Search results

The Edible Campus project was begun in spring 2007 in Montréal. An action-research project launched by volunteers and researchers from two leading local NGOs and university-based researchers (Alternatives, [online]; Santropol Roulant, [online]; McGill University's Minimum Cost Housing Group, [online]), it sought creative solutions to turn underutilised urban spaces into productive places. It involved citizens in the creation of green community spaces by incorporating productive growing in containers on a prominent but concrete-covered part of McGill University's downtown campus. Not only is it an investigation into making cities more food-secure by increasing urban food production, it is also a live demonstration of how ‘edible landscapes’ can be woven into urban spaces without diminishing their utility or functionality.

This paper reports on a pilot project to develop a 32-acre site made available by the City of Kampala for housing with the express purpose of promoting urban agriculture. Started in 2004 under the leadership of a city agronomist, with the aid of research teams from McGill University, Montreal, Makerere University, Kampala, and financial support from IDRC, the project is still ongoing. The process is one of participatory planning with the future residents, a group of mixed ethnicity and religions from all parts of the city, and includes training in house construction and agricultural techniques. Project implementation has been slower than anticipated due to unforeseen hazards such as mislaid title deeds, unavailability of government resources, communication shut-downs, the time required to transact business, acquire permissions, permits and the like, and most recently by the threat of a major power line from the Bujagali Falls to serve Kampala being thrust through the site. We nevertheless remain optimistic of ultimate success.

To improve social studies teaching and learning, teachers must engage in quality professional development experiences to deepen their pedagogical content knowledge. This article describes a Master of Education for Experienced Teachers (M.Ed.) program that reconcepulatized graduate study for teachers, using Alan Tom’s (1999) markers for reform — ongoing self-improvement, a commitment to working together collegially, and a focus on student learning. We describe each of the markers and the experiences of the social studies cohort enrolled in this program. We hope that by sharing our efforts to revitalize graduate study for social studies teachers, we will stimulate continued, thoughtful reflection and discourse.

I am concerned with insights heterodox economics, and particularly the new institution economics, can offer regarding interactions between health emergencies and the airline industry. Air services not only facilitates the transmissions of diseases among humans, and between animals, but on the positive side, can expedite the movement of medicines and the transfer of those afflicted during pandemics and epidemics. They can serve to limit the outbreak of disease by providing “mercy flights” to regions poorly served by other modes. Significant challenge confronting carriers during a major event, however, often included immediate financial shocks as well as ensuring their operations do not contribute to the spread of disease. These economic challenges for both commercial carriers and public policymakers involve sources of finance for what is, in this context, a semi-public service as well as the extent to which airlines should retain standby capacity extending resilience to the air-service supply chain. Conventional neoclassical economics, while still at the center of analyzing many of these sorts of issues, has increasingly, because of its rigid assumption and poor forecasting record, been supplemented by heterodox economic thinking. This trend has been reinforced by progress in fields such as psychology. What I demonstrate is that heterodox economics, and especially the role of institutions, offers a more complete picture of the interactions between air transportation and the spread of disease.

In the globalization age, with worldwide increases in dual income households, decision‐making has become more difficult and even more important than in the past. In this article, a five‐countries cross ‐ cultural comparisons of husband and wife decision‐making roles in the purchase of various goods and services in unlike environments is presented. Despite substantial cultural variation, there are surprisingly high degrees of similarities in family purchasing decision roles among the five countries. This study provides insights for managerial and public policy makers on the implications of cross‐cultural similarities and differences in consumer decision‐making.

Scholars have wandered the earth seeking community and resources for practising their art. It has only been for the last 500 years that universities have provided such a cloistered environment. A confluence of circumstances has broken this intellectual hegemony, threatening the sinecure, and forcing the institutions and the academics, themselves, to confront a past that never was while building towards a future that never will be.

THIS is the time of the year when, with the strong opening of the Spring publishing season, librarians take a review of matters which definitely concern books. There is a cant saying amongst certain eager librarians that their colleagues are too concerned with technical matters and too little, if at all, concerned with books. There may have been isolated cases of this kind, but it is merely untrue to say that the average librarian is not concerned, deeply and continuously, with the literary activity of his day. It is well that men should live in their own time and be thoroughly interested in the work of new writers. There is danger that exclusive occupation with them may lead to an unbalanced view of the book world. If one judged from the criticisms that occasionally appear in our contemporaries, one would suppose that the only books that mattered were the authentic fiction of the day, and by authentic is meant the books which go beyond average contemporary thought and conventions. Librarianship, however, is concerned with all books of all subjects and of all time. This note is merely a prelude to a number of THE LIBRARY WORLD which deals mainly with literature and with reading. Here we return again to the perennial fiction question.

On 13 July 1974, President Nixon signed a proclamation declaring the week of 20 July National Space Week, in honor of man's landing on the moon on 20 July 1969. Although the lunar landing was certainly the emotional high point for the American space program, interest in space remains quite high, as evidenced by the tremendous popularity of films and books on the subject. The intention of this article is to provide readers with a guide to materials that serve to focus attention on space exploration, not only during Space Week, but throughout the year.