Educational Cultural Negotiators for students of color: a descriptive study of racial advocacy leaders

The research presented in this study focuses on Educational Cultural Negotiators (ECNs). The participants were teachers, administrators, and graduate students in an after-school program in the Midwest and a community-based school/university partnership in the Western U.S. We posit that the roles of the ECNs function as advocacy leaders to invoke racial affirmation, and academic intervention on behalf of African-American and Latina/o students at these school sites. Relying on critical race theory as the methodological analysis of the findings, this study seeks to identify the role of the ECNs as advocates for students in these settings to promote their academic and personal growth and success. This work illustrates how these particular educational leaders provide academic direction and challenge racial neglect and color-blindness within the public school system.     

A Note on Consistency in Utility Assessment*

A methodology for determining a von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function is outlined based on the axioms crucial to such a function. Reconciliation of inconsistent judgments is facilitated using the theory of reciprocal matrices. Numerical measures of the collective divergence of a set of judgments from perfect consistency or coherency are provided.     

ESTIMATING WAITING TIME IN A QUEUING SYSTEM*

This study examines how customers joining a queuing system assess their waiting time in the system. Data obtained from an actual queuing system support the paradigm of Parkan and Warren [5] on the use of the observed number in the system in this assessment. It is concluded that customers overestimate mean service time but that this overestimation is not dependent on the number in the system.