Financial Distress Paper Essay Example for Free

Financial Distress Paper Essay The current global economic crisis has seriously affected the financial activities of my academic institution. One of the major donors for our business school, a bank, has pulled out and is currently facing charges of breaking federal banking regulatory laws. All indications are that the bank will go under and will have to file for protection under chapter 11. With this conduit of funds no longer there, the business school will have to restructure. There are five programs currently in place at the business school, three of which are involved in teaching and research. They have been in existence for the last thirty years. As the head of faculty for the business school, I will recommend to the long range planning committee that the restructuring be directed at the other two programs. These are recently introduced graduate management courses, whose students, totaling fifty in number, can be gradually absorbed within the other graduate business courses. The cuts will therefore have to be effected within the faculty staff of the two programs being phased out. All tenured and non-tenured faculty staff will receive a one year termination notice with full severance benefits. Since their total combined yearly compensations is about as much as lost donor funding, the scaled down business school will be able to survive until other avenues are found to fund new programs. These recommendations will be made based on the need to retain teaching and research as a priority. Students who are currently enrolled in all programs will not suffer as they will be retained to continue learning within the existing programs. Additionally, the retrenchment will not be abrupt, but will be implemented over the course of one year, giving affected faculty staff ample time to appeal or seek positions elsewhere. Distress Paper 2 References Senate of Michigan Technological University (1985, May). UNIVERSITY RETRENCHMENT POLICY. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www. sas. it. mtu. edu/usenate/propose/80-89/7-85. htm

Early Computer Education for Students :: Computer technology student teacher

Introduction With the increasing need for technology proficient students, educational computing needs to start at an early age. Computing should be involved in each level of education from K-12 to higher education. This essay will cover the issues, challenges, and conclusions of computing education methods in different educational levels, internet in education, using â€Å"edutainment† within curriculum, and teaching information literacy. Background Literature Learning can be described as a process of interaction of student-to-professor, student-to-student, student-to-material, and student-to-expert/practitioner. Traditionally, a students learning is limited to class lectures, face-to-face discussions, office visits, quizzes, and tests (Wang, 2007, p280). Wang states that student learning quality can be improved by increasing these basic interactions. According to Wang, the Internet can improve the quality of these interactions when integrated into the classroom setting. The Internet improves the interaction of student-to-professor, student-to-student, student-to-material, and student-to-expert/practitioner (Wang, 2007, p 281). According to Wang, traditional classroom learning has extreme limitations. Most information is dispensed in lecture, especially in a college setting, and assessed with a test. Students have very little time to reflect and to express their thoughts and feelings about what is taking place. They have very little time to communicate to the professor what they are learning or having difficulty learning after each class session. Often students misconceive what they read and what they hear in a lecture setting. These misconceptions are carried through into an examination and are seldom resolved (Wang, 2007, p 281). Mary Green and Mary Nell McNeese believe that video games are an untapped resource in education. They refer to games that could be educational as â€Å"edutainment.† The main purpose of edutainment is to promote student learning through exploration, interactivity, trial and error, and repetition in such a way that students get so lost in the fun, that they don’t realize they are learning at the same time. By playing digital games, students exercise various skills such as strategizing, and problem solving to conquer the enemy, save the princess, or find the hidden treasure (Green, 2007, p 6).

Ad Comparison Soap

Nick Barnett Bethann Bowman English 101 October 5, 2009 Soap Over the Ages Many of these advertisements feature soap. It makes you smell great and can even attract a member of the opposite sex. Soap advertisements have been baiting men by bringing attractive women into the ads for decades. The soap ads of the 1950s and the ads of today are equally effective; both use sex appeal, although the bluntness and textual content vary greatly, the new ads are more explicit and less wordy. The audience of the 1950s needed soft colors and visual images with many meanings. The Lifebuoy ad uses cartoon people and very pale colors. Visually, this allows the few things in a bright color to stand out. The tag-line â€Å"It smells so good now, it makes me wonder†¦ † stands out along with the Lifebuoy box which is also red to grab the attention of the reader amongst the dull colors surrounding it. The woman in the background has a few possible meanings; sex appeal, appeal to women, or maybe even a figure of cleanliness. Text in an ad of the 1950s is a must and tells exactly what is being advertised and why it is better than the competition. The text in the ad builds up Lifebuoy by saying, â€Å"Now you get protection as long as 3 days. † Lifebuoy also announces its discovery of something new called Puritan. Then, Lifebuoy start bashing the competition with words such as, â€Å" New Lifebuoy protects you longer than the old Lifebuoy, and longer, of course, than any leading toilet soap. † The use of italics with the phrase toilet soap is meant to draw your attention to it and make sure you understand how bad all other soaps are. Lifebuoy also guarantees you will like it or you will receive a refund. The text of the 1950s ad is the bulk of the ad unlike the ads of today. This is most likely due to the culture the 1950s had a slower pace of life than the 2000s. The LYNX advertisement of the 2000s is almost entirely based off images. The focal point of the ad is a woman in nothing but underwear covered in mud with the words â€Å"wash me† written on her. The woman is also standing in a shower and looks like she is getting ready to take off the rest of her clothes. This ad is completely based on sex appeal. Sex has been proven to sell, and in this case, sex is selling body wash. Masculinity is provoked by the very opposite, a feminine body in the blue (male) shower with the blue (male) body wash. LYNX selling point is that if you use LYNX, you will have attractive women wanting you. This an effective strategy, but it is also stereotyping women as sex objects. The â€Å"wash me† written on her stomach is similar to what people write on cars and is used to humor the audience. There is only one line of actual text in the ad it says, â€Å"LYNX Shower Gel. Get Dirty. † The text is used to reinforce the image and the sex appeal of the product. In fifty years, soap advertisers have not changed their visual strategy. Both the ad from the 1950s and the one of the 2000s rely on sex appeal to sell their product. The use of women as the sex object from which they are launching their advertising campaign is also the similar. They both are also risque for their time and push the border between what is appropriate and what is not just a little further. They both imply that if their soap is used, then you too will have a beautiful woman almost naked wanting you. They both also have provocative text to reinforce their sexual images. The 1950s ad says, â€Å"It smells so good now, it makes me wonder†¦ † implies that he is wondering something sexual because there is a woman in a towel in the background. The LYNX ad uses the line, â€Å"Get Dirty. † with the dirty woman in the ad this is obviously a sexual innuendo. Both advertisements use sex to sale their product, that is undeniable, but the degree which they do it is vast. The LYNX ad uses just seven words to sell their product, only two of which tell what the product is. The 1950s ad on the other hand has over five paragraphs of text describing the product in full detail. The Lifebuoy ad takes a shot at the competition in their text and even offers a money back guarantee. The LYNX ad does none of these things in its short, seven word ad. The LYNX ad also has a more blatant use of sexuality. These differences are likely due to the difference in time periods. The ad in the 1950s had to do more than catch attention with sex appeal. It had to describe thoroughly why it was better to win over an audience that placed an astounding importance on quality. The 2000s audience however does not have time to read words in its fast paced society making the limited amount of text convenient to the reader. This audience also more callused to sexuality so a more explicit image is necessary to attract the same amount of attention. Ads for soap have changed dramatically over the years. They have gotten less wordy and more colorful. The style of the soap has even changed from bar form to liquid. The thing that has not changed though, is that selling soap is still all about sex. Works Cited Lever Bros. â€Å"It smells so good now, it makes me wonder†¦ † Advertisement. Lever Bros. Lever Bros, n. d. Web 10 Oct. 2009. Unilever. â€Å"Get Dirty† Advertisement. Unilever. Unilever, n. d. Web. 10 Oct. 2009. Works Sited

Fences, The Heart And Spirit Of The Average Man - 1779 Words

Fences tells the story of Troy, a sour sanitation worker desperately clinging to the notion that he could have played Major League Baseball. He is unlikeable and unfair, at times cruel and severe, however these actions are a result of his turbulent childhood, his constant defeat in the face of adversity, be they his baseball career or the struggles of his day to day life. A tragedy in the truest sense, Fences chronicles â€Å"the heart and spirit of the average man† (Miller). The mold Wilson uses to cast Troy has its share of cracks and imperfections, but rather than focusing on the many faults on the surface of an underprivileged life, it is paramount that the origins of these cracks and the sources of these imperfections is understood; only†¦show more content†¦The fence can also be viewed as the symbolic obstacles Troy faces in throughout his life. Poverty and homelessness as a young man, 15 years in prison, the color line in baseball, all are fences which he was u nable to surmount. Like many tragic stories â€Å"the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his rightful position in his society† (Miller). Fences is full of struggles starting for Troy as soon as he comes into this world. Troy is born in 1904 into a less than perfect world and by the time he is fourteen years old he leaves Alabama to escape his abusive father. He runs away to Pittsburgh, following the promise that there are good jobs there. Wilson sets the scene in ‘Steel City’, a place of great importance to him. He was born there and sets â€Å"nine out of the ten plays in the neighborhood of the Hill District† (Wardi 1). His relationship with his father is lacking, something that he is determined to improve upon with his own children, but as time progresses, it becomes apparent that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. As a father Troy doesn’t have much to go off of, the only love he has ever know has come from his father. Hi s mother left when he was young, as did all of the women his father courted: â€Å"He wasn’t good for nobody† (Wilson 556). So in addition to his absent father figure