Bridgewater State University

About: Bridgewater State University is a education organization based out in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 625 authors who have published 1223 publications receiving 21820 citations. The organization is also known as: BSU & Bridgewater State.

Sustainability in the Curriculum and Teaching of Economics: Transforming Introductory Macroeconomics

Abstract: Present models of economic growth primarily focus on the role of expenditures as captured in the commonly cited economic indicator, gross domestic product (GDP), where GDP is defined as the sum of final goods and services sold within a country’s natural borders. Noting that a country’s expenditures are referred to as “aggregate expenditures” and that the majority of spending is specific to consumption or consumer spending, especially in the United States where this spending category is nearly two-thirds of annual GDP (other expenditure categories for GDP include investment spending, government spending and foreign spending as proxied by net exports), there exists a significant relationship between consumer expenditures and macroeconomic growth, justifying the standard acceptance of consumption-based expenditures as being a significant driver of economic expansion. Given the consumption and growth relationship, consumption values and behaviors have a significant impact on economic outcomes as well as other parameters including the environment and social and economic equity, where the latter are defined as relating to disparities between groups within a country, as well as across countries. Following a discussion of the impact of consumer-led growth on sustainability parameters: the environment, economic and social equity, this paper provides an explicit linkage between the measure of economic progress in universal use, GDP, and the degradation to common global resources, connecting the endogeneity present between the modeling of economic growth and the values and behaviors that support the outcome of the very same growth. A discussion of the present teaching methods specific to introductory macroeconomics provides the foundation for an innovative, replicable, and grant-funded case study for introducing sustainability. The curriculum variants discussed are not in widespread use and at present, there are no standard textbooks for the instruction of Principles of Macroeconomics that explicitly include sustainability and provide sustainability-based economic parameters for alternative evaluation to standard economic growth as presently and singularly enumerated in GDP. The value-augmenting outcome of the sustainability inclusive curriculum case study is captured in a qualitative assessment of student reaction and absorption of sustainability as a value and behavior catalyst and provided in summary form.

A Reasoned Ethical Incoherence

Abstract: How should we consider moral or ethical disagreement?-as a demonstration of ethical relativism, where right and wrong, good and bad, are simply expressions of arbitrary differences? Or as a sign of bad times where people refuse to see what is right and good? Given the pronounced pluralism of our culture, this issue of ethical disagreement penetrates deeply. For not only does it touch such theoretical problems as whether our ethical positions are relative to persons or to culture or instead reflect some absolute in existence, and whether or how our principles and ideals bear on our world; but it also concerns the immediate and practical issue of our attitude toward those who disagree with us. How should Martin the pacifist regard Daniel the revolutionary-as a fool? Or how should Paul, who condemns abortion, consider Judith, who defends it-as evil? perverted? just different? To deal with these issues we need to recognize with our decade's resurgent idealism the necessity of system, but we also must remember well the limitations of system. We need, in short, a reasoned ethical incoherence. Such an incoherence will be no mere common incoherence, flighty and impulsive, occurring by default rather than as the result of thinking. And it will be no mere paradox either, as when Mao legitimizes adopting "contradictory and strange" alliances with enemies of communism; for these are justified by the systems in which they occur-as when Mao claims that the end justifies the means and that these "contradictions" will further (Maoist) Marxism. No, we will need here neither unthinking nor seeming but reasoned incoherence: where our ethical position cannot be fully jus-

The Body Image of Women at a Homeless Service Center: An Analysis of an Underrepresented, Diverse Group

Abstract: The primary objective of this research was to explore the unique body image concerns of women receiving services at a day center for individuals experiencing homeless, an understudied population in body image research. The study also explored a number of factors relevant to homelessness that could relate to body image, including access to hygiene products or facilities, inconsistent access to food, sexual victimization, and self-esteem. A sample of 60 women from a nonprofit homeless service center in Boston, MA, were administered a written questionnaire. Results indicated that participants had moderately high body esteem on average across all three subscales of the Body Esteem Scale, and body esteem was positively correlated with self-esteem. A multiple regression analysis revealed that 54% of the variance in body esteem was explained by self-esteem, access to hygiene products, inconsistent access to food, and sexual victimization, as well as race, age, and BMI as covariates. Importantly, both self-esteem and access to hygiene products were significant predictors of body esteem, such that women with higher self-esteem and more access to hygiene products reported higher levels of body esteem. Because this is the first study to examine body image among women who have experienced homelessness, these results may influence the direction of future research on this diverse, underrepresented group of women, as well as inform the work of shelters and other organizations that provide services and resources to women affected by homelessness.

The College Presidency: An Interview with Stephen J. Nelson

Abstract: College presidents continue to fill prominent critical roles in colleges and universities and society. Thus an examination of the reasons for their success and failure is vital. Four major criteria are presented as a baseline for fair judgments of presidents and their leadership. Current trends in the presidency and presidential selection are explored and presented in order to increase understanding about how presidents can best "fit" the demands of these important leadership posts.

Looking for the forest and the trees : exercises to provoke abstract thinking.

Abstract: It is probably hard to find an educator who would hesitate to agree that abstract thinking and comfort in asking questions are pivotal to scientific inquiry and advancement of knowledge. Yet, most of the time the mechanics of fostering these skills is as challenging as photographing dense fog. As biologists we constantly reevaluate what we know, how we think about what we know, and how we communicate our knowledge about the living world. These short engaging exercises challenge students to appreciate the central role of abstract thinking and question asking in scientific inquiry. In the first exercise the classroom is presented with an optical illusion image and challenged to evaluate it using concrete and abstract thinking tools. In a follow up exercise, students are prompted to evaluate the process of making assumptions, asking questions and coming to conclusions using the example of a small popular culture article. Both exercises are used as primers to stimulate discussion emphasizing that abstract thinking and question asking are critical tools in the tool set of 21 st century budding biologists.