Biography of Billy Graham and His Accomplishments in His Career :: Billy Graham Religion Evangelism Essays

Biography of Billy Graham and His Accomplishments in His Career "This is the Hour of Decision with Billy Graham, coming to you from Minneapolis Minnesota" Billy Graham, has preached to more than 210 million people through a live audience, more than anyone else in history. Not only that, but Mr. Graham has reached millions more through live televison, video and film. This has led Billy to be on the "Ten Most Admired Men in the World" from the Gallup Poll since 1955 a total of thirty-nine times. This includes thirty-two consecutive more than any other individual in the world, placing him as the most popular American for about forty years. This essay is going to talk about Graham's personal life, and what kind of family he grew up in and im also going to talk in detail about how he became an evangelist, because I feel it is very important yet interesting. His accomplishments in the fifties are uncomparable, so I will be including a considerable amount of information concerning that topic. Finally I will be talking about his personal achievements, bo oks written, and how he has been a companion to some of the American Presidents. William Franklin Graham Jr. was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 17, 1918. Graham was raised on a dairy farm by William Franklin (deceased 1962) and Morrow Coffey Graham (deceased 1981). In 1943 he married his wife Ruth McCue Bell, and had four children Virginia 1945, Anne Morrow 1948, Ruth Bell 1950, William Franklin, Jr. 1952, and Nelson Edman 1958. At age eighty, he keeps fit by swimming, playing with is nineteen grand children, and from aerobic walking, in the mountains of North Carolina, where he currently lives. (Billy Graham Best Sellers, 1999) Billy Graham told Time Magazine in one article about his life before becoming a preacher. "I lived on a farm. The only difference was I had to get up early in the morning and go milk cows. When I came back from school that day, I had to milk those same cows. There were about twenty cows I had to milk. By hand. That was before they had those ma chines. I loved being a farmer. But God called me to this work that I'm in now. I knew it was God calling. I said, "Yes. I will follow what God wants me to do." And so I went to two or three schools to get education. Biography of Billy Graham and His Accomplishments in His Career :: Billy Graham Religion Evangelism Essays Biography of Billy Graham and His Accomplishments in His Career "This is the Hour of Decision with Billy Graham, coming to you from Minneapolis Minnesota" Billy Graham, has preached to more than 210 million people through a live audience, more than anyone else in history. Not only that, but Mr. Graham has reached millions more through live televison, video and film. This has led Billy to be on the "Ten Most Admired Men in the World" from the Gallup Poll since 1955 a total of thirty-nine times. This includes thirty-two consecutive more than any other individual in the world, placing him as the most popular American for about forty years. This essay is going to talk about Graham's personal life, and what kind of family he grew up in and im also going to talk in detail about how he became an evangelist, because I feel it is very important yet interesting. His accomplishments in the fifties are uncomparable, so I will be including a considerable amount of information concerning that topic. Finally I will be talking about his personal achievements, bo oks written, and how he has been a companion to some of the American Presidents. William Franklin Graham Jr. was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 17, 1918. Graham was raised on a dairy farm by William Franklin (deceased 1962) and Morrow Coffey Graham (deceased 1981). In 1943 he married his wife Ruth McCue Bell, and had four children Virginia 1945, Anne Morrow 1948, Ruth Bell 1950, William Franklin, Jr. 1952, and Nelson Edman 1958. At age eighty, he keeps fit by swimming, playing with is nineteen grand children, and from aerobic walking, in the mountains of North Carolina, where he currently lives. (Billy Graham Best Sellers, 1999) Billy Graham told Time Magazine in one article about his life before becoming a preacher. "I lived on a farm. The only difference was I had to get up early in the morning and go milk cows. When I came back from school that day, I had to milk those same cows. There were about twenty cows I had to milk. By hand. That was before they had those ma chines. I loved being a farmer. But God called me to this work that I'm in now. I knew it was God calling. I said, "Yes. I will follow what God wants me to do." And so I went to two or three schools to get education.

Eerie, Eldritch Erlkönig Essays -- Goya, Sleep of Reasons Produces Mon

Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters is an ominous image of the dark vision of humanity. A man sleeps, apparently peacefully, even though he is besieged by creatures associated in Spanish folk tradition with mystery and evil. There is an ‘unhomely’ feeling of darkness as the brutes seem to move in closer towards to the man that accomplishes a scary environment in the aquatint (a method of etching that creates a rough sketch). A mysterious creature sits at the center of the frame, staring not at the sleeping figure, but at us, the viewer. Goya forces the viewer to become an active participant in the painting — the monsters of his dreams even threaten us. This creates a blur between the dream and the real world; an obscure boundary between fantasy and reality. As Freud would claim, â€Å"we are faced with the reality of something that we have until now considered imaginary.† This negative quality of feeling, filled with dread and horror, repuls ion and anxiety, where the supernatural becomes a part of common reality, is one of the uncanny. It is a frightening feeling which leads back to something forgotten and lost. Similar to The Sleep of Reason, there is a sense of ambivalence in what is real in Hoffman’s tale The Sandman. The uncanniness attaches directly to the figure of the Sandman, which a boy believed to be true in his childhood. Hoffman exploits disturbances of the ego that involve regression to times when the ego had not yet clearly set itself off against the world outside and from others. Freud writes that the â€Å"uncanny [unheimlich] is something which is secretly familiar [heimlich], which has undergone repression and then returned from it.† The music of Schubert’s Erlkà ¶nig dramatizes Goethe’s haunting poem in an uncann... .... It contained works (from 1800s and 1900s) that were dominated by themes of the uncanny, the inexplicable and the incomprehensible from the 1800 1900s. A spokesperson at the exhibition said, â€Å"things that are mysterious or inexplicable will always evoke curiosity and interest.† Works Cited Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746–1828) Etching Freud, Sigmund, David McLintock, and Hugh Haughton. The Uncanny. New York: Penguin, 2003. Print. Hoffmann, E. T. A., and Christopher Moncrieff. The Sandman, Surrey. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Kerman, Joseph, and Vivian Kerman. Listen. New York, NY: Worth, 1980. Print. Gibbs, Christopher H. ""Komm, Geh' Mit Mir": Schubert's Uncanny "Erlkà ¶nig"" 19th-Century Music 19.2 (1995): 115-35. Print. Stein, Deborah. "Schubert's "Erlkà ¶nig:" Motivic Parallelism and Motivic Transformation." 19th-Century Music 13.2 (1989): 145-58. Print.

The Scarlet Letter Essay -- Literary Analysis, Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a cult classic. And with good reason. Anyone who simply believes that the title of this book just signifies that the protagonist wears a scarlet â€Å"A† on her dress in punishment of her adultery is ignorant. Obviously this paper would not be required if such were true. Instead, The Scarlet Letter is extremely ambiguous. One can argue that the scarlet letter is a character itself. I intend to flesh this out in literary, historic, and symbolic terms. What is The Scarlet Letter really about? â€Å"It has all the ingredients of a soap opera, but it is far more than that,† (Johnson 1995) writes Claudia Durst Johnson in her book which analyzes The Scarlet Letter thoroughly. Rather it is about the consequences of breaking the moral code, or in this case a moral law. It is about failing to be true to human nature. It is about cruel and terrible revenge. It is about the hypocrisy of members of a community who refuse to acknowledge that each of them is just as human, just as vulnerable to passionate feelings as the women they label an adulterer. I could go on and on. The Scarlet Letter’s psychological aspects seem never-ending. The letter is a symbol. While it has many implied meanings, it also has literal meanings. The first and most obvious of the latter is that Hester’s â€Å"A† stands for adultery and , as the narrator puts it, â€Å"women’s frailty and sinful passion† (83). But the â€Å"A† on her breast begins to represent different things as the story unfolds. For example, some people begin to think the â€Å"A† stands for able when she helps out the community. â€Å"In the course of the novel, the â€Å"A† seems to encompass the entire range of human beingness, from the earthly and passionate adulteress to the pure and... ...in America during the seventeenth century. He wanted his readers to develop their own interpretation of how America has changed. A number, except for certain exceptions, usually does not mean anything other than its value. Thus, it was ruled out. Why is it The Scarlet Letter? Why not The Scarlet A? A title is much more effective when it is more general. At the end of the day, authors write books to make money. The Scarlet A is a confusing, as well as less appealing, title that would have sold much less. The title is better off being general, and then allowing the book to be more specific. What is more memorable? â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† or â€Å"The Scarlet A: Adultery in the 1600’s?† The Scarlet Letter was titled the way it was for a reason. It symbolizes and appeals to every major theme in the book, while making it obvious on first glance what the book centralizes on.

In Support of Liberalism In Harry Potter Essay

In the series of books written about Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling, liberalism and civil rights are a major point of concern. In the early books, there are allusions to the idea that different types of people, wizards, should be treated differently. There are direct corollaries between the Harry Potter books and the 1960s civil rights movement, as well as the current fight for gay rights. Each subject concerns discrimination: individual rights that should be protected by law and the ongoing fight to ensure those rights. â€Å"To discriminate means to treat a person or a group of people badly because of who they are† (Graf). Harry Potter went through an extreme shift in civil rights; from all individuals having the same protection to a severely prejudicial and suppressed society and back again. Changes in civil rights are not generally so extreme, usually being more evolutionary, yet the concept of equality under the law relates to the real-world’s ongoing battle for individual freedom. The second book of the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, introduced the reader to house elves. Severely suppressed and controlled, this faction of the wizarding world had no rights and many responsibilities. Dobby is a house elf owned by the Malfoy family and they treated him like with obvious scorn and prejudice. Dobby was a slave to the Malfoy’s, not even allowed articles of clothing to wear, and beaten and abused. This is similar to the condition of black slaves in the United States through the civil war. Even granting African-Americans their freedom did not change the public’s perception that their race was less than Caucasians. Dobby’s situation was even more pronounced as he was compelled to punish himself whenever he believed he did something wrong or broke his master’s rules. When Dobby gains his freedom through Harry’s slight of hand, Lucius Malfoy is angry because he had lost something he viewed to be property. The introduction of Winky in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire paints a different picture of house elves. She is proud to serve her master and obeys his every command. When she is punished and given clothes, thereby releasing her from her master, she is shamed and feels as though she had failed. Her depression becomes so severe that she takes to drinking copious quantities of butter beer to ease her mind. By contrast, Dobby is happy to be free and wears his clothes proudly. Yet his quest to find work is challenging because of the wizarding world’s opinion of house elves and their ranking in the social hierarchy. Dobby is demanding to be paid for his services rather than doing it out of obligation or duty. Finding work at Hogwarts was his only viable option as Dumbledore was the only person willing to meet Dobby’s request, and recognize house elves as significant. Hermione’s efforts to obtain freedom for house elves, the House Elf Liberation Front, are futile because house elves, with the exception of Dobby, are content with their position in society and do not view themselves as equals. They are servants, duty-bound to serve one master for their entire lives. Another prominent issue in the Harry Potter books was the idea that muggles, or non-magical people, were less than wizards, and wizards born from muggle families were inferior to those descending from wizards. The issue is first raised when the character of Draco Malfoy is introduced in the first book. He states that some wizarding families were better than others and condemns the Weasley family because his father condemns the Weasley family based on Arthur Weasley’s affection and approval of muggles. The Malfoys believe that muggle-borns are insignificant and treat Hermione with great prejudice because of her muggle heritage. Draco calls her a â€Å"mudblood,† a great insult to wizards of muggle families. Even Professor Slughorn admits to surprise that muggle-born wizards are so adept at magic though he claims to have no prejudice. He does not treat them unfairly but he does have different expectations from them. The entire basis for Voldemort’s play for power was the concept that muggle-borns and half-bloods were inferior to pure-bloods. Vodemort himself is descended from a muggle father, yet he denies this connection. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Vodemort’s objective becomes glaringly obvious. Muggles are murdered without concern and made to be subject to the wizards in control. Any wizard of muggle ancestry was prosecuted and imprisoned for stealing magic from wizards. Harry’s blatant opposition to this viewpoint places him in great risk as he continually defies the new order and their oppression. The reason for the wizarding war was to prevent an entire class of people from being enslaved and reclassified as less than human. Harry’s parents also fought for individual freedom and defied Voldemort, which lead to their death. Harry’s success in this arena was a victory for equality, freedom and individual rights. Harry Potter’s battle to maintain equality and stamp out prejudice and bigotry enforced by law ties into the 1960s civil rights movement and the fight for gay rights that is not being waged in America. Entire groups of people are being discriminated against, not for anything they did but for who they are. â€Å"On trains and buses, in schools and restaurants, and even in public bathrooms, blacks were kept apart from whites. Some laws made it illegal for blacks and whites to shake hands or play checkers† (Graf). African Americans were targeted because of the color of their skin and homosexuals due to their sexual orientation, neither of which a person has the ability to control. Discrimination is becoming more and more intolerable as civil rights groups gain ground in obtaining equality. Civil rights and the subject of liberalism are issues very close to me that I feel very passionate about. Growing up, my mother told me a story of her first trip to Washington State to meet friends of my father. They were in a grocery store and an American Indian family came in to buy some ground meat. Even though they had the money for the fresh meat in the case, they were not allowed to purchase it. The store would only sell them the meat that had turned green because the store owner did not view American Indians as equal under the law. My mother protested and had to be dragged out of the store. The others in her group did nothing. My mom was only seventeen, yet she recognized discrimination when she saw it. As a child, I lived in a very white town, there were no Asians or African Americans and a handful of Hispanics. When I was nine, a man knocked on our front door. I looked up, seeing him through the glass, and screamed. It was the first black person I had ever seen. I embarrassed myself, but moreover, I humiliated him, a nice man who mere wanted to know if my father was interested in selling his car. Being that segregated in not common in today’s society. In my eighth grade graduation, I walked down the aisle with the only black member of my graduating class and my father felt ashamed because of the town’s perception of African Americans. Even my church, a place of acceptance and equality, treated a black singer so differently that he stopped coming to church. The town was prejudice and I felt embarrassed to live there, believing that by doing so, I supported their beliefs. As I grew older, I worked to support the rights of minorities and those groups that society treated differently, giving to their causes, raising money and awareness and voting for measures that would protect them. I felt that it was my obligation to society to try to end intolerance when my father had raised me to believe in it. The Harry Potter series serves as a direct reminder of what kind of world societal intolerance can take by showing giant steps backwards in personal freedom and liberty. Voldemort and his Death Eaters attempted to obtain control for the sake of control and used discrimination and oppression to achieve it. Heterosexual Caucasians have been using this method for centuries to maintain the status quo and quell change. Worst of all is the oppressed group’s own perception of themselves. Like house elves, African Americans and homosexuals are not accustomed to being treated fairly and that concept has to change (Yoshino). People â€Å"will soon be forced to acknowledge that it is not gay behavior, but antigay attitudes, that need to be adjusted† (Yoshino). What is important to remember is that the fight for equality is ongoing: that it is imperative for all races of people â€Å"to do something about the personal and institutional racism that still exists in our church and society† (Schlumpf ). Liberalism is growing in many areas and these books demonstrate exactly what this movement can achieve – individual rights, personal freedom and the practice of treating each individual as equal under the law.

Navitas Kaplan Case Essay

The competition relationship between the Navitas and Kaplan is based on high educational service. They both play an important role at own educational fields and geographical fields. According to Brandenburger and Nalebuffs Value Net model Assume that Navitas is the company and Kaplan is one of competitors of Navitas. Most of customers are international students because of the target market of the Navitas. And the suppliers can be universities that have a positive relation with the Navitas such as Griffith University. Moreover, complementor can be student accommodation, good transport connections and appropriate shopping facilities such as a post office in the school. Additionally, the value of Navitas wants to add which is customer loyalty, and it is implemented very well. There is an increasingly number of international students especially Chinese students and Indian students are attracted to entry Navitas for Language improvement and preparation of university. Rules specify ways of attracting customers with strategies such as tuition fee of price-matching. Tactics are the practices sometimes used to take away a competitors possible market share, for example, Navitas provides university pathways programs. Scope is the final part, used to take a broader prospective and create links between competitors games and interests and see how co-opetition can benefit the players. Also, using the 5Qs (pp. 32-33) assess 2. What is Navitas business strategy How well is it performing Navitas business strategy 5Qs What amount of growth and level of profitability does the organisation plan to achieve It wants to grow and be quite profitable. What products and services does it plan to produce Its services are programs leading to higher education in English-speaking countries. What customer and geographic markets does it plan to service Its customers are students, especially international students. What generic strategy does it plan to follow to position itself uniquely against competitors It focuses to form relationships with established, highly credible universities. What position does it plan to hold in the future It wants to be universally recognised as the most trusted global learning organisation in the world. Navitas is a diversified global education provides that offers an extensive range of educational service for students and professionals including university programs, language courses, workforce education and student recruitment. By 2009, the company had become the largest private provider of international pathway students to Australian  universities. Moreover, the goal of the company is expanding its initial position as a university pathway program to a global education provider. Additionally, the corporate strategy of Navitas is to create seamless education pathways for students. Besides, most of Navitass colleges were also located at or near university campuses, providing students with convenience and at the same time leveraging the reputation of university. Due to Navitas also provides English language courses for most low IELTS grades international students before they enter university, the competitors fail to attract more international students. In the future, Navitas prefer to increase and strengthen relations with oversea universities and local campus expansion, and the important point is still focus on international students education. 3. What is Kaplans corporate strategy What is its business strategy in Australia How well is it performing Kaplans corporate strategy Kaplan wants to grow reasonably rapidly and be profitab le. It is a related corporation. All businesses of the corporation relate to each other. The businesses are all in the education and training areas, particularly in business-related or professional areas. The position that Kaplan wants to achieve is to be one of the worlds largest diversified education companies. What amount of growth and level of profitability does the organisation plan to achieve What products and services does it plan to produce What customer and geographic markets does it plan to service What generic strategy does it plan to follow to position itself uniquely against competitors What position does it plan to hold in the future The mission of Kaplan is to help people achieve their educational and careers goals. Kaplan wants to grow in both breadth and depth of education offerings to cover the need of individuals throughout their lifetime, such as test preparations and admissions, kids and schools, meanwhile expanded and increased professional development programs in Australia as quick as possible as well as appointed chief executive of Kaplan Australia to oversee the companys expansion in the country. 4. To what extent is Kaplan a threat to Navitas What should Navitas do to address this Clearly Kaplan and Navitas are competitive relationship in Australia, especially the expansion of Kaplan in Australia is a direct challenge to Nacitass position in the educational market. Kaplan has found its way to make an agreement with a Go8 university whereas Navitas has struggled to get entry to this group. It would signal that Kaplans services  may be better than Navitas in quality terms. It is a negative impact for Navitas in the education industry. Navitas should seek to grow internationally, trying to increase the international market share to make itself more famous and more attractive. On the other hand, Navitas should try to make an agreement with Go8 universities to steady the market share in Australia. 5. To what extent is Navitas a threat to Kaplan What should Kaplan do to address this Navitas entry into the US market is an threat to Kaplan. However, thus the US market is so large and the universities that Navitas is dealing with are not attractive enough, Navitas is difficult to cause any future threat to Kaplan. At this stage, it seems that it is not necessary for Kaplan to worry about the threat from Navitas. Kaplan should maintain the quality of service in US market and pay more attention to expand other markets. 6. To what extent do Navitas, Kaplan and similar organisations threaten existing government higher education institutions, such as universities and TAFEs The organizations like Navitas and Kaplan play multiple roles which can be competitor and complementor with existing government higher education institutions. They share student resource and built own brands to attract them. Moreover, overseas students are more profitable than domestic students. Universities are able to charge full-fees for overseas students, while most domestic placements attract a lower fee. Hence, Navitas and Kaplan pay more attention on the international educational markets, but TAFEs prefer to train professional skills to domestic students for their future careers. The difference of target market of these universities can be operated by them to maximize profits. 7. What should universities do to address this The university should improve the quality of its own service and programs, to be more customer-focused. Moreover, university can work with these profit-based organisations and clearly delineate which services and programs each should provide.

Managing Knowledge and Learning Essay

Managing Knowledge and Learning at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Summary National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established by Congress on October 1, 1958, in order for the United States to keep up with the technological advancements achieved from former Soviet Union’s successful launch of the Sputnik (1957). The Apollo Era-Mission had risen from the support of John F. Kennedy’s goal, which was â€Å"landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. † Prioritization at NASA evolved into the center’s motto of â€Å"Faster, Better, Cheaper† (FBC), which was mandated in the Goldin Era beginning in 1992. NASA shifted priorities from: 1) performance, 2) schedule and 3) cost to 1) increase mission performance, 2) cut cost and 3) work force reduction. However, this reform was not as successful as planned. From 1992 and 2000, six of 16 FBC missions failed. To address concern of the impact of failed missions and impending retirements of many of the most experienced NASA employees, Congress enforced that the agency search for the solution to Knowledge Management (KM) and promoting learning initiatives at NASA-JPL. NASA’s KM tools were mainly IT systems of Internet-based databases and portals for ease of lessons. The NASA KM crisis was attributed to the organization’s inability to document experiences of failures and successes of missions or projects; ultimately incapable of capturing the â€Å"experiential knowledge† from expert engineers and scientists. In addition, this lack in KM was due to â€Å"privatizing knowledge† and promoting creativity, that stemmed from NASA’s culture where competition among centers for projects and funding was the norm. Several KM Initiatives were developed including project libraries for document and data management, developing standards, establishing databases to find experts, ask technical questions, and to capture history and legacy reviews. 1) What were the pros and cons of the â€Å"Faster, Better, Cheaper† model? How might outcomes (both positive and negative) of projects executed with this model impact NASA’s stakeholders, i. e. Congress and the general public? The â€Å"Faster, Better, and Cheaper (FBC)† objectives were to cut cost and maximize mission performance. There were several advantages of the FBC reform. FBC allowed compressed development and launch schedules that lead to an increase in the number of missions. Mission time could be reduced from decades to a few years. The number of NASA projects increased from four to 40 under the FBC model. An increase in mission projects was thought to lead to additional discoveries so that NASA could gain further wisdom and space knowledge. FBC missions were changed from one big project to multiple smaller projects. Dividing the program into smaller projects helped to minimize the pressure and stress on the team if a mission failed. Furthermore, one mission failure did not consequently lead to the failure of the entire program. FBC practice allowed senior managers more freedom to implement FBC the way they found fit which promoted creativity and autonomy among senior managers. FBC also reduced the cost of each mission and NASA’s overall budget. For example, the Mars program budget was reduced from one billion dollars to $260 million. There are numerous disadvantages of the FBC reform. Applying the FBC model could lead to more mission failures. During the FBC era, there were 6 failed missions out of 16 FBC missions. Cost and schedule constraints, insufficient risk assessment, planning, and testing, underestimation of complexity and technology maturity, inattention of quality and safety, inadequate review processes, engineering, under-trained staff, poor team communication, and design errors all attributed to NASA’s mission failures. Projects conducted â€Å"faster† does not allow for adequate documentation, time for redlining the project, and recording lessons learned from one mission to the next. This could result in repeated mistakes that could be avoided by future missions. Missions carried out faster do not allow time for mentorship and sharing of knowledge. Also, the term â€Å"better† was not properly defined and was open to interpretation, which may negatively impact maintaining standard procedures and processes. The results of the FBC vision could impact NASA’s stakeholders in several ways. The increase in smaller successful missions would alleviate the risk of one large failure, although any failures will have a negative impact on stakeholders. Congress could be discouraged to provide support and funding for major space programs if they fail but might be more likely to fund smaller missions. The public could either lose or gain confidence, support, and belief in the space program depending on the magnitude of success or failure. FBC mission are less expensive which would decrease NASA’s budget and help satisfy both Congress and the general public by reducing the need for extra taxation by Congress and collection of taxes from the general public. 2) Why was the Mars Pathfinder project so successful? Explain how Anthony Spears management style impacted future missions. Project management was the key to success of the Mars Pathfinder project. It began as an experiment to test the validity of the FBC reform mandated in 1992 when Daniel Goldin was assigned as the new administrator of NASA. A clear and specific plan for the Pathfinder mission was laid out in the beginning and followed through until the end. Analogous to the success of Cisco’s ERP implementation, Anthony Spears, an excellent manager and thought leader with years of experience at NASA, gained the support of top management and the JPL institution (Spears, 1999). Spears developed a unique balance of an advisory committee of experts to support and guide the difficult project, while he recruited talented, yet naive, energetic youngster’s to do what some more experienced people thought impossible. As Spears writes in his lessons learned report it was â€Å"†¦a blend of bright, ambitious youth and scarred old timers, each challenged and empowered, all working each issue together†¦ † (1999). Together, they created a team that bonded and worked together successfully. Spears’ goal was not only the success of the Pathfinder project, but of the FBC program success, unlike the vision of future project managers. The success of Pathfinder did not translate well in future FBC missions. Risk management and testing were important to the Mars Pathfinder success. While the Mars Pathfinder team worked together successfully, the younger players went on to think they were great project managers themselves, but still hadn’t learned enough to manage their next missions successfully. In future FBC projects, some reasons for failure were poor team communication, inadequate or under-trained staff or insufficient testing in 70% of missions and insufficient risk assessment and planning on 86% of missions (exhibit 4). 3) One of the major issues in this case is the retirements of experts. Why is this a problem for NASA? Would it be less of a problem in a different type of organization? Suggest immediate steps that NASA could take to mitigate the problem. Explain your choices. By 2006 half of NASA’s workforce was eligible for retirement which could lead to a major loss of knowledge, especially tacit information, diminishing the collective wisdom of the organization. A senior manager at NASA states, â€Å"we have no formal process for transferring knowledge† from thought leaders to new managers and IT systems had not yet been sufficient in transferring â€Å"experiential knowledge† to the younger generation. Unfortunately, this would be true in many organizations unless they had sufficient knowledge management systems in place and a culture where sharing knowledge was valued and encouraged. In order to mitigate the problem of losing their knowledge base, NASA not only needs to continue to implement their KM strategy, but truly change the culture. Experienced project leaders and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), such as design engineers, should openly share their knowledge and not just when asked for it. I support several of the planned KM initiatives such as the capture of information by improving documentation, development of an enterprise web-based portal, and the Knowledge Sharing Initiative (KSI) aimed at changing the companies’ culture. In addition to these activities, an exit strategy could be developed for retiring employees where they must follow standard procedures for employing case-based reasoning in an online database employing a searchable classification system. Additional knowledge could be disseminated by those eligible through training sessions. A reward system should be coupled to these exit requirements and could be increased if the employee decides to be available in the Expert Connections directory of SME’s that could be contacted for support after they leave. New positions might need to be created for dedicated knowledge managers such as Chief knowledge officers. It’s also possible that NASA could obtain some replacement of lost experts by collaborating with space programs in other countries. Collecting the information from experts must be coupled with management support of a corporate wide schema to store the data, methods of dissemination, and apply the information to ultimately make better decisions on projects that involve risking people’s lives. 4) Jean Holm had two options she could choose from: 1) upgrade the IT systems or, 2) change the culture. Which would you choose and why? Is there a third option? Explain your answer. In order for Holm’s to truly have a successful knowledge management system in place, implementation of a hybrid system should be in place; enforcing both upgrade to IT systems occurring simultaneously with changing the private culture into a shared one. Integration of both, changing the culture and IT upgrades will be a lengthy process so it would be critical to first strategically plan for cultivating and managing formal processes for knowledge transfers. Implementing formal processes such as required protocols, reports, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and work instructions for each mission or project should be enforced from every high-level management as it might help with the KM transfer crisis. Once every item has been completed by the high-level management it would be placed into the appropriate IT systems database in conjunction with the integration of the required knowledge management video synopsis from experienced engineers and scientist who exit the centers. Curriculums would be in place with learning modules with specific need encapsulating these protocols, reports, SOPs, work instructions and video synopsis would then be posted on the intranet, ready for the potential novice engineers and scientists entering the NASA work force; making the system more enriched and meaningful. 5) President Obama is implementing changes to NASA’s charter, which will create new ways of funding/executing projects than NASA is used to. Do a little online research. Do you agree or disagree in this change of direction? Explain. Caution; this is not to be addressed as a political issue) The Obama administration’s new NASA charter includes a couple of key parts: A) In February 2010, the Obama administration canceled the Constellation Program, which was started by former President George W. Bush’s administration in 2004. This program aimed to put US astronauts back on the moon by 2020, for the first time since the final Apollo mission. B) In April 2010, Obama proposed increasing NASA’s overall budget by about $6 billion over five years and shifting NASA’s aim for manned space program to Mars (from the moon). By the mid 2030s, â€Å"I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And landing on Mars will follow,† he said. C) He also challenged the commercial space industry to take up the routine tasks that NASA would abandon – such as ferrying astronauts to and from the space station. I do not agree with him on the part A and Part B of the new charter. The Constellation Program is already 5 year old, and has spent $9. 1 billion. It has already made significant progress and will help America maintaining its space leadership position over Russia and China. On the other hand, I think that it will set a foundation for manned space mission to Mars. Obama’s vision of manned mission to Mars by mid-2030 does not seem realistic to me as he has not talked about its technology feasibility. However, I do agree with his plan’s Part C. I think that it will significantly reduce the cost for transporting people and cargo to and from low-Earth orbit, and might induce the rise of a true space economy.

Graduation: Black People and Negro National Anthem Essay

Graduation is one of the most memorable moments in a lifetime. Maya Angelou’s graduation was an exciting moment, yet it was a very hurtful experience because of racism/segregation. This badly affects Angelou at her graduation. The overall point in Graduation is racism and segregation. Her choice of words is very powerful and emotional: It was awful to be a Negro. It was brutal to be young ad already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with white folks on the bottom as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negros with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spiritual sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) white silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us. (110) This explains her emotions about racism, and how horrible it is. She closes it off by saying we are all the same species, and no one is different. This proves she believes racism is wrong. Because of segregation, the white schools are totally different from the black schools. Angelou defines the overall point by comparing the white schools to the black schools:†Unlike the white high school, Lafayette County Training School distinguished itself from having neither lawn, nor hedges, nor tennis court, nor climbing ivy† (103). This reveals what kind of luxuries the white schools had and how unfair the education system was. When Donleavy, a white man comes to speak at the graduation he focuses on the improvements coming to the schools. The white schools had new academics and classroom equipment and the black schools had new tool boxes and athletic equipment. The writer refers to her anger as if African Americans could not achieve anything academic or intellectual. Donleavy is also a racist, â€Å"The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises† (109). Angelou dramatizes an experience involving segregation and racism. At the graduation, the graduates expect certain things to happen, The National Anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance and the â€Å"Negro National Anthem†: â€Å"The song every black person knew called the Negro National Anthem. All done in the same key, with the passion and most often standing on the same foot† (108). This proves there is segregation in this time period because they sing their own song, which makes them feel separate from the nation. In the beginning of the ceremony, Angelou was thrilled to graduate. Once Donleavy speaks, the African Americans lose hope, â€Å"The man’s dead words fell like bricks around the auditorium and too many settled in my belly† (110). Donleavy is unconscious about the effect on his words: Graduation, the hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and congratulations and diplomas, was finished for me before my name was called. The accomplishment was nothing. The meticulous maps, drawn in three colors of ink, learning and spelling decasyllabic words, memorizing the whole of The Rape of Lucrece- it was for nothing. Donleavy had exposed us. (110) After Donleavy’s speech the writer understands the words to the â€Å"Negro National Anthem† for the first time, because of how badly he put down the African Americans. To get the overall point, Angelou leads the readers as if they were sitting alongside her at her graduation. She describes the black community, and the graduating class. Angelou starts out the essay by describing the community in Stamps: â€Å"The children in Stamps trembled visibly with anticipation. Some adults were excited too, but to be certain the whole young population had come down with graduation epidemic† (103). She also describes the teachers, â€Å"Even the teachers were respectful to the now quiet and aging seniors, and tended to speak to them, if not as equals, as beings only slightly lower than themselves† (103). She uses effective similes to make the story come to life, â€Å"But the graduating classes themselves were nobility. Like travelers with exotic destinations on their minds, the graduates were remarkably forgetful† (103). This makes the readers understand the graduates’ excitement, and how they were forgetful of the aspect of life, like to bring their books to school. As travelers with exotic destinations, the graduates have their whole future ahead of them, full of exotic experiences. She also uses another simile to describe herself on her graduation day: â€Å"I was going to be lovely. A walking model of all the various styles of fine hand sewing and it didn’t worry me that I was only twelve years old and merely graduating from eight grade† (105). She was so happy and filled with joy because of the accomplishments she had made, in which she felt beautiful like a model.