purcc 2012 - University of the Pacific

Oral Presentation Abstracts
(WHO, 2000, 2004, 2008a). As future physical
educators, we can play a crucial role in
developing lifelong physical activity habits and
healthy lifestyles in future generations of
Americans. Indeed, the US Surgeon General
(1996, 2004) has identified the production of
quality PE teachers as a critical strategy in
addressing the health concerns of the nation. Our
research project explores how we can mobilize
community partnerships to improve the
pedagogical skills of pre-service PE teachers and
better equip us for the diverse learning
environments we will encounter in the
classroom. In conjunction with Stockton Unified
School District (SUSD), we implemented an 8-
week after-school physical activity program
(Tiger PRIDE) at an elementary school in
Stockton, CA. In addition to providing physical
activity opportunities for a high-need population,
Tiger PRIDE was designed to develop our use of
the pedagogical strategies, practices and
principles necessary to optimize student learning.
Drawing on video footage of our teaching
episodes and quantitative systematic observation
data, this presentation will demonstrate how this
project resulted in an improvement in our
teaching skills across several categories
(including, but not limited to, provision of
feedback, quantity of idiosyncrasies, teacher
movement and time utilization). In addition, we
will highlight how Tiger PRIDE improved the
participants’ step count, skill-based cognitive
understanding and enjoyment. We call for the
initiation of similar programs in pre-service PE
teacher education programs across the nation.
Anti-Blackness in Enlightenment
Thought & the Limitations of W.E.B. Du
Bois
Danielle Procope
Faculty Mentor: Jeffrey Hole
Race is perhaps the most devastating social
construct of human history. The concept of
blackness evokes ideas of inhumanity, evil, and
barbarity, and yet this categorization hovers
calamitously over a group of human beings. It
denies the full personhood of those who lack the
mythologized purity of whiteness.
The problem of blackness sees its foundational
moment in the Enlightenment period.
Enlightenment thinkers, from Hume to Kant,
from Jefferson to Voltaire, employing a brand of
rationalism meant to justify racially based
slavery and degradation, classified black people
as less than whites and slightly above animals.
This research presentation will examine the ways
in which Enlightenment thinking has retained its
power in the present. It will simultaneously
explore how a movement ostensibly predicated
on human rights managed to legitimately curtail
the definition of personhood to white men alone.
Despite the ideas of human equality embodied in
America’s founding documents and the formal
equality black people receive today, the problem
of blackness very much remains. This troubling
race concept has been perpetuated to modern
times in oftentimes deceptively invisible, but still
powerfully impactful ways, invalidating the
possibility of a post-racial society.
I will use texts of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois to address
the problematic nature Enlightenment thinking
poses for a 19th century black intellectual who
desires to theoretically demonstrate their
humanity. Du Bois attempted to dissolve the
rational basis for racism while simultaneously
evoking the very ideology that is predicated
upon the verity of a racial hierarchy. However,
his move was necessary in his time, creating the
possibility for more radical modes of thought
today.
Persistency in stock performance of
sequential mergers and acquisitions in
Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT)
industry in the USA
Darya Ramanava
Faculty mentors: Phil Zhu, Bill Herrin
As the value of mergers and acquisitions
(M&As) in the USA increased 35% higher in
2011 from previous year, more and more
companies perceive M&As as a way to increase
shareholder value and achieve higher degree of
market power. Extensive research reaffirms that
a lot of companies experience an increase in their
earnings shortly after the first acquisition.
However, academic literature lacks deep analysis
in the area of sequential mergers and
acquisitions. Can companies use successive
M&As as a strategic tool to achieve substantial
growth and maximize shareholder wealth? More
importantly, does this rule hold in one of US
fastest growing industries – real estate
investment trusts?
33