Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: The South University School of Pharmacy embedded eight quarters of service-learning in its Doctor of Pharmacy’s early/intermediate professional practice experience program to introduce students to service and altruism as part of a pharmacy professional’s defining ethos, and to provide students leadership opportunities as mentors. Purpose: This assessment project’s focus is twofold: 1) assess the eight-quarter service-learning experience contributions to the development of student ability outcomes mapped to the Early and Intermediate Professional Practice Experiences as conceived in the school’s initial curricular plan, and 2) establish a baseline against which to assess forthcoming changes in the service-learning experience. Methods: The Class of 2008 was surveyed during Quarter Seven using a two-part, thirty-one item survey that elicited student perception of service-learning and introductory practice experience contributions to their development of PharmD curricular outcomes mapped to those experiences. Results: The work in progress indicates, not unexpectedly, that students perceive the intermediate professional practice experiences in quarter five (2, 4-week rotations) as more directly linked to their professional development than the service learning activity. Full results from the closed and open-ended response survey sections will be reported, as well as the model for on-going assessment of this curricular requirement. Implications: Recommendations for internal and external audiences will be presented to help programs with multi-term service-learning activity embedded in their experiential curricula consider programmatic adjustments that help students see service as valuable in their professional education, and to identify specific developmental gains they make via curricular-linked service.

Publication Type: Session Presentation
Abstract: The editors of The German Quarterly (Rolleston) and Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German (Lovik) will provide an update on the past year’s activities and developments. They will review the guidelines for submitting articles, discuss possible topics for future publications and advise the participants on successful submission of manuscripts.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study examined funded and unfunded research published in Social Psychology Quarterly, from 1975 to 2005. We analyzed 973 articles using bibliometric and content analysis. Results show that 51% of articles acknowledge funding, and that the trend in funded articles is up slightly over the 31-year period. Funded and unfunded articles differ in topics, research methods, number of authors, and length. The funding status of the most prolific first authors and the most important articles are identified.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Abstract: The U.S. Mint’s popular 50 State Quarters Program offers an unusual opportunity to compare representations of place. An analysis of winning and losing designs shows that states systematically select imagery to assert distinctiveness without generating controversy. Regional patterns include the North selecting History and the South selecting Nature. No evidence of production ideology or an expert/popular cleavage was apparent. Simmel’s theory of tact and sociability helps interpret these results.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Since the United States Mint’s 50 State Quarters program began in 1998, 31 states have designed representative coins. One of the most interesting developments in the five years of the program’s development has been the increasing reliance on public opinion as a factor in determining quarter designs.

While public opinion was taken into account by only one of the first nine states to design a quarter, 13 of the subsequent 22 states in the program have included it in their decision-making process, often through non-scientific online voting. This trend may be explained in part by increasing levels of internet access, combined with state governments’ willingness to use the internet as a means of public input. In addition, as awareness of the quarters program has risen, citizens may increasingly expect that they will have some say in the design of their own state’s quarter.

The benefits of injecting public opinion into the artistic design process, however, may be dubious. There exists an attitude among many in creative fields that “too many cooks spoil the broth”; that including public opinion in the artistic process inevitably waters down the final product. This “market research” approach to art was satirized by Russian artists Komar and Melamid, who created a series of tongue-in-cheek paintings based entirely on the results of public opinion surveys about what paintings should look like.

The 50 State Quarters program represents a unique opportunity to examine the role of public opinion in the artistic process. In this paper, I hope that by coding and comparing various features of quarter designs that were accepted and rejected, in states that used public input and those that did not, I will be able to identify some ways in which public opinion can affect an artistic product for better or for worse.