Research Proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Research Proposal - Essay Example While a minimum amount of mobility of faculty is healthy, high rates of turnover exist and entrances are not favourable. The departure of any faculty member disrupts the teaching and research program and leaves the students without any familiar advice. High turnover usually leads to soaring administrative cost requirement for recruitment, selection of faculty, training and development of the new faculties. In addition, the remaining faculty shoulder the increased workloads without any increase in pay. The turnover rates can affect the prospective employees of the universities and leave a negative impact. High turnover is often associated with poor productivity, lesser job satisfaction and also stress among the members. The disruption and cost of faculty turnover has also lead to other undesirable outcomes which tend to be less noticeable than dispirited and overworked remaining faculty. In a survey conducted by Virginia University, it was analysed that the computer science department had the highest rate of turnover and the female’s undergraduates represented the highest rate of turnover. The unwanted outcome which gets associated with turnover often get exacerbated when faculty for replacement are hard to find (Cohoon, Shwalb & Chen, 2003, p. 1). According to a study conducted in Texas it was analysed that the faculty turnover rate averaged to about 6% for public universities and is said to have remained unchanged from the fiscal year 1999. The faculty turnover is lower at better and larger established universities. It was found that universities with 500 tenured had overall turnover rate of about 5% and it was 7% for other institutions (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 2001). Faculty turnover has different meanings at different ranks. For example, at the level of assistant professors, turnover reflects voluntary movements with respect to other institutions and involuntary mobility and at this stage it reflects voluntary mobility. At the profe ssor level, it reflects voluntary mobility and also retirement decisions. Studies have suggested that, in addition to other factors, the faculty member’s salary is one of the major influences leading to faculty turnover but no study has yet addressed the extent to which the salaries or compensation tends to affect the faculty turnover rate (Ehrenberg, Kasper & Rees, 1990, p. 3). As per research, it was found that the reason for faculty members to stay or leave depends on the age of the professors. The relation between the age of the faculty and rate of turnover tends to follow a U-shaped curve as researchers have found that younger members have a high rate of departure, which declines during mid-career and rises again during retirement period (Ingersoll, 2001). As per the findings from other universities, most of the universities have researched and found the reason behind the high rate of turnover mainly through primary research based on questionnaires. The respondents will be the senior professors, associate professors and also the assistant professors. The same technique was used by Texas Higher Education to arrive at the conclusion as to why the turnover rate was high (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 2001). Similarly, the Patriot University in Boston would follow the same technique to determine the problem statement of high turnover rate at the University. Research

Try to defend dualism as a viable philosophical position. Entertain Essay

Try to defend dualism as a viable philosophical position. Entertain objections to your arguments and reply showing how dualism c - Essay Example Dualism is the concept that declares that the brain is not everything and that there is a mind that exists apart from it. In fact, the idea of dualism has extended from metaphysics to religion, psychology and phenomenology. Dualism is not only about the physical and the nonphysical; it is also about good and evil, mental states and outward behavior, as well as neural connections and physical action. One of the arguments for dualism is the Knowledge Argument, or the idea that the physical and mental substances seem to have properties which are irreconcilable, or that the mental substances have properties that can never be reduced to physical forms. Thus, as the goal of the Knowledge Argument is to argue for the existence of the â€Å"irreducible [and] immaterial nature of the mind† (Robinson), then it is an argument for dualism. In a thought experiment that demonstrates the validity of the Knowledge Argument, a scientist who is deaf from birth has learned all the perfect scient ific understanding of the mechanism of hearing, but when this scientist undergoes an operation to restore his hearing, â€Å"it is suggested that he will then learn ‘something’ he did not known before† (Robinson). ... It is true that the knowledge one has of hearing, such as its anatomical and physiological aspects – or â€Å"how to hear,† can be reduced to the physical and can be proven by physical experiments. Nevertheless, â€Å"what it is like to hear† can only remain mental and the existence of such somehow prove the validity of the Knowledge Argument and of Dualism as well. However, one objection to this argument is the idea that â€Å"physical concepts [such as â€Å"how to hear†] and phenomenal concepts [such as â€Å"what it is like to hear†] are cognitively independent† (Nida-Rumelin). Based on the previously discussed thought experiment, it is possible for the scientist to know phenomenal hearing or â€Å"what it is like to hear† simply from knowing the physical concept of â€Å"how to hear.† This therefore means that â€Å"what it is like to hear† is actually an entirely different piece of information from â€Å"how to hea r† and thus the former cannot be regarded as the irreducible mental property of the latter. My reply to this objection is that although the physical may be considered different from or unrelated to the phenomenal, the mere fact that the phenomenal is distinct from the physical is a proof that there are indeed two aspects of something: the physical and the nonphysical. The objection presented against dualism is weak as it simply evades the issue by criticizing the connection between the physical and the phenomenal. Aside from the Knowledge Argument, dualism is also argued for by the validity of predicate dualism. Predicate dualism is the concept which states that â€Å"psychological predicates are not reducible to physical