Current Trends in the War on Terror Essay Example for Free

Current Trends in the War on Terror Essay As the world is cowering in terror from the 9/11 attacks and the bombing incidents in Indonesia and other parts of the world, the world’s attention is shifted now to where the attacks may occur next and what can be done to address the situation. Some suggest that the answer lies in being able to suppress and perhaps eliminate all of the terrorist cells all over the world. The problem there, however, is that any attack that is targeted at eliminating terrorist cells would necessarily involve any host country where they may be located and in any Middle Eastern country, such an attack could prove disastrous (Campbell Flourney 372). The more practical and ideal solution to this problem therefore lies at a more fundamental level; a more basic level wherein the country has more controls and no international liability (Kochler 37). The solution to this problem is by improving border security in order to prevent the occurrence of these terrorist attacks while the international community seeks for answers to address this problem at a global scale. At this point in time, domestic policies would be the best option in fighting the war against terror. This short discourse will therefore seek to shed light on the issue of terrorism and the crucial role that the border security plays in such. To gain a better understanding of the problem, it is important to first analyze the current trends that have been taken relative to border security to ensure the safety of the public from terrorist attacks. This will then be supplemented by an explanation on how border security can take an even larger role. The most crucial aspect in relation to border security and its role in the war against terror concerns the aviation industry. Since the 9/11 attacks, the public confidence with regard to air travel has greatly been shaken (Taylor 2). The attacks had the effect of sending a message that now, even airplanes could be used as missiles to target buildings regardless of whether there were people on board the aircraft of not. Every plane crash that is reported on the news is suspected to have been caused by a terrorist attack rather than just an equipment malfunction or a pilot error. In response to these attacks, security has been considerably increased in airports all over the world. Every passenger is now subject to a full body search and every hand carried and checked in item is thoroughly inspected for any suspicious objects that can either cause an explosion or aid a hijacker in gaining control over the aircraft (Campbell Flourney 52). The impact has not been limited to airport security as even airplane manufacturers and airlines have resorted to installing devices and taking precautions with regard to what to do in case an airplane is hijacked. One of the safety measures that have been suggested and is highly debated is the issuing of arms for the pilots so that they may be able to defend themselves against any terrorist hijackers that are able to force themselves into the cockpits (Lott 1). The current controversy with regard to airline security concerns the proposal to equip the pilots of airplanes with weapons in order to protect themselves from any hijackers that manage to enter the cockpit (Taylor 2). This proposal is of course faced with a lot of opposition because of the implications of allowing pilots to be armed in aircrafts. There is a lot of concern with regard to the security of the other passengers on board just in case the armed pilots do decide to turn on the other co-pilots and hijack the aircraft themselves or hold passengers as hostages for whatever purpose. The proponents for arming the pilots argue that it is the best option because the pilots need to defend themselves against the terrorist hijackers (Keeler 151). The problem with this is that it negates the training of the pilots which is that in times such as hijackings they are not supposed to deal with the terrorists but instead secure the cockpit and land the plane as soon as possible (Will 1). The concern here is that the plane should be landed right away in order to protect not only the passengers but also the people on the ground who may become targets or victims as the 9/11 experience has shown. The duty of the pilot is not concern himself with whatever goes on in the cabin but instead make sure that the plane is safely on the ground where there are more units who can deal with the situation properly. Pilots are not adequately trained to deal with hijacking situations in terms of dealing directly with the terrorist hijackers (Will 1). Another argument for the arming of the pilots is that such a measure is only designed to protect the pilots from terrorist hijackers who succeed in gaining entry into the cockpit (3). While there as some merit to this precautionary measure, there is no guarantee that the armed pilots will do just that. There are instances when certain people, pilots included, enter a â€Å"cowboys or renegade† mode (Will 1). Most of the pilots have received a degree of military training as fighter pilots and there is some truth to the profiling of fighter pilots â€Å"live wires and risk-takers† (Will 1). The end result in these situations could be that instead of protecting the cockpit and landing the plane like they are supposed to, a number of these former fighter pilots could engage the terrorist hijackers.

Impact Of Tourism On The UAE Economy

Impact Of Tourism On The UAE Economy Introduction Tourism, a very advance and complicated sector, is still very difficult to express. The tourism sector of any country can never be measured easily. Many countries which do not have much foreign goods exchange from their country rely on their tourism income. Even small countries like Singapore and Malaysia are having more than half of their income coming from tourism sector. These are those counties which are growing only because of their tourism income. Impact of Tourism over the Economy of a Country The overall economic growth of a country depends upon two things viz. foreign exchange and internal rising income. Among these two, the foreign exchange contributes to approximately 60% of the increase in revenue of the country. Tourism is a part of foreign exchange where the country earns from the incoming and outgoing tourists. It plays a vital role in economic growth of any country. In most of the countries tourism has become their main source of foreign income. A number of OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries contribute to about 65% of tourism activity. Countries like France, Germany and Australia comes under OECD member list. The WTO (World Tourism Organization) reports that about 700 million people traveled to a foreign country in 2000, spending over US$ 480 billion while on the tour.  (UAE tourism, 2010) Positive and Negative aspects of Tourism Income Of course every market issue comes with a good point and a bad point. The positive point of tourism is that it helps in growing the economy of the country and it increases the value of the country in the world market. It also increases employment opportunities and improves the socio-cultural level of the local mass. The local products reach a good amount value and are commercialized over the world market. But the coin has two sides. The negative side of the coin i.e. the negative points of tourism includes spoiling of the historical and antique monuments of the country. It also contributes to the increase in terrorism. It can also lead to information leakage of the classified documents which can cause some country to easily ground them. No one can ever say to what extent tourism can lead a country to. Adding to which, on increasing tourism there is a loss to the environmental aspects that is, it results in raising the consumption of ground, water and energy which ultimately leads to destruction of land and environment. The tourists knowingly or unknowingly spoil the cleanliness of some other place. There is an imbalance in the ecosystem and leads to species getting endangered. In the worst cases tourism can also add to an increase in the prostitution business (sexual tourism). Moreover the narcotics market is also flourishing through tourism. It has been observed that most of the youth are getting drugs from the outside mass coming to their country. What attracts a tourist? As far as the cultural issues are concerned tourism helps in advancing the cultural aspects of any country to the whole world. Most of the tourists going from one country to another are very much inspired from the cultural outlook of other country. Everyone needs a change, needs a place to go and chill, so they prefer travelling to other country and enjoying the essence of their culture and their way of living. So this is also a route through which the tourism sector can flourish. Beside the cultural trait the thing that attracts a tourist to go and visit another country is their history. They say, it is the history of a country that affects its future, well this statement is completely right reflecting the reason why tourist want to visit some other country. People like to visit Egypt to see their historical Pyramids and their famous stories of Mummies. Similarly the seven wonders of the world are visited regularly by thousands of people from different parts of the world. Most of the time people visit other country just for leisure. (UAE tourism, 2010) Race between countries over tourist income Seeing the overwhelming tourist coming to a country, every country wants to increase their own share of tourism income and it is quite obvious. To attract more and more tourist, people includes different tourism packages just to increase their income. They are willing to cut down their own food just to give them their share of food and that too not in good sense but only to have better income. Special privileges are given to tourist like some of the specific tourist spots are given much attention by the government. This helps them to have a better show off on their income masses. UAE, the most attractive tourist spot The UAE has strengthened its position in the tourism sector by offering a wide range of leisure and sports activity. This is the main point of attraction in UAE. There is no question that UAE is one of the most attractive and most visited country in the whole world. Beside the economic income from the oil business the government does not completely rely on its income from it and it has led them to put more emphasis on making several multi-billion and huge projects in both public as well as private sectors. These have led to attract many tourists from different parts of the world. According to a report from the WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council) it is estimated that by the 2015 tourism in UAE would increase by about 7% from todays data. On the increasing accounts of Dubais expensive projects this percentage can even go higher. These include projects such as the Palms in Dubai, Burj Khalifa, the Waterfront and the Marina. Dubai has been known for its fabulous ethnicity and hospitality. It has been one of the most favorite places with respect to tourist invasion. It has become a worldwide travel and business destination. According to files Dubai has attracted over 5 million tourists from all over the world to visit its great architecture. A wide range of hotels and beach side resorts have made it comfortable for the tourist to stay in Dubai. Conclusion From the above discussion it can be concluded that tourism is a sector which has major impact on economy of any country. Factor of being a favorite tourist place can vary country to country. Dubai is one of the favorite tourist places. Tourism also associates some negative factors also. (UAE tourism, 2010)

Internationalisation of Public Relations Education

Internationalisation of Public Relations Education Introduction The main theme of the dissertation is internationalisation of public relations education. It is quite a broad topic and can be reviewed and discussed from different points of view. In this regard the selected literature first examines international public relations concepts and secondly an impact it has on public relations education. Therefore, literature review has been divided into the following major themes: International public relations (IPR) and International public relations education (IPRE). The chapter will begin by presenting the main debates about international public relations and its concepts alongside with a brief overview of factors influencing it. It will be followed by a section presenting state of research on IPR. The discussion will then move to section two international public relations education, exploring the requisites and challenges for internationalisation. Finally the chapter will summarise the key themes and points identified. The major part of the literature review focuses on contemporary research, defined as 1989-2009. International PR A growing number of publications document the development and challenges of the public relations in every major continent and region of the world (Nally, 1991, Moss et al., 1997, Moss et al., 2003, Sriramesh and Vercic, 2003b, Van Ruler and Vercic, 2004, Freitag and Stokes, 2009). This research refers term global PR to globalisation of the profession, which is being practises and recognised in more countries throughout the globe, while International PR refers to the planning and implementation of programmes and campaigns carried out abroad or for international audience. Hence international PR education refers to the process of adopting professional training to International PR concepts and demand. Public relations is still relatively new concern for management, even though its modern origins can be traced to the end of the last century (White, 1991). According to (Cutlip, 1994), a key researcher in the history of public relations in the U.S., the first international public relations agency The Hamilton Wright Organization was founded in 1908. International communities of professionals and scholars are increasingly interested in transferring knowledge, experiences, and best practices from national to transnational scenarios. This advancement is generated by the increasing role of public relations which is driven largely by the influence of new information technologies and globalisation (Flodin, 2003). Drawing upon this, DiStaso et al. (2009) discussed the effects of globalisation, that began with the Maastricht Treaty and NAFTAA in 1992, the WTO in 1994 and claiming it had great impact on the public relations industry. According to Szondis (2009, p.115) International public relations is the planned communication activity of a (multinational) organisation, a supra- or international institution or government through interactions in the target country which facilitates the organisation (or government) to achieve its policy or business objectives without harming the interests of the publics. There have been papers which presented international PR to be simply about how to overcome barriers that are created by other cultures, including language, laws or cultural issues, which are often indentified as problems (Wilcox et al., 2001), rather than opportunities or the manifestation of diversity. The most frequently referenced paper which stands against IPR has been Angell (1990) asserted that the variance between local countries was so great as to preclude any possibility of globalisation. A much different study, also highly referenced, has been provided by Pavlik (1987), who as early as the 1980s considered IPR one of the most rapidly growing areas of the profession, and one of the least understood. The problem with defining difference between domestically and internationally done public relations is that there is not enough research or critical assessment. While basic principles do not change, the way they are carried out from culture to culture and country to country, and the attitudes and values embedded within those different cultures or countries, are different (Wakefield, 2007b). A similar study was conducted by Botan (1992, p. 157), who argued that international public relations is always intercultural. The existing public relations body of knowledge, and public relations curricula around the world, have a U.S. bias (Sriramesh, 2002). U.S. paradigm, however, strikes with the idea of that European or non-U.S. perceptions of public relations become more of value in the twenty first century. A US professor and professional Robert Wakefield (2007b), who have been practicing and researching in the area of IPR for almost two decades, believes that principles and practices of PR in Europe, emphasising social role of public relations, are more promising for effective PR in the multinational than the American-based PR-as-marketing-tool approach. He, alongside the majority of new PR schools, supports paradigms of PR incoming out of places other than the U.S. Therefore, need and call for the elsewhere theories and concepts was also a factor for a research in international/global PR. Ovaitt (1988, p.5) made an interesting suggestion saying that it was not a popular idea with marketing and advertising experts when they started thinking about internationalisation decades ago and it was not popular with public relations practitioners back to late 1980s. The idea is that what these professionals do for a living might be done on a global basis global in the sense of achieving some significant level of standardisation, not only of what is offered to customers, but also how it is presented and promoted. Public relations as a profession is not necessarily understood and practised in the same manner all around the world. This is not news per se, as several scholars (Sharpe, 1992, Vercic et al., 1996, Taylor, 2000, Rhee, 2002, Valentini, 2007) for many years have underlined that public relations requires a global understanding of cultural differences. Different studies (Kent and Taylor, 1999, Lee, 2005) show that public relations practitioners are increasingly required to be able to communicate with different international publics, no matter the size of the organisation they are working for, or whether it is private or public, including non-profit organisations. After the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Excellence Study yielded a review of normative principles (Grunig, 1992), Vercic et al. (1996) explained the importance of identifying five contextual variables that influence the practice of the normative principles. Vercic, Grunig, and Grunig (Vercic et al., 1996) proposed a global theory of public relations that was elaborated by Sriramesh and Vercic (2003a, 2003b, 2009) in their Global Public Relations Handbook and by Sriramesh (2009) in a special issue of PRism. Their global public relations theory attempted to answer the question of whether public relations theory and practice should be unique to each country or culture or whether it should be practiced in the same way everywhere. Authors answered this question by theorising that global public relations should fall in the middle between standardisation and individualisation (Grunig, 2009). The theoretical framework of Sriramesh and Vercic (2003) has been used to assess the status of public relations in countries around the world. Contextualised studies are the core component of the global public relations concept. As Vercic (2009) reported, international PR practices should represent the best practices anywhere because of their necessary complexities and reach. Global theory is not a positive theory, which describes a type of public relations that currently is practiced everywhere in the world. Research, such as that reported in Sriramesh and Vercic (2003, 2009), does show that there are many idiosyncrasies in public relations practice around the world that reflect cultural differences. It also shows that the one worldwide universal in public relations practice is what is J. Grunig have called the press agentry/publicity model (Grunig et al., 1995)-the least effective of the models. Rather, their global theory is a normative theory that argues that public relations will be most effective throughout most parts of the world (Grunig, 2009, p.2). Emphasising cross-cultural effects on reputation in multinational organizations Wakefield (2007b, 2008) argues that there still is an important distinction between global and domestic public relations practices, and that understanding those differences will contribute to better global practice. More specifically, recent research has also called into questions of need to understand how culture affects public relations. There are numbers of key researches (Grunig et al., 1995) who have written papers specifically on the subject. A similar study was conducted by Neff (1991), who has indicated that economic development is leading public relations firms down a path requiring knowledge of culture and language in addition to public relations. Perhaps one of the most influential recent publications on multiculturalism in public relations education was produced by Sriramesh (Sriramesh, 2002, Sriramesh, 2003). He has also reported that public relations education has not kept pace with the rapi d globalisation that has occurred since 1992 (Sriramesh, 2002). Sriramesh (2009) called for a need for a more thoughtful representation of many of the generic principles of public relations practice to suit the local environment, so that the body of knowledge is more holistic and relevant to global demands. However, there still is a room for an assumption that not all the practitioners require international training and international perspective. RESEARCH / CRITICS: Since the advent of the Internet, it is even more tempting to view PR practice as the same anywhere, and therefore it decreases attempts to produce research or principles that need to view à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“cross-border PR as different (Wakefield, 2007a). Despite the numerous calls for research, reviewed works and studies on global (national) public relations released in the 2000s (see table 1) (Portugal, United States see table) have recorded that this area of research is underrepresented. Despite global trends underlining increased internationalisation, these results can be interpreted to indicate that Researchers have not paid enough attention to the international perspective. An important indicator is the place international public relations occupy in the list of priority research topics. One recent example is a Study of the Priorities for Public Relations Research conducted by Deputy Dean of Media School of Bournemouth University (UK) Tom Watson (Watson, 2008, Watson, 2007)  [1 ]  .He sent 26 public relations topics to a Delphi study panel and the Top Ten PR research topics were identified, however, international perspective was excluded from the list. A US professor and professional Robert Wakefield responded critically to Watsons Delphi study: First, I was surprised in finding that the topic fell all the way out of the top ten. After all, arent PR issues and challenges, along with its overall scope of practice, becoming more international with each passing year?(2007a, p. 6) Nonetheless he added: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“There really are no more studies being done on international public relations now than have been done over the course of the last three decades. Those that are being published are increasingly making such statements as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“there is no such thing as local PR anymore, or à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“today, everything is global. Well, if this represents what academics and practitioners are thinking, then it would stand to reason that no real different research needs to be done-that ANY PR principles, even if they are all traditionally domestic in nature, would suffice for research or practice anywhere in the world (2007a, p.7). The seminal critique in this area is also by Sriramesh (2009, p.6), who argues: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“When scholars think of, and discuss, public relations, the global perspective is often overlooked. Srirameshs (2009) critique of Mackey (Mackey, 2003), who claimed to introduce the various contemporary theories of public relations in the inaugural issue of Prism is also indicative: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The author attempted to review à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“the changing vistas in public relations theory, there was not a single mention of any advances in global public relations theorising in that piece even though by 2003/that time there were several advances worth reporting'(2009, p.8). Another example is Distasso (2009). Authors surveyed 312 public relations executives and educators to examine how well practitioners and instructors perceive public relations students to be prepared for the practice, the content and value of public relations curricula and, the future of public relations education in the United States. Even though scholar mentioned globalisation as a factor increasingly influencing public relations practice he had not included it in the questionnaires or research questions. Somewhat it contrast are papers from the annual International Public Relations Research Symposium Bledcom, which reflect the diverse and up-to-date research traditions amongst scholars working in the field of public relations both within the USA and Europe (Moss et al., 1997, Newman and Vercic, 2002, Moss et al., 2003, Sriramesh and Vercic, 2003a, Sriramesh, 2004, Van Ruler and Vercic, 2004, Van Ruler et al., 2008, Sriramesh and Vercic, 2009). These are scholars, who systematically examines the priorities for PR research and determine international agenda These differences in research agenda are reflected/explained, to some degree, in the/by Scholars like Sriramesh, Vercic, Wakefield and others highlighted the important point that an issue of international public relations is not reflected enough in the research questions. International public relations education (IPRE) As a corollary to the process of globalisation has been the recognition of the need to make public relations education more internationally focused and future public relations professionals more internationally and interculturally competent (Lane DiStephano, 1992) / Huthcings et al., 2002 There have been numbers of calls for new public relations curricula aimed at educating staffs that can understand and meet increasing international social, economic and political complexities and challenges. (Pratt and Ogbondah, 1994, p. 13). The International Association of Universities (1998) supported the need for business schools to be more international in their strategy, claiming higher education must integrate an intercultural dimension into its teaching and research, if it is to fulfil its role and maintain excellence. (Hutchings et al., 2002, p. 58). Another rationale for an international public relations course is the accelerating pace of societal and technological change today. These cha nges call for adaptations in academic curricula and professional development programs. There were written dozen papers on justification of international public relations education based on research in the different areas. Some went radical claiming that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“any curriculum that excludes international public relations courses is ineffective in addressing student and practitioner needs, particularly in the next century (21 century).(Pratt and Ogbondah, 1994) p.9 Factors what influence the development of IPRE are mostly the same, however they have different interpretations. The need for international courses in public relations is demonstrated further by the growing global recognition of public relations degree programs and education, a phenomenon that Cantor (1984) predicted more than twenty years ago. And indeed, previous investigation has established that the call for internationalisation of public relations education has been there for a long time and comes from both industry and academia sectors (Neff, 1991, Cottone et al., 1985). However, disagreements between practitioners and educators on a blueprint for international public relations education have also been documented (Pratt and Ogbondah, 1994). A decade old survey of U.S. public relations educators and practitioners that explored the state of curricula and content in public relations education found that both practitioners and educators perceive need to incorporate courses and cont ent that will prepare future practitioners for the global landscape (Neff et al., 1999). A Public relations is a multidisciplinary area of study and practice that must change as rapidly as the context and society in which it exists (Baskin, 1989, p. 35). As public relations continues to be a globalised profession, curriculum should be updated to reflect the practice. Ten years later similar study has recorded, that having a global perspective and experience with a variety of cultures are necessary but lacking skills for advanced level practitioners (DiStaso et al., 2009, p.269). An important consideration in providing students with some skills in achieving cross-cultural understanding is the recognition that, as future business professionals and leaders, they will live in a society increasingly characterised by international labour mobility and multiculturalism. The international manager or employee will be an individual who will spend their working lives in several distinct job areas working for several organisations as well as making several sojourns to various international postings. This means that the new style employee will need to be cosmopolitan, multilingual, multifaceted and what Schneider Barsoux (1997, p. 157) refer to as a capacity to operate à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“across national borders somewhat like James Bond. Public relations education at all levels and in both communication and MBA programmes should educate students to practise public relations globally (Grunig and Grunig, 2002). However, not only do students need to be trained and prepared for this mobility, but even those who do not move to another nation face the recognition that the domestic work environment also requires some responsiveness to differing cultures (Hutchings et al., 2002, p. 69). Sriramesh (2009, p.6) makes a reasonable argument that even textbooks in the US and the UK should contain more global cases and interpretations so as to give their own students a more international and holistic education, thus broadening their horizons. It is indicated that authors of universitys level public relations textbooks have not yet realised the growing importance of international public relations and thus deal marginally with it. The International Public Relations Association (IPRA) has drawn on its international membership to research and recommend standards for public relations education and has established the results of its work in two Gold papers in 1982 and 1990 (IPRA (1982) Gold paper No. 4, A Model for Public Relations Education for Professional Practice, and (1990) Gold Paper No.7, Public Relations Education Recommendations and Standards). (White, 1991) p.184-185 Not much has changed since that time. WAYS: Number of general papers were designed in response to the need for public relations education to produce well-trained, culturally sensitive practitioners (Miller, 1992, Ekachai and Komolsevin, 1998, Burbules and Torres, 2000, Bardhan, 2003, Dickerson, 2005, Tuleja, 2008). With the increasing importance of international communication, some educators had considered creating a course dedicated to international public relations (Pratt and Ogbondah, 1994, Taylor, 2001). In a special edition of Public Relations Review on developing teaching related materials, Taylor (2001) offered guidance to public relations educators on how to develop an international public relations curriculum because: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“New communication technologies and global communication processes create more frequent international communication (Taylor, 2001, p.2). Nevertheless, some of the Taylors conclusions sounded far too decisive: The most comprehensive way to internationalize the public relations curriculum is to offer a course dedicated to international public relations (p. 74). Creedon and Al-Khaja (2005) analysed how adding cultural competency to the list of skills and competencies required in educational programs presents an opportunity to educate a generation that will accept difference and value a global culture separate from national identity. Then again the study was rather limited the authors conducted a survey of accredited programs to determine whether or not a history course was required of their majors. Another empirical-based study argued that just talking about the importance if IPR in the classroom is not sufficient, students have to be able to live international public relations in order to understand its relevance (Bardhan, 1999, p. 19). An important portion of literature on international public relations education suggests the necessity for students to learn about other countries through immersion. According to Porth (Porth, 1997, Tuleja, 2008) the international study tour course may be a legitimate answer to critics of education who urge business schools to à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“go global and to create stronger ties with the international business and academic communities. More specifically, recent research has also called into question the assumption of studying internationally. For instance, Hutchings et al. (2002, p. 58)suggests that the challenge for the education is how to devise a short-term study program that is effective in exposing international concepts to the student. Yet, foreign travel alone is not the panacea for internationalising PR education because it is difficult to manage even if having resources. Hutchings study is focused on going abroad, even so it may make some contribution to understanding of glo bal consciousness characterised as moving towards a recognition and appreciation of increasingly global diversity and interdependence. Arguments about which is the best approach to international public relations education, courses and its numbers, or changing the context with its live experience and observations, largely missed the important point that methods have to be fit for their purposes. For some purposes, this is the best, and in other cases the choice will be this and that. Furthermore, although those approaches rest on very different use of resources and possibilities, they can be complementary in the hands of future research and need to be incompatible. Many studies would benefit from mindfully using each approach for different purposes at different stages of the internationalisation. Fuller discussions of this are to be found in some public relations papers, including (Neff, 1991, Dibrova and Kabanova, 2004, Peterson and Mak, 2006, Chung, 2007/8, Dolby and Rahman, 2008). CHALLENGES/BARRIERS: Authors such as Kalupa and Carroll Bateman (1980) have suggested that public relations educators have failed maintain the currency of the teaching in relation to the practice. On the other hand, Holbrook (1985, 1995) has been one of the most prominent critics of the idea of selecting research topics based on what is of interest to practitioners. He has argued that such an orientation tarnishes the purity of the academic endeavour. Amongst other challenges Bardhan (1999) recorded that educators feel unprepared at present to handle the task effectively and lack of interest among students. Falb (1991, 1992) has claimed that because of putting public relations curriculums in either Mass Communications or Journalism public relations has been inhibited in its growth in academic and professional areas. Similar study was conducted by (Pincus et al., 1994), who argued that communication topics do not rate high in MBA programs: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“If public relations faculty do not champion the recognition of public relations topics in MBA programs, the profession will never realize entry to the highest levels of corporate decision making (1994: p.55) . Making an analogy, this statement might be extended by claiming that If public relations faculty do not champion the recognition of international public relations concepts in Postgraduate programs, the profession will lack behind present state of research and practice. This statement finds a reflection in recent research as well. Papers like Sriramesh (2002) claim that it is time for educators to integrate experiences from other continents into the PR body of knowledge, thereby building PR curricula that contribute to training truly multicultural PR professionals. CONCLUSION: Sriramesh and Vercic (2003) underlined the compelling need for a text describing and explaining public relations practices and body of knowledge in different parts of the world. Their call for research has been taken up and largely because it proposed a framework, which made it easier to facilitate global research. Thereby, by critically examining the framework scholars in different countries enrich international public relations body of knowledge and provides prove or counter-arguments to the Global theory. Nonetheless, it might be argued that among those five factors, which have been put forward by Sriramesh and Vercic (2003), one is missing professional PR training. In this regard it can be concluded the following. Firstly, such indicator as level of professional training can be considered as a sixth factor influencing practicing public relations in country. Secondly, on the basis of a global concept can be developed a similar concept and subsequently applied to the study of inte rnational public relations education. Thirdly, basing on data provided from the five factors, it allowed to determine the degree of standardization vs. localization of IPR programs and courses and to identify barriers and obstacles. Achieving internationalisation of public relations education is concluded to be important for three reasons. First, because many graduating students will be finding employment internationally and benefit from having been educated to be effective in differing cultural settings. Second, because rapid changes in national immigration policies have meant that many more nations are considerably more multicultural than they have been in the past and citizens need to be more conscious of diversity in their national and organisational surroundings. Third, because the pace of changes in the international political economy necessitates that people must be responsive to international economic and business forces. Thus, students who receive an internationally focused public relations education should be more culturally and socially aware and prepared to cope with the demands of rapid international economic, political and social change (Hutchings et al., 2002). Professional education and training are one of the major issues in every country in which public relations is practised. Even the US, where there are hundreds of public relations education are frequently expressed, and senior practitioners rise questions about the value of existing public relations education programmes (White, 1991, p. 184). Sommerness and Beaman (1994) found only few offerings of university courses emphasising international public relations across the United States at that time. However, most recent study has shown that some authors (Hatzitos and Lariscy, 2008) report an increased interest in scholarly research in international public relations and an effort to internationalise the public relations curricula at many U.S. universities. Despite the fact that significant gaps were found between desired outcomes and those actually found in the opinions of both practitioner and educators, certain surveys (Neff et al., 1999) have revealed strong agreement between educator s and practitioners regarding the training, experience and expertise outcomes needed for career development in public relations. Thus, while the goals of public relations education to certain extent seem clear, the means of achieving those goals, including curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, may not be as clear. However, studies such as examining perception, asking whether or not IPR should be emphasised doesnt really contribute anymore as the concept have solidly grounded. There have been dozen papers reporting that call for a development. What more valuable for this particular research is the fact that international public relations education requires to be integrated into global PR perspective. International experiences, approaches and cases must be studied and shared between international academic societies. The literature review recorded a substantial gap in international public relations education research elsewhere than U.S. Therefore there is a need in further researching and describing development in IPRE globally. This particular study will explore perceptions and state of IPR education in two countries the United Kingdom and Russia. Internationalisation of Public Relations Education Internationalisation of Public Relations Education Introduction The main theme of the dissertation is internationalisation of public relations education. It is quite a broad topic and can be reviewed and discussed from different points of view. In this regard the selected literature first examines international public relations concepts and secondly an impact it has on public relations education. Therefore, literature review has been divided into the following major themes: International public relations (IPR) and International public relations education (IPRE). The chapter will begin by presenting the main debates about international public relations and its concepts alongside with a brief overview of factors influencing it. It will be followed by a section presenting state of research on IPR. The discussion will then move to section two international public relations education, exploring the requisites and challenges for internationalisation. Finally the chapter will summarise the key themes and points identified. The major part of the literature review focuses on contemporary research, defined as 1989-2009. International PR A growing number of publications document the development and challenges of the public relations in every major continent and region of the world (Nally, 1991, Moss et al., 1997, Moss et al., 2003, Sriramesh and Vercic, 2003b, Van Ruler and Vercic, 2004, Freitag and Stokes, 2009). This research refers term global PR to globalisation of the profession, which is being practises and recognised in more countries throughout the globe, while International PR refers to the planning and implementation of programmes and campaigns carried out abroad or for international audience. Hence international PR education refers to the process of adopting professional training to International PR concepts and demand. Public relations is still relatively new concern for management, even though its modern origins can be traced to the end of the last century (White, 1991). According to (Cutlip, 1994), a key researcher in the history of public relations in the U.S., the first international public relations agency The Hamilton Wright Organization was founded in 1908. International communities of professionals and scholars are increasingly interested in transferring knowledge, experiences, and best practices from national to transnational scenarios. This advancement is generated by the increasing role of public relations which is driven largely by the influence of new information technologies and globalisation (Flodin, 2003). Drawing upon this, DiStaso et al. (2009) discussed the effects of globalisation, that began with the Maastricht Treaty and NAFTAA in 1992, the WTO in 1994 and claiming it had great impact on the public relations industry. According to Szondis (2009, p.115) International public relations is the planned communication activity of a (multinational) organisation, a supra- or international institution or government through interactions in the target country which facilitates the organisation (or government) to achieve its policy or business objectives without harming the interests of the publics. There have been papers which presented international PR to be simply about how to overcome barriers that are created by other cultures, including language, laws or cultural issues, which are often indentified as problems (Wilcox et al., 2001), rather than opportunities or the manifestation of diversity. The most frequently referenced paper which stands against IPR has been Angell (1990) asserted that the variance between local countries was so great as to preclude any possibility of globalisation. A much different study, also highly referenced, has been provided by Pavlik (1987), who as early as the 1980s considered IPR one of the most rapidly growing areas of the profession, and one of the least understood. The problem with defining difference between domestically and internationally done public relations is that there is not enough research or critical assessment. While basic principles do not change, the way they are carried out from culture to culture and country to country, and the attitudes and values embedded within those different cultures or countries, are different (Wakefield, 2007b). A similar study was conducted by Botan (1992, p. 157), who argued that international public relations is always intercultural. The existing public relations body of knowledge, and public relations curricula around the world, have a U.S. bias (Sriramesh, 2002). U.S. paradigm, however, strikes with the idea of that European or non-U.S. perceptions of public relations become more of value in the twenty first century. A US professor and professional Robert Wakefield (2007b), who have been practicing and researching in the area of IPR for almost two decades, believes that principles and practices of PR in Europe, emphasising social role of public relations, are more promising for effective PR in the multinational than the American-based PR-as-marketing-tool approach. He, alongside the majority of new PR schools, supports paradigms of PR incoming out of places other than the U.S. Therefore, need and call for the elsewhere theories and concepts was also a factor for a research in international/global PR. Ovaitt (1988, p.5) made an interesting suggestion saying that it was not a popular idea with marketing and advertising experts when they started thinking about internationalisation decades ago and it was not popular with public relations practitioners back to late 1980s. The idea is that what these professionals do for a living might be done on a global basis global in the sense of achieving some significant level of standardisation, not only of what is offered to customers, but also how it is presented and promoted. Public relations as a profession is not necessarily understood and practised in the same manner all around the world. This is not news per se, as several scholars (Sharpe, 1992, Vercic et al., 1996, Taylor, 2000, Rhee, 2002, Valentini, 2007) for many years have underlined that public relations requires a global understanding of cultural differences. Different studies (Kent and Taylor, 1999, Lee, 2005) show that public relations practitioners are increasingly required to be able to communicate with different international publics, no matter the size of the organisation they are working for, or whether it is private or public, including non-profit organisations. After the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Excellence Study yielded a review of normative principles (Grunig, 1992), Vercic et al. (1996) explained the importance of identifying five contextual variables that influence the practice of the normative principles. Vercic, Grunig, and Grunig (Vercic et al., 1996) proposed a global theory of public relations that was elaborated by Sriramesh and Vercic (2003a, 2003b, 2009) in their Global Public Relations Handbook and by Sriramesh (2009) in a special issue of PRism. Their global public relations theory attempted to answer the question of whether public relations theory and practice should be unique to each country or culture or whether it should be practiced in the same way everywhere. Authors answered this question by theorising that global public relations should fall in the middle between standardisation and individualisation (Grunig, 2009). The theoretical framework of Sriramesh and Vercic (2003) has been used to assess the status of public relations in countries around the world. Contextualised studies are the core component of the global public relations concept. As Vercic (2009) reported, international PR practices should represent the best practices anywhere because of their necessary complexities and reach. Global theory is not a positive theory, which describes a type of public relations that currently is practiced everywhere in the world. Research, such as that reported in Sriramesh and Vercic (2003, 2009), does show that there are many idiosyncrasies in public relations practice around the world that reflect cultural differences. It also shows that the one worldwide universal in public relations practice is what is J. Grunig have called the press agentry/publicity model (Grunig et al., 1995)-the least effective of the models. Rather, their global theory is a normative theory that argues that public relations will be most effective throughout most parts of the world (Grunig, 2009, p.2). Emphasising cross-cultural effects on reputation in multinational organizations Wakefield (2007b, 2008) argues that there still is an important distinction between global and domestic public relations practices, and that understanding those differences will contribute to better global practice. More specifically, recent research has also called into questions of need to understand how culture affects public relations. There are numbers of key researches (Grunig et al., 1995) who have written papers specifically on the subject. A similar study was conducted by Neff (1991), who has indicated that economic development is leading public relations firms down a path requiring knowledge of culture and language in addition to public relations. Perhaps one of the most influential recent publications on multiculturalism in public relations education was produced by Sriramesh (Sriramesh, 2002, Sriramesh, 2003). He has also reported that public relations education has not kept pace with the rapi d globalisation that has occurred since 1992 (Sriramesh, 2002). Sriramesh (2009) called for a need for a more thoughtful representation of many of the generic principles of public relations practice to suit the local environment, so that the body of knowledge is more holistic and relevant to global demands. However, there still is a room for an assumption that not all the practitioners require international training and international perspective. RESEARCH / CRITICS: Since the advent of the Internet, it is even more tempting to view PR practice as the same anywhere, and therefore it decreases attempts to produce research or principles that need to view à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“cross-border PR as different (Wakefield, 2007a). Despite the numerous calls for research, reviewed works and studies on global (national) public relations released in the 2000s (see table 1) (Portugal, United States see table) have recorded that this area of research is underrepresented. Despite global trends underlining increased internationalisation, these results can be interpreted to indicate that Researchers have not paid enough attention to the international perspective. An important indicator is the place international public relations occupy in the list of priority research topics. One recent example is a Study of the Priorities for Public Relations Research conducted by Deputy Dean of Media School of Bournemouth University (UK) Tom Watson (Watson, 2008, Watson, 2007)  [1 ]  .He sent 26 public relations topics to a Delphi study panel and the Top Ten PR research topics were identified, however, international perspective was excluded from the list. A US professor and professional Robert Wakefield responded critically to Watsons Delphi study: First, I was surprised in finding that the topic fell all the way out of the top ten. After all, arent PR issues and challenges, along with its overall scope of practice, becoming more international with each passing year?(2007a, p. 6) Nonetheless he added: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“There really are no more studies being done on international public relations now than have been done over the course of the last three decades. Those that are being published are increasingly making such statements as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“there is no such thing as local PR anymore, or à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“today, everything is global. Well, if this represents what academics and practitioners are thinking, then it would stand to reason that no real different research needs to be done-that ANY PR principles, even if they are all traditionally domestic in nature, would suffice for research or practice anywhere in the world (2007a, p.7). The seminal critique in this area is also by Sriramesh (2009, p.6), who argues: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“When scholars think of, and discuss, public relations, the global perspective is often overlooked. Srirameshs (2009) critique of Mackey (Mackey, 2003), who claimed to introduce the various contemporary theories of public relations in the inaugural issue of Prism is also indicative: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The author attempted to review à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“the changing vistas in public relations theory, there was not a single mention of any advances in global public relations theorising in that piece even though by 2003/that time there were several advances worth reporting'(2009, p.8). Another example is Distasso (2009). Authors surveyed 312 public relations executives and educators to examine how well practitioners and instructors perceive public relations students to be prepared for the practice, the content and value of public relations curricula and, the future of public relations education in the United States. Even though scholar mentioned globalisation as a factor increasingly influencing public relations practice he had not included it in the questionnaires or research questions. Somewhat it contrast are papers from the annual International Public Relations Research Symposium Bledcom, which reflect the diverse and up-to-date research traditions amongst scholars working in the field of public relations both within the USA and Europe (Moss et al., 1997, Newman and Vercic, 2002, Moss et al., 2003, Sriramesh and Vercic, 2003a, Sriramesh, 2004, Van Ruler and Vercic, 2004, Van Ruler et al., 2008, Sriramesh and Vercic, 2009). These are scholars, who systematically examines the priorities for PR research and determine international agenda These differences in research agenda are reflected/explained, to some degree, in the/by Scholars like Sriramesh, Vercic, Wakefield and others highlighted the important point that an issue of international public relations is not reflected enough in the research questions. International public relations education (IPRE) As a corollary to the process of globalisation has been the recognition of the need to make public relations education more internationally focused and future public relations professionals more internationally and interculturally competent (Lane DiStephano, 1992) / Huthcings et al., 2002 There have been numbers of calls for new public relations curricula aimed at educating staffs that can understand and meet increasing international social, economic and political complexities and challenges. (Pratt and Ogbondah, 1994, p. 13). The International Association of Universities (1998) supported the need for business schools to be more international in their strategy, claiming higher education must integrate an intercultural dimension into its teaching and research, if it is to fulfil its role and maintain excellence. (Hutchings et al., 2002, p. 58). Another rationale for an international public relations course is the accelerating pace of societal and technological change today. These cha nges call for adaptations in academic curricula and professional development programs. There were written dozen papers on justification of international public relations education based on research in the different areas. Some went radical claiming that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“any curriculum that excludes international public relations courses is ineffective in addressing student and practitioner needs, particularly in the next century (21 century).(Pratt and Ogbondah, 1994) p.9 Factors what influence the development of IPRE are mostly the same, however they have different interpretations. The need for international courses in public relations is demonstrated further by the growing global recognition of public relations degree programs and education, a phenomenon that Cantor (1984) predicted more than twenty years ago. And indeed, previous investigation has established that the call for internationalisation of public relations education has been there for a long time and comes from both industry and academia sectors (Neff, 1991, Cottone et al., 1985). However, disagreements between practitioners and educators on a blueprint for international public relations education have also been documented (Pratt and Ogbondah, 1994). A decade old survey of U.S. public relations educators and practitioners that explored the state of curricula and content in public relations education found that both practitioners and educators perceive need to incorporate courses and cont ent that will prepare future practitioners for the global landscape (Neff et al., 1999). A Public relations is a multidisciplinary area of study and practice that must change as rapidly as the context and society in which it exists (Baskin, 1989, p. 35). As public relations continues to be a globalised profession, curriculum should be updated to reflect the practice. Ten years later similar study has recorded, that having a global perspective and experience with a variety of cultures are necessary but lacking skills for advanced level practitioners (DiStaso et al., 2009, p.269). An important consideration in providing students with some skills in achieving cross-cultural understanding is the recognition that, as future business professionals and leaders, they will live in a society increasingly characterised by international labour mobility and multiculturalism. The international manager or employee will be an individual who will spend their working lives in several distinct job areas working for several organisations as well as making several sojourns to various international postings. This means that the new style employee will need to be cosmopolitan, multilingual, multifaceted and what Schneider Barsoux (1997, p. 157) refer to as a capacity to operate à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“across national borders somewhat like James Bond. Public relations education at all levels and in both communication and MBA programmes should educate students to practise public relations globally (Grunig and Grunig, 2002). However, not only do students need to be trained and prepared for this mobility, but even those who do not move to another nation face the recognition that the domestic work environment also requires some responsiveness to differing cultures (Hutchings et al., 2002, p. 69). Sriramesh (2009, p.6) makes a reasonable argument that even textbooks in the US and the UK should contain more global cases and interpretations so as to give their own students a more international and holistic education, thus broadening their horizons. It is indicated that authors of universitys level public relations textbooks have not yet realised the growing importance of international public relations and thus deal marginally with it. The International Public Relations Association (IPRA) has drawn on its international membership to research and recommend standards for public relations education and has established the results of its work in two Gold papers in 1982 and 1990 (IPRA (1982) Gold paper No. 4, A Model for Public Relations Education for Professional Practice, and (1990) Gold Paper No.7, Public Relations Education Recommendations and Standards). (White, 1991) p.184-185 Not much has changed since that time. WAYS: Number of general papers were designed in response to the need for public relations education to produce well-trained, culturally sensitive practitioners (Miller, 1992, Ekachai and Komolsevin, 1998, Burbules and Torres, 2000, Bardhan, 2003, Dickerson, 2005, Tuleja, 2008). With the increasing importance of international communication, some educators had considered creating a course dedicated to international public relations (Pratt and Ogbondah, 1994, Taylor, 2001). In a special edition of Public Relations Review on developing teaching related materials, Taylor (2001) offered guidance to public relations educators on how to develop an international public relations curriculum because: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“New communication technologies and global communication processes create more frequent international communication (Taylor, 2001, p.2). Nevertheless, some of the Taylors conclusions sounded far too decisive: The most comprehensive way to internationalize the public relations curriculum is to offer a course dedicated to international public relations (p. 74). Creedon and Al-Khaja (2005) analysed how adding cultural competency to the list of skills and competencies required in educational programs presents an opportunity to educate a generation that will accept difference and value a global culture separate from national identity. Then again the study was rather limited the authors conducted a survey of accredited programs to determine whether or not a history course was required of their majors. Another empirical-based study argued that just talking about the importance if IPR in the classroom is not sufficient, students have to be able to live international public relations in order to understand its relevance (Bardhan, 1999, p. 19). An important portion of literature on international public relations education suggests the necessity for students to learn about other countries through immersion. According to Porth (Porth, 1997, Tuleja, 2008) the international study tour course may be a legitimate answer to critics of education who urge business schools to à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“go global and to create stronger ties with the international business and academic communities. More specifically, recent research has also called into question the assumption of studying internationally. For instance, Hutchings et al. (2002, p. 58)suggests that the challenge for the education is how to devise a short-term study program that is effective in exposing international concepts to the student. Yet, foreign travel alone is not the panacea for internationalising PR education because it is difficult to manage even if having resources. Hutchings study is focused on going abroad, even so it may make some contribution to understanding of glo bal consciousness characterised as moving towards a recognition and appreciation of increasingly global diversity and interdependence. Arguments about which is the best approach to international public relations education, courses and its numbers, or changing the context with its live experience and observations, largely missed the important point that methods have to be fit for their purposes. For some purposes, this is the best, and in other cases the choice will be this and that. Furthermore, although those approaches rest on very different use of resources and possibilities, they can be complementary in the hands of future research and need to be incompatible. Many studies would benefit from mindfully using each approach for different purposes at different stages of the internationalisation. Fuller discussions of this are to be found in some public relations papers, including (Neff, 1991, Dibrova and Kabanova, 2004, Peterson and Mak, 2006, Chung, 2007/8, Dolby and Rahman, 2008). CHALLENGES/BARRIERS: Authors such as Kalupa and Carroll Bateman (1980) have suggested that public relations educators have failed maintain the currency of the teaching in relation to the practice. On the other hand, Holbrook (1985, 1995) has been one of the most prominent critics of the idea of selecting research topics based on what is of interest to practitioners. He has argued that such an orientation tarnishes the purity of the academic endeavour. Amongst other challenges Bardhan (1999) recorded that educators feel unprepared at present to handle the task effectively and lack of interest among students. Falb (1991, 1992) has claimed that because of putting public relations curriculums in either Mass Communications or Journalism public relations has been inhibited in its growth in academic and professional areas. Similar study was conducted by (Pincus et al., 1994), who argued that communication topics do not rate high in MBA programs: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“If public relations faculty do not champion the recognition of public relations topics in MBA programs, the profession will never realize entry to the highest levels of corporate decision making (1994: p.55) . Making an analogy, this statement might be extended by claiming that If public relations faculty do not champion the recognition of international public relations concepts in Postgraduate programs, the profession will lack behind present state of research and practice. This statement finds a reflection in recent research as well. Papers like Sriramesh (2002) claim that it is time for educators to integrate experiences from other continents into the PR body of knowledge, thereby building PR curricula that contribute to training truly multicultural PR professionals. CONCLUSION: Sriramesh and Vercic (2003) underlined the compelling need for a text describing and explaining public relations practices and body of knowledge in different parts of the world. Their call for research has been taken up and largely because it proposed a framework, which made it easier to facilitate global research. Thereby, by critically examining the framework scholars in different countries enrich international public relations body of knowledge and provides prove or counter-arguments to the Global theory. Nonetheless, it might be argued that among those five factors, which have been put forward by Sriramesh and Vercic (2003), one is missing professional PR training. In this regard it can be concluded the following. Firstly, such indicator as level of professional training can be considered as a sixth factor influencing practicing public relations in country. Secondly, on the basis of a global concept can be developed a similar concept and subsequently applied to the study of inte rnational public relations education. Thirdly, basing on data provided from the five factors, it allowed to determine the degree of standardization vs. localization of IPR programs and courses and to identify barriers and obstacles. Achieving internationalisation of public relations education is concluded to be important for three reasons. First, because many graduating students will be finding employment internationally and benefit from having been educated to be effective in differing cultural settings. Second, because rapid changes in national immigration policies have meant that many more nations are considerably more multicultural than they have been in the past and citizens need to be more conscious of diversity in their national and organisational surroundings. Third, because the pace of changes in the international political economy necessitates that people must be responsive to international economic and business forces. Thus, students who receive an internationally focused public relations education should be more culturally and socially aware and prepared to cope with the demands of rapid international economic, political and social change (Hutchings et al., 2002). Professional education and training are one of the major issues in every country in which public relations is practised. Even the US, where there are hundreds of public relations education are frequently expressed, and senior practitioners rise questions about the value of existing public relations education programmes (White, 1991, p. 184). Sommerness and Beaman (1994) found only few offerings of university courses emphasising international public relations across the United States at that time. However, most recent study has shown that some authors (Hatzitos and Lariscy, 2008) report an increased interest in scholarly research in international public relations and an effort to internationalise the public relations curricula at many U.S. universities. Despite the fact that significant gaps were found between desired outcomes and those actually found in the opinions of both practitioner and educators, certain surveys (Neff et al., 1999) have revealed strong agreement between educator s and practitioners regarding the training, experience and expertise outcomes needed for career development in public relations. Thus, while the goals of public relations education to certain extent seem clear, the means of achieving those goals, including curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, may not be as clear. However, studies such as examining perception, asking whether or not IPR should be emphasised doesnt really contribute anymore as the concept have solidly grounded. There have been dozen papers reporting that call for a development. What more valuable for this particular research is the fact that international public relations education requires to be integrated into global PR perspective. International experiences, approaches and cases must be studied and shared between international academic societies. The literature review recorded a substantial gap in international public relations education research elsewhere than U.S. Therefore there is a need in further researching and describing development in IPRE globally. This particular study will explore perceptions and state of IPR education in two countries the United Kingdom and Russia.

My Ideal Veterinary University Essay -- Expository Definition Essays

The Ideal University   Ã‚  Ã‚   What makes an ideal university?   An ideal university is one which is student focused and centered on the needs of individual students.   Having lectures and classes, which exceed 35 students', makes it impossible to obtain the best education possible.   A university which is dedicated to making sure every student understands and learns at his or her own pace is one which is most effective.   My "ideal university" is one which only accepts those students whom are veterinary majors.   I have named my "ideal university" Jobs University.   Jobs University would be one which will focus strictly on veterinary medicine and will work towards producing successful veterinarians. Those students who are majoring in veterinary medicine, like me, would benefit to the highest degree by attending my "ideal university", Jobs University.   This university would be one which resembles the Waldorf system schooling which "has forged a unique blend of progressive and traditional teaching methods that seem to achieve impressive results - intellectual, social, [and] even moral" (Oppenheimer 71).   The effectiveness of the style of teaching and its effects on the students learning would be only part of the benefits of this university.   Among basic academic subjects, the focus of study is math and sciences, subjects that are needed to become successful veterinarians.   David Alsop, chairman of Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, calls these types of institutions the world's "best-kept education secret" because of their effectiveness in providing the best learning experience and environment (Oppenheimer 71).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In order for a student to obtain the best education possible, one needs ind... ...ember, 1996.   (74:11) 5.   Expanded Academic ASAP. 1 December 2002.   Keyword: Animal Science. http://web3.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/>. Oppenheimer, Todd.   "Schooling the Imagination." The Atlantic Monthly, September,1999.   (284:2) 71.   Expanded Academic ASAP.   1 December 2002.   Keyword: Waldorf Schooling.   <http://web3.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark>. "Veterinary School Joins New Trend in Surgery Courses."   The New York Times, July 1,1991.   (140:B4) 4.   Expanded Academic ASAP.   1 December 2002.   Keyword: Veterinary Schooling. <http://web3.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark>. Whittaker, Martin.   "College Heeds the Call of the Wild."   Times Educational Supplement, October 27, 2000.   (440:A36) 1.   Expanded Academic ASAP. 1 December 2002. Keyword: Veterinary Schools. <http://web3.infotract.galegroup.com/itw/infomark>.

Early History Of The Pipe Organ :: essays research papers fc

Early History of the Pipe Organ The â€Å"king of instruments† has a long history, one which can arguably be traced to the concept of a collection of â€Å"fixed-pitched pipes blown by a single player (such as the panpipes)† (Randel 583). The first examples of pipe organs with the basic features of today can be traced to the third century B.C.E. in the Greco-Roman arena; it is said to have been invented by Ktesibios of Alexander and contained â€Å"a mechanism to supply air under pressure, a wind-chest to store and distribute it, keys and valves to admit wind to the pipes, and one or more graded sets of fixed-pitch pipes.† (Randel 583) These early organs used water as a means to supply air-pressure, hence the use of the terms hydraulic and hydraulis. Hydraulic organs were in use for several hundred years before the concept of bellows, similar in concept and style to those of a blacksmith, came into use with the organ. Numerous bellows were used to supply air to the wind-chest, often being pumped in pairs by men. The disadvantages of this method of air supply include the lack of consistent pressure, which leads to inconsistent pitch and tuning; also, many people were required to operate the bellows since there were upwards of twenty-four bellows per organ (Hopkins & Rimbault 35). Also, with organs of this size, the bellows took up large amounts of space, thus forcing the organ to be located in a fixed place, such as a church. Up until the eleventh century (approximately), pitch and range of organs were extremely limited, mainly in part to the lack of a any style of keyboard. Keys of a sort were introduced around this time, though not in the manner we are accustomed to. â€Å"The earliest keyboards were sets of levers played by the hands rather than the fingers.† (Randel 428) They looked similar to large rectangles â€Å" an ell long and three inches wide† (Hopkins & Rimbault 33) and were played by pushing on them with a hand, although some were large enough that one might need to step on them. While allowing no real technical dexterity, they were sufficient to play plain-song and chant melodies, particularly with the use of more than one player. As time progressed, the keys became smaller and more numerous until they began to resemble the modern keyboard (except for range) in appearance ca. 1400. While these large early organs were used in limited fashion in churches, many of the organs of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were known as portatives or regals. Portatives were small enough to be carried and played by a single

Life Without Technology Essay

If someone told me that I would have to be technology-free for 24 hours I would probably have asked them for a tranquilizer so I could sleep through the horrid day. From the moment my alarm clock goes off in the morning to the time I set it at night I am using some sort of technology. I couldn’t even eat lunch at school without the help of those little machines that take our meal plans. Last week I did my best and tried as hard as I could to be free from technology. Obviously, being at college made it impossible but it was a good experience nonetheless. After my alarm goes off, it’s time to take a shower. The lights aren’t necessary so I leave them off. I come back from my shower with sopping wet hair and decide to suck it up and leave the blow dryer in the closet. It’s Monday so I only have one class, which means I have more time to torture myself. On the way to lunch my roommate and I take the stairs; I live on the 7th floor so we know this won’t last long. On my way out I contemplate whether or not the lock on our mailboxes is too technologically advanced for me to use. Honestly, I would have to admit that my day was not all that bad. My wet hair eventually dried itself from running up and down the seven flights of stairs. There is so much that we take for granted it is unbelievable. Even if I wanted to be absolutely free from technology I couldn’t. Lights are on everywhere you go and someone always wants you to listen to the message on their cell phone from their boyfriend. There are unavoidable motion sensor lights and unavoidable automatic doors. Car trips, if driving in the car were even allowed, would be extremely boring not to mention dangerous. Without traffic signals there would be a lot of accidents; for some reason I don’t think people would pay attention to little men in bright orange vests  waving flags. I am convinced that without technology smoking and drug use would increase and people would be fat. While people would be forced to walk most places I think that they would just choose to stay closer to home. Sleeping would probably take precedence over most activities, except maybe those associated with reproduction. So basically if you think about it the world would literally be one big, fat, high, drunk family. On Mondays I have geography and my teacher lectures with the help of PowerPoint. Since there is no way I can copy notes from just listening I once again must give in to the machine. On the way back from class my roommate and I cut through the Science building to make our trip shorter. It isn’t until I am through the second door that I realize the doors are handicapped accessible and automatic. It’s amazing the little things we take for granted. When I get back to the room, seven flights later, automatically the first thing I do is flick on the lights. I then shake my head and turn them off.

Disorder/Illness of hand

The hand of a man is one of most active organs of the body. It consists of various parts such as bones, muscles, fingers, thumbs, nerves and skin all of which can be affected by different forms of ailments. Common disorders in the hands include injuries, ganglia, and infections, ailments of the nerves, blood vessels, skin, osteoarthritis and tendonitis. Injuries can result to fractures on part of the bone, rupturing of ligaments and even dislocations (David, 2004). The largest part of the hand is composed of fingers.Disorders in this part of the hand may occur on the joints as a result of strained activity or due an infection of arthritis. The curling of the fingertip which leads to failure of the fingertip to straighten is known as the mallet finger. In most cases, this disorder results from an injury which leads to tearing of the tendon from the bone. This condition is treated by placing the affected finger in a straight position and maintaining it for some time to let the conditio n heal. Button-hole deformity is a disorder which affects the joint of the middle finger.The finger bends in a fixed position in the direction of the palm. In addition the outermost finger tends to portray an excessive bending in the direction away from the palm. This disorder is caused by the rheumatoid arthritis infection. The swelling on the finger joints forming cysts is known as osteoarthritis of the hand causes painful swellings on affected the part of the hand (David, 2004). Ganglion is another disorder which presents itself in form of gelatinous swellings which appear on the back of the palm or wrist.They develop into firm shaped swellings which protrude above the surface of the skin. Even though they are painless, ganglia causes a lot of discomfort on the patient which limits efficient use of hands. Infection disorders may be related to bacterial and viral infections. Common bacterial infections on the hand cause abscess or swellings. These may occur on parts with injured c ells such as wounds and bites. Application of antibiotic prevents the possibilities of getting these kinds of infections. Infections of the soft pulp tissue of the fingertip are known as felon.This causes swelling leading to death of surrounding tissues. The common viral infection on hand results in Herpetic Whitlow which is caused by the infection of herpes which spreads to hands forming fluid-filled blisters on the skin of the fingers. This disorder however disappears with treatment of herpes infection. Osteoarthritis presents itself through the extension of the bones over the outermost joints. This leads to formation of painful swelling on the finger joints. Joints between the fingers are not affected by the condition.The affected joints may be misaligned forming a crooked hand. Erosive osteoarthritis forms a swelling around the affected tissues. Sometimes the bands of the fibrous tissue (tendons) along the palms may tighten forming a claw like hand. This is known as palmar fibro matosis. It is treated trough injection of corticosteroid into the tendons. Severe cases may require a corrective surgery. This condition has been found to have hereditary characteristics and in most cases it affects men over the age of 45 years (Taylor, 2008).Numbness on hand is caused by the cutting of supply of blood or compression of the nerves at the wrist due to the bending of the wrist. This mostly happens when one is sleeping. Numbness as a result of compression of the nerves is referred to as Carpal Turner Syndrome (David, 2004). One is advised to keep the hand straight to prevent the development of this condition. Concisely, most of the ailments of the hands lead to a restriction on the use of the affected hands. Seeking of proper medical attention is necessary to rectify any condition in time.