Teacher Misconduct Cases

Teacher Misconduct Cases Abstract Where do we draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior for a teacher? District policies on conduct have been notoriously vague so as to give the district the necessary leeway to judge a broad range of potential behaviors that may fall under the umbrella of misconduct. Unfortunately, what we find with this is that line is so undefined that good teachers may believe they are conducting themselves appropriately only to find that their private conduct off school grounds can land them in hot water and cause them to lose their jobs or teaching licenses. To further complicate matters, school districts may have different definitions of moral behavior based on the personal experiences of those who are applying the law. I will illustrate in my paper how society has changed over the years about what it views as immoral and what it views as acceptable. Some of the conduct that I will be discussing in my research paper will cover activities that, had the teachers carried them out in a different time, would not have been regarded as breaches of moral code and that the attitudes toward their behavior are purely the result of social constructs that are subject to change as society changes. What constitutes as bad behavior may, in certain, cases may be colored by the perceptions of society. What we considered appropriate in the past, such as whipping the hands of small children with a ruler in the classroom, would be regarded as abuse today, and the teacher could possibly be brought up on criminal charges for such an offense. Dan Coleman writes in his article, Rules for Teachers in 1872 1915, that teachers were not permitted to leave their homes between the hours of 8:00 pm and 6:00 am, and could not engage in any social activities other than those sponsored by the school or the local church. Male teachers had restrictions on how often they could court a woman and female teachers were not even allowed to be courted by a man, or even to be married (Coleman). Rules were so restrictive that it was not uncommon to lose teachers in the middle of the school year. According to an article One Room Schools, published by the Clark Library in Michigan, one district had employed n inety-nine new teachers in their one-room school house over a period of eighty-six years (Boles). Teacher conduct can indeed be very harmful to the children theyre charged with teaching, and there is something to be said about expecting that teachers will conduct themselves appropriately in public, where students or parents may be watching. But throughout our history as a nation, we have held our teachers to a higher standard of morality and, as evidenced in the article above, high turnover rates and reluctance to enter the teaching profession may be the result. Our society has recognized this flaw and has taken steps to ease off of prying into the most private aspects of our teachers personal lives and shift focus from what or who our teachers are as individuals, to how they perform as teachers and how they conduct themselves in the classroom and, to a lesser extent, in public. Morrison v. State Board of Education Marc S. Morrison was, in early 1960s, a typical American man with a wife and a job. Mr. Morrison carried a General Secondary Life Diploma and a Life Diploma to Teach Exceptional Children in the state of California and he was employed as a teacher in the Lowell Joint School District in Whittier, California. According to an article written by J. Tobriner for the Stanford Law School Library, Mr. Morrison maintained his employment with no record of complaints or misconduct in the classroom and only a minor incident which regarded his conduct outside of the school. His record reflected that he was a near perfect employee until he was asked to resign in 1963 over a brief romantic encounter with another man. During his employment at the Lowell Joint School District, Mr. Morrison had befriended a fellow teacher, Fred Schneringer, who was also married at the time. In response to a period of financial stress that Mr. Schneringer experienced in 1963, Mr. Morrison offered his council and support to his friend. This resulted in an emotional closeness between the two men that ultimately led them down a more romantic path in their long-time friendship. The two men engaged in what was described by Arthur S. Leonard in his book, Sexuality and the Law: An Encyclopedia of Major Legal Cases, as being pseudo-sexual in nature, likely limited to cuddling or even self-gratification in one anothers company. There was no evidence or testimony to support that actual homosexual acts had been performed (Leonard). Bear in mind that in the State of California in the 1960s, homosexual activities were legitimately illegal, and regarded as immoral on a social level. If a teacher engaged in illegal or immoral activ ity, the school board would be justified in looking into the case and potentially revoking the teaching certification on the grounds of criminal activity or immoral behavior, but Mr. Morrison was never arrested for homosexuality, and he carried out his actions in a private setting with what he believed was a trusted partner. Legal or illegal, Mr. Morrison was ultimately forced to resign from his teaching position when Mr. Schneringer reported the incident one year after the fact to Mr. Morrisons supervisor. Over a year and a half after his resignation (two and a half years after the incident), the Lowell Joint School District had received notification that the incident had occurred with a former teacher, and they sought to revoke Mr. Morrisons life diplomas for his immoral and willful homosexual acts. (Tobriner) Mr. Morrison took the school district to court of the matter and the Supreme court of California ultimately ruled that the Lowell Joint School Districts policies specified that the conduct worthy of revoking certification was limited to immoral acts which render the teacher unfit to teach. Mr. Morrison did not repeat his homosexual behaviors, did not engage in criminal homosexual acts, and his personal sexual leanings -which he did not further act upon- did not render him unfit to teach. For that reason, the school boards order to revoke Mr. Morrisons diplomas and certifications was vacated and Mr. Morrison retained his diplomas (Tobriner). Pettit v. State Board of Education In another court case in California, Elizabeth K. Pettit was an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles from 1957 until her arrest in 1967, which resulted in her pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges in connection to an act of indecency. According to an article in the Stanford Law Library, in 1967, Pettit and her husband had applied to a private swingers club in Los Angeles, California for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts with different partners. The club involved a formal application and approval process for the purpose of protecting club members from the public eye (Burke). On December 2, 1967, the Pettits attended a gathering held at the private residence of one of the members of the swingers club. Also in attendance that evening was a Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Berk, who had gained admittance to the club under false pretenses and was conducting a sting operation to catch and arrest party goers who were engaged in acts of indecency. Sergeant Berk witnessed Mrs. Pettit performing oral sex on three different men other than her husband, in the full view of many spectators. She was arrested and charged with three counts of criminal oral copulation, but pleaded guilty to a lesser, misdemeanor offense of public indecency and was fined and placed on probation (Burke). Mrs. Pettit was dismissed from her teaching position and stripped of her teaching certifications. She sued the school board to have her certifications reinstated, arguing that the precedent set with the Morrison case, as mentioned above, provided precedent that sexual conduct, when engaged privately, should be disregarded when determining the fitness of an individual to teach children. The courts did not see the Pettit case as being similar enough to the Morrison case to warrant its consideration because it was ruled that Mrs. Pettit did not necessarily maintain a totally private sexual life as Mr. Morrison did, and she did engage in sexual activities that were illegal in the state of California. Additionally, Robert Willet writes in his 1973 law review, Unfitness to Teach: Credential Revocation and Dismissal for Sexual Conduct, that it was revealed in the trial proceedings that Mrs. Pettit and her husband had participated in two televised interviews in which they donned masks and sp oke frankly about their non-traditional sexual lives. In spite of their efforts to disguise themselves, Mrs. Pettit was recognized by a fellow teacher and the school officials were notified. Mrs. Pettit was judged to have engaged in illicit sexual activity and immoral behavior and this rightly gave cause to the school board to revoke her teaching certification (Willett). In todays social climate, it may seem irrational to intrude on the private sexual affairs of a teacher, especially when those affairs were intended to be kept private. The Pettit and Morrison cases display uninvited and unwelcome intrusions into the most private aspect of a persons life. Mr. Morrison and Mrs. Pettit took care to conceal their immoral acts from the public view, and were victims of conservative social values being applied in obtuse ways to their careers as teachers. American values have since changed, and while many may view these cases as being gross breaches of privacy, in the midcentury American era in which they occurred, these teachers did indeed violate the ethics code established by their school systems. Attitudes over social morality change over time and I could see that very plainly when I challenged myself to find modern cases of teachers getting fired for their private sexual affairs. I found a handful of cases where teachers had the unfortunate experience of being terminated when their private sex tapes were sent to parents or posted on the internet against their wishes, but overwhelmingly, I found that my search results were dominated by instances of sexual discrimination in Catholic and Christian private schools. One instance that stood out was a case reported by the Montana Standard in which a Catholic middle school teacher who is a lesbian, was fired from her position in Butte, Montana because she had become pregnant (Montana Standard). After teaching at the school for 10 years and having a satisfactory performance record, Ms. Shaela Evenson received notice that she was being terminated after she had announced the happy news of her pregnancy on Facebook. In posting her news, she revealed to parents and students that she had become pregnant out of wedlock and would be an unmarried mother. This is not in keeping with the morality standards outlined by the Central Catholic School District in Montana, and as such, Ms. Evenson was marked as a teacher who has engaged in conduct unfitting for an educator for this particular school system. There are so many instances of blatant teacher misconduct where children are placed in danger or influenced negatively by an educator. With all of these bad teachers in the school system, can we really afford to alienate good teachers whose primary offenses are being different and engaging in counter-culture behaviors in their own private time, away from the school and the children? By and large, our culture is moving away from dictating the private lives of our teachers, as we can see a clear progression from the policies teachers were held to in the 1800s, when the minutia of their personal lives was scrutinized, through a period of time when teachers tested the boundaries of the moral clauses of their contracts and fought for ground in the pursuit of freedom to maintain the private life of their choosing. I believe the hard-earned ground these teachers fought for the 1960s is providing the foundation for teachers today to be allowed to live their lives as they see fit. The social change that has taken place will help citizens maintain a barrier and have respect not to pry into a teachers personal life. This will especially come into play when teachers have the unfortunate experience of having embarrassing media publically posted without their consent. We cannot support an environment that demonizes teachers and allows people to launch witch-hunts to ferret out any teachers who, behind the privacy of closed doors, enjoy their lives on their own personal time. References: Coleman, Dan. (n.d.). Rules for Teachers in 1872 1915. Retrieved March 16, 2017, from http://www.openculture.com/2013/09/rules-for-teachers-in-1872-1915-no-drinking-smoking-or-trips-to-barber-shops-and-ice-cream-parlors.html Boles, Frank. (1998). One Room Schools. Retrieved March 16, 2017, from https://www.cmich.edu/library/clarke/ResearchResources/Michigan_Material_Statewide/One_Room_Schools/Pages/Teachers.aspx Brady, Josie. (n.d.). Education in the 1800s. Retrieved March 16, 2017, from https://www.education.ne.gov/nebooks/ebooks/Education_in_the_1800s.pdf Tobriner, J. (n.d.). Stanford Law School Robert Crown Law Library. Morrison V. State Board of Education. Retrieved March 16, 2017, from http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/morrison-v-state-board-education-27498 Leonard, Arthur. S. (2013). Sexuality and the law: an encyclopedia of major legal cases. New York, NY: Routledge. Burke, J. (n.d.). Stanford Law School Robert Crown Law Library. Pettit V. State Board of Education. Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/pettit-v-state-board-education-27763 Willett, Robert. E. (1973). Unfitness to Teach: Credential Revocation and Dismissal for Sexual Conduct. California Law Review, 61(6), 5th ser. Retrieved March 16, 2017, from http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2571context=californialawreview Montana Standard Staff (2014, August 23). Teacher fired for pregnancy sues Butte Catholic schools. Retrieved March 16, 2017, from http://mtstandard.com/news/local/teacher-fired-for-pregnancy-sues-butte-catholic-schools/article_9f3df7ce-29a7-11e4-805b-001a4bcf887a.html

SPORT Essay -- essays research papers

Professional Athletes Salaries: Are they paid too much? What should athletes deserve to be paid? Many players have risen to stardom by becoming a professional athlete. Athletes have come from many different backgrounds; some from wealthy and some from poverty raised backgrounds. Salaries are continuing to rise, and money doesn’t seem to be an issue. Athletes are getting what they want from the owners by negotiating through their agents. Athletes’ salaries aren’t just from their owners, but they come from other sources also. Athletes get paid an enormously high salary for the work they do. Really all they do is entertain us. We should consider the value of their work and pay them accordingly. They do not deserve the extreme amount they get paid and something should be done about it. Wouldn't it be great to make twenty million dollars a year and an additional ninety million dollars in endorsements simply to play a game that you are supposed to love to play? Lebron James, who has no college degree and hasn’t worked a day in his life, along with many other professional athletes thinks so. Lebron makes close to 100 million a year and probably will soon make much more. Yes, he is one of the best basketball players in the world, but paying somebody that much money for a game is ridiculous. All he had to do was just put a little round ball in a hoop. He didn’t save nobody’s life or make something that would benefit society. He entertained us for eighty two games and now has more money than he can spend. In today's society, one is supposed to be paid more if their job is more economically important. Doctors make more than factory workers; teachers make more than people who work at Wendy’s and so on. Still, professional athletes make more than what a teacher makes. Some professional athletes will make more money in one year than a teacher will make if he/she teaches all of their life. Is entertaining people more important than teaching them? The future of our society relies on the education of its youth and still teachers are paid less than these professional athletes. Even President Bush gets paid less than what most professional athletes are making. Here is a guy who makes decisions that affects everybody in our society everyday and we are saying entertainment is more important because we pay these athletes more. These games are supposed to be played for fun, not... ...plays a sport that they say they love is getting paid ten times as much as a doctor, police officer, or a fire fighter. Police officers and fire fighters protect our lives and save them, but they do not get close to the amount of money a player who plays professional sports. I am not just talking about the superstars in professional sports, but also about the players who never get to play and just sit on the bench. They still get hundred of thousands a dollars a year. I know to make it to the professional ranks in any sport is very difficult and these athletes train all of the time, but so do other professions. In other professions it might not be as physically demanding as sports, but they still have to train and stay on top of their game. I really find it hard to believe that in our society, we value entertainment more than almost anything else. There are people right now in this world dying because they do not have enough money to eat and we give athletes more money than they can spend because they are good at their sport. Professional athletes are extremely good at what they do, but do they really deserve millions of dollars because they can throw, kick, hit, or shoot a ball.

Outdoor Recreation and Park Management Essay

In order for a national park to protect their natural and cultural values, it is crucial for managers to effectively and actively administer protocols and regulations to safeguard the ecological integrity of the park and to provide to visitors the service they desire. While managers attempt to resolve such issues, they find themselves in a predicament where conflicting goals play a problematic factor. A diversity of issues poses as threats to the flora and fauna, vegetation and landscape of parks within Canada. Over the years, the ability to control fire, introduced plant life, losses of species, urbanization and tourism have contributed to significant issues that managers face on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. Largely, the outlook of our ecological footprint and health of a park requires the management of the pressures of internal and external developments and public use. A park’s management strategies need to promote conservation of the vegetation, fauna and habitat within the park as well as catering for park visitors. Question 1: 5 Park Management Issues As a manager of a park, an array of issues affects both short term and long-term goals for management to contend with. At times, these issues usually conflict with the progress of anothe, in which forfeiting or sacrifice from one area is needed to fix another. I will introduce and explain 5 significant management issues that managers face while operating a park. 1. Tourism and Visitation The first of the issues that our park is faced with is tourism and visitation. Parks in Canada offer essential recreation assets for Canada. Their popularity with visitors indicates that immense visitor pressures are being placed on some parks and on the most popular recreation sites within a park. Tourism is an immense issue that we should not overlook and should not be underestimated. Below are two tables that display the sources of our income in parks and one that illustrates the revenue sources of parks for the 2000/2001 year. As we can distinguish in table 3, there is a huge influx of revenue emerging from park entry fees alone. $50 million is derived from park entry fees, camping fees and rental and concessions, where we can presuppose that these figures are a major financial backing for the operation of a park. This issue should be seen noteworthy to management as financial funding, in the means of tourism and visitation, secures a cushion for future developments and park sustainability. (Eagles, 2002) (Eagles, 2002) 2. Urbanization. A further more external pressure that parks are experiencing is the sudden emergence and increase of urbanization. â€Å" Increasing environmental pressures, such as those arising from increased tourist traffic and the urbanization of peripheral zones, with all the resulting air, water and noise pollution, have had as much impact on park ecosystems as they have on those outside the protected areas (Machlis & Tichnell 1985)†. For park managers, residential development is of great consequence and threat to the native fauna and flora of a park. Nonetheless, many people do not recognize the effects of their participation in activities on parks within proximity to where they reside. The effects of residential development on parks induce a magnitude of threatening ecological impacts. Such impacts include a foray of indigenous vegetation by persistent garden plants from bordering properties, a decrease in the scenic quality due to construction and clearing of vegetation, and soil erosion and dieback of vegetation as a result of storm water runoff (Solecki 1994). Storm water runoff from roads with the combination of the drainage of local residential wastes and treated waste matter from properties around a park is an additional aspect to be watchfully managed when urbanization becomes more apparent. The drainage as well as, the runoff from bordering roads can potentially lead to the decease of vegetation within the park. Poorly maintained septic tanks can result in nutrient-rich runoff being discharged. These wastes create unfavourable conditions for native vegetation and promote growth of weeds. Not only are smaller provincial parks are immune to this issue but also parks on a larger scale – national parks. 3. Loss of Species / Increase in Fauna The next issue to deal with is the introductions of species often unfavourably affect the native fauna and flora. The newly emerged fauna can directly contend with indigenous fauna for breeding sites and food. A possible harm that is negatively tied with the foreign fauna also introduced diseases, wide spread of weeds and prey upon native species (Louda 1997). Introduced species include domestic and feral cats, domestic dogs, foxes, rabbits, blackbirds and the common starling. This issue is not to be ignored as it is deeply tied into the overall appeal of why tourist may visit a park. 4. Fire One issue that should not go unnoticed for park management is the control of fire. The control of fire both negatively (forest fires) and positively (fire regime) should be placed as a priority as it endangers both human life and the ecological footprint of the park. Plant communities and their connected flora and fauna have progressed over thousands of years under a natural fire regime. The use of fire has key effects on ecosystems (Weber & Stock, 1998). The effects of fire management may be advantageous or undesirable, depending on the distinctiveness of the fire and the nature of the area burnt. Fires have the possibility to cause soil erosion, alter stream flow and water quality as well as change the vegetation composition. (Parsons, Graber, Agee, & Van Wagtendonk, 2005) Fire management is a very complicated and contentious issue, which often entails the balancing of fire safety requirements alongside vegetation and habitat management necessities. 5. Loss of Habitat / Increase in Flora Lastly, the fifth stand out issue that managers face when operating a park is the increase in flora. The spread of emerging plants from neighbouring residential gardens, abandoned farms, tracks and roadsides root a continuing change in the arrangement and diversity of the vegetation. This can lead to a considerable alteration in the nature of the ecosystem and habitat within the park. One persistent type of an introduced plant is weed. The destructive nature of many weeds is such that they quickly occupy disturbed areas and prevent the germination and regeneration of indigenous species (Louda, Kendall, Connor, & Simberloff, 1997). In this way weeds may reduce the variety of species present in a park. Weed can be a detrimental factor in parks as they can cause soil disturbance, grazing by introduced animals, increase frequencies of fire and the presence of bordering agricultural land with weed species. Question 2 – Two Outdoor Recreation Activities The two activities that I will be discussing are rock climbing and hunting. Both of these activities vary in the characteristics each one hold. When comparing both activities, I will point of the differences in environment used for each activity, the types of organizations provided, types of environmental attitudes, positive and negative impacts caused by them and the socio-demographics of the participants. For rock climbing, the environment used is very undemanding, as it is typically done outdoors. Climbs more often than not take place on sunny days when the holds are dry and provide the best grip. At their own discretion, climbers can also endeavor to climb at night or in poor weather conditions if they have the appropriate training and equipment. In spite of this, night climbing or climbing in poor weather conditions will increase the difficulty and danger on any climbing route. Hunting is a kind of recreational that demands money, time and effort. Today, most hunting in Canada is recreational and motivated by the tangible as well as intangible rewards of success. For hunting, the environment used differs greatly from rock climbing (Bruner, Gullison, Rice, & da Fonseca, 2005). For Hunting, weather is an integral aspect in the success of hunters, and ideal weather conditions time and again greatly increase the probability of a kill. â€Å"Ideal hunting weather is on a cold day, with light rain, and no wind. (Miller, 1990)† Windy days are usually poor for hunting, as the game are assumed to avoid open spaces on windy days. You may be able to hunt on a windy day, but you will have a more difficult time finding the game since they will not be congregating in open fields where they are highly visible. Hunting is best on days when there is a delicate drizzle. Most game, such as deer’s, enjoy the rain, and tend to be out on rainy days. Cold weather is the last element to good hunting weather. â€Å"Cold weather is best for deer hunting, as that is when deer are most likely to leave their dwellings. †(Miller 1990) Deer have an adrenaline rush when the temperature suddenly drops, which makes them even more vulnerable to hunters. Deer tend to avoid hot weather, and often sleep through the hot humid days of summer. Types of Organizations: There are a multiple of institutes and organizations that offer rock climbing. Typically the majority of provincial and national parks, and some regional and municipal parks offer rock climbing as one of their many outdoor recreation activities. In addition to parks offering this activity, many independent and private organization offer climbing experiences through clubs, for example, Alpine Club of Canada. Unlike rock climbing, the types of organizations in hunting are very restricted. Hunting is prohibited in National Parks across the country, but is available at selected provincial and regional parks. Being under governmental laws and regulations, higher authority set out rules governing hunters. These rules may entail strictures on age and qualifications of applicants for hunting licences, as well as defining hunting zones, seasons and bag limits. â€Å"Strict laws regulate when, where, what and how a person can hunt. In Ontario, each gun hunter must pass both the Canadian Firearms Safety Course exam and the Ontario Hunter Education Course exam (Govt Ont)† Type of Environmental Attitudes: Rock Climbing holds a more naturalistic attitude towards the environment. Rock climbing can be associated with a strong attachment to wild nature. Ones desire and contact desired is achieved through both the physical and mental aspect of climbing. Hunting holds a negativistic and doministic environmental attitude. It is usually associated with dislike, domination, and control. Depending on the type of hunting, it can display the dangers, the skill, the superiority, or the competition hunting bestows. Positive and Negative Impacts The positive impacts of rock climbing stimulate the participant both mentally and physically. When you consider the benefits of rock climbing, you usually think first of the physical benefits. Rock climbing is a recreation that requires a great deal of physical strength. Most people who become involved in the sport soon realize that they must be in excellent shape to even begin to enjoy it. This leads to an increase in physical conditioning that is most often beneficial to the participants overall health. Even though many rock climbers abide to the â€Å"leave no trace† and â€Å"minimal impact† practices, rock climbing can be damaging to the environment. Common environmental damages include: litter, chalk accumulation, soil erosion, abandoned bolts and ropes, human excrement, introduction of foreign plants through seeds on shoes and clothing, and damage to native plant species, especially those growing in cracks and on ledges as these are often deliberately removed during new route development through a process commonly referred to as cleaning. (Jakus 1996) Hunting brings forth both positive and negative impacts to the environment. The positive impact hunting retains is it helps maintain certain species of wildlife and their environment by keeping the animal’s population from exceeding its habitat’s carry capacity. It can bring wildlife populations up and create a much more nourishing environment for them. Hunting also provides predation for species of animal that no longer have predation due to various reasons. This keeps the ecosystem in balance ( Bruner 2005). Essentially, hunting Prevents wildlife populations from getting out of control that will eventually harm the wildlife, their environment, and possibly humans. As like some of the issues managers deal with, some pose as controversial and conflicting issues. One of the negative impact that hunting results in is it can cause populations of certain species of wildlife to decline. It may also interfere with natural predation which would cause the ecological footprint to drastically alter in the long run. Socio-demographics of Participants: The majority of people think that rock climbing is a recreation for men; this is not true at all. Climbing is an activity for both men and women, kids to adults. Rock climbing is a fairly inexpensive outdoor recreation compared to other activities like skiing. Educational background does not play a significant role in the decision to participate in such activity. Hunting is well scattered among age groups, with slightly more interest in the 35-44 age group. It is also popular among all education levels, with to some extent more interest shown by high school graduates. Hunting is mainly popular with rural residents and with those making $30,000-$49,999. The US Fish and Wildlife Service reports that approximately 35% of the nation’s hunters live in the South, as do 73% of the African-American hunters, 39% of the Hispanic hunters and 29% of the female hunters. Question 3 – Future Predictions My predictions for hunting will depend greatly on multiple factors. In the next 30 years I see hunting decreasing at a steady. Based on global climate, government laws and regulations, as well as park restrictions, hunting will be a very rare recreation. The changing climate will alter the hunting seasons in the means of shortening the duration periods. With strict gun laws and hunting regulations affirmed by the government and the rapidly changing economy, I feel as if the population will view hunting more of a hassle involving the multiple licensing and registration one needs to complete before being able to hunt. In addition, with the increasing urbanization in Canada, it will start to affect the more rural areas where hunting is allowed. Once these areas have been developed, laws will soon prohibit the use of hunting. My prediction for rock climbing is on the other side of the spectrum in regards to hunting. I strongly feel that there will be an increase in participation for this type of recreation. This is based on numerous of factors. Firstly, we live in a very physical and influential world. As the world becomes more health aware and proactive, people will start to view climbing as a physical activity. Similarly like yoga, this form of recreation and exercise involves overcoming both physical and mental barriers. It involves stretching of the muscles, as well as exercising of the mind. Overall, Park managers must consider a whole spectrum of issues in order to satisfy both the ecological footprint and the desires of the customers. It is a difficult challenge to prioritize one task over another as a great majority of them coincide with one another. Given the two very different outdoor recreation activities, we were able to observe the different environments, the impacts and the demographics each activity entails. From this we gain a stronger understanding of the the role that managers play in the delivery of outdoor recreation within Canada. Work Cited Bruner, A. G. , Gullison, R. E. , Rice, R. E. , & da Fonseca, G. A. (2005, Jan 5). Effectiveness of Parks in Protecting Tropical Biodiversity. Science 5 , 125-128. Eagles, P. F. (2002). Trends in Park Tourism: Economics, Finance and Management. Journal of Sustainable Tourism , 141-144. Fortin, M. -J. , & Gagnon, C. (1999, June 23). An assessment of social impacts of national parks on communities in Quebec, Canada. Environmental Conservation 26 , 201-206. Louda, S. M. , Kendall, D. , Connor, J. , & Simberloff, D. (1997, August). Ecological Effects of an Insect Introduced for the Biological Control of Weeds. Science 22 , 1088 – 1090. Miller, S. D. (1990). Impact of Increased Bear Hunting on Surviorship of young Bears. Wildl. Soc. Bull , 462-467. Parsons, D. J. , Graber, D. M. , Agee, J. K. , & Van Wagtendonk, J. W. (2005, July 03). Natural fire management in National Parks. Environmental Management , 21-24. Theil, D. , Menoni, E. , Brenot, J. -F. , & Jenni, L. (2007). Effects of Recreation and Hunting on Flushing Distance of Capercaillie. Journal of Wildlife Management , 1. Weber, M. G. , & Stock, B. J. (1998). Forest Fires and Sustainability in the Boreal Forest of Canada. Royal Sweedish Academy of Science , 545-547. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation: October 2002. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation: National Overview. May 2007.

Media Organization Essay Essays

Media Organization Essay Essays Media Organization Essay Essay Media Organization Essay Essay Creating a Culture of Quality in Media Organization Organizational culture is one of the fundamental areas that determine its ability to remain competitive in the modern industries. Given that competition in the media industry has continued to increase in the recent past, it is paramount that the media organizations develop a culture of quality to remain competitive. For the organizations to achieve realize the development of this culture, there are several areas that they should focus their efforts including employee ownership, empowerment, involvement, message credibility and maintaining leadership focus on quality. This paper seeks to review actions that a media organization should take to improve the quality culture in these areas. Employee Ownership and Empowerment For organizations to create a culture of employee ownership and empowerment, various measures can be taken. First, there is need to create a vision by adopting a model where the staff participation is encouraged (Schein 2010). For example, when determining the quality levels of the news items that a media organization is supposed to provide it is critical to involve the staff in establishing the expected goals as this makes the employees own the vision and hence work towards its realization (Morden 2016). The media organization should then determine the communication values which in essences enables the staff to be able to provide information regarding quality without fear of any form of negative consequences. Other measures that the organization should take to improve ownership and empowerment include delegating responsibility to staff. When staffs are required to take the responsibility of the decisions on quality in a media organization, their sense of ownership for the content provided is likely to increase and in the process, also lead to increased empowerment (Schein 2010). The organization also needs to provide the prerequisite training for the staff to ensure that they understand the value of taking ownership during the process of generating information content from the media organization. The organization should also regularly review the levels of staff ownership and empowerment in making decisions regarding product quality and provide the required encouragement to ensure that it continues to increase. Encouraging Peer Involvement Peer involvement in the organization seeks to ensure that individual employees are treated as a unique human being ad are involved in enabling the organization pursues its main goals. In a media organization where the peer involvement is encouraged, the organization seeks to solicit the inputs of the staff, and the management seeks to demonstrate that the contributions of each team member are integral in the running of the business. For media organizations to encourage peer involvement in their operations there two main strategies that they need to adopt. The first approach towards increasing peer involvement is anchored on company financial aspects. The sharing of organization ownership through methods such as allocating shares to the staff or allocating a portion of the profits to the staff has been shown to increase peer involvement in enabling organizations to develop a culture of quality (Morden 2016). By sharing the financial gains, the media organization will be able to generate a higher level of interest among the staff which would be otherwise difficult to elicit under routine workplace operations. The existing literature indicates that over 50% percent of all the employees who owned shares in an organization felt more committed to facilitating the company to achieve the desired level of success (Schein 2010). Hence developing a share ownership program would be an effective method to facilitate media organization to achieve higher involvement in its pursuit for quality. Secondly, a media organization that guarantees its staff of job security can encourage peer involvement. When staff members have doubt about their stay in the organization, it is hard for them to develop a sense of belonging and hence makes it hard to get involved in the operations (Schein 2010). Thus, a media organization that seeks to increase peer involvement needs to provide the staff with job security and have a clear policy on how to conduct layoffs. By adopting such an approach, the staff can be motivated to get involved and facilitate the media organization to pursue the goal of providing quality. Ensuring Message Credibility A media organization that seeks to ensure that there is message credibility as part of promoting organization quality as a culture needs to implement the Credible Brand Model (Morden 2016). Under this model, the credibility of the message is based on customer-based brand equity dimension. Thus, the image that a media house tends to project is critical in influencing the credibility of the messages that it provides. Based on this, it is paramount that an organization that seeks to increase the credibility of their messages should train their staff on the integral role that branding plays (Schein 2010). The staff should ensure that when providing their information, the sources remain prominent so that the consumers can associate the media house with the provision of reliable information. The training should also equip the staff with information on how to make the messages provided to be easily navigable as the consumers of media information tend to determine credibility based on how ea sily the can navigate the messages provided. Media organizations should regularly evaluate the credibility perception of the messages with the staff and the consumers and ensure that feedback is provided to the concerned parties to initiate necessary improvements. Leadership Emphasis on Quality Media organizations that seek to ensure that their leadership sustains efforts towards emphasizing the need for quality should adopt various strategic measures. The organizational leaders should work towards defining what constitutes quality within the media organization. Based on the definition, the leaders should identify areas where the media house needs to make improvements. Given that sustainability can only be achieved through regular evaluations, it is paramount for the leaders in the media organization to engage in regular forums to evaluate the progress (Morden 2016). The progress should by evaluating the decisions that have been made over a period to determine if they mirror the organization goal of ensuring quality. When inconsistencies are found, the leaders should lay out strategies to rectify the situation and steer the organization towards pursuing quality. References Morden, T., 2016. Principles of strategic management. London: Routledge. Schein, E.H., 2010. Organizational culture and leadership. New Jersey: John Wiley Sons.

Essay Sample on Brand Management The Effect of Brand Senses

Essay Sample on Brand Management The Effect of Brand Senses Introduction The five senses are the physiological capability that provides inputs for perception in organisms. These senses and their theory, classification and operation are overlapping the variety of studied topics in diversified fields. The branding of the five senses has experienced a wide variety of changes since 1960 thorough explanation of various theories. The branding has affected the branding management which is an essential component in today marketing (Thomas, Hutt Michael, 2004, 16). Seeing Seeing or vision refers to the eyes ability to detect and focus of the light visibility on retinas photoreceptors. The branding of an eye has experienced a wide range of theories since 1960 on which various terms have been associated with it. Generally, it generates electrical nerve impulses for varying brightness, colors and hues whereby the rods and cones are involved in the color and light sensitivity of the brand. In 1985 seeing was branded as a process whereby an eye actively participates in visionary acts sending the message to brain for review. The branding of hearing was most prominent in 1991 when Ramachandran Vilayanur, a professor of University of California, San Diego in neuroscience points out that hearing is a good rule of thumb in our sunlight world. There was some disagreement on this sense as to whether this constitutes to other planets as it collaborates with the other one, two or three senses. Neuroanatomists have come up with various perceptions on the theories th at have taken place in defining the hearing concept and its influence from the brain. A drink company took its gin and repackaged it in a transparent glass for the consumers to see the rich combination of its ingredients (Lindstrom Martin, 2007, 49). The move to repackage was later followed by big portfolio of advertisement which highly focused on the colorful flavors as well as aromas to convey the sense of smell. Hearing Hearing is the sense of sound perception also called audition which is hearing is all about vibration. Hearing has experienced a considerable occasional branding over the past 50 years with the most prominent occasion in early 1988 when a discovery on mechanoreceptors was further elaborated. The mechanoreceptors generally convert the motion into electrical nerve pulses in the inner ear. The branding of the hearing occurred consequently in 1990 and 2002 when the sound propagation was further elaborated in alignment to the vibration. This was branded as the mechanical sense. Hearing was also branded with the deafness as the inability to hear (Rius, Puig, Parramà ³n, 1985, 38). Taste Taste is among the most traditionally branded among the five senses which refers to capacity of flavor detection of substances such as poisons, food, etc. Taste has been branded on several occasions since 1950 whereby everyone posses his or her own taste of anything. The major focus was on 2007 when the neuromarketing branded taste as everyone’s flavor. It is a sense that allows the cognitive ability to differentiate one product from the other among the wide range of similar or different commodities (Dwyer, Robert Tanner, 2003, 57). Smell Smell is another member of the five senses, initially branded as an olfaction. In 1975, it was branded as a chemical sense whereby various organs of the body react whenever this sense occurs. In 2009, the study of this sense was extended to hundreds of olfactory receptors each requisition to a meticulous molecular feature (Clegg, 2011, 23). Touch Touch is an important part of organism as it creates is a perception in the body from activation of neural receptors. Branding of the touch has been defined by various scientists and medical experts in exerting more meaning to the sense of touch. The touch sense was once branded as tactician in 1989 by one spectacular application of Robert Knight neurotesting. Over the last 50 years, the branding of touch was most prominent in 2009 when it was branded as mechanoreceptor. Itching was branded to the touch sense in 1991 which was caused by the allergies and insect bites (Michael, Earl Dwight Pitt 2010, 14). Effects of Sense branding on Brand Management The branding of the five senses has greatly affected the brand management whereby consideration has to take place in every branding concept of any product or service. Basically people sense some of the stimuli confronted in the day to day lives which suggests that thinking of like sorting machine. Essentially people tends to attend to a variety of stimulations sorting through out for their relevancy and deciding their actions. This creates a lot of brand experiences possibly traversed in a fundamentally unconscious and inattentive way. In the brand management theory, there is an accumulation of brand experiences in human brains whereby constantly shifting of the shape is experienced in relation to each brand. The marketers in brand management initiates the intervention into this landscape in efforts of controlling and managing the brand shape that is taking place in the minds of the people. A wide range of ethical dilemmas of branding the senses has occurred on the implementation of regulations protecting consumers. The conscious and unconsciousness in the branding has taken effect in various occasions whereby the senses fully of particularly satisfies the consumers expectation on particular branding of the sense. The ethical dilemmas questions occur due to the renewed interests of the marketers in a sense branding idea that a high percentage human brain is unconsciously buried. The brand management theory underpins the natural interests in the branding methods whereby the quantities and the qualitative factors derivatives are highly invoked. This creates a question about the ethical nature of the true motivations that triggers the purchase of the brands. The truth of the matter is the sense branding is just impressionistic and unreliable to the brand itself. Branding the sense occurs in different levels and differs from one country to another across the globe. There diversification in cultures creates the difference in branding the senses between countries while the different cultural practices differs from one culture to another. The level of branding the sense is highly dependent on the perception of that particular brand in certain country or culture. Some cultures values some senses more than others creating more emphasis upon them. In some countries, the values and practices are aligned to some of the five senses therefore the branding is reflected on how much the sense valued is. Essentially social and religious beliefs also determine the branding of the sense which differs from country to country and culture to cultures. Branding the sense of sight in the African culture is highly valued as it is among the most important aspect of the human being. The branding value is aligned to the level of the overall capability whereby many pe rceives particular senses as more fundamental than others. The drinks producers have built a wide variety of sensory cues into communicating the brand to the consumers

Analysis essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 3

Analysis - Essay Example The use of direct quotes of the author calling his siblings shows the author’s attempts to imitate the family set-ups he watched in his favorite program. The quotes are useful in creating an imagery of the author’s actions and his desire to mimic the perfect families in TV. Orr (82) explains that the use of satire throughout the story is the writer’s strongest aspect in constructing his arguments. The author asked his brother Rick and sister Debbie to put on shoes to the dinner table just like in the TV where people dress appropriately for dinner parties. However, Rick defied him and came to the dinner table with only his swim trunks on. The writer’s attempts to influence his siblings and his brother’s defiance occurred without the mother realizing. The use of satire is more evident in the author’s use of an exclamation mark in the sentence â€Å"†¦to become wealthy, and right away!† The author is so obsessed with the rich lives of the families he watches in the TV such that he decides to take a rake and look for work in the neighborhood. Even though doing manual jobs such as cleaning using rakes cannot make one rich, the author still believes he can be rich. Even more satirical is the fact that the author walks in the neighborhood requesting to collect leaves in the summer. It is clear that the author’s obsession has impaired his judgment and reasoning. It is in the summer therefore, there are no leaves to clean up. However, the author’s insistence on the presence of leaves to clean up is ridiculous and discomforting. The author’s use of satire is his strongest literary aspect to show his childhood and often, stupid obsession with families in TV (Orr 83). Gary Soto discusses at length his quest to work for people in the neighborhood in order to get rich (Orr 93). He succinctly describes the work he did for his neighbors and in the process, highlights the stupidity of his

Switzerland Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Switzerland - Essay Example Switzerland also has ground water reserves and also has a significant number of lakes that are spread across the Swiss areas. Switzerland has a limited percentage of mineral resources, but the Swiss population, mostly majors in crop production and other forms of farming. This means that the Swiss soil is robust because of soil variation and relief rainfall makes a significant part of the country to be useful in cultivation and the rest for mountain pasture. Some of the minerals mined in Switzerland include iron and manganese whose heavy deposits are in Jura while the country also does not have coal deposits. One of the major challenges that Switzerland faces is that building land is not adequate, but the country focuses on more on retaining the appearances of the already established villages and towns. A majority of the Swiss population, a third live in the urban regions of the country that include Zurich, Bern, Lausanne, Basel and Geneva because of the favourable infrastructure that exists in these cities. Essentially, people move from the mountainous regions and into the cities in search of work opportun ities, but also a significant fraction of the population also lives in the mountain covered regions. Switzerland’s environment is also characterized by melting glaciers, especially with the global challenge of global warming making the regions in the mountain to be extremely dangerous to live in. However, the central plateau is also characterized by a high population in which people in this area compete in what activities they should engage in because of the limited space. Switzerland is also the home and the headquarters of the International Red Cross community that are located in Geneva that was founded in 1866 in Bern in the same country. The Old Swiss Confederacy experienced a period of unrest that included the areas of social, political, and religious aspects, but the French