The Asian Tsunami struck Sri Lanka on December 26, 2004. Sri Lanka was the second worst affected country after Indonesia, and this natural disaster killed in excess of 35,000 people and displaced over 1 million. The article explores the Tsunami Disaster Management Program developed by one Sri Lankan university: the Postgraduate Institute of…

This article is about conflict in an educational workplace setting. It reports on a case study investigating the emergence, development, and management of conflict among diverse native English speakers working as language instructors within a Japanese university. The example of conflict presented, which deals with divergent assumptions about the…

Pedagogical experts contend that students learn best when they are actively involved in and responsible for their own learning. In a student-centered learning environment, the instructor ideally serves primarily as a learning resource or facilitator. With the guidance of the instructor, students in active learning environments strive for…

Research in the field of intergroup relations has developed considerably over the last two decades, influenced by events and by the historical zeitgeist. We suggest applying an interactional way of dealing with intergroup encounters, which emphasizes the situational macro-context (political, historical and social) in which the contact takes place.…

Attacks on the legitimacy of affirmative action pose new challenges for public universities committed to creating a diverse student population without considering race or ethnicity as factors in admissions. On the basis of a case study of the controversy surrounding the building of a charter school at the University of California, San Diego, in…

What pass for the study of international relations is often more an examination of foreign affairs, transnational interaction from ethnocentric perspectives. Many analysts accept the assumptions and values of their own political culture, then superimpose them on other nations. If another state does not act in accordance with those values, its…

As public universities look to private philanthropy to produce the capital to invest in quality, it is important to think carefully about the implications for universities and their foundations. In this new reality, the role of the public university president is becoming much more than simply the institution's academic leader. Instead, a leader's…

This article describes an international relations simulation that focuses on threats of transnational insurgent organizations, the future of the Iraqi regime, and the effect of globalization on foreign policies. It contains both the Simulation Director's Guide and the Participant's Guide. The guides explain the steps taken to run the simulation…

Teamwork skills such as conflict resolution and communication strategies are challenging to teach. The use of stories may help develop these complex skills. Although engagement is generally seen as a key component of learning environments, what constitutes engagement has not been fully explored. The purpose of this study was to examine how…

Environmental scanning, enrollment forecasting, budget analyses, and institutional effectiveness assessment are examples of the explicit contributions institutional research offices make to campus strategic planning.

In the current information age, there is a growing use of and reliance on the Internet. One area of concern for educators is the communication of information using an electronic questionnaire interface. Therefore, it seems pertinent to look at the issue of dissemination of Internet questionnaire information and the integrity of this process.…

Based upon several years of team-teaching intensive early childhood education courses, the authors discuss their experiences of building teacher-learner relationships through cooperative and collaborative learning. After witnessing significant conflict occurring within groups over the years, the authors began to investigate, discuss and integrate…

This paper describes a technique the first author imported from management practice to (a) develop students' meeting management skills, (b) improve students' listening skills and conflict management abilities and (c) encourage student participation and create a supportive learning environment. The technique uses a tangible prop (i.e., a Nerf ball)…

There is a need to develop curriculum and materials on law-related topics better designed for business students planning a career in business. Except incidentally, business school legal faculty are not teaching future lawyers or paralegals. The world of the business practitioner is very different from that of the lawyer. For most business people…

Conflicts often arise in online professional communication class discussions as students discuss sensitive ethical issues relating to the workplace. When conflicts arise in an online class, the activity system of the class has to be kept in balance for the course to continue functioning effectively. Activity theory and distributed learning theory…