Selections from the Latest Issue

Leadership does not grow from a vacuum. Specific planning and special patience discipline the teaching leader and the learning leader. The teaching leader serves in like manner as a farmer does, planting seeds, watering, pruning, and guarding vulnerable plants until the learning leader blossoms from the soil of dedication. When those trees, those learning leaders, mature, they are ready to become teaching leaders. The cycle for leadership harvest flourishes as each leader moves into primary positions to guarantee the reproducing process continues in cultivating and preparing people for leadership.

Leadership rises as a preparation activity to teach others the art of performance in responsibility. The importance of educators and institutions of higher education as models and conduits for leadership development cannot be overstated. UCO recognizes the importance of this important truth and today is positioning both our students and our campus for prominence in a world sorely needing ethical and effective leaders.

If we are to sustain this momentum in our leadership journey, if leadership is to be more than a "flavor of the month", if leadership is to be demonstrated and not simply discussed, then leadership at UCO must move from the marquee to the mirror. It must be reflected when we look in the mirror as individuals, as departments, and as a university community. It must be woven into the fabric of our culture and become our way of conducting the business of educating those who seek our services. For that to occur, leadership must be personally as well as publicly important.

As I looked over the list of "100 Things You Can Do To Increase Social Capital," I found myself stopped at thanking public servants. I began to think about those men and women in the police and fire departments who put their lives on the line every day for my safety and the safety of my family. My brother is a police officer, and I am acutely aware of the danger he is in, but I've never thought to thank him. With this in mind, I decided I would thank the firefighters at my local fire house.

I then had to decide how I wanted to offer this gratitude and appreciation. It wasn't enough to simply walk into the fire department and say thank you. I wanted to put some time into it. I wanted them to know I was really grateful. I sat down with my children, so they could also benefit from this exercise, and asked them how we should say thank you to fire fighters. My six-year-old son offered a simple childish wisdom and suggested we make cookies for them. So, off we went to the grocery store.

We got everything we needed to provide an abundance of cookies and began baking. My children helped me put the cookies on the cookie sheets, set the oven timer, picked which cookies went on the plates, how they were arranged, and what assortments we should provide. This, of course, is only done through proper taste testing. They enjoyed helping, but it seemed that it was even more fun because they were doing this for someone else. When we finished getting the cookies ready, we loaded into the car and headed to the fire station. I let my children each hold a plate of cookies, and we walked inside.

"Success is not a destination; it's a journey," says inspirational speaker and author Zig Ziglar. The phrase has become almost cliché, but still bears an important point of truth. So often students arrive on the doorstep of college thinking of a destination—an appropriate major, a diploma, a possible career… Perhaps the pinnacle of a university education is a degree, but what of the countless moments between that first day of class and the walk on graduation day? It is in these steps that the UCO course Success Central finds its purpose, a goal of equipping students with the right tools and motivation to not only survive the college experience, but to succeed and learn with each challenge along the way.

At the end of my first semester as a Success Central instructor, I asked each of my students to write down what he or she believed was the most helpful aspect of the course. Several major assignments and course chapters came to mind, but when I read the submissions, I discovered something interesting. Nearly every student wrote about a different facet of the class.

Some commented on the push for organization and planning ahead. One student wrote, "What helped me most was probably the four year academic plan, so now I have something to guide me through enrollment and to set my goals by." Another group of students felt the interaction with campus faculty and organizations benefited them most. A shy young woman shared, "At first, I was irritated that we had to interview a professor and attend an organization or volunteer meeting on campus. I feel guilty about that now because it was what made me get involved and do things that normally I wouldn't do." Others mentioned the focus on study habits, learning styles, cultural awareness, or wellness.

What I realized while reading student evaluations of the course was that each adopted what he or she needed in order to be a leader—whether in an organization, a class, a career field, or in personal life. As the semesters continue speeding along, on occasion I will see one of my student's names in the campus news, as a volunteer for the Big Event, as an excelling biology major in the lab, or as an officer in G.A.T.E.

It is exciting to think that students of all backgrounds and experiences can come to UCO and find a niche in which to lead. Success Central takes a role in that transformational journey, fostering individual growth in relation to the greater academic environment. Certainly one of the main goals of instructors is to get students to the finish line and watch them walk across the graduation stage to the world beyond, but with the assistance of courses like Success Central, we will also witness individuals succeeding and leading in the journey.

Antropólogo David Stoll no entiende el propósito del testimonio, I Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala de Elisabeth Burgos (1985) y cuestiona la veracidad de los acontecimientos del testimonio declarando que está lleno de mentiras e imprecisiones. Él dice que el hermano de Menchú, Petrocinio, no murió como ella relata en su testimonio y pregunta "if part of a Nobel laureate's account of her life is not true, does it matter?" (Stoll, Construct 31). También declara que Menchú tiene más participación con el Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP) que ella menciona en su relato. Tras su investigación de los hechos que relata Menchú, Stoll llega a la conclusión de que el libro no es más que la propaganda del EGP.

En el prólogo de su libro Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (1999), Stoll considera "whether the CUC was a grassroots response by an increasingly oppressed peasantry or whether the EGP invented it as a way to lure peasants into confronting the state" (Poor xii). También cuestiona la identidad de la autora del testimonio e intenta desacreditar la interlocutora Elisabeth Burgos. Stoll sí le da crédito a Menchú por crear una conciencia mundial de las condiciones de la gente indígena en Guatemala y la reconoce como la persona más joven en recibir el premio Nóbel de la Paz en 1992. Stoll no puede aceptar el testimonio como un género literario distinto y por eso cuestiona los acontecimientos que ha relatado Menchú.

The current shortage of donor organs and the inexorable march to corporatism in the United States would seem at first glance to have little in common. In fact, the two create a unique business opportunity that offers tremendous benefits to people throughout the United States. In this essay, I will explain and justify the solution to the problem of insufficient organ donors by suggesting the creation of a supply of never-sentient human donors, which I have termed "vivimorts."

In his widely referenced work, "Harvesting the Dead – The Potential for Recycling Human Bodies," Willard Gaylin suggests that the inexorable march of technology offers unique opportunities for sustaining life. Specifically, he refers to human bodies that are newly dead or have ceased to exhibit any sort of sentience, which he calls neomorts, as a source of organs to extend the life of sentient human beings. While Gaylin does not specifically refer to the sentience criteria, it has become a widely accepted delineation that divides the living from the non-living.

Bonnie Steinbock argues that abortion is permissible up to the point of fetal sentience. Steinbock proposes that it is impossible to harm an organism that cannot experience pain and has no consciousness, connecting cognitive capacity to moral status. Her detractors have likened the non-sentient fetus to an accident victim in a persistent vegetative state. Her response is that by having been sentient, an organism is imbued with rights that cannot be taken away, even if sentience is destroyed.

A logical extension of both the work of Steinbock and Gaylin suggests that preventing sentience of an organism would necessarily preclude it from having any moral status as a human being. The specific definition of the neomort as proposed by Gaylin involves a previously sentient being whose rights are diminished upon death or permanent incapacitation that destroys the individual's cognitive capacities and the ability to perceive pain.

Contra Gaylin's proposal of the neomort as a previously sentient being, medical technology and research has placed us on the cusp of a scientific breakthrough that would enable the creation of vivimorts. In essence, the vivimort is a never-sentient organism whose only function is to extend the lives of others. It becomes a therapeutic tool rather than a person. The logical conclusion of this reasoning leads us to the creation of organ banks in the form of facilities dedicated to the creation and maintenance of vivimorts.

A lion again! A lion again!
Roar rolls a red carpet through man-antelope
hordes who clatter off before my teeth in
the rhythm of terror run. Calliopes
whistle my jungle song as I amble
down the carnival midway where once I
played the hoop game inside the whip-man's skull,
winning chicken's feet and waiting to die.
Paw beat! Paw beat! I'm eloping alone
to where beasts inscribe laws in talon marks,
where ligaments crackle at meals, and no
creature is God over any. I arch
my back and leap the last elephant fence
to land free of the world that the circus invents.

Introduction If an alien landed next to a news stand and picked up a local magazine, what would they see? Assuming the alien could not read the native dialect what could be learned from looking at a magazine? Without understanding the written language, the visual imagery is the only place in the magazine to draw information. What if this situation were to repeat itself in another country?

The content of magazines can be perceived as a reflection of cultural norms. Publishers tailor their advertisements in magazines based upon these norms to entice audiences to purchase the advertised products. What is troubling is that while magazines are for entertainment, people may look to them for more than that. Groups such as young girls and boys or those struggling with identity may look to magazines for information about what society deems acceptable and attractive.

By evaluating the images represented by the advertisements, an idea is manifested about the local cultures' accepted ideas of sex and gender. Though not entirely conclusive, we believe as researchers that this allows for a glimpse into a culture. This enhances the study of communication and gender research by evaluating the products for consumption by a society.

The advertisements may not be a fair representation of sex and gender. The ads tend to depict gorgeously stunning female and male models which set visual standards widely unattainable by the mass majority of its readers while reinforcing gender stereotypes typically found in the local culture (Morris, 2006).