The University of Pennsylvania's Center for Community Partnerships as an Organizational Innovation for Advancing Action Research

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Harkavy ◽  
Francis E. Johnston ◽  
John Puckett

The article describes the Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania as an organizational innovation designed to mobilize the range of university resources to solve the strategic problem of creating democratic, local cosmopolitan communities. We identify the Center's approach to this problem as helping to develop university-assisted community schools, schools transformed to function as centers and catalysts for community revitalization with ongoing support from an institution of higher education. We argue that communal action research, in which scholarly attention is focused upon the university's local geographic area in a continuous comprehensive partnership with the community studied, is a particularly promising approach for revitalizing communities, advancing knowledge, and integrating the university's missions of research, teaching, and service. We describe the Turner Nutritional Awareness Project (TNAP), which works to alleviate nutrition problems in a university-assisted community school, as an example of communal action research conducted by all participants in a common project. We conclude by describing the structure and operation of the Center for Community Partnerships, claiming that the Center itself is part of a broader organizational change occurring throughout the American academy as urban universities, in particular, respond to severe external crises as well as internal difficulties resulting from the separation of service from teaching and research.

Author(s):  
Ira Harkavy ◽  
Rita A. Hodges ◽  
Joann Weeks

The chapter describes the university-assisted community school approach developed by Penn's Netter Center for Community Partnerships with its school and community partners since 1985, as well as adapted nationally. The approach is grounded in John Dewey's theory that the neighborhood school can function as the core neighborhood institution that provides comprehensive services, galvanizes other community partners, and helps solve locally-manifested, universal problems such as health inequities and unequal education. Academically-based community service is presented as a core strategy for engaging the Penn's academic resources with the schools and community. Penn's evolution towards becoming a democratic anchor institution is discussed to highlight the importance of engaging the full resources (academic and economic) of the university in community partnerships. Providing concrete examples from nearly 35 years of work, the authors argue that university-assisted community schools is a promising approach to significantly improve schooling, communities, and universities.


1979 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 368
Author(s):  
Clinton B. Ford

A “new charts program” for the Americal Association of Variable Star Observers was instigated in 1966 via the gift to the Association of the complete variable star observing records, charts, photographs, etc. of the late Prof. Charles P. Olivier of the University of Pennsylvania (USA). Adequate material covering about 60 variables, not previously charted by the AAVSO, was included in this original data, and was suitably charted in reproducible standard format.Since 1966, much additional information has been assembled from other sources, three Catalogs have been issued which list the new or revised charts produced, and which specify how copies of same may be obtained. The latest such Catalog is dated June 1978, and lists 670 different charts covering a total of 611 variables none of which was charted in reproducible standard form previous to 1966.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 580
Author(s):  
Catherine Torcivia ◽  
Sue McDonnell

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in and need for a comprehensive ethogram of discomfort behavior of horses, particularly for use in recognizing physical discomfort in domestically managed horses. A clear understanding of the physical discomfort behavior of horses among caretakers, trainers, and professional health care personnel is important to animal welfare and caretaker safety. This is particularly relevant to pain management for hospitalized equine patients. Various pain scale rubrics have been published, typically incorporating only a few classically cited pain behaviors that, in many cases, are specific to a particular body system, anatomic location, or disease condition. A consistent challenge in using these rubrics in practice, and especially in research, is difficulty interpreting behaviors listed in various rubrics. The objective of this equine discomfort ethogram is to describe a relatively comprehensive catalog of behaviors associated with discomfort of various degrees and sources, with the goal of improving understanding and clarity of communication regarding equine discomfort and pain. An inventory of discomfort-related behaviors observed in horses has been compiled over 35 years of equine behavior research and clinical consulting to medical and surgical services at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine’s equine hospital. This research and clinical work included systematic evaluation of thousands of hours of video-recordings, including many hundreds of normal, healthy horses, as well as hospitalized patients with various complaints and/or known medical, neurologic, or orthopedic conditions. Each of 73 ethogram entries is named, defined, and accompanied by a line drawing illustration. Links to online video recorded examples are provided, illustrating each behavior in one or more hospitalized equine patients. This ethogram, unambiguously describing equine discomfort behaviors, should advance welfare of horses by improving recognition of physical discomfort, whether for pain management of hospitalized horses or in routine husbandry.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 355-361
Author(s):  
Kinjal Gadhiya ◽  
Edgar Zamora ◽  
Salim M. Saiyed ◽  
David Friedlander ◽  
David C. Kaelber

Abstract Background Drug alerts are clinical decision support tools intended to prevent medication misadministration. In teaching hospitals, residents encounter the majority of the drug alerts while learning under variable workloads and responsibilities that may have an impact on drug-alert response rates. Objectives This study was aimed to explore drug-alert experience and salience among postgraduate year 1 (PGY-1), postgraduate year 2 (PGY-2), and postgraduate year 3 (PGY-3) internal medicine resident physicians at two different institutions. Methods Drug-alert information was queried from the electronic health record (EHR) for 47 internal medicine residents at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center (UPMC) Pinnacle in Pennsylvania, and 79 internal medicine residents at the MetroHealth System (MHS) in Ohio from December 2018 through February 2019. Salience was defined as the percentage of drug alerts resulting in removal or modification of the triggering order. Comparisons were made across institutions, residency training year, and alert burden. Results A total of 126 residents were exposed to 52,624 alerts over a 3-month period. UPMC Pinnacle had 15,574 alerts with 47 residents and MHS had 37,050 alerts with 79 residents. At MHS, salience was 8.6% which was lower than UPMC Pinnacle with 15%. The relatively lower salience (42% lower) at MHS corresponded to a greater number of alerts-per-resident (41% higher) compared with UPMC Pinnacle. Overall, salience was 11.6% for PGY-1, 10.5% for PGY-2, and 8.9% for PGY-3 residents. Conclusion Our results are suggestive of long-term drug-alert desensitization during progressive residency training. A higher number of alerts-per-resident correlating with a lower salience suggests alert fatigue; however, other factors should also be considered including differences in workload and culture.


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