The concept of the invisible college is a key focus of scientific communication research with many studies on this topic in the literature. However, while such studies have contributed to an understanding of the invisible college, they have not adequately explained the interaction of social and structural processes in this phenomenon. As a consequence, past research has described the invisible college differently based on researchers’ perspectives, resulting in misinterpretations or inconsistent definitions of the relevant social and structural processes. Information science and related disciplines have focused on the structural processes that lead to scholarly products or works while placing less emphasis on the social processes. To advance understanding of the invisible college and its dimensions (including both social processes and structural processes), a proposed model (Modern Invisible College Model, MICM) has been built based on the history of the invisible college and Lievrouw’s (1989) distinction between social and structural processes. The present study focuses on the social processes of informal communication between scholars via social media, rather than on the structural processes that lead to scholarly products or works. A developed survey and an employed quantitative research method were applied for data collection. The research population involved 77 scholars from the Institute of Public Administration (IPA), in Saudi Arabia. Descriptive statistics, frequency and percentage were conducted for each statement. Means and standard deviations were calculated. The results indicate that the majority of participants heavily use social media for scientific communication purposes. Also, the results confirm that scholars consider social media to be an effective and appropriate tool for scientific communication. Seven factors were found in the findings to have positive correlations with uses and gratifications theory and the use of social media. This research contributes to and benefits scholars, reference groups (i.e., the invisible college itself), and institutions, and provides insight about the systematic development of indices for the use of informal communication channels.

In an effort to advance global excellence in nursing education, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI)/Chamberlain College of Nursing Center for Excellence in Nursing Education (CENE) launched a 12-month Experienced Nurse Faculty Leadership Academy (ENFLA) in October 2014. The ENFLA was designed for experienced faculty (Leadership Scholars) with at least seven years of full-time employment in a faculty role, who wished to increase their leadership acumen and develop or increase the skill sets essential for success in a faculty leadership role. Program goals included to: Further academic career development and success. Promote personal and professional leadership development. Develop and begin to implement a personal leadership progression plan. Expand the influence of the Leadership Scholar within his or her sponsoring academic institution, the community, and the profession in the context of teaching, scholarship, or service. Advance nursing education through leadership development projects implemented by Leadership Scholars during the program. Promote experienced nurse faculty retention in academe. Using a triad model, nine Leadership Scholars, nine Mentors, and eight Faculty worked collaboratively in this pilot cohort to assist the Scholars in planning and implementing comprehensive leadership projects, as well as identifying and implementing an individualized leadership development plan. Strategies for program and personal goal achievement included online learning activities, online discussion forums, personal reflection assessments, and face-to-face workshops. For this session, each of the nine pilot cohort Scholars will present their individualized leadership development plan and share their experiences they, as well as insights gained in achieving these leadership goals. In particular, Scholars will address how this program and the leadership goals, will allow them an expanded scope of influence as a nursing leader and change agent in the future (Leadership project outcomes are demonstrated by poster presentation at another session at the Convention). Additional information about applying for the 2016/2017 ENFLA cohort will be made available to attendees.

Climate change, as well as posited solutions, is arguably an increasing political problem and therefore relevant to study for the political scientist. Solutions may entail problems in themselves.Finnish ecologist Pentti Linkola has argued that humankinds’ only hope of survival is reducing the population greatly by large-scale, state-organized killings, and further dismantling of what has grown fundamental to many modern societies, such as democracy or private economic freedom.What happens to human rights if such a proposal is realized? In this thesis, Linkolas’ arguments are put against scholars believing that human rights are fundamental and inviolable parts of being human. The aim is to unveil the underlying ideas of Linkola, and analyze how his argumentation dismisses human rights. A broader aim is to see if these ideas can be connected to the ideology of ecofacism as it manifests today.This thesis answers two research questions:- In what way does Pentti Linkolas’ argumentation in Can life prevail? (2009) contradict an idea of human rights as given?- What may the underlying ideas behind this contradiction be?Results show that arguments of Linkola not only dismisses, but deem ideas of human rights dangerous for human survival.

The publication of Qur’an commentaries authored by contemporary Muslims provide glimpses into influential trends that have been competing for the attention of contemporary Muslims. This dissertation primarily examines three works of Qur’anic translation and exegesis (Ar. Tafsīr) in the English language. These works are representative of three influential trends or schools of thought in contemporary Islam: an “Islamist” or “Activist” trend represented by Abu’l ‘Ala Mawdudi, a rationalist-modernist trend represented by Muhammad Asad, and a Salafi trend represented by the Mubarakpūrī English abridgement of the medievalist Ibn Kathīr's hadith-based tafsir. These commentators often engage earlier Qur’anic commentaries and make choices about which voices and positions from the “classical legacy” they foreground, highlighting what they believe may resonate with their readers. The first chapter provides an historical overview to some of the major trends in Qur’anic exegesis. The second chapter provides background on the commentators, including the social and political contexts of the commentators as well as their education and important aspects of their careers. The third and fourth chapters focus on two chapters of the Qur’an (Q12 and Q18) as these appear in the three commentaries, highlighting how modern commentators reflect their own concerns and context and their various reform projects in their interpretations of Muslim scripture. I supplement the main three commentators with a sample of contemporary living voices who also comment on these two Qur’anic chapters to highlight how Muslims continue to reinterpret the Qur’anic texts in relation to what they see as most relevant and meaningful. Chapter five looks at how these works have been received and considers how they offer a window into the contestation taking place in contemporary Islam. I conclude with a reflection upon my own teaching of these two chapters in a university setting. While the Islamic scholarly traditions and Qur’anic commentaries are a multilayered, polyvalent tradition, these traditions are often (unfortunately) truncated by many contemporary Muslims. I try to highlight certain areas where the contemporary commentaries are, on the one hand, generally narrower than the rich polyvalent traditions of the premodern exegetical tradition, but on the other hand, move in new directions as Muslims today relate their readings of scripture to contemporary concerns. This analysis of contemporary Qur’anic commentaries and their commentators moves beyond freezing Muslims into the fixed category of the “premodern.” Though the three commentaries were chosen to be representative of three important trends in modern Islam, the dissertation is also careful to show that the boundaries between these approaches are often fluid, providing concrete examples of how contemporary Muslims are reinterpreting Muslim scripture, affirming and selecting from the premodern tradition, critical of certain aspects of that tradition, and also adding their own voices to make the Qur’anic text speak to their modern situations.

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This dissertation examines the links and lasting impact of reformist Muslim scholars, or ‘ula-ma, and the organizations they established in Algeria, Senegal, and Mali in the mid-twentieth century. The dissertation focuses on the Union Culturelle Musulmane (UCM), established in 1953 by a young Senegalese Muslim named Cheikh Touré along with several companions who had all studied together in Algeria with the Algerian Association of Muslim ‘Ulama (AUMA in French). The UCM became an important advocate for reformist Islam in the period before independence; it established branches in several countries (including Mali) and advocated across colonial and postcolonial borders not just for changes to “traditional” Muslim practices while also challenging the leadership and structure of Sufi brotherhoods. The UCM, inspired by the AUMA but also its diverse local and regional contexts, pushed French officials – and later officials in Senegal, Mali, and elsewhere – for a place for Islam in public life while also advocating for moral reform and more modernist Muslim education as an inte-gral and protected part of educational systems before and after independence. This dissertation makes several main arguments about the UCM and reformist Islam more broadly in the mid-twentieth century. Firstly, it argues that an enduring connection existed between reformist Muslims on both sides of the Sahara, one shaped by mutual exchange and discussion and which continued even after independence from France. Secondly, it argues that the UCM and its off-shoots represented an early example of Islamic advocacy that was both political and moral in its focus, stretching the confines of how “Islamism” is often defined while still using politics to obtain religious and social goals. And finally, this dissertation argues that reformist and salafi Muslims had a significant impact on social order as well as other Muslim groups, reshaping politics as well as Islam even beyond the reformists’ adherents.