Thursday, February 28, 2019

TargetX, University of Texas, San Antonio

Brian talks with Oscar Ferreiro about how he’s been able to automate various processes to help make the recruiting and admissions effort at UTSA more efficient. Brian also discusses the need to review business processes now that colleges have access to new, innovative technologies.
To learn more about TargetX's new Enrollment Process Consulting services, contact TargetX at sales@targetx.com. If you need assistance in assessing, redesigning and even coaching through all of the changes needed to be successful today, TargetX can help.  With new enrollment business process consulting services by TargetX, we can help you align your goals with your people and process with your technology more effectively than ever before.
If you’d like to learn more about the exciting change happening at other colleges across the country, you can download a variety of case studies, on the TargetX website at targetx.com/casestudies.
September 7, 2016 at 12:00 PM
13.9 MB (Audio)

TargetX, Community College

Brian interviews two experts in the community college market, Fran Cubberley, Vice President of Enrollment Management at Delaware County Community College and Mickey Baines from Fourth Dimension Partners, specialist in adult-focused programs.
To register for an upcoming webinar provided by TargetX, visit targetx.com/webinars where you can also view previously recorded online events as well.
For more information on the 4 Disciplines of Execution mentioned in this podcast, visit the4disciplinesofexecution.com
the4disciplinesofexecution
October 26, 2016 at 6:09 PM
28.1 MB (Audio)

www.fourthdimensionpartners

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Brian Niles, TargetX

Brian interviews long-time higher education administrator, Jim Hundrieser, the Associate Managing Principal at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Jim's association helps colleges build stronger and more diversified business models, identify revenue opportunities, review current practices to streamline operations and embed these opportunities into institutional strategic plans. Jim also gives us the motivation to track our gratitude daily with an added twist.
If you’d like to learn more about the exciting change happening at other colleges across the country, you can download a variety of case studies, on the TargetX website at targetx.com/casestudies.
Also register for an upcoming webinar at targetx.com/webinars.
And make sure you like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Just search for TargetX on your favorite social network. Thank you again for joining us this week on the Add Drop podcast.
October 19, 2016 at 12:00 PM
26.8 MB (Audio)

Monday, February 25, 2019

Doctorate Business Administration

http://www.gradschools.com/programs/business-administration-management

http://www.gradschoolhub.com/best/doctoral-programs-in-business/

http://www.topmanagementdegrees.com/rankings/best-doctorate-in-business-management-2016/

http://bestbizschools.aacsb.edu/doctorate/programs/dba

Is Harvard Racist?

harvard-racist/

Harvard University’s admissions policy is proof that one can remember negative history, write about it in great and vivid detail, and still be doomed to repeat it. In the name of “affirmative action” and “diversity,” Harvard is doing to Asian-American applicants exactly what it once did to Jewish applicants: discriminate. Lee Cheng explains.

Can you imagine, in this day and age, an educational institution discriminating against a racial minority? Can you imagine what the outcry would be?

"You mean, you're preventing these qualified students from attending your college because of the color of their skin?!"

Well, you don't have to imagine it. It's happening. And at arguably the most prestigious college in America--my alma mater, Harvard.

The ethnic minority isn't blacks or Jews, as it was in years past. The target this time is Asian Americans.

And it's just as wrong.

After millions of dollars in legal fees, millions of records examined, and hundreds of hours of depositions and testimony, Harvard's once purposely opaque admissions policies have been laid bare.

It's not a pretty picture.

Here's what we now know:

Harvard Admissions rates student applicants in three main ways: 1) Academic performance; 2) Extra-curricular achievements; 3) "Personal qualities." That's fine, as far as it goes, if the criteria were applied fairly. But they're not.

Asian American applicants consistently score higher in the first two criteria--academics and extra-curricular activities, which can be objectively assessed--than white students, Latinos and African Americans.

So how does Harvard justify its Asian American quota? With the help of category three--"personal qualities," which include vague and largely subjective factors like "likability," "maturity," "integrity," and "effervescence."

According to Harvard's own internal reports, Asian American applicants are routinely and systematically marked much lower on this personality scale by Harvard admissions officers who almost never meet or interview applicants. But here's the kicker: the personality ratings given to Asian students by admissions officers are vastly different than the personality ratings Harvard gets from its own alumni interviewers, who actually meet the applicants in person. Alumni interviewers score Asian applicants as high as whites.

In other words, Harvard artificially and fraudulently downgrades Asians on "personality" to get the results it wants. And what Harvard wants is to suppress the number of Asian Americans admitted.
Based on the data that Harvard was forced to turn over, economist Peter Arcidiacono of Duke University concluded that with the same application profile in terms of test scores, extracurricular activities and personality factors, an Asian American male applicant would only have a 25% chance of admission--versus 32% if white, 77% if Hispanic, and 95% if black.

What's the real-life result of all this?

In 2013, Asian Americans made up 19% of the incoming freshmen class. According to Harvard's own Office of Institutional Research, if the personality factors had not been rigged, that percentage would have been 43%.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 guarantees that "No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color or national origin, be excluded from participation in, or be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
Each year, Harvard takes hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government.

In Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action policies, deciding that race could be used as a "plus factor" to achieve diversity, but never as a quota. Yet, by placing strict limits on the percentage of Asian American applicants it will admit, racial quotas are exactly what Harvard is using.

One strongly suspects this quota system isn't limited to Harvard. In the last ten years, Asian American students have been limited to an 18-22% presence across the Ivy League. Or maybe that's just a coincidence.

Writing for the majority in Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that the Court "expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today."

With less than a decade to go, the Ivy League shows no indication that it's giving up on those racial preferences. Instead, these colleges have doubled down. Objective standards regarding admissions continue to be increasingly disfavored as the illegal goal of racial balancing is advanced. This racial balancing is justified by the left's desire to achieve "racial diversity"--its insistence on seeing every person only through the prism of race, as if the most important thing any of us has to offer is the color of our skin.

Not long ago, that was called "racism." It's still called racism.

It needs to end, once and for all--for the sake of deserving Asian American students, for the sake of Harvard's own integrity, and for the sake of the American principle that the rules must be the same for everyone.

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts said it best: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

It's time we did just that. I'm Lee Cheng, of the Asian American Legal Foundation, for Prager University.

 Which of the following areas are Asian American applicants to Harvard routinely marked down on?

Academic performance
  1. Extra-curricular achievements
    Personal qualities
  2. Family wealth
  3. Asian American students have been limited to a ______ presence across the Ivy League.

  4. 5%-9%
    12%-16%
    18%-22%
  5. 30%-34%
  6. Harvard admissions officers almost always meet and interview applicants in person.

  7. True
  8. False
  9. Objective standards regarding admissions continue to be __________________.

  10. increasingly disfavored
    increasingly favored
    raised
  11. lowered
  12. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to _____________________.”

  13. love everyone
    create racial quotas for businesses and schools
    level the playing field
    stop discriminating on the basis of race



Sunday, February 24, 2019

History 101

Gaming Pedagogy 

References
  • Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68–78. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68

Learning Objectives

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Emperors of Rome: Interlude, Reading List 1

We’ve had requests for books to compliment this podcast series, so here’s a few suggestions. There’ll be a complete reading list available on our Facebook page.
January 26, 2015 at 4:43 PM
7.5 MB (Audio)

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Emperors of Rome, Episode XV: The Assassination of Caligula

Caligula's erratic rule has led to a fast erosion in popularity and support, and rumours of assassination come to head just four short years after he becomes emperor.

Dr Rhiannon Evans (Mediterranean Studies, La Trobe University) and host Matt Smith look at downfall of this hated ruler of Rome.
January 18, 2015 at 11:43 PM
13.1 MB (Audio)

Monday, February 18, 2019

Emperors of Rome: Episode XIV: The Madness of Caligula

Caligula is best known for his erratic and tyrannical behaviour, but were his reactions a result of deviance or madness?

Dr Rhiannon Evans (Mediterranean Studies, La Trobe University) and host Matt Smith look at the literary sources on Caligula and the wrongs that they accuse him of.
January 11, 2015 at 5:06 PM
12.1 MB (Audio)

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Die Nutellamaus: German as a Second Language

David hat eine schreckliche Entdeckung gemacht... In der Küche ist eine Maus! Eine Nutellamaus! Marie kann das kaum glauben, aber es gibt Beweise. Nur - Beweise wofür? In unserer fünfzigsten Episode gibt es wieder eine besonders einfach zu verstehende Geschichte für Anfänger der Stufe A. Viel Spaß beim Lernen!


Episodentext
Der Dialog
David: Eine Maus! Wir haben eine Maus!
Marie: Eine Maus? Wie? Wo?
David: In der Küche! Die Maus ist in der Küche!
Marie: Wo ist sie? Hast du sie gesehen? Hast du die Maus gesehen - mit eigenen Augen?
David: Nicht direkt gesehen. Aber ich weiß, da ist eine Maus. Ich bin sicher, da ist eine Maus!
Marie: Wieso denn? Du hast sie doch gar nicht gesehen!
David: Es ist wegen der Nutella. Das Nutellaglas war neulich noch ganz voll, jetzt ist es leer. Jemand hat die Nutella gegessen. Die ganze Nutella!
Marie: Ich war’s nicht! Ich hab keine Nutella gegessen. Ich esse nie Nutella.
David: Genau. Die Maus hat sie gegessen. Es ist eine Nutellamaus, die unsere ganze Nutella isst!
Marie: Oh je.. wir haben eine Nutellamaus, das ist ja schrecklich...
David: Ja, das find ich auch schrecklich.
Marie: Genau, und es ist eine besonders schreckliche Maus.
David: Du meinst, die Maus ist besonders schrecklich?
Marie: Natürlich! Die Nutellamaus ist gigantisch, sie ist einen Meter achtzig groß und sie wiegt achtzig Kilo! Eine schreckliche, gigantische Riesenmaus!
David: Hä...?
Marie: Du bist nämlich die Nutellamaus!
DaZPod - einfach Deutsch lernen - learn German online
October 17, 2014 at 11:00 AM
8.5 MB (Audio)

Saturday, February 16, 2019

Ancient Rome Refocused: It's Good to be Queen

Zenobia, an original musical written by Bolingbrook’s Lorrisa Julianus and composed by Angela Salvaggione of Joliet.  Rob interviews Lorrisa who played the lead and Craig Engel, the director.

This production premiered at the Bolingbrook Performing Arts Center.

The show, which starred Julianus as the title character, is based on the real life of the warrior Queen of Palmyra (a metropolitan oasis in ancient Syria). In the story, a slave girl, torn between her vigilante master and the prince of Syria, is catapulted to royalty and threatens Rome’s terrifying emperor—her unknowing father.
March 19, 2014 at 11:08 PM
57.8 MB (Audio)

The History of English, Episode 8, Where Have All the Inflexions Gone?

The grammar of the original Indo-European language is compared to Modern English. We explore the word endings called ‘inflexions’ which were a prominent feature of the original Indo-European language.
August 5, 2013 at 9:45 AM
14.3 MB (Audio)

Thursday, February 14, 2019

The History of English: Episode 6, Indo-Europeans

A look at words used by the original Indo-Europeans and the clues such words provide to the identity of the first Indo-Europeans.  The etymology of modern English words is explored in relation to the original Indo-European words.
August 4, 2013 at 8:17 PM
35.1 MB (Audio)

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Harvard Discrimination Against Asians

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs has set February 13, 2019 as the date for closing arguments in the closely-watched Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard lawsuit.

New Books in Religion: Global Islam

The historical convergence of European imperialism and technological innovation in communication and travel made multiple social sites of intersection between the local and global possible. Nile Green, Professor of South Asian and Islamic history at UCLA, examines how these terrains of exchange transformed Islam during the modern period from roughly 1800-1940 in his book, Terrains of Exchange: Religious Economies of Global Islam (Oxford University Press, 2015). Green sees religion as a tool for social power and explores various religious economies to determine how interpretations of Islam are negotiated and deployed. What he shows is that modern iterations of the tradition are often shaped not only by Muslims, but also Christians and Hindus. In these sites of exchange religious actors and institutions can be analyzed as entrepreneurs and firms, which effectively compete for their clientele. Religious entrepreneurial competition and innovation fostered by Muslim/Christian interactions in imperial contexts contributed to the Muslims’ adaptation of Christian missionary methods for their own proselytization purposes.
Overall, Green presents a world history of Islam that disrupts assertions of the unifying power of globalization on Muslims and illustrates the generative process within these terrains of exchange. In our conversation we discussed evangelical orientalism at England’s universities, Bibles and printing in Muslim societies, language-exchange, religious entrepreneurs in Hyderabad, traditions of Hindu-Sufism, and the construction of the first mosques in Detroit and Japan.

Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu.
To download this interview file directly, right click here and select “Save Link (or ‘Target’) As…”
October 17, 2016 at 5:44 PM
28.7 MB (Audio)

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Recycling

You may know that recycling is a widespread practice in Germany, but how exactly does it work? Mechthild Stein tells us what type of garbage goes in which bin, and also explains how different types of garbage are dealt with in Heidelberg.
April 24, 2016 at 12:00 AM
28 MB (Video)

Elgar, Du Pre, Barenboim

Elgar

Jacqueline Du Pré’s recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor is iconic. Clearly Du Pré had a special affinity for Elgar’s concerto.
She loved every note. No one played like her. There is something about the way she plays….between despair and joy.
Here she plays with her husband, conductor and pianist David Barenboim. Mr. Barenboim was once asked what it was like to accompany his wife. ”Difficult,” he replied. ”It doesn’t dawn on her sometimes that we mortals have difficulties in following her.” In the next few years, they performed throughout the world, both separately and as a duo.

Monday, February 11, 2019

New Books in Religion: Muller and the Sacred Books of the East

Arie L. Molendijk is Professor of the History of Christianity and Philosophy in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He has written Friedrich Max Muller and the Sacred Books of the East (Oxford University Press, 2016) to study how this seminal series of translations had started a novel way of understanding religions through a comparative study of texts and how it led to the shaping of the Western understanding of Eastern faith-traditions. Molendijk critically analyzes this rise of “big science” and also discusses the problems inherent in this approach of “textualisation of religion.” He revisits the limitations of translation and questions the assumptions behind them. He also looks into the person of Max Muller, specifically his scholarly aspect.
To download this interview file directly, right click here and select “Save Link (or ‘Target’) As…”
October 18, 2016 at 5:04 PM
23 MB (Audio)

Sunday, February 10, 2019

New Books in Religion: Irenaeus, Joseph Smith

At first glance, second-century bishop Irenaeus of Lyon and Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints don’t seem to have much in common. After all, Irenaeus saw himself as defending orthodoxy against innovation, that is, the historical continuity of the church, while Joseph Smith understood himself as restoring that which had been lost. However, as Dr. Adam Powell shows in his fascinating study, Irenaeus, Joseph Smith God-Making Heresy (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2015), they and their communities shared a great deal. Deftly combining theology and the social sciences, particularly ideas about heresy and the sociology of knowledge, Powell shows how Irenaeus and Smith managed the existential and physical threats to their communities by developing ideas of deification, which while different in that Irenaeus saw God as ontologically different from human beings and Smith did not, held out a similar present and future hope for their beleaguered communities.
January 22, 2016 at 2:15 AM
30.9 MB (Audio)

Friday, February 8, 2019

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Podcast: US Special Operations Command

US Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, is divided up into the following. I will talk about each individual unit listed.
Army: 75th Ranger Regiment, Special Forces (Green Berets), 160th SOAR (Night Stalkers)

Navy: SEALs, and SWCCs (Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen)
Air Force: Pararescuemen (PJs), Combat Controllers (CCTs)
Marine Corps: Marine Force Recon
Joint: Delta Force, DEVGRU, 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Intelligence Support Activity
For more information, read:
US Special Forces by Samuel Southworth
Chosen Soldier by Dick Couch
That Others May Live by Jack Brehm
Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell
Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden

Military History Podcast is sponsored by Audible (visit audiblepodcast.com/militaryhistory for a free audiobook download)
May 4, 2009 at 2:29 AM
5.9 MB (Audio)

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Chinese New Year

A reunion dinner is held on New Year's Eve to New Year's day where members of the family, near and far, get together for celebration. The New Year's dinner is very large and traditionally includes Chicken and Dumpling. Fish is included, but not eaten up completely (and the remaining stored overnight), as the Chinese phrase "Nian Nian you yu", or "Every year there is fish/leftover", is a homophone for phrases which could mean "be blessed every year" or "have profit every year", since "yu" is also the pronunciation for "profit".

Podcast: TCU Anthropology, Imperial Rome

Imperial Rome
October 2, 2008 at 11:18 AM
92.7 MB (Audio)

Monday, February 4, 2019

Podcast: Introducing Religion for iPad, Initiation into a strict Sikh sect

Initiation into a strict Sikh sect
May 27, 2008 at 7:27 PM
12.2 MB (Video)

Podcast: TCU, Jennifer Lockett, Mythical Foundations of Rome

Mythical Foundations of Rome
September 4, 2008 at 1:11 PM
57.8 MB (Audio)

Saturday, February 2, 2019

New Books Podcast: Buddhism Enlightenment

The words “Buddhism” and “enlightenment” are, at least in the West, tightly connected. “Everyone” knows that the goal–or at least one of the goals–of Buddhist practice is “enlightenment.” But what the heck is “enlightenment,” exactly? It’s a tough question, but Dale S. Wright takes it on in his aptly named book What is Buddhist Enlightenment? (Oxford University Press, 2016). Using a kind of Zen approach (my characterization, not his), Wright doesn’t slice and dice the concept in order to come up with some Platonic ideal of “enlightenment.” You won’t find any pithy definition of the idea in the pages of this book. Rather, you’ll discover a wide-ranging exploration of “Buddhist enlightenment”–what it has meant, what it now means, and what it might and even should mean in the future. Buddhists teach that everything is changing all the time, like it or not. So it is, Wright argues, with “Buddhist enlightenment.”
October 4, 2016 at 1:45 PM
27.7 MB (Audio)