This dissertation explores the intangible cultural heritage of the collection of musical instruments from the Mandé region of West Africa (present-day Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia) currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It uses the geographical shadow of the Mandé empire—once the locus of economic power globally—to circumscribe a collection of twenty-three instruments at the museum that share historical and socio-cultural characteristics, although the ruptures between them are also illustrated through individual analysis of each. It then considers their significance over time at the museum, in current debates concerning African cultural heritage and in terms of community access. The culmination of eleven years of musical study and practice in and out of Senegal, the U.K. and the U.S., this dissertation argues for a practice-oriented rather than object-oriented analysis of cultural heritage.

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New York City: A Collage of Cultures is a single-movement programmatic orchestral work that features polytonality, prallelism, sound-mass, micro-tones, polychordal rhythmic ostinato, neo-impressionism, and folk themes and anthems from sundry cultures and nationalities. The simultaneity of contextual material at one point necessitates the employment of three conductors. The composition portrays America as a "melting pot" through its busiest immigration center, itself a microcosm of diverse international elements. This is achieved by the depiction of three different settings: a boat sailing from a foreign port, bound for New York Cty; New York itself in all of its awesome fury; and a capsule image of a conglomerate of turn-of-the-century emigrants and their interaction throughout the voyage.

Schools are remarkably resilient institutions, with the core of instruction and the dynamics between teachers, students, and school leaders remaining largely unchanged despite a churn of reforms efforts. To move away from “tinkering” around the edges of the system, reach deeper into classrooms, and mitigate the effects of policy churn, teacher-driven approaches to organizing school improvement have been promoted. One such approach is teacher leadership. Teacher leadership seeks to position teachers as decision makers in their school communities, so that they might influence their fellow teachers, school leaders, and other stakeholders to improve teaching and learning practices, subsequently improving school quality and, ultimately, student achievement. While teacher leadership initiatives have been popular with school leaders, policymakers, funders, and advocacy organizations since the 1980s, researchers and evaluators have struggled to quantify the impact of teacher leadership, thus leading to questions about the viability of programs to move the proverbial needle on student achievement and other measures. This dissertation explores how the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) attempted to impact instruction and school quality, and institute distributed leadership practices through Teacher Career Pathways (TCP), a teacher leadership program. My investigation examined four questions: 1) Do stakeholders in schools with teacher leaders experience changes to organizational processes and relational dynamics over time?; 2) Do schools participating in TCP show greater improvement in school quality compared to schools that do not participate?; 3) Do TCP-participating schools show greater gains in student achievement scores than schools that do not participate?; and 4) Do schools implementing TCP under centralized oversight from the district observe different outcomes than schools that are entirely self-directed and implemented under decentralized control? To answer these questions, I use quantitative data collected by the NYCDOE, including TCP annual survey results, School Quality Review (SQR) ratings, and student achievement outcomes for ELA and math in grades 3 through 8. I apply descriptive and inferential statistics to examine changes in survey responses and SQR ratings, and difference-in-difference and event study approaches to analyze student achievement. I find that where school leaders staff teacher leaders into formal roles with defined responsibilities, positional authority, and commensurate salary increases, schools show improvement in the experiences of stakeholders, school quality, and student achievement. In the case of student achievement, this improvement compounds over time, with schools exhibiting increasing gains in each year following the initial introduction of teacher leaders. Schools that have qualified teacher leaders who are never staffed see no changes in any areas examined. Finally, schools that staffed teacher leaders with funding and implementation support from the district experience even more improvement than schools staffing teacher leaders but with no district oversight. These findings offer crucial insight for districts and schools, making the case for increased teacher empowerment and teacher contributions to school-level policymaking, and highlighting the influence centralized governance at the district level can have on the success of initiatives aimed at decentralizing authority within schools.

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no abstract provided by author / Master of Science

Too often, space or void, has been considered an a priori condition. Rather than using it and it's relationship to solids to create a harmony and balance of form, void has been unconsciously disregarded as a virtual nonelement in design. This thesis attempts to bring a tangible character to the void; to design the void as if it were a solid form. In doing so, the limiting properties of solid are broken down. Defining characteristics of solid and void are shared and boundaries are blurred. What was once known becomes unknown. / Master of Architecture

Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2012

The Urban Renewal Program was an offshoot of the Federal housing Act of 1949, which alloted Federal funds to cities for redevelopment and slum clearance. Critics of urban renewal believe that the real intent of this program was redevelopment of the Central Business District, although officially the goal of the program was to provide a decent home and a pleasant living environment for the people. The result was improvement of inner city areas at the cost of uprooting and displacement of its residents.The Federal Urban Renewal Program ended in 1973, but local governments retained the option to use this strategy to revitalize neighborhoods. The politicians and planners of New York City have retained their faith in the Urban Renewal Program. They have modified the original program and concepts and are currently using it successfully to increase the housing stock and improve neighborhoods.The approach to urban renewal in New York City is very different from the preconceived notion that large scale demolition is the only method of implementation of an urban renewal plan. The scale and type of action varies according to specific needs of an area. Demolition is done only when necessary so that minimal relocation is required.Although provision of housing is the main thrust of the Urban Renewal Program, urban design issues are considered when preparing an urban renewal plan. This is a jointeffort by Federal, City and State agencies together with citizen input to create a better living environment for the people.This thesis analyses the reasons for this success through a discussion of case studies of current urban renewal projects in New York City. The focus of this research is on the neighborhoods of Arverne and Edgemere located in the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. This study traces the planning process for these two urban renewal areas from their inception to the current status and identifies how urban renewal can be beneficial for the social and physical environment, and how it can be used as an effective planning tool. / Department of Urban Planning

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.