scholarly journals From Publications to Public Actions: The Role of Universities in Facilitating Academic Advocacy and Activism in the Climate and Ecological Emergency

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie J. Gardner ◽  
Aaron Thierry ◽  
William Rowlandson ◽  
Julia K. Steinberger

Thousands of universities have made climate emergency declarations; however the higher education sector is not rising to the collective challenge with the urgency commensurate with scientific warnings. Universities are promoting an increased focus on sustainability through their research, teaching and their own institutional footprints. However, we suggest that such initiatives will be insufficient to catalyse the required transformations in our societies and economies because of (i) the time lags inherent in education and research pathways to impact, and (ii) their failure to address either real-world political processes or the forces invested in maintaining the status quo. We therefore suggest that academics should move from publications to public actions and engage in advocacy and activism to affect urgent and transformational change. We discuss the barriers to engagement in advocacy that academics face, and propose a number of actions that universities should adopt to help overcome them. These include explicitly recognising advocacy as part of the work mandate of academic staff by altering work allocation models, facilitating engaged research sabbaticals, altering hiring and promotion policies, and providing training to enhance the effectiveness of engagement. In addition, universities must defend the right of academics to engage in protest and push back against emerging threats to academic freedom. Such actions would strengthen a rich tradition of academic protest and enhance the contribution of universities to the public good in areas well beyond sustainability, for example race and social justice (Black Lives Matter, decolonising education) and public health.

Author(s):  
Larisa N. Chernova ◽  

The article examines the place and role of women in the social life of London in the 14th–15th centuries based on the material of the original sources. It is shown that, despite the restrictions fixed by custom and laws on the social activity of women, the range of occupations of the townsmen –wives and widows – was unusually wide. It is craft and trade, including the right to take apprentices, real estate transactions, and financial deals. Women did not just help men in the craft or trade shops, but also worked independently. The status of women, especially married women, who chose to participate in trade or in town production as their main occupation, was never fully developed. A significant degradation in the position of women in the public sphere in London occurred in the 16th century. The author concludes that, despite all the difficulties, a new type of woman was gradually developed in the city – energetic, enterprising, educated, who acts in society as an independent head of the family and business.


Author(s):  
Mark Hill QC

This chapter focuses on the clergy of the Church of England. It first explains the process of selection and training for deacons and priests, along with their ordination, functions, and duties. It then considers the status and responsibilities of incumbents, patronage, and presentation of a cleric to a benefice, and suspension of presentation. It also examines the institution, collation, and induction of a presentee as well as unbeneficed clergy such as assistant curates and priests-in-charge of parishes, the authority of priests to officiate under the Extra-Parochial Ministry Measure, the right of priests to hold office under Common Tenure, and the role of visitations in maintaining the discipline of the Church. The chapter concludes with a discussion of clergy retirement and removal, employment status of clergy, vacation of benefices, group and team ministries, and other church appointments including rural or area deans, archdeacons, diocesan bishops, suffragan bishops, and archbishops.


Author(s):  
Aga Skrodzka

This article argues for the importance of preserving the visual memory of female communist agency in today’s Poland, at the time when the nation’s relationship to its communist past is being forcefully rearticulated with the help of the controversial Decommunization Act, which affects the public space of the commons. The wholesale criminalization of communism by the ruling conservative forces spurred a wave of historical and symbolic revisions that undermine the legacy of the communist women’s movement, contributing to the continued erosion of women’s rights in Poland. By looking at recent cinema and its treatment of female communists as well as the newly published accounts of the communist women’s movement provided by feminist historians and sociologists, the project sheds light on current cultural debates that address the status of women in postcommunist Poland and the role of leftist legacy in such debates.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Miomir Jakšić

Abstract The article discusses the status and role of regulatory bodies and the aftermaths of their independence and accountability to the public and the parliament. The author analyses different legal statuses of regulatory bodies in Montenegro and Serbia in the central banking and energy sectors and concludes that it is necessary that national constitutions, as the highest legal acts in each state, prescribe in a separate article that “Regulatory bodies are independent and accountable to Parliament”. Relevant separate legal acts should closely define the procedures for establishing, enforcing, and sanctioning of possible breaching of: 1) independence of regulatory bodies, 2) accountability of regulatory bodies to the parliament, and 3) transparency of their activities.


Author(s):  
Najla Ibrahim Abdulrahman, Fatimah Ibrahim Alkhamis

This study aimed to find out the role of financial analysis using financial models to predict the financial stumble on the Saudi public utilities sector. The study was based on the financial analysis of the financial lists published by the sample of the study of the Gas and Manufacturing Company (Gasco) and the Saudi Electricity Company listed in the Saudi Capital Market Authority. During the period (2009-2018) I followed the descriptive analytical approach. The study found the effectiveness of the Abdul Rahman model to predict the financial stumble on the public utilities sector, and the low effectiveness of the Altman model and the Kida model to predict financial stumbles on the utility sector. The study also recommended encouraging audit offices to add financial analysis services to the possibility of predicting and addressing financial stumbles, directing companies using financial models that help predict financial stumbles, encouraging investors to use financial models that help predict financial stumbles to make the right decision, and directing researchers in the study of financial default forecasting on the insurance sector using the Abdul Rahman model.


Author(s):  
David I Lewis

The world of work is changing rapidly, with an increasing global demand for employees with higher-level skills. Employees need to have the right attitudes and aptitudes for work, possess work-relevant skills, and have relevant experience. Whilst universities are embedding employability into their curricula, partnerships outside of the taught curriculum provide additional, largely untapped, opportunities for students to develop these key skills and gain valuable work experience. Two extracurricular partnership opportunities were created for Bioscience undergraduates at the University of Leeds, UK: an educational research internships scheme, where students work in partnership with fellow students and academic staff on on-going educational projects, and Pop-Up Science, a unique, student-led public engagement volunteer scheme. Both schemes generate substantial benefits for all. They enhance student’s skills and employability, facilitate and enhance staff-student education practices and research, and engage the public with research in the Biosciences. Collectively, they demonstrate the extraordinary value and benefits accrued from developing extracurricular partnerships between students, staff, and the community.


Author(s):  
Damir Khamitovich Valeev ◽  
Anas Gaptraufovich Nuriev

The research analyses the implementation of the role of maximizing the level of security in the administration of justice in the context of the digital economy. Methodologically, the documentary observation research technique and, to process sources, sociological-dialectical analysis were used. Digitization as a transformational factor of many branches of social relations implies dependence on the implementation of a series of interdependent legal facts with digital technologies so that the action has a legal and concrete result. The digital level as a new platform for the implementation of a number of public functions posing new challenges for the public administration system and also determines the status of new functions that can provide a "digital future" with a positive development dynamic. Conclusion mode everything indicates that, these new functions can be austable in order to maximize security in the implementation of public functions in response to new threats. Particularly sensitive is the area of justice administration, which is also actively introducing many digital tools into the case-resolution process.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 109-138
Author(s):  
Kelly L. Winfrey ◽  
James M. Schnoebelen

Women gained the right to vote nearly 100 years ago, but it was not until 1980 that political scholars and practitioners began paying much attention to the role of women in elections and it was the so-called “Year of the Woman” in 1992 that sparked increased scholarly attention on women as political communicators. A record number of women, 117, ran for the U.S. Congress in 1992, but the number of women running and serving has been slow to increases since that time. One reason may be the unique challenges gender poses for female political communicators. Over three decades of research has proven gender stereotypes and expectations play a key role in how women (and men) communicate with voters. This review of research summarizes major findings and changes in gender and political communication research over the past three decades. Our focus is on communication by candidates and how gender shapes that communication. In all, 119 scholarly sources were reviewed; these sources included scholarly journals from related disciplines as well as books. Gender stereotypes in political communication have also been studied using a variety of methodologies, and to reflect that the research reviewed in this essay include both quantitative and qualitative methods. This summary of existing research includes a discussion of the gender stereotypes faced by candidates and how candidates present themselves to the public in light of these stereotypes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 47-75
Author(s):  
Wioletta Pawska

The Right of Minors to Freedom from Gambling and Internet andGaming Addition The aim of the article is to highlight the dangers of gambling and Internet and gaming addiction of minors and young persons. The author is convinced that in the absence of positive legislative changes and if creators of games engaging young persons in gaming are not punished, children will not be safe in the online environment. There will not have any other lives than those in the games they play. Additionally, the most important thing is the role of the parents, guardians and teachers. They should talk to children about the problem, show them the dangers and organise better their free time – in an educational and carefree way. In accordance with the obligatory rules of custody, they should ensure them suitable development, safety and a sense of belonging. The teachers ought to support these activities. Summarising, if the status quo continues to be tolerated, minors and young person’s will be deprived of carefree life and suffer from harm and even sudden deaths. The author is sure that parents and children do not give enough attention to that and we should not take away from young person’s the joy of simple things letting them play in the Internet instead.


2020 ◽  
pp. 68-90
Author(s):  
I. Vietrynskyi

The article examines the prerequisites for the creation and early stages of development of the Commonwealth of Australia from the founding of the first European colonies prior to the legal formalization of the federation. Also mentioned are the variability of approaches to the development of Australia’s historiography, in particular from the positions of classical English and modern Australian views. Also, the early stages of the development of the continent that preceded the discovery of Australia by Europeans are considered. It analyzes the wide context of geopolitical processes in Europe in the era of imperialism (XVI-XIX centuries), as well as the circumstances of the formation of large colonial empires. In particular, features of the status, place and role of England in the international political processes of the XVIІ and XVIII centuries are shown, and the stages of the formation of the British colonial empire are also considered. The complex of internal socio-economic as well as foreign policy prerequisites for the beginning of the colonization of Australia by Great Britain is analyzed, in particular the attention paid to the consequences of the British Industrial Revolution XVIII. The stages of formation of the British colonies in Australia, as well as the development of the mainland from the establishment of the first settlement - New South Wales until full control of the continent are investigated. The characteristics of the economic, social, political, demographic and other aspects of the development of Australian colonies are analyzed. The article discusses the evolution of trade and administrative relations between individual colonies, as well as the stages of preparation for the creation of a federation, which was called the Commonwealth of Australia and changed the country's colonial position to the dominion status in the British Empire. Particular attention is paid to the international political processes that accompanied the development of the Australian continent, as well as the role of colonial administrations in regional geopolitical processes, in particular the colonization of New Guinea.


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