Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 86)

Listen for Happy Birthday to You on the Alloway Chime at noon on March 25 and contemplate the music that lingers because of one person’s journey.

Here is a selection of print and eBooks recently added to our collection.

 Christianity and psychiatry /John R. Peteet, H. Steven Moffic, Ahmed Hankir, Harold G. Koenig, editors. This book aims to help readers appreciate the many-faceted relationship between Christianity, one of the world’s major faith traditions, and the practice of psychiatry. Chapter authors in this book first consider challenges posed by historical antagonisms, church-based mental health stigma, and controversy over phenomena such as hearing voices. Next, others explore both how Christians often experience conditions such as mood and psychotic disorders, disorders in children and adolescents, moral injury and PTSD, and ways that their faith can serve as a resource in their healing

Everyday People, Extrordinary leadership: how to make a difference regardless of your title, role, or authority /James M. Kouzes, Barry Z. Posner. Learn how you can tackle everyday leadership challenges regardless of your title, position, or authority with this insightful resource A book about leadership for people who are not in formal or hierarchical leadership positions, Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership provides readers with a comprehensive and practical approach to addressing leadership challenges, no matter the setting or circumstance. Kouzes and Posner adapt their trademark The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® framework to today’s more horizontal workplace, showing people that leadership is not about where you are in the organization; it’s about how you behave and what you do. yet in an official leadership role.

Leading in a culture of change /Michael Fullan. Good leadership is not innate. One must learn to lead by mastering five core competencies — attending to moral purpose, understanding the change process, building relationships, sharing knowledge, and creating coherence in their organizations. Readers will learn what success looks like and how to lead organizations to success using the core concepts. This book provides insights into the dynamics of change and the role of leadership in managing and coping with the change process. Leadership today requires the ability to mobilize constituents to do important but difficult work under conditions of constant change, overload, and fragmentation.

Leading with empathy: understanding the needs of today’s workforce /Gautham Pallapa. Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand that other people feel, and see things from their own viewpoint, and image yourself in their place. Feeling heard and understood is a human need. Everyone needs to feel understood. Empathy helps us get in touch with our feelings and vies us an emotional understanding of ourselves and others. When a leader can look at a fellow workforce member and put themselves in their shoes, understand the pain and stress they are undergoing, and value their happiness above their own, they are genuinely empathic

Managing and leading nonprofit organizations: a framework for success /Paul L. Dann. The book is filled with practical strategies to assure successful leadership practice with universally applicable examples of how identified strategies are implemented and leadership tools that can be successfully applied in practice. Seasoned as well as newly minted leaders will experience this book as an indispensable tool for advancing their leadership practice. Leaders across various sectors, from the nonprofit and public sector, will benefit from the balance of theory and practice.

 Power teams beyond borders: how to work remotely and build powerful virtual teams /Peter Ivanov. Globalization and digital transformation have brought about new challenges in leadership and communication. Teams and projects are decentralized, usually crossing international borders, time zones, and cultural boundaries. Leading such virtual or remote teams require very specific organizational knowledge including how to select qualified experts, which virtual platforms to use, and how to structure, support and lead your team. The Coronavirus has challenged us further to work from home, and we responded well with strong personal commitment and good digital skills. The longer the remote work period lasts, the more we have to take team decisions remotely, resolve conflicts from a distance, and generally lead and manage remotely in a new effective way.   Ivanov uses his Award Winning method “Virtual Power Teams” and his rich international leadership experience to show you how to motivate home office workers, set individual and team goals, establish structured communication and winning spirit for your team and organization in order to deliver outstanding results in the digital, post Corona age!

 Seen, heard, and valued: universal design and beyond /Lee Ann Jung. This book uses the concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a foundation for more equitable learning outcomes for all students. It focuses primarily on actionable strategies that educators can use to bring equity to learning outcomes in their classrooms, schools, and broader systems. In addition to case stories, reflection prompts, self-assessment tools, and numerous examples, the author connects UDL principles to research conducted by John Hattie, showing how various practices have proven connections to improved student learning.

Tell it slant: creating, refining, and publishing creative nonfiction /Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola. This book helps to reveal everything you need to know to develop your own distinctive voice and craft compelling, creative nonfiction. Since 2003, Tell It Slant has set the standard for creative nonfiction instruction, showing writers how to move beyond mere facts and, instead, make the most of their own “slant” on the world. This revised and updated third edition offers: * New and expanded chapters on writing about identity, maintaining a productive work/life balance, and navigating the publishing industry.

The anti-racist organization: dismantling systemic racism in the workplace /Shereen Daniels. In this book Daniels delivers an incisive and honest discussion of how business leaders can change workplace practices to create a more anti-racist and equitable environment. The author draws on her personal and client-facing experience, historical fact, legal proceedings, HR insights, and quantitative analysis to equip readers with the knowledge and tools they need to transform their companies. Daniels also looks at: The role of executive leaders and how to push past discomfort to credibly and authentically lead change.

The apocalypse: warning, hope & consolation /Michael D. O’Brien. Of all the dimensions of the Faith, eschatology is probably the one that is the most neglected today–and one most believers are most suspicious of. Typically, books on the subject are either written by fundamentalist fear-mongers whose eschatology seems to come from the National Enquirer, or by their enemies, who soothe “peace, peace” when there is no peace, or by scholars who squint at gnats and swallow camels. Like Christ, this book will offend both Pharisees and Sadducees, both Herodian collaborators and Zealot revolutionaries. The book is a wake-up call. It is utterly relevant to our times. A plethora of views that echo the words of Christ, of Scripture, of the Fathers, and of modern writers such as Lewis, Chesterton, Tolkien, Ratzinger, John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Christopher Dawson, Josef Pieper, Cardinal Newman, and the Catechism. These are united in a harmonious chorus to tell us that we sit at the edge of an abyss which we have ignored or masked. We sit in the Titanic’s deck chairs enjoying martinis. When Catholics hear and heed the message of this book, and not before, she will recover the passion and energy of our ancestors who, when they looked into the future, saw both a great light and a great darkness, both glory and gore, both wonder and war, where we see only a vague fog.

The busy leader’s handbook: how to lead people and places that thrive /Quint Studer. After spending the last 30 years helping organizations and leaders reach peak performance, Studer has pulled together his best practices, tools, tips and tactics for engaging employees, revitalizing cultures, and creating high performance companies. All his tactics and tools are easy to understand and implement. It will be comprehensive and will cover things like change management, leadership, communication styles, employee training and engagement, team building, as well as manager must haves like how to attract and retain talent, how to run a meeting, how to deal with low performers, how to have difficult conversations, and much more.

 The drama-free workplace: how you can prevent unconscious bias, sexual harassment, ethics lapses, and inspire a healthy culture /Patti Perez. Eliminate sexual harassment, unconscious bias, ethical lapses and other HR nightmares! Companies spend millions on legal compliance training and initiatives to eliminate workplace drama and the resulting low morale and lawsuits, but don’t always get the results they want. Most organizations understand that simply checking legal compliance boxes around sexual harassment, bias, etc. isn’t enough, but are at a loss on how to implement solutions, especially in today’s post-#MeToo world. In this unique book, she explains the secret to avoiding all forms of drama, legal exposure, and low morale: A healthy workplace culture.

The forerunners and heirs of Origen’s Hexapla: the proceedings of the inaugural Colloquium of the Text & Canon Institute /John D. Meade (ed.) Although Origen and his Hexapla are well known among biblical scholars, questions about his philology, particularly textual criticism, persist. The Hexapla contained very important texts and translations of the Hebrew Scriptures, but unfortunately it was probably destroyed in the seventh century and we possess only fragments of it. This volume systematically treats the questions of Origen’s forerunners and heirs and attempts to reconstruct how Origen developed the philological method he received and also how his followers received and innovated his textual work.

The Independent learner: metacognitive exercises to help K-12 students focus, self-regulate, and persevere /Nina Parrish. For students to experience authentic engagement both in and out of the classroom, teachers must help students develop key skills that foster educational independence. In The Independent Learner: Metacognitive Exercises to Help K-12 Students Focus, Self-Regulate, and Persevere, Parrish provides K-12 educators with practical tools to teach students how to self-regulate. The book focuses on research-backed teaching strategies designed to equip students with the skills necessary to practice metacognition and take ownership of their learning. Students will learn how to build intrinsic motivation, emotional literacy, and problem solving, all of which are invaluable skills that they can take into future classrooms and their adult professional lives.

 The song of the cell: an exploration of medicine and the new human /Siddharta Mukherjee. This book is an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. Rich with Mukherjee’s revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer’s exploration of what it means to be human.

 Wayi wah!: Indigenous pedagogies : an act for reconciliation and anti-racist education /Jo Chrona. Extend your learning to explore how racism and bias are embedded in education systems, as well as our own perspectives–and how to create equitable education for all learners. How can Indigenous knowledge systems inform our teaching practices and enhance education? How do we create an education system that embodies an anti-racist approach and equity for all learners? This powerful and engaging resource is for non-Indigenous educators who want to learn more, are new to these conversations, or want to deepen their learning.  Chrona encourages readers to acknowledge and challenge assumptions, reflect on their own experiences, and envision a more equitable education system for all.

When breath becomes air /Paul Kalanithi ; foreword by Abraham Verghese. At the age of 36, on the verge of a completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Kalanithi’s health began to falter. He started losing weight and was wracked by waves of excruciating back pain. A CT scan confirmed what Paul, deep down, had suspected: he had stage four lung cancer, widely disseminated. One day, he was a doctor making a living treating the dying, and the next, he was a patient struggling to live. Just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined, the culmination of decades of striving, evaporated. Breath Becomes Air approaches the questions raised by facing mortality from the dual perspective of the neurosurgeon who spent a decade meeting patients in the twilight between life and death, and the terminally ill patient who suddenly found himself living in that liminality. At the base of Paul’s inquiry are essential questions such as: What makes life worth living in the face of death? What happens when the future, instead of being a ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present? The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.’ Paul Kalanithi passed away in March 2015, while working on this book