Listening harder: Queer archive and biography

This article emerges from a wider study on bicultural film archiving practice. It focuses on Jonathan Dennis as a subject of (my) archiving, and as a distinctive archivist himself in relation to a specific archive at a particular moment. Dennis practice differed significantly from North American and European conventions contemporaneous with his life work. The charismatic founding director of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (formerly The New Zealand Film Archive) Jonathan Dennis (1953–2002) became a conduit for tensions and debates during the 1981–2002 period in relation to indigenous and non indigenous presentation of (film) archival materials. This resulted in a film archive and curatorship practice which differed significantly from that of the North American and European archives he originally sought to emulate. As a Pākehā (non Māori/indigenous New Zealander) with a strong sense of social justice he argued for an awareness of geographical location and cultural context in his work. He supported a philosophical shift in archival practice, by engaging indigenous peoples in developing creative and innovative exhibitions and programmes from the 1980s period until his death.

Note: From 1988 the official name for the New Zealand Film Archive was Ngā Kaitiaki o ngā Taonga Whitiāhua (Guardians of the Treasured Images of Light). Since August 2014 the institution is called Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua Me Ngā Taonga Kōrero to acknowledge the acquisition of the state-owned Television NZ Archive and Sound Archives from Radio NZ. For brevity’s sake the Archive is referred to throughout as NTSV (Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision).

Key: NTSV PP JD refers to the NTSV Personal Papers of Jonathan Dennis (uncatalogued at time of writing).     

Using the United States Census Data to Introduce Differential Equations

Abstract

This article describes a method for using the United States Census data to open a differential equations course. The question of finding a model for the United States population data gives students a first experience with creating a model using differential equations, and also understanding derivatives, what they mean, and how to calculate them in the context of real data. This model-building start motivates further exploration in many of the standard differential equations topics: the method of separation of variables, slope fields, autonomous equations, equilibria, and stability.     

The Experience of Columbian Child Soldiers from a Resilience Perspective

There are child soldiers fighting with government forces and opposition groups in more than 30 countries worldwide. Although studies have been conducted on the impact of war-related trauma on children, very few have focused on those children who do not exhibit trauma-related symptoms after experiencing armed combat. The purpose of this study was to identify and understand some of the mechanisms and resources that resilient children draw upon to overcome the trauma of child soldiering. Six Colombian child soldiers were recruited through purposive sampling techniques to participate in a narrative study focusing on their lived experiences and their personal understanding of how they were able to overcome the effects of war trauma. Six narrative themes were identified and discussed in terms of the literature on trauma and childhood resilience and also related to counselling needs and services.     

Culture, Climate, and Contribution: Career Satisfaction Among Female Faculty

Retention of female faculty is an important issue for institutions of higher education aiming for excellence and diversity. However, an essential first step in understanding retention is to examine what contributes to career satisfaction for academic women. This study is based on data from a census survey of faculty conducted in 1996 at a Research I university located in the Midwest. Using Hagadorn's (2000) model for conceptualizing faculty job satisfaction, the study identifies domains of environmental condition, departmental climate, and demographics that play a role in female faculty's overall career satisfaction.     

The role of IQ, expertise, and motivation in the recall of familiar information

High- and low-IQ children in the first, third, and fifth grades performed two free-recall tasks: a sort-recall task with sets of categorically related pictures, and a class-recall task, with children recalling the current members of their school class. All children were deemed to be experts concerning the composition of their school class, but, unlike experts in other domains, had no special motivation associated with their expertise. Recall and clustering on both tasks were high. The high-IQ children performed better than low-IQ children only on the sort-recall task. IQ was significantly correlated with measures of performance on the sort-recall task but not on the class-recall task. The results reflect the fact that the memory benefits associated with being an expert (here, elimination of IQ effects) are related to the greater knowledge the expert possesses and not to factors of motivation.