Natural disasters affect millions of lives each year devastating educational institutions and their communities. This case study identifies lessons learned by school leadership in the aftermath of a devastating tornado that destroyed one‐third of the city, injured over 1,000 people, and took the lives of 158 people including members of the school community. The data were collected through personal interviews with 10 district administrators and educators who were directly affected by the crisis. The findings presented identify a set of lessons learned that may guide other educational institutions to be more prepared in a crisis situation including the importance of hiring expert help, creating a plan to receive resources, and establishing practices of communication that support communities in crisis situations.
The integration of learning is a central goal for all professions. The question of how to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and between the classroom and the field, is one which has preoccupied social work education since its very beginnings in universities in the United Kingdom and the United States in the early twentieth century. Between 2003 and 2005, the Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education funded a project which piloted a new approach to the integration of learning for practice. This paper reports on the findings of that project, and suggests ways of taking its findings forward in the future.
When they enter institutions of higher education, students typically leave behind one culture to join another. Despite the higher rates of attrition for first-generation students over continuing-generation students and undecided students over declared students, little research has been focused on undeclared first-generation students. To understand the challenges and experiences of first-generation undecided students transitioning to a new and unfamiliar academic environment, we applied a reacculturation process to this qualitative exploratory case study of 35 students. Data came from interviews, focus group interactions, observations, and written responses to open-ended questions, which were subsequently triangulated. Findings revealed heightened feelings of stress, desire to become comfortable on campus, reliance upon continuing-generation friends, helpfulness of a specialized first-year seminar course, and uncertainty about advisors' roles.
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