-depth on campus]. I know the senior seminar was molded into a course throughout the sixties Uust before and during your time here as a student]. so I was wondering about your experience in the senior seminar and how you were able to do the research you needed to do [without the facilities here]? Birkner: That's a good question; I think it was only in the late 1960s that they developed the senior seminar more or less the way we know it. Until then, students had to take comprehensive exams and they also wrote a senior thesis, [but there was no senior seminar]. The problem with that program is number one: camps terrify students. A high percentage of the students were not capable of engaging them very effectively, which depressed the faculty. [Further], the quality of the senior theses was generally pretty low, in part because there was little faculty supervision. If you have say forty seniors who are majors and you've got the faculty you have, they just weren't [able to] give the time to the students on an independent study basis to do the senior thesis. So that is when they came up with the seminar notion. As far as being able to do the research- it was unusual for you to be able to spend time doing anything original. Today, more and more of our students [are doing original research]. I was talking to Lincoln Fitch the other day, he's a senior and he is doing his senior thesis on Reconstruction and he's going down to the Library of Congress and working with the papers there and he is making some interesting finds. We wouldn't have thought of that because nobody was encouraging us to do that. I wrote my senior thesis on Christian Humanism in England in the early 16th century. I read a lot of first-hand accounts, they were printed, but they were still primary sources. I read secondary sources about the Humanist movement, which is part of the Renaissance, as it affected life in England. 10 Duffy: So you feel that students now have a better opportunity to delve in deeper? Birkner: Yeah. The other thing that should be emphasized is that our faculty are more "teacher-scholars" or "scholar-teachers" than was the case in the sixties when their primary emphasis was on teaching. Again, you can't draw with too broad a brush because Dr. Glatfelter was always doing scholarship of a kind. He was very productive, but his focus tended to be narrow--on Adams or York counties or religions of York and maybe Pennsylvania. Few people in the department were pursuing active research agendas because they didn't have the same emphasis on scholarship and mentoring students as scholars as we have today. I think having a teaching faculty that is also a scholarly faculty is going to make for better mentors at the senior level or any level. Think about someone like David Wemer, who is a senior History major and just won a prize for the best paper by an undergraduate in the United States. [The prize was sponsored by the American Historical Association.] It was published in a student scholarly journal. What a great recognition for Gettysburg College. He is an exceedingly talented person, but having someone like Dr. Bowman advising him and mentoring him made it [possible]. I mentored three students [over the past several years] who were [George C. Marshall] Scholars. Each was invited down, at my nomination, to become an undergraduate fellow in Lexington, Virginia [under the auspices of] the George C. Marshall Foundation. Each of them did outstanding work and each was recognized for that work. By coincidence, I had lunch today with one of those students. He was a History major and now works as an archivist for the CIA and wanted to come back and talk to me about graduate school. That kind of mentoring I don't think would have happened forty years ago. [However,] I have a certain reputation in the field, I know people, I know what my students are doing and I can then recommend them. The sad thing with the Marshall Program is that they blew through all their money. So, after the program existed for four or five years they ran out of money and I can't recommend students to it anymore because it doesn't exist. The two other students who I recommended for it and got accepted, 11 one is now working on his PhD in Cold War History at Ohio State and the other one is doing a PhD in Early American History at William and Mary, so clearly they moved on and did good things. Duffy: So you would say that the faculty dynamic today- [a group made up of a dozen or so] individuals each scholars and, I would say talented, teachers is creating these opportunities for students? Birkner: I think it enhances and enriches the environment for our History students; hence, it gives them an extra boost toward having a valuable college experience. Dr. Glatfelter had the right standards and the right spirit. But I think that what we have today, is not only that among most of our faculty -I wouldn't say everyone does because Dr. Glatfelter was pretty much the top of the line in that- but they are committed on both the teaching and scholarly side and that's good modeling for students. When you are a senior taking a seminar you will be asked to attend a seminar session in which you will read a faculty member's paper in advance and then go in and hear that faculty member describe how he or she got into writing that paper and then you will be able to ask questions of that member about it. We do that every semester. That's a bit of modeling. You can see what the faculty member does and say to yourself, "Maybe that's how I can do it." That didn't exist forty years ago. We do a lot more stuff you would take for granted, but didn't exist then. Such as, Career Night, Grad School Night, bringing in alumni who are successful in the field of history to talk, the Justin DeWitt Lecture. How about two student journals? The Civil War Journal and The Gettysburg Journal of History again didn't exist forty or even, fifteen years ago, but they do now. That's how David [Wemer] got this national recognition, because he published his article in the History journal. [Earlier today] I was talking to Sam Cooper-Wall today about his thesis for me and I was saying how he really had potential to publish it or expand it as his master's thesis. "Don't forget," he said, "I published it in the Gettysburg Historical Journal." That's right, he did. That's the kind of thing that gives you value added. 12 Duffy: I guess my last question is just going back, once again in a more comparative way, you said the time that you were here was a very [tumultuous] time. Did the faculty use any of those current issues as teaching moments in the classroom? Birkner: Not really. I think one faculty member who taught American Cultural History picked up on environmental issues, which was one of the pieces of the puzzle in the late sixties. Earth Day started when I was college student. He tried to connect Post- Civil War environmentalism, Darwinism, with the new environmental ethic of the late sixties- early seventies. I thought that was good, but he was the only [one]. Professor Stemen, who taught Chinese history, was teaching at the very time that Nixon made his initiative to open doors to China, and he would mention it, but it wasn't integral to the teaching. We were aware of it. I think people made a definite effort not to politicize the classroom. It's not a good idea for teachers at any level to voice their ideas about politics to students. So, that didn't happen really. People were very focused on the subject matter. Duffy: I think that is about it for the questions that I have- Birkner: I think that the one piece of this you are not getting is the student side. You don't want to assume that everything is always [better each year]. I think, today, our students are more sophisticated in many ways about history. You are much more cosmopolitan and you are much more adventurous than our generation in many respects. Just think about that fact that students take courses in fields I never took courses in because they weren't even there, but nobody is afraid to take a course in Middle Eastern history or Australian history or African history. [Today's] students are interested. That's a very good sign. On the other side ofthe coin, I wouldn't disparage students from the late Sixties who were, like me, first generation college students who had a hunger for education and were willing to work hard . . , , There were a lot of people in that circumstance. So, the students were a little bit more aggressive for their education in the late sSxties. Now I will tell you also, that when I came back in the late Seventies the students were not what I remembered them being. They were very self-focused and 13 [pauses to collect thoughts] uninterested it seems to me in the same kinds of issues I had been interested in in college, so that was a little bit of a disappointment. Duffy: I read that I think in one of the oral histories with Professor Glatfelter. He had realized a shift around the mid-Seventies. [He noticed] students were changing what they wanted out of school and how they felt about school. So, I think he saw as well, a decline in the level of learning or [rather] interest in learning. Birkner: I think this is not just a Gettysburg story. Duffy: Right. Birkner: I think it would [have been the case] at you name the place. I remember when I taught my first class at the University of Virginia. This is almost hilarious in a way because I taught a course in [19]74 at the University of Virginia as a grad student. It was a seminar and we read a book on the Sixties. The kids were all like [Raises voice, indicates excitement], "What were the sixties like? What were the sixties like?" and I was thinking [Chuckling between words], "Whoa, whoa!" [To them] It was like "what was World War One like?" It was 1974 and I thought, "Whoa, how quickly the gestalt of the times changes." So, what Glatfelter noticed is certainly what I noticed. Now, particular students, of course, were terrific. They are wonderful and friends of mine now, but the mentality [gestalt] of the campus was very different. Just as an example, the fraternity that I was in had disappeared by the time I came back to teach because it was a more alternative, non-conformist fraternity [and there was no market for that at Gettysburg after 1975]. We didn't do hazing and hell week. We invited the faculty to our parties and they came. Duffy: [Laughs] Birkner: Seriously! It was kind of an admixture of fraternalism, but not the dopey stuff. Obviously, to each his own, but I never had a use for anything [like that]. I remember Dr. Glatfelter- he was not a funny man- but I remember one of the funniest things he ever said. I once said, "Charlie, I know when 14 you were a student at Gettysburg College they still had traditions during orientation where they would punish [underclass] students [for infractions of the rules]. They would cut men's hair off, make women wear side-boards over their front and back with their hometown and phone number on it." Duffy: [Laughs] Birkner: Oh yeah, absolutely! And I said to him, "What if you had ever been brought up by the Tribunal for some infraction when you were a first year student?" Without missing a beat he said to me, "I know exactly what would have happened. I would have packed up my suitcase and gone home because I wouldn't have put up with that nonsense for one second!" That was Charlie. I can't claim that I was as individualistic as he was. For all I know I would have accepted [hazing], but it was nice to find a home [in a fraternity] where it really wasn't practiced. But by the late seventies students weren't into that. They didn't want an alternative fraternity, they wanted a gung-ho fraternity experience. Again, that's okay. I would wish that a fraternity like the one I was in would exist again today because I think there is something to be learned from living in a house with people from different backgrounds [with] different values in some cases. Learning how to live together, learning how to keep a place up [is important]. I don't regret for one minute that I did that. I also had a [fine] experience in that I was a free agent to do what I wanted. Duffy: You got to go to lunch! Birkner: Yeah, I got to go to lunch and I got to eat dinner with my fraternity brothers and party with them and make those horrible road trips down to Wilson College. You did the things that college students do, but you also did it on a slightly different track. When I came back in the late eighties the college was in transition. It had become by then a more national institution, so students were coming from a larger swath of the country, which was a good thing. [It reflected] a more cosmopolitan view. [The population] was still very white, not as diverse as it is today, but moving in the right direction, I think. I would honestly say that your generation of students on the whole is a lot more fun to teach than 15 any generation I have taught before. Just take for example class yesterday on the "Cat Massacre." You are willing to buy into reading something challenging, thinking about it and then talking about it. To me that is learning. But that wasn't really the pedagogy [in the 1960s and 1970s] and when the transition was made a lot of students just wouldn't buy into it because they were [satisfied] being more passive. Learning should be active. It seems to me we have got that buy in from our majors and more generally, too. Hopefully, what you do in my class and your other history classes carries over into Poli Sci and the other courses you are taking, because again, why should it not? [From here we continue to talk for the next few minutes about the intersections between disciplines in the case of myself and my partner Ryan, as well as the possibilities of support from the government for public history and the National Park Service]. 16
As a Caribbean institution of Higher Learning, the University of the West Indies is seen as a major contributor to integration efforts in the Region very often mandated by CARICOM to carry out educational missions to that effect. Working in a geographically fragmented and multilingual space, foreign language education is a major preoccupation for academic departments or sections in the respective campuses. The Mona Campus, based in Jamaica, was very one of the earliest to recognize the need to add LSP courses in its curriculum as electives (Business) or as 'service courses' for other programmes (Tourism and Hospitality Management). To these existing LSP courses, the French Section at the Mona Campus added in 2003 a new LSP course geared toward International Relation students. The originality of the course lays its chosen method of delivery by total simulation. The course was offered twice since its approval and under two different schedules (two-week intensive and semester-long). This chapter discusses the impact of these two schedules on the course delivery and learning process. The comparison shows the importance of student's motivation and learning autonomy. The study also comments on the use of blended learning (on-line module complementing face-to-face delivery) and suggests that virtual reality may offer a new addition to Total Simulation for LSP. ; To cite the digital version, add its Reference URL (found by following the link in the header above the digital file). ; TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 73 French for International Conference at The University of the West Indies, Mona: Total Simulation in the Teaching of Languages for Specific Purposes Marie-José Nzengou-Tayo The University of The West Indies, Mona Gilles Lubeth The University of The West Indies, Mona Abstract: As a Caribbean institution of Higher Learning, the University of the West Indies is seen as a major contributor to integration efforts in the Region very often mandated by CARICOM to carry out educational missions to that effect. Working in a geographically fragmented and multilingual space, foreign language education is a major preoccupation for academic departments or sections in the respective campuses. The Mona Campus, based in Jamaica, was very one of the earliest to recognize the need to add LSP courses in its curriculum as electives (Business) or as 'service courses' for other programmes (Tourism and Hospitality Management). To these existing LSP courses, the French Section at the Mona Campus added in 2003 a new LSP course geared toward International Relation students. The originality of the course lays its chosen method of delivery by total simulation. The course was offered twice since its approval and under two different schedules (two-week intensive and semester-long). This chapter discusses the impact of these two schedules on the course delivery and learning process. The comparison shows the importance of student's motivation and learning autonomy. The study also comments on the use of blended learning (on-line module complementing face-to-face delivery) and suggests that virtual reality may offer a new addition to Total Simulation for LSP. Keywords: CARICOM, French for international trade, international conferences, Language for Specific Purposes (LSP), methodology Introduction Language for Specific Purpose (LSP) has developed with the expansion of international trade and the development of multilingual and multicultural working teams. Short language courses are designed at the request of enterprises or institutions in order to meet the specific demands related to the work environment. Though LSP courses have been in existence for more than three decades, their introduction in the academic programs of language majors is quite recent and has been a hot debate for several years at MLA and ADFL meetings. In the Caribbean, with the development of integration, the need for LSP has been felt as the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) started to look beyond the English-speaking Caribbean and opened itself to non-English-speaking territories (Surinam and Haiti joined the organization in 1995 and 2002 respectively while Cuba and the Dominican Republic have observer status). These political trends impacted on our foreign language offerings, stressing the need to open our curriculum to professionally oriented courses. The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and the language sections of the two other campuses TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 74 had various responses: at the St. Augustine Campus (Trinidad and Tobago), a Latin American Studies program was developed; at Cave Hill (Barbados), a cross-faculty program in Management Studies with a minor in a foreign language was approved; at Mona, LSP courses were developed and students from other faculties were allowed to declare minors in French or Spanish. In this article, we present the circumstances surrounding the design of the latest addition to French for Specific Purpose courses offered at the University of The West Indies, Mona (UWI, Mona), the methodological choices made and their implication for assessment. Because the course has been offered twice since its approval by the University Academic Quality Assurance Committee and with two different schedules, we will compare and discuss these two delivery modes. Language for Specific Purpose at the UWI, Mona At the UWI, Mona, the introduction of French for Special Purpose came out of a pragmatic approach at a time when high schools were experiencing a high turnover of French teachers and a reduction of schools offering A-level French (equivalent to the Baccalauréat). Noting that our graduates were being hired in the insurance and tourism industries, it was thought that equipping them with professional language skills would give a 'practical' touch to our program. The recruitment of a colleague with professional experience in translation led to discussions about a more professionally oriented program. "French for Business" was the first LSP course to be designed in 1991–1992 with the creation of a level III course of French for business or "Business French." The course was developed as an elective in response to a situation in which French graduates were moving toward the business sector instead of education. In the subsequent years, other LSP courses were introduced: "French for Hospitality" in 1998–1999 and "French for International Conferences" in 2003. The introduction of this last course coincided with a drastic overhaul of the French curriculum. The offering of "French for International Conferences" came at a time when the French section of the Department was repositioning itself and revising its offerings. The course was designed with a view to attracting International Relations (IR) students while capitalizing on the latest trend in French foreign language teaching methods. The decision was based on the fact that IR majors and French majors minoring in IR outnumbered students majoring in French only. It was taken at a time when the section was going into a survival mode, taking drastic measures and moving away from the traditional language curriculum (36 credits equally divided between language and literature). The section opted for a mix of language, literature, film and culture, and French for specific purpose courses. It was a drastic choice since the section was moving away of the traditional literary offerings. Though the section has not fully recovered, it has increased its numbers and the majority of students pursuing French are double majors (French and Spanish) with a professional objective of becoming translators or interpreters, followed by IR and Linguistics majors. Total Simulation in French Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Even though Total Simulation in French Foreign Language Education was initiated in the 1970s at the BELC (Bureau d'Enseignement de la Langue et de la Civilisation Françaises à l'Étranger / Office for the Teaching of French Language and Civilization TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 75 Abroad) it did not really become mainstream until the late eighties. This approach to language teaching evolved from role playing and the need to expand role playing over a longer period of time with a view to involving diverse aspects of communication (Yaiche, 1996). Total Simulation was borrowed from continuous professional education where staff received specific training to deal with job-related situations. Total Simulation for French Foreign Language Teaching was first conceptualized by Francis Debyser, a professor at the CIEP (Centre International d'Études Pédagogiques / International Center for Peda-gogical Studies). In the 1980s, Total Simulation became more broadly accepted and moved from experimental to established status. Publishers become interested and several textbooks were published by Hachette between 1980 and 1990 (Yaiche, 1996). By the 1990s, Total Simulation was redirected toward the teaching of French for Specific Purpose (Business French, French for International Relations, Hospitality French). Total Simulation benefits today from IT and its use in the classroom. It is still at the experimental stage as is the case of 'Virtual Cabinet' for the teaching of English, which has been developed by Masters' students at University of Lyon II (http://sites.univ-lyon2.fr/vcab/demo/) or 'L'auberge' developed by University Lille III for incoming French Foreign Language Students (http://auberge.int.univ-lille3.fr/). Characteristics of a Total Simulation Course in Foreign Language Learning Total Simulation in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning could be considered revolutionary in its approach and methodology. First, the role of the teacher is transformed as he or she becomes a facilitator and a participant in the simulation instead of an instructor. For instance, in the International Conference Simulation, the teacher plays the part of the Secretariat. He or she compiles and archives the material needed for the progress of the conference. He or she also provides documents and the linguistic tools needed for the project. Secondly, simulation follows a set pattern of five stages (See Bourdeau, Bouygue, & Gatein, 1992; Yaiche, 1996). The first stage is the creation of the setting. In the case of the International Conference, it means, choosing the theme and the place of the conference. The second stage is to identify the participants. At this point, the role playing starts as the learners have to choose an identity and the country that they will represent. Learners will have to play several roles: delegates from their chosen countries (Minister of Foreign Affairs or High Ranking Civil Servant or Ambassador). At one point, they also play the part of journalists. The countries are fictitious but based on the characteristics of real countries. During this stage, learners choose their identity and civil status; they invent a short biography indicating two physical, moral, psychological, intellectual characteristics, two distinctive objects, (Yaiche, 1996). The third and fourth stages consist in conducting the simulation: the official opening ceremony and the working sessions. At this point, learners are to present their country's respective position paper. Interaction takes place as well as negotiations for a common position and action plan. During this stage, the facilitator plays an important part in ensuring the archiving of all productions and the elaboration of a data bank for the progress of the conference. Students are provided with documents and assisted in acquiring the mastery of the linguistic tools needed for the exercise (e.g., mastery of high language register for official speeches; mastery of diplomatic lexicon for the phrasing of the final resolution and the press release, TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 76 ability to write an abstract or a synthetic report from a news article, etc.). The final stage is geared toward ending the simulation. In the case of the International Conference, it is marked by the writing of the final resolution and a press conference. Since IR students are to be prepared to face and manage diplomatic incidents/crisis during negotiations, elements that could lead to such incident are introduced between the fourth and fifth stage of the simulation when students are drafting the final resolution of the conference. Students are expected to draw on their negotiating skills in order to solve the problem or assuage the potential conflict and bring the conference to a positive closing ceremony. Assessment is blended in the simulation: oral expression is assessed during the opening ceremony (a five-minute presentation) and during the press conference. Students are video recorded and marking takes place afterwards. (See evaluation sheet in appendix B). Both examiners are present to abide by University Examination Regulations. Writing proficiency is assessed through a press release and the conference final resolution, which is done individually during a traditional in-class test. It is also assessed 'outside' of the simulation through the submission of a take-home assignment, the format of which is either a précis writing or a critical review of a newspaper article related to the theme of the conference. Students are provided with a choice of articles from Le Monde Diplomatique, a well-established and recognized reference journal from which they will select an article for review or summary. LSP and Total Simulation in Jamaica and at the UWI, Mona French teachers in Jamaica were introduced to Total Simulation in 1993 thanks to a new French Linguistics Attaché who was also appointed at The University of the West Indies from 1992–1997. A specialist in Total Simulation, she organized two workshops for the Jamaica Association of French Teachers and one for the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo), a Jamaican state agency responsible for the training of the workforce in the tourism sector. The co-authors received additional training at the annual training seminar organized by the Centre International d'Études Pédagogiques (CIEP) held in Caen in July 1996 (Nzengou-Tayo) and July 2009 (Lubeth) respectively. The first total simulation course at the UWI was developed in 2003. Two factors contributed to the choice of this methodology. One was the renewed interest in LSP with the review of the French program. After a quality assurance review in 2003, the French section, threatened by low numbers in registration, revised its program with a stronger professional component (introduction of an additional LSP course and translation modules). The second was the institutionalization of summer courses, which offered the possibility of using an intensive format. The idea was to design a course that could imitate a real life situation: an international conference taking into account that such an event is usually limited over a period of time (1–2 weeks) and requires a full work day. The course was submitted to the University Quality Assurance Committee for approval (See course proposal in Appendix A). In the initial submission, evaluation was by 50% coursework and 50% final examination (Appendix A). However, when the course was first taught in 2006, we requested a change of the evaluation scheme to 100% coursework (50% oral presentation and 50% written assignment). The reason for this change was directly related to the philosophy behind total simulation, which required a formative form of assessment that would blend seamlessly in the simulation. TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 77 Case Study: The 2006 and 2009 Experiences Since its creation, French for International Conferences (FREN 3118) has been offered twice: first, in 2006 as an intensive summer course over two weeks, and secondly, in 2009 as a regular semester course over thirteen weeks. These two modes of delivery will be compared and discussed in this section. Course delivery schedule. In 2005–2006, during the two-week period during which the course was offered, the timetable averaged 25 hours per week with 5 daily contact hours. FREN 3118 was the only course attended by the students. Students were put in an immersion situation as they interacted with a native speaker of French during the week. During the second week, ten hours were set aside for independent research in an attempt to give students an opportunity to develop learning autonomy. In 2009–2010, the course was taught during the first semester according to the regular schedule. The timetable featured 3 one-hour sessions per week. In addition to FREN 3118, students were simultaneously registered for four other courses whose demands were competing with the French course. The fast pace of the semester (13 weeks) did not allow for a scheduled independent research. Students had to use their free time for independent research to develop their learning autonomy. The difference between the schedules of the 2006 and 2009 course delivery had an impact on the course management as well as the students' learning experience. It is evident that 2009 students did not have the same learning stimulus as the 2006 ones. They had the pressure of their other courses in term of time and workload. In addition, regular attendance was an issue since students sometimes missed classes either due to timetable clashes or assignment deadlines to meet in other courses. The running of the course was affected as each student had a part to play in the progress of the simulation and absence from class meetings affected the proceedings of the conference. Student profile and number. The course targets third-year students and requires a general language module at level III as a co-requisite. However, the co-requisite can be waived depending on the level of the students. For instance, when the course was offered during the summer 2006, it was waived for second-year students who had received a B+ in the two modules of the level II language courses. In 2009, a third-year International Relations student who had completed level I of the French language courses with A and was reading the level II language course was allowed to register. The waiver was granted based on his outstanding results at level I and also after an interview in which he demonstrated a high level of motivation and learning autonomy. In 2006, the course was offered with 9 students and in 2009 there were 14 registered students. Numbers can be an issue for conducting a total simulation course. For instance, our experience taught us that, even though Cali, Cheval, & Zabardi (1992) suggest a number of 20 participants divided according to a ratio by type of countries1 in La Conférence Internationale et ses Variantes, country-ratio balance can still be observed TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 78 with lesser numbers. Based on our 2006 experience, we recommend a minimum of 8 students. Indeed, a lesser number would not allow their distribution according to the recommended country ratio. In addition, work in commissions, which is part of the simulation process, would be less productive. Similarly, 20 is the maximum manageable number of students during total simulation. The attention to be devoted to students' progress and the group dynamics become a challenge with larger numbers. Therefore, beyond 20, the group would be divided and two concurrent simulations conducted, provided that staffing is not an issue for the institution. Topics and scenarios. On both occasions, the theme of the conference was inspired by current affairs relevant to the Caribbean region. In 2006, the conference was titled "Libre circulation des travailleurs à l'échelle mondiale: Faisabilité et conditions" (Feasibility and Conditions for a Global Free Movement of Labour). The theme was inspired by discussions taking place in the media about the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) put in place by CARICOM countries that year. The scenario was developed to involve a group of 9 countries, members of a regional organization seeking to achieve integration through free movement of workers. The 2009 edition of the conference, "Réchauffement climatique: Stratégies et équité" (Global Warming: Strategies and Equity) was inspired by the then ongoing international negotiations on global warming. The course started in September, just three months before the Copenhagen Summit. The scenario was based on the creation of an international organization, the Group of 14 (G14) specially dedicated to addressing the issue of global warming, and therefore holding its first conference accordingly. The choice of topics related to current international or regional issues stimulates the students' interest as they can have access to current reference material. They develop their critical thinking as they are exposed to various diverging opinions and asked to present their country's position at the start of the conference. For example, at the 2009 conference, the delegate of "Bonangue" expressed the country's position as follows: Conscient des graves effets [du réchauffement climatique] sur l'environnement, nous tenons à prendre action immédiatement parce que les effets poseront un problème pour le pays. Par le passé, la Bonangue a donné priorité aux revenus, dans certains cas, au détriment de l'environnement. Le pays est disposé à porter [sic] les changements nécessaires. The delegate of "Kalasie," on the contrary, indicated, "La Kalasie est favorable au recours aux crédits d'émission de gaz utilisables par les investisseurs." Another delegate from "Lisérbie" chose to stress the social impact and the importance to reach a consensus on the matter. The multiple and sometimes diverging country positions will contribute to the life of the conference as the objective is to find a common ground and sign a final resolution, which would bring the conference to a close. TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 79 Resources and methods. The course outline was developed in accordance with the prescribed textbook La Conférence Internationale et ses Variantes (Cali et al., 1992). The authors' recom-mendations were followed with some adjustments, which will be presented below. Since countries have to be fictitious to respect the principle of Total Simulation, two websites, CIA: The World Factbook, and Quid were used to establish the profile of these invented countries.2 Using the principle of 'mots-valises' students invented the name of the countries they were representing. For instance, "Lisérbie," "Kalasie" or "Dukenyah" were obviously created in reference to existing countries or regions. Other names were arbitrary and left to the students' imagination as "Cadeaux d'Ouest," "Amapour" or "Kadia." Other web resources were used in accordance with the theme of the conference and a companion website was developed on the University Virtual Learning Environment (OurVLE) (UWI, Mona "Virtual Learning Environment") to take advantage of information technology at our disposal at the Mona Campus. The 2006 intensive format. We introduced some slight variations from the standard format of the simulation. First, the course started with a screening of the French movie Saint-Germain ou la Négociation (2003) with Jean Rochefort. The objective was to highlight the objectives, modalities of diplomatic negotiations as well as to insist on the high-language register used during negotiations, which the students would have to use. Despite the historical context (the 16th century), the film was particularly suitable as it showed protocol and behind-the-scene events taking place during political negotiations. Secondly, students were given an introductory lecture on the processes of international conferences coupled with a tour of the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston. This was facilitated by a colleague and professional translator who worked at international conferences and was familiar with the facility. Various documents were made available online on a range of topics: international organizations pursuing regional integration through implementation of free movement of labor (the European Union, CARICOM) and a compilation of documents on immigration and globalization. In 2006, the course page on OurVLE was used only for archival purposes. The instructor, playing the part of the conference Secretary, uploaded for future reference documents that had been identified as relevant to the conference. Since the students' time were dedicated to the course, it was easy to simulate the rhythm of a conference with meetings in commission and plenary sessions. The course outline was design to be the "agenda" of the conference. The intensive format helped to develop a group dynamic based on solidarity and conviviality, which stimulated weaker students to make efforts to improve their proficiency. The 2009 semester-long format. The semester-long delivery of FREN 3118 differed from the intensive summer course on some points. The presentation by the guest lecturer and the film screening were maintained, but, due to timetable constraints, the tour of the Conference Centre did not take place. The main innovation was in the extensive use of the online module and the exploration of the functionalities offered by the Moodle platform supporting OurVLE TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 80 where all the material necessary for the presentation of the theme and the conduct of the activities of the conference were uploaded. All documents were made available online via OurVLE, expanding from print and website links to audio and video. Students' productions were added to the resources identified by the instructor. The instructor/facilitator provided the following resources: explanatory documents on global warming (its geopolitical implications and the negotiation process); documents with terminology used in diplomatic language; and audiovisual documents from France2, France3, and YouTube. A link to Yann Arthus-Bertrand's documentary Home (2009) was also put on the course portal. As Secretariat, the instructor/facilitator uploaded reports of sessions held during the preparatory phase (the preconference meetings). These reports gave students a regularly updated overview of progress made, a review of notions covered as well as the calendar of events (the schedule of meetings). Using the functionalities offered by Moodle, students were able to contribute to the development of the course portal. Using the 'upload a single file' and the forum features, they uploaded their own production, including country and delegate profiles, reports resulting from the sessions in commission and plenary sessions, and draft resolutions. The course portal was useful for archiving the various activities conducted during the course. Students were able to refer to a central repository outside of the contact hours. This tool also had financial and ecological benefits as it reduced the cost of photocopying. Indeed, whereas all documents had to be printed in 2006, only documents produced during the conference (student-generated commission and plenary reports, agenda and list of speakers) were printed for circulation in 2009. Because of the discontinuity of the timetable (3 hours spread over 13 weeks), the 2009 conference did not flow as harmoniously as the 2006 one. With competing interests, students found it difficult to dedicate themselves to the conference. Running from one class to another, they sometimes lost track of the conference objectives, which in turn had an impact on the group dynamics and progress as indicated by the results of the continuous assessment (i.e., the coursework). Evaluation and students' results. As mentioned earlier, the course assessment was done by 100% coursework. The percentage was equally divided between oral and writing proficiency (50% each). Oral proficiency was assessed as follows: delegate's address at the opening ceremony weighting 25%; delegate's interview at the press conference (15%); and one intervention as a journalist interviewing the delegates at the press conference (10%). Writing proficiency was assessed through a press release (10%), an individual proposal for the final resolution (15%), and one précis writing/critical review of document(s) (25%). Students' oral and written productions were graded using a criterion-referenced assessment grid (See Appendix B for details). In 2006, we got a 100% pass rate with results ranging from A+ to C. In 2009, the pass rate was 71.42%. With the intensive format, students demonstrated their mastery of high-level register. Students who were considered 'weak' based on their low grade in the general language courses, managed to improve their proficiency level and achieve acceptable performances in oral presentations. In 2009, there was a large gap between the TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 81 best and the weakest students (2 students got As, 4 students failed, and 8 students' grades ranged from B+ to D). Group average was 49.79%. When comparing the two groups' results, we have to admit that we had some doubts initially about the intensive format because of the limited time given to students to properly absorb the notions and the various tasks required in the course. Yet, it appears that stretching the process over a semester is not a decisive factor for improved performance. The role of group dynamics in total simulation is yet to be measured though it is generally recognized in class interaction and learning. During the regular semester, the group dynamics did not play a cohesive role as it did in the summer course where more proficient students helped to strengthen the weaker ones. Competing academic interests and irregular attendance during the regular semester also had an impact on students' low performance. Conclusion At the UWI, Mona, we introduced LSP courses in our academic programs as part of our major from a pragmatic standpoint in reviewing our curriculum. Though we are aware that LSP courses generally target professionals already in the field, as a result, the design and offering of such courses is usually preceded by a need analysis and the identification of the language processes (i.e., register, lexicon, syntax, speech acts) needed to achieve the requested proficiency (Mangiante & Parpette, 2004). Both "Business French" and "French for International Conferences" count toward the major, though only one can be taken as a core course, the other being an elective. Because LSP courses have a professional orientation, they give undergraduates the impression of being prepared for the world of work. The use of total simulation comforts this impression because of its task-based approach and the fact that it recreates a work environment with its idiosyncrasies. Combined with information technology (OurVLE), it becomes an original and valuable method. The dual-mode adds flexibility to the course and expands access to authentic material. However, success depends heavily on students' learning autonomy, which is enhanced by a tool like OurVLE. Motivation and participation are essential for the success of students as evidenced by the results of the third-year student who was accepted while doing the first module of level II French and was one of the top two students in the course. Our experience suggests that the intensive format yields better results because it reinforces student concentration, dedication, and performance, which also benefit from the positive impact of the group dynamics. Recent development in the field shows an orientation toward multimedia and information technology to create virtual worlds where Total Simulation is made possible on a large scale. The combination of the two is very promising for language learning and teaching but presents new challenges to foreign language teachers and course developers. Notes 1Cali, Cheval, & Debardi (1992) identify the following categories: developing countries, developed countries, least developed countries, and Central or Eastern European countries in transition towards market economy. The latter category being now obsolete, the decision was made to replace it with countries in the same geographical region. TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 82 2See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ and http://www.quid.fr. References Arthus-Bertrand, Y. (2009). Home. Home Project. Retrieved (September–November 2009) from http://www.youtube.com/homeprojectFR L'auberge. Retrieved February 21, 2010 from http://auberge.int.univ-lille3.fr/ Bourdeau, M., Bouygue, & M., Gatein, J. J. (1992). Le congrès médical: Simulation globale sur objectifs spécifiques. Ministère des affaires étrangères, sous direction de la coopération linguistique et éducative, CIEP-BELC, 1991/92. Sèvres: CIEP. Cali, C., Cheval, M., & Zabardi, A. (1992). La conférence internationale et ses variantes. Paris: Hachette, Français langue étrangère. Mangiante, J. M., & Parpette, C. (2004). Le français sur objectifs spécifiques: De l'analyse des besoins à l'élaboration d'un cours. Paris: Hachette. Le Monde Diplomatique. 2009. Paris: Editions "Le Monde." Retrieved from http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/ Virtual Cabinet. Retrieved February 21, 2010 from http://sites.univ-lyon2.fr/vcab/demo/ Yaiche, F. (1996). Les simulations globales: Mode d'emploi. Paris: Hachette, Français langue étrangère. TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 83 APPENDICES Appendix A Original submission to the Academic Quality Assurance Committee of the UWI, Mona Campus in 2003–2004. The assessment was subsequently modified to 100 percent coursework in 2005–2006. DEPARTMENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES & LITERATURES COURSE PROPOSAL Course Title: French for International Conferences Course Code: FREN 3118 Level: 3 Semester: 1 Credits: 3 Prerequisite: A Pass in F24A (FREN 2001) Co-requisite: F34A (FREN 3001) Contact hours: 4 hours per weeks (1 lecture, 1 writing tutorial, 1 oral expression, 1 listening comprehension) Rationale: French is one of the major languages of the United Nations and other inter-national institutions. In response to increased demand for specialized foreign language courses, this course will introduce students to the technical French of international relations and negotiations Course description: This course is designed to reproduce an international conference setting during which various aspects of diplomatic negotiations will be envisaged with a view to using French at the formal/foreign affairs level. Objectives: At the end of the course students should be able to Demonstrate understanding of French spoken in a formal/diplomatic setting Read articles in French on international issues. Write press reviews, press releases in French about an international issue. Express a personal view about a topical International issue in French Express a simulated official view about a topical International issue in French Simulate an official address in French Simulate a press conference in French TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 84 ASSESSMENT 50% in-course: 3 one-hour in-class tests: Reading comprehension (15%); Writing (20%); Listening comprehension (15%) 50% Final Examination: Oral presentation (25%) and 2-hour written examination (25%) TEXTS La Conférence Internationale et ses Variantes. Chantal Cali, Mireille Cheval and Antoinette Zabardi. Paris: Hachette Livre, Français Langue Étrangère, 1995. Audio-visual material from TV5 (such as Kiosque, Une fois par mois, Le dessous des cartes). Articles from journals such as Le monde diplomatique. REFERENCES Plaisant, François. (2000). Le ministère des affaires étrangères. Toulouse: Editions Milan, Les Essentiels Milan, 2000. Kessler, Marie-Christine. (1998). La politique étrangère de la France. Paris: Presses de Sciences-Po. http://www.france.diplomatie.gouv.fr Appendix 2. Assessment grid for oral presentation Official Address: (5-minute presentation at the Opening Ceremony). Press Conference Part 1 and 2: Presentation of Country Position followed by Questions and Answer session). Students plays the country official and then the journalist parts. FREN 3118: Oral Presentation Assessment Grid NAME: Grade Comments Relevance of Arguments /5 Fluency /5 Consistent use of high-language register /3 Communicative skills /2 Accuracy and richness of vocabulary /5 Accuracy and use of complex syntactic structures /5 Accurate pronunciation /5 FINAL GRADE (25%) /25 TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 85 FREN 3118: Press Conference Assessment Grid—Presenter NAME: Grade Comments Relevance of Arguments (5 pts. x 3 = 15) Presentation Answer (1) Answer (2) Fluency (5 pts. x 3 = 15) Presentation Answer (1) Answer (2) Consistent Use of High Language Register (3 pts. x 3 = 9) Presentation Answer (1) Answer (2) Communicative skills (2 pts. x 3 = 6) Presentation Answer (1) Answer (2) Accuracy and Richness of Vocabulary (5 pts. x 3 = 15) Presentation Answer (1) Answer (2) Accuracy and Use of Complex Syntactic Structures (5 pts. x 3 = 15) Presentation Answer (1) Answer (2) Accurate Pronunciation /5 marks x 3 = 15 Presentation Answer (1) Answer (2) Unconverted Total (90 pts.) / FINAL GRADE (15%) TOTAL SIMULATION IN TEACHING LSP Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes (2013) 86 FREN 3118: Press Conference Assessment Grid—Journalist NAME: Grade Comments Relevance of question (5 pts. x 4 = 20) Question 1 (Name) Question 2 (Name) Question 3 (Name) Question 4 (Name) Fluency (5 pts. x 4 = 20) Question 1 (Name) Question 2 (Name) Question 3 (Name) Question 4 (Name) Consistent use of high-language register (3 pts. x 4 = 12) Question 1 (Name) Question 2 (Name) Question 3 (Name) Question 4 (Name) Accuracy and richness of vocabulary (5 pts. x 4 = 20) Question 1 (Name) Question 2 (Name) Question 3 (Name) Question 4 (Name) Accuracy and use of complex syntactic structures (5 pts. x 4 = 20) Question 1 (Name) Question 2 (Name) Question 3 (Name) Question 4 (Name) Accurate pronunciation (5 marks x 4 = 20) Question 1 (Name) Question 2 (Name) Question 3 (Name) Question 4 (Name) Unconverted Total (112 pts.) FINAL GRADE (10%)
The College Metcuty. VOL. IV. GETTYSBURG, PA., JULY, 1896. No. 5. THE COLLEGE MEfiCUftr, Published each month during the college year by the Students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. STAFF. Editor: ROB3IN B. WOLF, '97. Associate Editors : LEWIS C. MANGES, '97. ED. W. MEISENHELDER, '98. SAMUEL J. MILLER '97. CHARLES T. JOHN W. OTT, '97. CHARLES H. E. L. KOLLER, '98. LARK TILP, Alumni Association Editor: REV. D. FRANK GARLAND, A. M., Baltimore, Md. Business Manager: HARRY R, SMITH, '97. Assistant Business Manager: JOHN E. MEISENHELDER, '97. -n.-.iru ("One volume (ten months). U'UMS-\Slngle copies Finable is advance. $1,110 .15 AH Students are requested to hand us matter tor publication. The Alumni and ex-members or the College will favor us by sending information concerning their whereabouts or any items they may think would be interesting for publication. All subscriptions and business matters should be addressed to the business manager. , Matter intended for publication should be addressed to the Editor Address, THE COLLEGE MEKCUHY, Gettysburg, Pa! CONTENTS. ABSTRACT or BACCALAUREATE SERMON, - 66 THE PLACE or THE Y. M. C. A. IN THE \ ,R SOCIOLOGY OF THE COLLEGE, | CLASS-DAY EXERCISES, . - --- 71 CLASS-DAY POEM, - 71 JUNIOR ORATORICAL CONTEST, - 71 HOME, SWEET HOME. - 71 ROLL OF HONOR, - - -.- - - - - - -74 COLLEGE COMMENCEMENT PROGRAM. --- 74 DEGREES. -74 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT, - - 75 ALUMNI NOTES, 75 SrF.ciAL ANNOUNCEMENT, - - - 77 COLLEGE LOCALS, -' --- . 77 ATHLETICS, 79 HOTEL LOOKOUT, --81 ABSTRACT OF BACCALAUREATE SERMON. BY II. W. MCKNIGHT, D D., IX. D. li'h- 8: 5. "See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the Mount." These words relate to the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness. It was to sub-serve such great purposes in the camp of the chosen people that God himself had revealed the pattern of it to Moses on Mount Sinai, in-dicating and fixing both its general plan and its minutest details, and saying to him : "See that thou make all things according- to the pattern showed to thee.'' Moses was, first, to grasp clearly the plan, the ideal. He was to go to his work, not aimlessly, but knowing what he was to do and how he was to do it. Definiteness of plan, distinctness of ideal, and fidelity to it were to him the esseutialconditions of success. The lessons thus taught are easily discerned. They are applicable now and here. You, my young friends, are about to go down from a veritable mount of privilege and preparatory training to engagements and a mission that have been fixed for you in the divine plan. Your intended work is to be constructive. You are to be builders in a very high and real sense—builders of character, organizers and constructors of a lifework as solemn in its im-port as destiny and as enduring as the endless cycles of eternity. Nor are you left to guess what you are to do and how you are to do it. God, who has built the universe and formed its myriad and minutest parts together in a comprehensive and harmonious plan, whose purpose shines in every star, blooms in every flower, is enfolded in every seed and finds ex-pression in every voice of nature, has his plan, also, for your life and work. He has embod-ied it for your guidance in the precepts and principles of His word. He has revealed it 67 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. most clearly and impressively in the spotless example of His Son. He has brought you up to that other mount of latest and sweetest reve-lation, the mount of the cross, that you might with open-face behold and with grateful hearts love the heavenly pattern of living and work-ing. Fidelity to this divine ideal is central and all inclusive in your preparation for life. To ignore it is the madness of turning from light to darkness. To practically neglect it will be to repeat the fatal mistake of the foolish builder who "built his house upon the sand," and whose plans and efforts and hopes came to naught in the ruin wrought by the tempest's and torrent's fury. Speaking to you, therefore, in the name of your instructors and delivering to you the final and affectionate charge of the institution, whose training you have received, permit me to set before you the pattern of a true life, to urge you to embody it in the ideal, and plans you form for your work, and to re-peat to you the solemn injunction : "See that you make all things according to it.'' He then presented and discussed the ideal of a true life as ist. The subordination of the material to the spiritual. 2nd. The embodiment of beneficence. 3rd. Having as its radiant centre—its Holy of Holies, God, his will, grace and glory. After discussing these points he addressed the class as follows : "My young friends of the class of'96: In sending you forth now, the Institution is concerned, not only for what you will do, but also for the spirit in which you will do it. It would have you adopt as the stand-ard by which you will measure your achieve-ments a high and worthy ideal and aim. What you will do, the spheres you will fill, will be determined largely by your endowments and opportunities, by circumstances not always within your control. You may not be per-mitted to choose what you will do, but you can determine the spirit in which you will do it. This, more than anything else, will settle the question of your worthiness and real suc-cess. Ideals and aims, whether right or wrong, true or false, lofty or low, though but neutral facts, mere abstractions, become a vitalized force to those who make them their own—a power to be measured only by the comprehen-siveness and reach of the principles involved. Whether in the form of proverbs, mottoes or doctrine, they have masterful force. Men bow before them as the ripened corn before the au-tumn winds. How the recent re-statement of the Monroe doctrine, our nation's ideal for this continent, and its interposition against the ag-gression of England roused the people with readiness to subordinate to it all other interests and to defend it at any cost : "Freedom for the American slave," too, was once only an abstraction, and those who cherished it were decried as wild enthusiasts, but it asserted its sway and, through the proclamation of Presi-dent Lincoln and the victories of the Union arms, became a sublime reality in the disen-thrallment of swarthy millions. Of the Puri-tans, whose unswerving devotion to truth and the principles of liberty once made them seem so visionary, whose name has become familiar as any household word in the homes of free-dom, and whose imperishable memorial is the civil and religious liberty of England and America. Macaulay, tracing the power that swayed them to its source, has well said: "They derived their character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests." All history attests the fact that all men who have done the best and largest work first wrought out in thought the pattern of their work. They anticipated the end from the beginning and set their aims toward it as the pilot holds the prow of his ship towards the harbor beyond the sea. Greatness and steadiness of aim impelled Paul and Luther to heroic deeds and made them a world-wide force. The loftiness of their ideals drew them up with increasing strength into spheres of sub-limest achievement. Nor can you come into excellence of char-acter and work in any other way. "Purpose," it has been wisely said, "is what gives life a meaning." It rouses and directs the energies, THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 68 and prevents drifting. Bind your life to that which is great and good, and greatness and goodness will be your enduring portion. A worthy ideal will give its ennobling impress to vour character and work, in any sphere, even as the beauty of the blossom is determined by the colors laid at the root of the tree. In the very sense of incompleteness, of "having not yet attained" which it begets and perpetuates vou will find a prime condition of progress, and an urgency to such sustained effort as in-sures increasing effectiveness and power. "Mrs. Sarah Larman Smith," it is said, "learned to talk of Christ to the Arab women in a few months, and Schwartz to the Hindoos in three weeks." Why? A great purpose— to preach the gospel to the benighted and per-ishing, quickened their faculties and enabled them to do in a few weeks or months what to minds, lacking such inspiration, would have been the work of years. So let it be with you. While you dwell among things which seem temporal and have to do with them, look above and beyond them at the things which are un-seen and eternal. Let your ideal of living and working be a pattern showed to you in the Mount of God, a celestial power and iuspira: tion in the doing of earthly things. Grasp its full significance "in the perfect man" in whom the ideal became the real, and pattern was changed with person. Let His love constrain you ; His arms control you ; His example in-spire and mould you ; let it be Christ for you to live, and the end will be, must be, eternal gain. "See that you make all things accord-ing to the pattern showed to you in the Mount.'' THE PLACE OF THE Y. M. C. A. IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE COLLEGE. BY DR. ENOCH PERRINE. A change international in extent has revo-lutionized the college world. Barriers between the different classes and between professors and students have been broken down. An-tagonism between different professors and bit-ter contention between colleges has largely disappeared. Colleges are bound even in an international fellowship. All departments contribute to this movement, the Y. M. C. A. most of all, suggesting a sociology of the col-lege. The young man coming to college thinks first of his social status, the attitude of other students, and whether he shall make war or peace. Formerly he had to conquer a place and having established his reputation as a dangerous man, he visited the newer comer with the same horrors to which he had been subjected. Now the Y. M. C. A. meets him at the beginning and does numberless acts of kindness, exhibiting the characteristics of Christ, "the first true gentleman that ever breathed." It thus binds the college world fast by social ties. This must be done in the college before we can expect, it to obtain out-side, since in the college are peculiar incen-tives for the work. The young man next adjusts himself to his intellectual environment. He begins to be shut in by the material success about him and may be tempted to leave behind his "trailing clouds of glory." Then the Y. M. C. A. can direct aright his thought, insisting that God ought to be traced everywhere, thus binding all his intellectual efforts around the cross of Christ, "by whom all things consist." The importance and office of the intellect in the pursuit of truth will be plain to him. Darwin suffered an atrophy ou his poetic and spiritual side and the Y. M. C. A. may prevent such a fate from overtaking their fellows, thus pre-venting the head from freezing the heart and working a great benefit in the Intellectual life of the college. As he proceeds in the acquisition of knowl-edge, the young student will begin to think that in ideas alone there is a defense against moral degredation and a nepenthe for all dis-appointments. Culture will keep corruption from his hands—will be a shelter in the time of storm. Orators and poets shall be his all in all. Then the Y. M. C. A. may give him 69 THK COLLEGE MERCURY. right conceptions as to the Moral life, assert-ing that it is pitiful when the soul mounts higher but comes not closer to God and prov-ing that he only is truly moral who bases his life upon God. All parts of the social life are to be harmonized under one supreme principle. This is to be found at the foot of the cross and any other proposal is but a scheme of decep-tion leaving the mighty turmoil to seethe and boil underneath in undiminished horror. As the Y. M. C. A. insists upon this no man of culture will wail with Mathew Arnold that "most men die unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest." But all these results may be successfully ac-complished and yet the student may miss the crowning glory. He may play the gentleman in the highest outward sense, may go willingly to the point where his logical faculties assure him that'there is a God, may develop his aesthetic sense so that the moral thing shall seem to be a beautiful thing, and yet blending by all this glory he may not know that he is really in Chimerian darkness. Then the Y. M. C. A. can declare that only he truly loves who loves a personality, that no one ever got beyond a cold respect for an abstraction, though that abstraction be a s.ream of tend-ency that makes for righteousness, and that one must see the king in his beauty before he will get that larger outlook without which life is flat, stale and unprofitable. The Y. M. C. A. can bring about this very desirable change of view better than any other agency about the college since the ordinary student out of Christ, now that he is no longer in the acad-emy, will resent the efforts of his professors to a greater degree than he will those of his fel-lows. Hence in the Social, Intellectual, Moral and Spiritual life of the college, the Y. M. C. A. can make its influence felt at every point, con-tributing that great and final binding force which will make the students in colleges in all lauds a more nearly compact body, and hence furnishing the material for an enduring sociol-ogy inside the college that shall spread out-ward in power and bring the world into a fed-erated parliament that-shall be the longest known to history'. FINE ART'S LIFE. BY L. P. EISENHART. Delightfully care-free seems the Fine Art's career to most of us. Light-hearted and blith-some, it is like the Arcadian life of poetic lore. But beneath its ruddy surface are the marks of many a suffering, the traces of many a heartache. The working of these hidden cares gives to genius its wonted lustre. Sons of art whatever be its realm are all of one brotherhood. The story of the one is the re-told tale of the other. The history of Italy is one great romance. It is the story of sailors, painters and poets. But its fulcrum chapter is the tale of that life-tossed son of Florence. Dante. Born into the throes of civil war, banished from office, de-serted by his friends, he was turned out of his beloved Florence, a heart-broken exile. Sor-row- stricken, death-doomed, he became a wan-derer with no home on earth. An American poet told his life-story in the epithet "world-worn." But his thoughts kept tending toward the eternal world. There his tender pitying soul found a calm repose. This hidden pain of a wrecked and thwarted usefulness showed itself seared and smarting in the Divine Comedy. Had he been spared these suffer-ings, the world would have lost its greatest epic, "the voice often silent centuries" would have been unheard. Insanity made an exile of another Italian bard. Vexed in spirit and failing in body, it was during the same moments of his prison lite that he poured forth his sweetest strains. In another clime those ballads which inspired a nation's people with the love of country are the life thoughts of a poverty-cursed poet. England's master poet in the trouble time of life wrote his best tragedies. A German poet touched the key-note of Fine Art's life when he said of a fellow-craftsman, "The Muse of THE COEEEGE MERCURY. 70 Comedy kissed him on the lips, but the Muse of Tragedy on the heart." Many a versed line lightly passed by has in it the throb and heart-break of tragic every day. The picture of Scott's departure from life-bought Abbottsford is painted in cold, gray colors. We who read his tales of Scotland life scarce realize the pathos and romance of their writer's ill-fated career. Of it his own words were: "But death would have them from me, if misfortunes had spared them." Pride-stricken, broken in body and crushed in spirit he toiled until his fingers could no longer grasp that noted pen. Scott, the minstrel of Highlandlays, the story-teller of border life appeared in the tragic fifth act of his life as Scott the great-hearted man. The life of Robert Louis Stevenson was one long struggle for health. It was this that led him into the pleasant scenes of Scotland, brought him to America, and finally carried him to the island of Samoa. Yet in these blighted years came his creative mood, came too his working day. *'I count life just a stuff To try the soul's strength on, educe the man." Delightful Jean Paul Richter gave this word-ing to our theme—thought. "Fate does with poets, as'we-do with birds—it darkens the warbler's cage until he has caught the oft-played air that he is to sing." Workers at canvas and easel have painted with real meaning in dark, sombre hues. Michel Angelo working for years on those Florentine frescoes, a victim of civil strife and hated by his fellow-painters is a picture not to be forgotten. Many a time did faithless patrons and flights for liberty stay his brush. The sweet-faced Madonnas of an earlier art age are their master's souls in color. Had they life, theirs would be a touching tale of dingy garrets, sleepless nights, days of untold hunger. Pressing poverty and a father's violence made intense the storm and stress period of Beethoven's life. Few were the moments not embittered by trouble at home, ingratitude of friends and the sting of unjust criticism. But life itself seemed lost when the dearest of all senses to him was gradually passing away. His own sonatas could no longer make sound-harmony. It was at this time that he poured forth his great symphonies, those tales of human woe. That was poetic music, the music of the soul. Not one of Schubert's greater operas was placed upon the stage ; nor was he ever to hear his own symphonies ; to him starvation was an uncanny darkness, ever near by. The Fine Art's life of our master musicians is a song in minors. The saddening notes of their soul-touching sonatas are the echoes of many sufferings. Behind the richly-colored scenes of the glit-tering theatre have been acted life's sternest realities. Queens of the stage and kings among actors have not only acted tragedies but have also lived them. While yet a mere boy, Edwin Booth, snow-bound amid the' wastes of Nevada, heard the news of his father's death, the loss of his only hope. The woman of his first love, the companion in his art, died in his absence. Then came the rash act of a lunatic brother, which cast a shadow over the whole world and for a moment his reputation and honored name seemed lost. But a nation's sympathy and the sense of duty to his great art called him back from his gloomy retire-ment. Returning, "he saw his fortune of more than a million dollars, together with the toil of some of the best years of his life frittered away." "A crowning hurt was the gradual passing away of his style of dramatic art. Booth was a dreamer, made sublime by suffer-ing. It was his cares and sorrows that made him dreamy and mysterious in Hamlet, tender and majestic in Richelieu, frenzied and at the same time affectionate in King Eear. May we not say, then, that often has it been the storm and stress of things that has cried to the Fine Art's soul, "Awake !" The Kalendar is the name of an interesting exchange that comes to our table from the Woman's College, of Baltimore. 71 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. CLASS-DAY EXERCISES. TUESDAY EVENING, JUNE 16, 1896. Master of Ceremonies, - - - - L. P. EISENHART. Music—Orchestra. CLASS EXERCISES. Class Roll, ARTHUR C. CARTY. Class History, IRA O. MOSER. Class Poem, EDNA M. LOOMIS. Music—Orchestra. Presentation Oration, - - WILLIAM R. REITZEL. Class Prophecy, FRED. J. BAUM. Peace Cup Oration, WILLIAMG. BRUBAKER. Mantle Presentation, - - - - WILLIAM MENGES. Junior Response, HENRY W. BIKI.E. Final Parade around the buildings, headed by the Band. CLASS-DAY POEM. From our Freshman year to Senior, College life meant toil and pain ; Now, lessons all are learned, and never Need we con them o'er again. Oh, the joy this thought brings with it; Joy wo feel but cannot speak. No more trials with mathematics, Logic, chemistry, or Greek. Yet, amid these thoughts of pleasure, I am in a dreadful fix; For the class must have a poem, And what will rhyme with '96? All the words by Webster given, All of those in Worcester found, One by one I've looked them over, But they give no classic sound. Days and nights I've toiled in anguish, 'Till my brain is in a mix; But not a word of sound poetic, Will make a rhyme with '96. All the class has done and conquered, All its record pnre and bright, Merit words of beauty, surely, Yet with prosy pen I write. I would say, the class are noble, Yet I only call them "bricks;" It is slang, I know, but truly, Noble will not rhyme with six. When I say of this or that one, He does well, he never sticks, Do not criticise my language, It's all the fault of '96. I would say they all are students, Aud I say, "They burn their wicks ;" Midnight oil would sound much better, But that won't rhyme with '96. Sometimes, classes passed thro' college, Trusting in a horse that kicks; Some have wasted time, but never, Was this done by '96. Some, the Faculty have worried, With their wild and foolish tricks. Neither this, nor any such thing, Has been done by '96. Thus, our record's full of honor; Not a conscience here that pricks! Every heart is brave and loyal, In the class of'96. But our college days are over, And we turn in sadness round; Noting now, with tender memories, Each familiar sight and sound. Hall, and "dorm" and "lab" and chapel, And the solemn clock that ticks, Mid our jokes and smiles the warrant For the death of'96. Now, the time has come for parting; Hall and Campus, loved of yore, Loved forever, we must leave you, We may dwell with you no more. Gettysburg, our Alma Mater, Mournful is the latch that clicks, As we pass beyond thy portal, A long farewell to '96. JUNIOR ORATORICAL CONTEST. WEDNESDAY, The Magnetism of Mystery, Our Debt to our Forefathers, National Character, - The Model American, - Home, Sweet Home, r International Arbitration, The Mission of the Jew, - Shoals of Success. - fPhrenakosmian. ♦Philomathsan. JUNE 17, 1896. GEORGE W. ENGLAR:* P. T. E- STOCKSLAGER.f - HORACE E- CLUTE.* ROBBIN B. WOLF.t - A. GERTRUDE SIEBER.* JOHN \V. OTT.f - GEORGE F. ABEL.* HENRY W. BIKLE.I HOME, SWEET HOME. BY ANNA G. SIEBER-The home is a divine institution, founded when God created our first parents in his own image and placed them in that home of prim-eval innocence to form the nucleus of the race. Even since the fallj which "brought death into the world and all our woe," the home bears the marks of divine fingers. Here love's first and finest feelings find expression and the wholesome restraints of government begin their peaceful sway. The Father of us all set the solitary in families and bound them together with ties of mutual sympathy, mutual depend-ence and mutual helpfulness. From the begin- THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 72 ning its divine sanction as well as its divine wisdom was recognized. Among the chosen people it developed into the patriarchal gov-ernment ; among the Greeks and Romans, in their highest civilization, the home was a sacred spot and the family the cradle of social and political power and the school of patriotism and religion. With the neglect of the home and a disregard for the family, came the decay of morals, the loss of power and the fall of the empire. The home must ever be the founda-tion of government, and if the foundations be destroyed, how can the individual, social and political building stand ? If the home be pro-tected and the graces of virtue, education, in-dustry and religion be carefully fostered and cultivated, the nation must live and fulfil her high destiny. The coming campaign will doubtless again fill the air with eloquent argu-ment in protection of the national sheep and the American hen and skillfully fail to mention the imperiled boy in the citadel of the Ameri-can home. Whether our great leaders recog-nize the home in their ambition for position or not, the fact remains the same, that here lies the secret of national power or weakness. There are several insidious tendencies which threaten the national life by destroying the home. There is the mad rush to the large cities early in life to secure financial advant-age. Leaving the pure mountain air, the ten-der ministries of home and nature, the asso-ciations of religion in the country or village church, the simple demands of society, the modern young man is tossed like a toy upon the jostling mass of humanity to "break every tender tie" of home, to live in the city board-ing house or hotel and to measure his untried strength with the powers of the world, the flesh and the devil. His future success in building character that will ornament society, strengthen the church, and protect the nation from potitical peril will depend largely upon the principles brought from the obscure home among the hills and valleys of his youth. The permanence of his financial and social standing must depend finally, not so much upon the tricks of trade, nor the chance of fortune, but upon the fidelity to truth, the per-sistent industry and the self-sacrificing econ-omy, laid stone upon stone, in the tedious for-mation of character about the humble home of childhood. Even wealth or position without these would be a calamity. The mountain stream, bursting from the rock, leaping with youthful glee over many a sunlit cascade, goes hurrying to the broad plain below, to turn the weels of industry, to quench the thirst ol a multitude, to join hands with kindred streams and bear upon her jew-eled decked bosom the commerce of a world. But there are a few simple laws laid down by Mother Nature, from which she must never depart. vSo, from the home must go the forces that will drive the machinery of a nation, strike hands with their kindred beyond the seas, and lift an exiled world back to God. Our success will depend upon a few simple laws which God and our Christian mothers will teach us. One of these principles is that gold must not become the individual's nor the nation's god. There are things finer than gold, more pre-cious than much fine gold. Those invisible hands that bind the gold-thirsty young man to his mother, those imperishable chords that in-crease their tension with distant separation and will not relax through the pleadings of time. Those divine threads that are woven into the web of our lives, in such a variety of color, through so many years of tender ministries, which neither the sunshine nor the rain will cause to fade. That mysterious attraction that tears the busy merchant from his surroundings to hasten to the old home, to feast the eyes upon scenes that will not perish, to quicken the affections that cannot die, to grasp the parental hand that warms with age, and to look upon the face of the only one whose feat-ures beautify with years. What strange calculations are these ! By some irresistible logic, as he stands by the grave of the departed mother, he reasons thus: 73 THE COU-EGE MERCURY. Take these stocks and bonds, these railroad and real estate interests, seize these large man-ufacturing and commercial. enterprises, take this palace of marble and bury them all, rather than let the cruel clay hide from me the treas-ured influence that crowned that life, finer than gold. Wealth must not become our ideal nor our idol. Only as it builds more homes and builds them more beautiful, adorns them with culture and religion, sweetens them as fountains of purity for the healing of the nation, strength-ens them as fortresses for her protection, will it bless our civilization. Another tendency that threatens the home is the social condition which seeks to separate the family. There is a kind of centrifugal force which tends to scatter the members of the household and destroy that bond which should bind them together with a kind of social grav-itation, which afterwards becomes the power of the community and of the state. There is danger of the boys and girls being thrown from the home nest before the fledgelings can use their wings or have wisdom to select their food. There are many temptations to lure them from the tender influences and sympa-thies of those who reared them. Even the recognized helps may prove hindrances ;. the schools that place these young lives in the hands of strangers over half their time from six years of age, the social, innocent pleasures that rob the parents of over half the remainder of their heaven-given opportunities, to say nothing of those attractions which cause many to spend the remainder of their time not spent in eating and sleeping outside of the home. How narrow the margin becomes for the home to do its work. To pi ess the plastic ma-terial into shape, to lay the artful chisel to the stone and hew with loving stroke the perfect form. How jealous the parent should be of these first and best opportunities! How guarded the sensitive plate of the mind and heart, that the first light to shine upon its deli-cate surface should reflect a perfect image ! Is the father anxious to spend the leisure hours in the home rather than in the lodge or club house, or is he too busy with his profes-sion, too closely confined to his business to im-press true character upon his own boy, who shall succeed him in business and become heir of his hard-earned estate ? Has the wife and mother been more anxious to keep flies out of the house than to keep her boy in ; has she be-stowed more thought upon velvet or brussels than upon the delicately woven character of an immortal ; has she studied to make an impres-sion upon fashionable society rather than to impress a future citizen of the State ? The law of nature will not be reversed to make amends for parental indifference or careless-ness. The colors we mix will appear on the canvas, the materials we use in the mortar will show themselves in the building. Is the home the centre of attraction and interest? Then it has its rightful place and becomes the sun of the system around which all things re-volve, from which they get their light and heat and are held in their proper orbits. De-stroy this relation, and confusion and anarchy follow. The home is a miniature government, in which the parents rule. Here begins re-spect for authority and obedience to law, the two great essentials in the security of the State; and if not learned here, may be learned too late to avert crime. Here are developed those finer affections toward brothers and sisters which, when en-larged, produce true patriotism and make "the whole world kin." Here under the form of possessions acquired and protected, the true right of ownership becomes early established, that true love of country may become the en-larged law of self-protection ; thus combining the law of chivalry to defend the innocent and the heroism of the soldier to protect the nation. The social and national life are found in min-iature in the empire of the home which, when properly controlled, becomes the ideal of the national government. The King rules his subjects with a father's tenderness. The sub-jects obey the laws, prompted by filial grati-tude for the general good. An injustice against THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 74 one member is an offense against the whole body politic. Suffering in part enlists the sympathy of the whole. A cry of distress startles the nation and all the nerves of sensa-tion carry the news and the alarm brings re-pair and relief trains over every highway of approach. The homes of the nation must ever be the fountains for the public school, the supply for the church, the protection of our liberties against internal and external foes. These must be the watch towers, and the sons and daughters the real standing army to protect our civil and religious liberties. The thousands of men who live on wheels, without a sure place to set their feet, must have a starting-point and a returning point for their souls, a tension to hold them in place more binding than the rules of the business firm, a restraint to stay their feet on the verge of temptation mightier than law, an unseen angel to stand between them and sin, to guard them from its blighting touch This starting-point is the Christian home, this tension, the mystic chord that binds them to the altar, this angel, the messenger that sits in the temple of the memory and holds the wife, the mother, the innocent children before the soul. The home is a type of Heaven, the perfec-tion of future blessedness. God, the Father of us all, Christ, the Brother of us all, we, the children. From the imperfect to the perfect, from the trial to the triumph. We are but children away from home. Earth is but the play-ground. We stretch onr tiny hands toward the stars glimmering in the dark-ness that surrounds us. We tire of these earthly toys. We cry, in our distress, to grasp the eternal. The father hears his lost childrens' piteous wail and calls us home ; sweet, sweet, home. ROLL OF HONOR. FIRST HONOR. LUTHER P. EISENHART, York. D. EDGAR RICE, Chainbersburg. GRAYSON Z. STOP, Frederick, Md. EDNA M LOOMIS, Troy. GRIFF PRIZE, FOR BEST ESSAY ON HOLMES AS THE POET OF COLLEGIANS." LUTHER P. EISENHAET, York. HASSLER GOLD MEDAL, JUNIOR LATIN PRIZE. ELKANAH M. DUCK, Spring Mills. WITH HONORABLE MENTION OF GEORGE F. ABEL, Philadelphia. BAUM SOPHOMORE MATHEMATICAL PRIZE. JAMES A. MCALLISTER, Gettysburg EFPIE ELIZABETH HESS, - - - - Taneytown, Md! WITH HONORABLE MENTION OF EDMUND W. MEISENHELDER, York. EDMUND L. ROLLER, Hanover. CHARLES T. LARK, - - - - - - Millersburg. WILLIAM H. SPRENKLE, - - - Jack's Mountain. ALBERTUS G. FUSS, . Williamsport, Md. MUHLENBERG FRESHMAN PRIZE. FOR BEST GENERAL SCHOLARSHIP. HENRY ALBERS, JR., Jersey City, N. J. WITH HONORABLE MENTION OF ARTHUR STC. BRUMBAUGH, - - - Roaring Spring. STEWARD W. HERMAN, - . York. PAUL H. BIKLE, Gettysburg. REDDIG PRIZE IN ORATORV. ANNA GERTRUDE SIEBER, . Gettysburg. WITH HONORABLE MENTION OF HENRY WOLF BIKLE, Gettysburg. GEORGE F. ABEL, Philadelphia. *—♦—» COLLEGE COMMENCEMENT PROGRAM. THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 1896. Latin Salutatory, GRAYSON Z. STUP. Christianity and the Working Class, - WEBSTER C. SPAYDE. Municipal Reform, . FREDERICK J. BAUM. Cecil Rhodes, -. MERCHANT TAILOR flje tat Work at uje) NEXT DOOF* TO 5 Suits from $12,00 to $40.00. Lowest iPrkss, \ P^^f' J Paots from $00 to $121, ^Centre Square.^ COLLEGE OF PHVSICIANS S SURGEONS, The (College of Physicians and Surgeons of Balti-more, Maryland, i.s a well-equipped school. Four ses-sions arc required for graduation. For full informa-tion send for the animal catalogue, or write to THOMAS OPIE, M. D., Dean, Cor. Calvert and Saratoga Sts. c_£p»Established 1876.-5-5 *PBN110SB SfYBRSJfc WATCHMAKER AND JEWELER, Gettfsborg Souvenir Spoons, College Souvenir Spoons, No. 10 Baltimore Street, GETTYSBURG, PENN'A. J. A TAWNEV Is ready to furnish clubs and boarding houses BREAD, ROLLS, &0., at short notice and reasonable rates. Cor.Washington and Middle Sts., Gettysburg. WiiWlsiHoSwiit DEALERS IN Fresh Beef, Veal, Lamb, Pork, Pudding, Sausage, HAMS, LARD, &c-., GETTYSBURG, IMIM'A. JOHN L. SHERDS. NEW CIGAR STORE Next door io W. M.
