International Residency Program Directors on Implementing Educational Transformation: A Qualitative Study of Their Experiences and Strategies for Overcoming Challenges

ABSTRACT Background Residency program directors (PDs) need to navigate diverse roles and responsibilities as clinical teachers, administrators, and drivers of educational improvement. Little is known about the experience of PDs leading transformation of international residency programs. Objective We explored the lived experiences of international residency PDs and developed an understanding of how PDs manage educational program transformation. Methods Using a phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with current and former PDs involved in the transformation to competency-based medical education in the first international settings to be accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-International (ACGME-I). Thirty-three interviews with PDs from Qatar, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates were conducted from September 2018 to July 2019, audio-recorded, and transcribed. Data were independently coded by 2 researchers. A thematic analysis was conducted and patterns that reflected coping and managing educational reform were identified. Results PDs described distinctive patterns of navigating the educational transformation. Five themes emerged: PDs (1) embraced continuous learning and self-development; (2) managed change in the context of their local settings; (3) anticipated problems and built support networks to effectively problem-solve; (4) maintained relationships with stakeholders for meaningful and constructive interactions; and (5) focused on intrinsic qualities that helped them navigate challenges. Conclusions International PDs were presented with significant challenges in implementing educational transformation but coped successfully through distinctive patterns and methods.

Uncertainty and Resilience

This study examines the experiences of theological library deans and directors in the United States and Canada as they navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey and interview data gathered in spring and fall 2020 provide insight about how library leaders managed change and uncertainty, including the sudden shift to virtual learning environments, meeting changing patron needs, and identifying opportunities amidst unprecedented challenges. The researchers contextualize this research within the recent history of theological education and alongside the limited information available about the impacts of the pandemic on libraries. Further research is needed to understand the long term implications of the pandemic on theological librarianship.

Heritage Lost or Fortune Found: Issues and Dilemmas concerning Tourist Development within Local Communities

The past, for individuals and for communities, has a potent presence; it has, in no small measure, the power to shape perceptions of current well-being as well as optimism for the future. Major discontinuities as between the past and the present can occasion widespread and negative consequences in the life of many members of a community; this is particularly so if such changes are perceived as having been imposed without prior consultation and agreement. The severity of this situation is even further compounded if changes lead to a diminution or degradation of heritage and cultural environments within a community. For many community members, a profusion of shopping centres, of roads and highways and of leisure facilities can be no adequate replacements for the loss of their historical and cultural heritage; these typically constitute vital elements of their community and indeed individual identity. Nor can an increase in various types of employment adequately replace an abiding sense of personal well-being that frequently accompanies sensitive and competently-managed change, the hallmark of which would see the interests and rights of community members, both the powerful and the powerless, taken into account and not subordinated in the maximization of profit. Whilst tourism development is often widely regarded as heralding unalloyed riches to those communities in which it appears, this paper examines some of the more baleful effects upon heritage that have now been associated with unrestrained and insensitive tourism development. The paper presents issues found most problematic to many local residents; it then examines the historic precinct of Cannery Row in Monterey, noting some of the less desirable changes to heritage that have been occasioned by tourism development in recent years. Finally, suggestions are offered in regard to how local community members might be more empowered in their responses to future unrestrained negative developments affecting their local heritage.

Heritage Lost or Fortune Found: Issues and Dilemmas concerning Tourist Development within Local Communities

The past, for individuals and for communities, has a potent presence; it has, in no small measure, the power to shape perceptions of current well-being as well as optimism for the future. Major discontinuities as between the past and the present can occasion widespread and negative consequences in the life of many members of a community; this is particularly so if such changes are perceived as having been imposed without prior consultation and agreement. The severity of this situation is even further compounded if changes lead to a diminution or degradation of heritage and cultural environments within a community. For many community embers, a profusion of shopping centres, of roads and highways and of leisure facilities can be no adequate replacements for the loss of their historical and cultural heritage; these typically constitute vital elements of their community and indeed individual identity. Nor can an increase in various types of employment adequately replace an abiding sense of personal well-being that frequently accompanies sensitive and competently-managed change, the hallmark of which would see the interests and rights of community members, both the powerful and the powerless, taken into account and not subordinated in the maximization of profit. Whilst tourism development is often widely regarded as heralding unalloyed riches to those communities in which it appears, this paper examines some of the more baleful effects upon heritage that have now been associated with unrestrained and insensitive tourism development in tropical North Queensland. The paper presents issues found most problematic to many local residents; it then examines the historic precinct of Cannery Row in Monterey, noting some of the less desirable changes to heritage that have been occasioned by tourism development in recent years. Finally, suggestions are offered in regard to how local community members might be more empowered in their responses to future unrestrained negative developments affecting their local heritage.

Amending the constitution

How easy ought it to be to enact constitutional amendment? In the absence of constitutionally prescribed procedures, fundamental reforms in the UK can often appear hurried, under-consultative and controlled by transient political majorities. In the recent referendum on Scottish independence, the NO campaign's promise of additional powers to Holyrood in the face of a possible ‘Yes’ vote appears to fit this pattern (even if, for reasons of political sensitivity, it was not driven directly by members of the Coalition government). A recent sample of concluded constitutional reforms, including the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 and the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, have drawn criticism from within Westminster on the grounds of defective process. Specific options to improve pre-parliamentary and parliamentary stages of constitutional reform have been proposed with a view to attaining principled procedures of constitutional reform removed from executive control that signal attachment to process values such as wide and effective consultation, deliberation outside and inside Parliament, and informed scrutiny. The foregoing prescriptions for remedying defective processes may, however, be said in the ultimate analysis to retain a normative preference for a more formal, elite-managed vision of constitutional change that is premised upon a limited conception of the citizens' ‘informed consent’. In any case, in purely descriptive terms, top-down managed change does not capture the totality of patterns of past constitutional reform in the UK. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, radical grassroots campaigns for the extension of the franchise resulted ultimately in universal adult suffrage. More recently, the Scotland Act 1998 can be seen as the culmination of a civic society–led, deliberative engagement with ordinary voters over decades that offered an alternative vision of ‘bottom-up’ constitutional reform to that seen in more formal, elite-led processes of constitutional reform. The inclusive and participatory nature of the campaign for Scottish devolution marked out a radically different model of constitutional reform to that which has typified Westminster-style amendment and which is still largely directed by political elites. In such circumstances as prevail currently at Westminster, it is difficult to give much credence to claims that the outcomes of constitutional reform processes enjoy the ‘informed consent’ of the people.

The Use of Inter-Fund Transfers to Manage the “Bottom Line” in the Municipal Context

ABSTRACT This study examines whether municipalities use inter-fund transfers to manage the general fund. Since the general fund is a municipality's largest fund, its financial position often reflects that of the whole municipality. Results indicate that transfers are used to manage the general fund toward zero. In particular, the tendency to use transfers to manage the general fund does not differ between general funds that had a positive and negative pre-managed change in fund balance, suggesting the incentive to report neither surplus nor deficit exists. Results also reveal that the practice of using transfers to manage the general fund toward zero is more substantial in municipalities with greater external oversight from citizens, creditors, state and federal granting agencies, and employees, as well as in municipalities with a strong-mayor form of government. JEL Classifications: H71; H72; M48; M41; G39

Evolving the future of education: Problems in enabling broad social reforms

The apparent success of the Sudbury Valley School, coupled with its lack of impact on the larger culture, is used here to illustrate general constraints on managed change at the large-population level. Government regulations preventing innovation, the difficulty of bucking social norms, and the inadequacy of current indices of success operate against beneficial educational change in the larger culture.