Academic literature on the topic 'United Order of True Reformers'

Ukraine became a member of the IMF in September 1992, shortly after the proclamation of independence in 1991. But in reality, the path to the IMF was much longer, since it began with the creation of the IMF as a specialized agency of the United Nations (taking into account that Ukraine was also the founder of the UN). During the membership period, Ukraine repeatedly turned to the International Monetary Fund for various assistance programs – both technical and financial ones. Nevertheless, in Ukraine there is a lack of understanding of the tasks and order of the functioning of the Fund (both among ordinary citizens and politicians), which requires an explanation in order to destroy certain myths on this issue. The first of the myths is that the IMF acts as a global «shadow government» while it is actually a mutual organization in which all members (including Ukraine) could and should play an appropriate role. In this regard, the role of economic diplomacy for the establishing of relations with the IMF and with its individual members is growing significantly. At the same time, the IMF is not an «international bank», which seeks to obtain from the countries high interest rates, but rather the international «mutual fund» of solidarity, which one needs to know how to use by. At the same time, the lack of the IMF credit programs with a member country is not necessarily a bad signal for it. Many countries have successfully reformed their economies without receiving financial assistance from the IMF. It is important to understand that the IMF does not impose its lending conditions, but takes note of the program that actually is designed (at least used to be designed) by a government of the recipient country. Finally, the IMF cooperates not only with governments of member states, but also with civil society institutions. Of course, if they are able to put pressure on their governments. Thus, a true understanding of the rules of the IMF – which are fixed in numerous documents – could help significantly improve the effectiveness of Ukraine’s relations with the International Monetary Fund.

At the turn of the 20th century, children's play came under new and heightened scrutiny by urban reformers. As conditions in US cities threatened traditional notions of order, reformers sought new ways to direct urban-social development. In this paper I explore playground reform as an institutional response that aimed to produce and promote ideal gender identities in children. Supervised summer playgrounds were established across the United States as a means of drawing children off the street and into a corrective environment. Drawing from literature published by the Playground Association of America and a case study of playground management in Cambridge, MA, I explore playground training as a means of constructing gender identities in and through public space. Playground reformers asserted, drawing from child development theory, that the child's body was a conduit through which ‘inner’ identity surfaced. The child's body became a site through which gender identities could be both monitored and produced, compelling reformers to locate playgrounds in public, visible settings. Reformers' conviction that exposing girls to public vision threatened their development motivated a series of spatial restrictions. Whereas boys were unambiguously displayed to public audiences, girls' playgrounds were organised to accommodate this fear. Playground reformers' shrewd spatial tactics exemplify the ways in which institutional authorities conceive of and deploy space toward the construction of identity.

Mediaeval liturgies embodied the understanding that the offering of worship became united with Christ’s perfect offering to the Father and was therefore deemed to be as acceptable to God as though it had been offered by Christ himself. It was an offering of worship that embraced the arts. Their beauty and the sense of transcendence that they created revealed the beauty and transcendence of the divine. This understanding of worship changed dramatically with the reformers of the mid-sixteenth century. They insisted that the incorporation of any human offering into Christ’s perfect and once-only offering illegitimately compromised the purpose and effect of his sacrificial death. Instead, the proper offering consisted of a thankful remembrance of Christ’s only perfect and acceptable offering. Moreover, this offering needed to be an offering, not of the body, being inherently corrupt, but of the spirit. Since there was now no prospect of incorporation with the divine, any idea of worship creating a sense of transcendence or of experiencing heaven on earth was futile. So there developed an intense opposition to any works of art whose purpose was to invest worship with the means of facilitating such a union of the human and the divine. These works were now dismissed as idolatrous and an impediment to true worship. From the early seventeenth century this position, so fervently embraced by the reformers, began to be significantly revised and developed, even allowing for a significant rehabilitation of the pre-reformed understanding.

This article explores how education reformers in California pioneered forms of centralized educational governance between 1850 and 1879. Challenging previous scholarship that has attributed the success of this early educational state to reformer John Swett and New England migrants, this article situates the creation of common schools in California within the larger context of American state-building in the nineteenth-century West. While increased state authority over education was a goal for reformers across the nation, this article contends that California's early innovations in centralization reflected a regionally specific response to the dilemmas of governing a recently acquired territory distant from eastern centers of power. The precarious nature of elite attempts to convert California into an American place, reflected in perceived lawlessness, weak governmental authority, and racial anxiety, inspired forms of educational organization commonly associated with Progressive Era responses to industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. The desire to promote nineteenth-century American racial and governmental order in California, this article concludes, powerfully shaped the growth of public education in the state, influencing the organization of schooling in ways that suggest the importance of looking beyond the Northeast to understand the development of public education in the United States.

AbstractThis essay explores the ongoing debates about the character of early Cistercian monasticism, the dating of early Cistercian documents, and assumptions about the Cistercians’ place in eleventh- and twelfth-century monastic “reform.” It analyzes the Cistercians’ narratives of their foundation in relation to particular moments in the twelfth-century history of the order, drawing on and elaborating recent theories about the dating of these documents. Although the Cistercians often seem the quintessential example of “reformed monasticism,” this essay argues that the earliest Cistercians did not present themselves as reformers but only gradually developed a rhetoric of reform over the course of the twelfth century. Finally, it suggests that reform is less a specific set of changes than it is a rhetorical use of the past that authenticates current practices and affirms that these interpretations of the past must be right and true.

The Supreme Court has carved out several exceptions to what qualifies as protected speech under the First Amendment, including true threats and incitement. The majority rule in the circuit courts is that speech qualifies as a true threat if the speech would be interpreted by an objectively reasonable person as an intent to commit serious harm or injury. Most courts apply a true threats analysis to cases involving a charge under 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1)(B). Furthermore, most courts do not require that the speaker actually intend to carry out the threat in order to be convicted. Although courts have generally treated the doctrines as separate, the Court in United States v. Turner agreed with the Government's argument that being charged with threatening federal judges under § 115 is essentially being charged with incitement. Therefore, this Note argues that the Turner Court should have applied the true threats doctrine as it was applied in the seminal Supreme Court case, Watts v. United States, in the relevant Second Circuit cases, United States v. Kelner and United States v. Malik, and in accordance with the statutory scheme established by other circuit court cases dealing with charges under § 115. This Note further analyzes how issues presented by the Turner case might have been resolved if the Second Circuit had applied the proper true threats analysis. Finally, this Note calls for reversal and remand of the Turner case by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and for Supreme Court clarification of issues left unresolved by the circuit courts

The Groupe Français d’Éducation Nouvelle (G.F.E.N.) was a fundamental point of reference for the New Education movement in Europe, represented in the interwar period by the International League for New Education. It was a diverse group, both in its composition and its ideological and pedagogical guidance, especially from 1936 with the arrival of Celestin Freinet and his co-workers from the Coopérative d’Enseignement laic. Through its magazine, Pour l’Ère Nouvelle, which was founded by Adolphe Ferrière and published regularly between January 1922 and March 1940, this movement had a significant influence on educational reformers throughout those two decades. The same is true for the magazine directed by Freinet, L’Éducateur Prolétarien – published regularly from October 1932 to March 1940, which also had a decisive influence on the most dedicated reformers in the field of education who were engaged in the transformation of the school during the emergence of the new social and political order. From 1936 onwards, the drama of the Spanish Civil War prompted the mobilisation of important and influential sectors of intellectuals and French educators in a broad progressive movement of solidarity with the Spanish Republic. This paper aims to analyse how this conflict, in particular its educational and humanitarian aspects, was represented editorially in the two most influential journals linked more or less directly to G.F.E.N.: Pour l’Ère Nouvelle and L’Éducateur Prolétarien. The plurality of the G.F.E.N. is reflected in how that conflict was dealt with in both journals.

Protestantism, a relatively late form of Christianity, accepts the principle of sola scriptura as its essence. For the early reformers this was a creative principle, but for subsequent generations it often became a sterile orthodoxy, producing theological and moral rigidity. Hence a tension developed between biblical literalism and the claims of modernity, including the rise of higher criticism. What is the true meaning of biblical authority in light of a rapidly changing world? What are its implications for the Christian lifestyle? Calvinism in particular concerned itself with the latter question, infusing a strain of asceticism into the social order through its distinctive religious ethic. The later puritan extension of Calvinism left an indelible mark on western society. Sometimes the puritan influence degenerated into a narrow legalism; sometimes it produced a deep and genuine godliness. Sola scriptura can have both effects - this is the paradox of Protestantism. At its most profound, Protestantism represents a creative iconoclasm. This is its genius and enduring strength.

In 1909, the leaders of the American Association for Labor Legislation launched a campaign to eradicate phosphorus matches from the American market. Because phosphorus match workers often contracted a hideous disease called phosphorus necrosis (or “phossy jaw”), many European countries had already prohibited the poison matches from their markets. In the United States, nearly all interested parties supported legal abolition but found that the nation's federal system constituted a formidable obstacle. No state wanted to be the first to act (for fear of driving industry from its borders), and the federal government lacked the power to regulate intrastate economic activity. This article examines how, in order to circumvent the federalism obstacle, an alliance of academic reformers and business leaders worked to tax phosphorus matches out of existence—that is, to use the federal taxing power as a regulatory instrument.

Studies of social movements have often focused on the role of the state vis-à-vis social movements—in recent times using the concept of political opportunity structure to understand the options available to social movements. This article examines the internal conflicts within the ruling party in Communist Poland to show that a reciprocal process proceeded, in which both the social movement and the state found the choices of action available to them limited by the other, rather than just the social movement. The social upheaval that impacted the entire country brought about the rise of a reform movement within the ruling Polish United Workers Party, which prevented the government from acting as it preferred for a significant period of time. That reform movement, which would not have existed without Solidarity and certainly would not have brought about intraparty changes by itself, saw itself as connected to and dependent upon Solidarity. Party conservatives had to respond to and overcome the reformers before they could turn their full attention to ending the challenge Solidarity presented to the Communist system. In effect, for a time, Solidarity limited the political opportunity structure of the state, while the reverse was also true. While social movement scholars have long considered the possibilities and the limits on possibilities available to social movements because of the state or other external circumstances, this experience demonstrates that similar considerations must sometimes be contemplated with respect to the state.

An overview of Walcutt’s biography in both Columbus, Ohio, and New York City identifies what Walcutt and the men who joined the Order of United Americans, the predecessor to the American Republican or Know-Nothing party, had in common: a lineage that stretched to the Mayflower, an artisanal upbringing, and a family commitment to Protestant reforms. Walcutt had lifelong ties to illustrators, engravers, die cutters, inventors, and skilled mechanics who, under pressure from both industrialization and competition from immigrants, joined brotherhoods like the Odd Fellows and the nativist fraternal order the United American Mechanics. America’s Own, a newspaper that represented the latter, promoted Walcutt and deeply religious artists like Rembrandt Lockwood and Johannes Oertel. Walcutt himself married into a family headed by minister Samuel D. Burchard, who, like many Protestant reformers, combined antislavery and temperance views with anti-Romanism.

The introduction surveys nativist iconography, focusing on the Order of United Americans, a fraternal association that barred immigrants, because Walcutt contributed to their newspaper, the Republic. Editor and Know-Nothing congressman Thomas R. Whitney adopted visual cues—youthful ardor, brotherhood, stars and stripes—that evoked not just patriotism, but an ethic of mutualism. This ethic stemmed from artisan culture’s resistance to capitalist individualism, and it also manifested itself in benevolent fraternal orders like the Odd Fellows. It was coopted by the Know-Nothings to support their platform favoring Compromise (with slavery) for the sake of the national Union and restrictions on citizenship that excluded foreigners. It also emerged in historical pictures by Walcutt and other artists (Tompkins H. Matteson, Frederick A. Chapman) that demonstrated that the patriotic “spirit of ’76” was one of Protestant brotherhood.

The chapter on criminality among immigrants seeks to dispel the myths and to clarify the true statistics of criminality among the immigrant population in the United States. It provides a historical perspective of criminality and immigration and describes the anti-immigrant currents and rhetoric that have emerged throughout the history of the country. It describes the crime rates and socioeconomic factors that generate criminality among legal and undocumented immigrants, providing an in-depth analysis of the three principal federal, state, and local justice system U.S. government databases in order to clarify the true statistics on immigrant criminality. It discusses the variables that affect the levels of criminality, including immigration, class, and race and the statistics and factors affecting criminality among second-generation immigrants and beyond. It describes what constitutes a cultural crime and the plight of immigrants as victims, including border crossings, human trafficking, violence, and exploitation and the contribution of post-traumatic stress disorder as a cause of criminality and as a result of victimization. Ultimately, it discusses the dilemma of immigration as an issue of national security.

In 1976, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued its groundbreaking Report of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Questionable and Illegal Corporate Payments and Practices, which characterized the problem of corrupt and illegal corporate payments as “serious and widespread.” Enacted in 1977, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) prohibits corrupt payments of money or anything of value to foreign officials in order to obtain or retain business. The FCPA continues to serve as the world’s only true anti-bribery touchstone against which subsequent enactments can be compared textually. Adherence to the directives of the FCPA continues as one of the most prominent issues in corporate compliance. The consequences of a DOJ investigation for an organization can be substantial and attention-diverting, a settlement can be costly, and an indictment can be crippling.

This chapter examines French infant and child health programs that laid the foundation for France's family-centered social democracy. Throughout, it compares French developments to US policies and programs that sought similar child health goals in order to explain why the two nations' outcomes diverged. The comparison begins in the 1870s, when France's infant mortality rate was similar to that of the United States. During these early years, French and American social reformers, physicians, and public health experts collaborated to craft policies aimed at the reduction of maternal and infant mortality, the improvement of child health, and the alleviation of disparities between population subgroups. Ultimately, however, France proved more successful in achieving and sustaining its gains in infant and child health, even as the country experienced dramatic demographic shifts after 1950 due to immigration from its former colonial empire in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The chapter then identifies what lessons American policy makers might learn, adopt, or adapt from the French experience.

Prominent Arizona conservatives and, some would argue, liberal reformers helped spearhead law and order policies that exploded the U.S. prison population and created a crisis of prison overcrowding. This chapter argues that the scramble for prison beds was a major force behind the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), which Congress pushed as a way to purge noncitizens from jails and prisons in order to free up prison beds. CAP gave primacy to criminal enforcement targets and unleashed an onslaught of measures that restructured immigrant detention and deportation, spawned similar programs like “absconder” initiatives, “fugitive” operations, Security Communities, and immigrant prosecution programs like Operation Streamline—in other words, many of the punitive policies we associate with the criminalization of migration in the United States today. However, punitive policies are not necessarily a “backlash” against rights and protections that reformers fought for for over a century. Rather, they operate within post–civil rights “antidiscrimination” constitutional frameworks in ways that recognize rights for certain “victims,” while aggressively punishing and banishing those branded as criminal.

Over and over again across the 20th century and a decade into the 21st, Americans have sought to rationalize their schools, with limited results. Is there a better way? In the pages that follow, I argue that there is. At base, you could say that the entire American educational sector was put together backwards. Beginning early in the 20th century, teaching became institutionalized as a highly feminized, low-status field; universities, unwilling to associate with training low-status teachers, trained instead a set of male administrators to control and direct those teachers; failures of schools prompted additional levels of control and regulation from afar, further diminishing autonomy and making the field less attractive to talented people. Successful systems from abroad essentially do the reverse. They choose their teachers from among their most talented students; they train them extensively; they provide opportunities for them to collaborate within and across schools to improve their practice, they provide the needed external supports for them to do this work well; and they support this educational work within stronger welfare states. This is true of East Asian countries like Korea and Japan, but it is also true of non-Confucian countries like Canada and Finland. While it is not yet clear how much of this success are due to which of these factors, it is clear that many of the world’s leading countries take a fundamentally different approach than the one favored in the United States. As a recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) volume sums up what it sees as the lessons from nations that lead the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings: “The education development progression is characterized by a movement from relatively low teacher quality to relatively high teacher quality; from a focus on low-level basic skills to a focus on high-level skills and creativity; from Tayloristic forms of work organization to professional forms of work organization; from primary accountability to superiors to primary accountability to one’s professional colleagues, parents and the public; and from a belief that only some students can and need to achieve high learning standards to a conviction that all students need to meet such high standards.”

This chapter explores Carlo Sigonio’s long-term impact by zooming in on the nascent United States of America. It shows that Sigonio was seen as a leading comparative constitutional historian and one of the most cited authorities that would-be reformers turned to in the intense debate on the reform of the British imperial constitution in the second half of the eighteenth century. His analyses of the Roman Empire yielded timeless lessons for metropolitan and colonial administrators alike. Most importantly, Sigonio structured his studies of Roman, Athenian, Hebrew, and medieval Italian laws and customs in a way that revealed these complex historical states’ constitutional essence, making comparative analysis possible. This chapter shows why American lawyers, British politicians, and merchants and soldiers with a true British–American identity, explicitly drew on Sigonio’s analysis of Roman colonization in several reform plans for the British Empire, with particular attention to the American colonies.

Since the National Health Service reforms were introduced, the NHS has moved towards a greater emphasis on accountability and efficiency of healthcare. These changes rely on the swift delivery of IT systems, implemented into the NHS because of the urgency to collect data to support these measures. The case study details the events surrounding the introduction of a patient data management system into an intensive care unit in a UK hospital. It shows that its implementation was complex and involved organizational issues related to the costing of healthcare, legal and purchasing requirements, systems integration, training and staff expertise, and relationships with suppliers. It is suggested that the NHS is providing an R&D environment which others are benefiting from. The NHS is supporting software development activities that are not recognized, and the true costs of this task are difficult to estimate. It is also argued that introducing PDMS crystallizes many different expectations making them unmanageably complex. This could also be due to PDMS being a higher order innovation that attempts to integrate information systems products and services with the core business.

This chapter argues that US food policy leading up to and during the 1972–74 world food crisis was both a catalyst for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) actions to raise oil prices in October 1973 and the first tool with which the United States—especially secretary of state Henry Kissinger—sought to break OPEC–Third World solidarity and rein in the New International Economic Order (NIEO). The chapter recounts how Kissinger hoped to take his Third World critics by surprise at the World Food Conference. It narrates his carefully written (and rewritten) keynote, in which he announced the United States' commitment to a new global food bank, while blaming OPEC for driving up food costs due to high fertilizer prices. The chapter looks at how developing countries stuck to their structural critique of international economic relations and stood behind OPEC leaders Venezuela and Algeria. It then examines how Kissinger's proposals suffered from internal opposition, as free-market reformers charged Kissinger with acquiescing to the South's demands for global market intervention and sabotaging their own deregulatory crusade at home.

The paper intends to prove that the English lesson for the law students of English should be special, productive and also fun in order to get good results and personal satisfaction, to exercise the students' minds and their reasoning powers. Taken into account these purposes, the paper will focus on the case study method which has got an emphatic active-participatory and formative effect, being a dynamic way of learning which wants special conditions for an efficient solving of the case. What we really should do in the class is to select cases from the 20th century which are the subjects of appeal to a higher court indicating that the point of law involved is difficult and causes reasonable jurists to disagree over the result. On appeal, many of the judgments are not unanimous, this further showing that the legal issues are not easy. The cases should be consistent with the general current of the law in the United States of America and in the other common law countries. The results in the cases should not be arbitrary.The method, with a bilateral, interactive and reciprocal character, will make students love ruling as judges and/or jury on true courtroom cases that give them a chance to defend the accused. The method will help students develop and improve: a. their legal conscience and thinking, b.their legal principles, feelings and attitudes, c. and their legal ability, practice and usage. It will motivate the students to love the truth and be honest and correct people.

Aim/Purpose: This paper provides the results of the preliminary analysis of the findings of an ongoing study that seeks to examine the social media use, cultural and political awareness, civic engagement, issue prioritization, and social activism of Gen Z students enrolled at four different institutional types located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The aim of this study is to look at the group as a whole as well as compare findings across populations. The institutional types under consideration include a mid-sized majority serving or otherwise referred to as a traditionally white institution (TWI) located in a small coastal city on the Atlantic Ocean, a small Historically Black University (HBCU) located in a rural area, a large community college located in a county that is a mixture of rural and suburban and which sits on the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and graduating high school students enrolled in career and technical education (CTE) programs in a large urban area. This exploration is purposed to examine the behaviors and expectations of Gen Z students within a representative American region during a time of tremendous turmoil and civil unrest in the United States. Background: Over 74 million strong, Gen Z makes up almost one-quarter of the U.S. population. They already outnumber any current living generation and are the first true digital natives. Born after 1996 and through 2012, they are known for their short attention spans and heightened ability to multi-task. Raised in the age of the smart phone, they have been tethered to digital devices from a young age with most having the preponderance of their childhood milestones commemorated online. Often called Zoomers, they are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation and are on track to be the most well-educated generation in history. Gen Zers in the United States have been found in the research to be progressive and pro-government and viewing increasing racial and ethnic diversity as positive change. Finally, they are less likely to hold xenophobic beliefs such as the notion of American exceptionalism and superiority that have been popular with by prior generations. The United States has been in a period of social and civil unrest in recent years with concerns over systematic racism, rampant inequalities, political polarization, xenophobia, police violence, sexual assault and harassment, and the growing epidemic of gun violence. Anxieties stirred by the COVID-19 pandemic further compounded these issues resulting in a powder keg explosion occurring throughout the summer of 2020 and leading well into 2021. As a result, the United States has deteriorated significantly in the Civil Unrest Index falling from 91st to 34th. The vitriol, polarization, protests, murders, and shootings have all occurred during Gen Z’s formative years, and the limited research available indicates that it has shaped their values and political views. Methodology: The Mid-Atlantic region is a portion of the United States that exists as the overlap between the northeastern and southeastern portions of the country. It includes the nation’s capital, as well as large urban centers, small cities, suburbs, and rural enclaves. It is one of the most socially, economically, racially, and culturally diverse parts of the United States and is often referred to as the “typically American region.” An electronic survey was administered to students from 2019 through 2021 attending a high school dual enrollment program, a minority serving institution, a majority serving institution, and a community college all located within the larger mid-Atlantic region. The survey included a combination of multiple response, Likert scaled, dichotomous, open ended, and ordinal questions. It was developed in the Survey Monkey system and reviewed by several content and methodological experts in order to examine bias, vagueness, or potential semantic problems. Finally, the survey was pilot tested prior to implementation in order to explore the efficacy of the research methodology. It was then modified accordingly prior to widespread distribution to potential participants. The surveys were administered to students enrolled in classes taught by the authors all of whom are educators. Participation was voluntary, optional, and anonymous. Over 800 individuals completed the survey with just over 700 usable results, after partial completes and the responses of individuals outside of the 18-24 age range were removed. Findings: Participants in this study overwhelmingly were users of social media. In descending order, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Tik Tok were the most popular social media services reported as being used. When volume of use was considered, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter were the most cited with most participants reporting using Instagram and Snapchat multiple times a day. When asked to select which social media service they would use if forced to choose just one, the number one choice was YouTube followed by Instagram and Snapchat. Additionally, more than half of participants responded that they have uploaded a video to a video sharing site such as YouTube or Tik Tok. When asked about their familiarity with different technologies, participants overwhelmingly responded that they are “very familiar” with smart phones, searching the Web, social media, and email. About half the respondents said that they were “very familiar” with common computer applications such as the Microsoft Office Suite or Google Suite with another third saying that they were “somewhat familiar.” When asked about Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Blackboard, Course Compass, Canvas, Edmodo, Moodle, Course Sites, Google Classroom, Mindtap, Schoology, Absorb, D2L, itslearning, Otus, PowerSchool, or WizIQ, only 43% said they were “very familiar” with 31% responding that they were “somewhat familiar.” Finally, about half the students were either “very” or “somewhat” familiar with operating systems such as Windows. A few preferences with respect to technology in the teaching and learning process were explored in the survey. Most students (85%) responded that they want course announcements and reminders sent to their phones, 76% expect their courses to incorporate the use of technology, 71% want their courses to have course websites, and 71% said that they would rather watch a video than read a book chapter. When asked to consider the future, over 81% or respondents reported that technology will play a major role in their future career. Most participants considered themselves “informed” or “well informed” about current events although few considered themselves “very informed” or “well informed” about politics. When asked how they get their news, the most common forum reported for getting news and information about current events and politics was social media with 81% of respondents reporting. Gen Z is known to be an engaged generation and the participants in this study were not an exception. As such, it came as no surprise to discover that, in the past year more than 78% of respondents had educated friends or family about an important social or political issue, about half (48%) had donated to a cause of importance to them, more than a quarter (26%) had participated in a march or rally, and a quarter (26%) had actively boycotted a product or company. Further, about 37% consider themselves to be a social activist with another 41% responding that aren’t sure if they would consider themselves an activist and only 22% saying that they would not consider themselves an activist. When asked what issues were important to them, the most frequently cited were Black Lives Matter (75%), human trafficking (68%), sexual assault/harassment/Me Too (66.49%), gun violence (65.82%), women’s rights (65.15%), climate change (55.4%), immigration reform/deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) (48.8%), and LGBTQ+ rights (47.39%). When the schools were compared, there were only minor differences in social media use with the high school students indicating slightly more use of Tik Tok than the other participants. All groups were virtually equal when it came to how informed they perceived themselves about current events and politics. Consensus among groups existed with respect to how they get their news, and the community college and high school students were slightly more likely to have participated in a march, protest, or rally in the last 12 months than the university students. The community college and high school students were also slightly more likely to consider themselves social activists than the participants from either of the universities. When the importance of the issues was considered, significant differences based on institutional type were noted. Black Lives Matter (BLM) was identified as important by the largest portion of students attending the HBCU followed by the community college students and high school students. Less than half of the students attending the TWI considered BLM an important issue. Human trafficking was cited as important by a higher percentage of students attending the HBCU and urban high school than at the suburban and rural community college or the TWI. Sexual assault was considered important by the majority of students at all the schools with the percentage a bit smaller from the majority serving institution. About two thirds of the students at the high school, community college, and HBCU considered gun violence important versus about half the students at the majority serving institution. Women’s rights were reported as being important by more of the high school and HBCU participants than the community college or TWI. Climate change was considered important by about half the students at all schools with a slightly smaller portion reporting out the HBCU. Immigration reform/DACA was reported as important by half the high school, community college, and HBCU participants with only a third of the students from the majority serving institution citing it as an important issue. With respect to LGBTQ rights approximately half of the high school and community college participants cited it as important, 44.53% of the HBCU students, and only about a quarter of the students attending the majority serving institution. Contribution and Conclusion: This paper provides a timely investigation into the mindset of generation Z students living in the United States during a period of heightened civic unrest. This insight is useful to educators who should be informed about the generation of students that is currently populating higher education. The findings of this study are consistent with public opinion polls by Pew Research Center. According to the findings, the Gen Z students participating in this study are heavy users of multiple social media, expect technology to be integrated into teaching and learning, anticipate a future career where technology will play an important role, informed about current and political events, use social media as their main source for getting news and information, and fairly engaged in social activism. When institutional type was compared the students from the university with the more affluent and less diverse population were less likely to find social justice issues important than the other groups. Recommendations for Practitioners: During disruptive and contentious times, it is negligent to think that the abounding issues plaguing society are not important to our students. Gauging the issues of importance and levels of civic engagement provides us crucial information towards understanding the attitudes of students. Further, knowing how our students gain information, their social media usage, as well as how informed they are about current events and political issues can be used to more effectively communicate and educate. Recommendations for Researchers: As social media continues to proliferate daily life and become a vital means of news and information gathering, additional studies such as the one presented here are needed. Additionally, in other countries facing similarly turbulent times, measuring student interest, awareness, and engagement is highly informative. Impact on Society: During a highly contentious period replete with a large volume of civil unrest and compounded by a global pandemic, understanding the behaviors and attitudes of students can help us as higher education faculty be more attuned when it comes to the design and delivery of curriculum. Future Research This presentation presents preliminary findings. Data is still being collected and much more extensive statistical analyses will be performed.

Abstract Rising like lotus blooms from bloodied war-torn devastation and muddied destitution of war crimes, divided societies and imperialistic ravages of Western colonialism, the two Indochina nations of Vietnam and Cambodia have shown amazing power of resurgence in less than 50 years. In many regional league tables, Vietnam notably, have even pulled ahead to show amazing achievements in GDP and education. What has happened seems like a distant past today. What are the unique cultural roots of this human resilience and socio-economic dynamism? At an individual level, it is not often that post traumatic stress disorder of abused victims show their mental and emotional suffering. One can only note the behavioral signs which impede normal life and block success. Part of this presentation is to share with the audience the clues to help one recognize such indicative signs with the objective of supporting those who are suffering. There is an effective way to uproot the self-blame, anger and hatred associated with suppressed memories and to overcome the submerged negativities in subconscious minds of the afflicted. Forgiveness meditation is a mindful self-healing way of peaceful living, and when paired as an integral part Insight Meditation, the underlying benefits can empower the healed to progress onward to bigger success. Real-life cases of two personalities who have taken different paths to demonstrate the power of mindful living towards human resilience and effective healing in the midst of bleak uncertainties are shared: A. A Cambodian (multiple) noble peace prize nominee who demonstrated not only to his people, but also the world, to seek the only resource where we can find true peace and genuine understanding of truths... in our own hearts. Like many of his compatriots, his entire family, friends and disciples were massacred. A forest monk and meditation master turned peacemaker at the United Nations, he walked step by step bringing forth the spring of hope in the hearts of the shell shocked survivors. Tens of thousands wept as he chants the timeless metta verses of loving kindness and other traditional spiritual chants lost in the unspeakable sorrows of war and ideological conflicts. B. A postwar Vietnamese case study of a globally successful social entrepreneur, she was left to fend for herself aged 16 years after her entire family was killed by foreign powers. Her social enterprise employed the war destitutes, former prostitutes and the disabled to produce quality handicrafts and furniture made from organic resources. Her voice is recorded here to illustrate her maxim of “one must forgive to move on but the painful lessons must never be forgotten” in order to sustain success. Keywords: forgiveness, meditation, self-healing, mindfulness

While the appeal of ‘civilisational dialogue’ is on the rise, its sources, functions, and con- sequences arouse controversy within and between faith communities. Some religious lead- ers have attempted to clarify the religious foundations for such dialogue. Among them are Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Britain and the Commonwealth, Edward Idris, Cardinal Cassidy of the Catholic Church, and Fethullah Gülen. The paper compares the approach of these three religious leaders from the Abrahamic tra- dition as presented in their scholarly works – Sacks’ The Dignity of Difference, Cardinal Cassidy’s Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue, and Gülen’s Advocate of Dialogue. The discussion attempts to answer the following questions: Can monotheistic traditions accom- modate the dignity of followers of other monotheistic and polytheistic religions as well as non-theistic religions and philosophies? Is a belief in the unity of God compatible with an acceptance of the religious dignity of others? The paper also explores their arguments for why civilisational and interfaith dialogue is necessary, the parameters of such dialogue and its anticipated consequences: how and how far can dialogue bridge the claims of unity of God and diversity of faiths? Islam’s emphasis on diversity and the Quran’s accommodation of ear- lier religious traditions put Islam and Fethullah Gülen in the best position to offer a religious justification for valuing and cherishing the dignity of followers of other religions. The plea for a dialogue of civilizations is on the rise among some policymakers and politi- cians. Many of them believe a dialogue between Islam and the West has become more urgent in the new millennium. For example following the 2005 Cartoon Wars, the United Nations, the Organization of the Islamic Conferences, and the European Union used a joint statement to condemn violent protests and call for respect toward religious traditions. They pled for an exchange of ideas rather than blows: We urge everyone to resist provocation, overreaction and violence, and turn to dialogue. Without dialogue, we cannot hope to appeal to reason, to heal resentment, or to overcome mistrust. Globalization disperses people and ideas throughout the world; it brings families individuals with different beliefs into close contact. Today, more than any period in history, religious di- versity characterizes daily life in many communities. Proponents of interfaith dialogue claim that, in an increasingly global world, interfaith dialogue can facilitate mutual understanding, respect for other religions, and, thus, the peaceful coexistence of people of different faiths. One key factor for the success of the interfaith dialogue is religious leaders’ ability to provide an inclusive interfaith theology in order to reconcile their commitment to their own faith with the reality of religious diversity in their communities. I argue that prominent leaders of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are already offering separate but overlapping theologies to legitimize interfaith dialogue. A balanced analysis of multi-faith interactions is overdue in political science. The discipline characterises religious interactions solely from the perspective of schism and exclusion. The literature asserts that interactions among believers of different faiths will breed conflict, in- cluding terrorism, civil wars, interstate wars, and global wars. According to this conven- tional depiction, interfaith cooperation is especially challenging to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam due to their monotheism; each claims it is “the one true path”. The so-called “monothe- istic exclusion” refers to an all-or-nothing theological view: you are a believer or you are an infidel. Judaism identifies the chosen people, while outsiders are gentiles; Christians believe that no salvation is possible outside of Jesus; Islam seems to call for a perennial jihad against non-Muslims. Each faith would claim ‘religious other’ is a stranger to God. Political “us versus them” thinking evolves from this “believer versus infidel” worldview. This mindset, in turn, initiates the blaming, dehumanizing, and demonization of the believers of other reli- gious traditions. Eventually, it leads to inter-religious violence and conflict. Disputing this grim characterization of religious interactions, scholars of religion offer a tripartite typology of religious attitude towards the ‘religious other.’ They are: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Exclusivism suggests a binary opposition of religious claims: one is truth, the other is falsehood. In this dichotomy, salvation requires affirmation of truths of one’s particular religion. Inclusivism integrates other religious traditions with one’s own. In this integration, one’s own religion represents the complete and pure, while other religions represent the incomplete, the corrupted, or both. Pluralism accepts that no religious tradi- tion has a privileged access to religious truth, and all religions are potentially equally valid paths. This paper examines the theology of interfaith dialogue (or interfaith theology) in the Abrahamic religions by means of analyzing the works of three prominent religious lead- ers, a Rabbi, a Pope, and a Muslim scholar. First, Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Britain and the Commonwealth, offers a framework for the dialogue of civilizations in his book Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations. Rather than mere tolerance and multiculturalism, he advocates what he calls the dignity of difference—an active engagement to value and cherish cultural and religious differences. Second, Pope John Paul II’s Crossing the Threshold of Hope argues that holiness and truth might exist in other religions because the Holy Spirit works beyond the for- mal boundaries of Church. Third, the Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen’s Advocate of Dialogue describes a Muslim approach to interfaith dialogue based on the Muslim belief in prophecy and revelation. I analyze the interfaith theologies of these religious leaders in five sections: First, I explore variations on the definition of ‘interfaith dialogue’ in their works. Second, I examine the structural and strategic reasons for the emergence and development of the interfaith theologies. Third, I respond to four common doubts about the possibility and utility of interfaith di- alogue and theologies. Fourth, I use John Rawls’ overlapping consensus approach to develop a framework with which to analyze religious leaders’ support for interfaith dialogue. Fifth, I discuss the religious rationales of each religious leader as it relates to interfaith dialogue.