For our last graded assignment, you will write about how the skills you have honed in this class will help you in achieving your career goals. You can approach the assignment in one of two ways.

1. Discuss how the skills of writing, researching, presenting, working in teams, and using technological tools help you in your current role in the workplace. Which of these skills do you find most important right now? Which skills do you think will help you achieve future goals?

or

1. Look up an occupation you are interested in pursuing after you graduate from DeVry. To find information on occupations, you can visit the Occupational Outlook Handbook at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/ (Links to an external site.). Search for a career you are interested in, such as software developer. Then, click on the What They Do tab. Compare the duties of that occupation to what you learned in this class. Which skills that you developed in this class will be most useful to you in your chosen career?

The Career Connection Analysis assignment is worth 90 points.

Assignment Requirements

• The length should be approximately 500 words.
• There is no need for a title page or references, but give credit for any information derived from the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
• The assignment should be typed and submitted as a Microsoft Word document with 12-point font and double-spacing.

The grading rubric for this assignment is below.

Submit the assignment.

Rubric

Career Connection Analysis Grading RubricCareer Connection Analysis Grading RubricCriteriaRatingsPtsThis criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeIntroductionIntroduction provides an overview of what was learned from the course and how it applies to the student’s career goals.10 to >0.0 ptsFull Marks0 ptsNo Marks10 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeImportance of WritingClear and concise discussion of the importance of writing to the student’s career goals, with at least one good example provided.20 to >0.0 ptsFull Marks0 ptsNo Marks20 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeImportance of ResearchClear and concise discussion of the importance of research to the student’s career goals, with at least one good example provided.20 to >0.0 ptsFull Marks0 ptsNo Marks20 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeImportance of TeamsClear and concise discussion of the importance of working in teams to the student’s career goals, with at least one good example provided.20 to >0.0 ptsFull Marks0 ptsNo Marks20 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeImportance of Technological ToolsClear and concise discussion of the importance of using technological tools to the student’s career goals, with at least one good example provided.20 to >0.0 ptsFull Marks0 ptsNo Marks20 pts

Imagine you are a health care manager of a facility that will be moving into a new facility that is being renovated. You and your team have been asked to manage one of the internal environmental impacts, such as hazardous waste management, fire and safety management, disaster management, security management, or ADA guidelines in the facility being renovated. 

Note: The term environmental does not relate to the outside environment, such as trees and animals.

As a team, research the standard operating procedures for the environmental impacts listed below and select one impact your team will focus on and manage during the renovation:

• Hazardous waste management

Create a 3 -slide Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation for the environmental impact your team selected and will manage during the renovation of the facility.

Include the following in your presentation:

• Explain the local, state, and federal legal and regulatory requirements for the environmental impact your team selected. 
  • Consider the agencies that may be involved in facility accreditation and how to get information from them to ensure compliance. (i.e., Community Health Accreditation Program, the Joint Commission, Accreditation Commission for Health Care Inc., etc.).

Cite at least 3 peer-reviewed, scholarly, or similar references.

Format your presentation according to APA guidelines. Include a title page, detailed speaker notes, and a references page.

 

This assignment assesses your ability to:

• Determine the impact that current federal legislation has on the compliant implementation of special education programs, and
• Analyze the legal concept “educational benefit.”

This assignment also supports your achievement of Course Learning Outcome 2, 3, 4 and 5 and the MASE Program Learning Outcome 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8.

In 1982, Amy Rowley’s parents enrolled their kindergarten-aged daughter in the Hendrick Hudson School District in Peekskill New York. Prior to beginning the school year, the school’s administration met with her parents to determine what supplemental services Amy needed, due to her significant hearing loss, in order provide her with a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). She was successful and progressing at the same pace as her non-disabled peers as she advanced to the first grade (Wrightslaw, 2015). Her redrafted annual IEP included the continued use of an amplification system, a tutor for the deaf and speech therapy. Amy’s parents also wanted her to have a full time Sign Language interpreter included, which the school subsequently denied.

Instructions
Using support from your assigned reading, the Instructor Guidance, and the discussions, you will analyze this case to include the following specifications:

Content Expectations

• Define in detail each of the words in FAPE (Free, Appropriate, Public & Education) as it related to the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act.
• Summarize why the final ruling favored Hendrick Hudson Central School District’s decision not to provide Amy Rowley with an interpreter.
• Analyze the term “meaningful benefit” as it relates to the Rowley v. Hendrick case.
• Argue for or against the applicability of the Supreme Court’s final ruling to meet the needs of students with disabilities.
• Explain how the final ruling affects compliant implementation of special education programs.

Written Communication Expectations

• Syntax and Mechanics: Exhibit meticulous use of grammar, spelling, organization, and usage throughout your submission.
• Organization: Use the above listed guidelines for explicit sections/headings within your paper.
• Source Requirement: Reference at least three scholarly sources in addition to your course textbook in order to provide compelling evidence to support your ideas.
• Page Requirement: Your submission must be four double-spaced pages not including a title and reference page.
• APA format: All in text citations, page format and references must be written in APA 6th edition format.

  

THE CASTING COUCH IN THE GLARE OF THE SPOTLIGHT

On Sunday October 8, 2017, the Weinstein Company fired its co-founder Harvey Weinstein after an investigation by the New York Times uncovered allegations that he had engaged in rampant sexual harassment and possibly assault and rape. Mr. Weinstein was a renowned movie producer who had shaped the future of the American film industry and moved in the rarified air of national politics as an accomplished fundraiser. Mr. Weinstein had that rare kind of industry power which could make or break a movie or an actresses’ career. Mr. Weinstein has not helped his on cause as he has swung wildly between his own contrition and attacking his alleged accusers. In an era of social media, these accusations have added fuel to the #Me Too movement which focuses the spotlight on sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood, the private sector and government. For his part Mr. Weinstein is quoted as denying many of the allegations as patently false. “Many” is an interesting choice of words as it has now come to light that there are over thirty female accusers, many of whom were young and propositioned with the lure of a role in one of his movies won many Oscars and made their leading ladies A-list stars in Hollywood.

How did this objectionable behavior remain in the dark for over three decades? There was obviously complicity on the part of those around Mr. Weinstein who keep quiet to maintain their own careers and respective gravy trains.

“Harvey Weinstein built his complicity machine out of the witting, the unwitting and those in between. He commanded enablers, silencers and spies, warning others who discovered his secrets to say nothing. He courted those who could provide the money or prestige to enhance his reputation as well as his power to intimidate.”1

So how did this complicity machine actually operate in practice as Mr. Weinstein attempted to tamp down the raging fires springing up from numerous accusers finding strength in numbers as more and more women begin to tell their stories.

He gathered ammunition, sometimes helped by the editor of The National Enquirer, who had dispatched reporters to find information that could undermine accusers. He turned to old allies, asking a partner in Creative Artists Agency, one of Hollywood’s premier talent shops, to broker a meeting with a C.A.A. client, Ronan Farrow, who was reporting on Mr. Weinstein. He tried to dispense favors: While seeking to stop the actress Rose McGowan from writing in a memoir that he had sexually assaulted her, he tried to arrange a $50,000 payment to her former manager and throw new business to a literary agent advising Ms. McGowan. The agent, Lacy Lynch, replied to him in an email: “No one understands smart, intellectual and commercial like HW.”2

As the gossip and innuendo spread, agents continued to send actresses to meet Mr. Weinstein alone in hotel rooms, warning them if anything happened they should stay quiet if they knew what was good for them. It seems Harvey Weinstein was the best game in town and sometimes the only game in town. Mr. Weinstein used both threats and enticements of access to hold off the press while his brother and partner, Bob Weinstein, participated in payments to those who claimed sexual molestation going back to 1990. Now Mr. Weinstein, 65, is under investigation by law enforcement authorities in three separate cities.

A master of leverage, Mr. Weinstein parlayed his films into relationships across the worlds of entertainment, politics, publishing and beyond, achieving a stature that at times proved useful in intimidating others and protecting himself. “I know the president of the United States. Who do you know?” Mr. Weinstein, a Democratic fund-raiser, would say during the years Barack Obama was in the White House, adding expletives. “I’m Harvey Weinstein,” he used to say.

“You know what I can do.”3

Talent agencies in Hollywood are for the most part, male institutions and tended to keep quiet like a good ole boys network who looked the other way when problems surfaced. Agents typically sign their clients when they are at their highest value to the industry, young and a fresh face. This is also the time when they are most vulnerable given their youth and inexperience in life, a perfect hunting ground for a sexual predator like Harvey Weinstein. By the Weinstein brothers left Miramax which were bankrolled by the Disney Companies to form their own company in 2004, dozens of women including Angelina Jolie, Angie Everhart, Ashley Judd, Cara Delevingne, Rose McGowan, Gwyenth Paltrow, Heather Graham, Kate Beckinsale and many others.  The agent’s motivation to keep quiet about what their clients were subjected to was the fact that they indirectly earned their living from executives like Mr. Weinstein, who write their paychecks.

In February 2018, N.Y. Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against the Weinstein Company for the toxic environment it had created in acquiescing to Mr. Weinstein’s Sexual Predation. The timing of this filing was explained as necessary to protect the compensation owed the victims and Weinstein employees from the perpetrators and enablers using the assets to enrich themselves. The problem with this is that it upended a deal to sell the company to group of investors led by Maria Contreras-Sweet, who had said she planned to set aside at least $50 million for a victims’ fund and start a new female-led movie studio. This does not seem the best way to help these victims because if the sale does not go through, the Weinstein Company will be forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings which could eliminate any claims of the victims as unsecured creditors.

“Question Number One: Is there enough money?” said Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer who administered funds for the victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the BP oil spill and the faulty ignition switch at General Motors. That, is always the single most important issue when trying to redress victims.4

Gloria Allred the celebrity attorney in Los Angeles who is representing many of the victims, worries that bankruptcy proceedings would not leave any funds available for the victim’s compensation. It should also be noted that if Ms. Allred decided to sue the company, her clients have a better chance of being compensated if the company remains viable. She also has a personal incentive as her contingency fee would be one-third of any funds received by her clients.

Twice there have been attempts to sell the assets of the company but those attempts have fallen through in the due diligence stages. A group organized by Ron Burkle and led by Maria Contreras-Sweet said it called off a deal for most of the film and TV studio’s assets less than a week after saying it would buy them by assuming $225 million of debt. The group planned to invest $275 million to relaunch Weinstein Co. with a new name.

“We have received disappointing information about the viability of completing this transaction,” Ms. Contreras-Sweet said in a statement. A person familiar with the group said it had found about $65 million of additional liabilities.5 

It has been said that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste and the Weinstein executives have used this crisis as an opportunity to raid the piggybank. A month before the public revelations of his sexual misconduct hit the papers, Harvey Weinstein borrowed $1 million from the company that bears his name to keep company with the $3 million he had paid himself over the past six months. Additionally the company paid off $2 million of personal debt guaranteed by Mr. Weinstein. Not to be out done, Bob Weinstein took nearly $6 million in compensation and other payments, while the company’s former chief operating officer David Glasser, took more than $4 million in the previous year according to papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. While it is possible some of this can be “clawed back” in bankruptcy, there is no guarantee that a sale of the remaining assets will leave any funds after satisfying the secured creditors. Unsecured creditors such as the victims of Harvey’s casting couch will most probably get nothing but the right to file a civil lawsuit.

The question we must ask now is where this will all lead in the future? Jenni Konner an executive producer of the HBO series “Girls” sees this as a tipping point. “This is the moment we look back on and say that’s when it all started to change” “This is going to scare any man in Hollywood using his power for anything but making movies and television.”6 

As the #me too movement has surged into the national discourse, other predators in the entertainment, journalism, corporate and political arenas have been sweep up like so much flotsam in an ever rising tide. Are we at the end of the news cycle or just the very beginning of a sordid saga that has yet to be fully revealed under the harsh glare of the spotlight?

Citations

1) Twohey, Megan; Kantor, Jodi; Dominus, Susan; Rutenberg, Jim; Eder, Steve “Feeding the Complicity Machine”, 06 Dec 2017, New York Times Late Edition, New York, NY

2) Ibid

3) Ibid

4) Sorkin, Andrew Ross “Does the Lawsuit Now Help the Victims” 12 Feb 2018, New York Times Online Edition, New York, NY

5) Fritz, Ben; Hagey, Keach; Randles, Jonathan “Weinstein Deal Called Off” 07 Mar 2018, Wall Street Journal, Eastern Edition

6) Twohey, Megan; Kantor, Jodi; Dominus, Susan; Rutenberg, Jim; Eder, Steve “Feeding the Complicity Machine”, 06 Dec 2017, New York Times Late Edition, New York, NY

Guidelines for Analyzing Cases

Problem and Issue Identification

1. What are the central facts of the case? What assumptions are you making about these facts?

2. What is the major overriding issue in the case? What major question or issues does this case address that merits study at this point in the course?

3. What sub-issues or related issues are present in the case that merit consideration now?

Analysis and Evaluation

1. Who are the stakeholders in the case and what are their stakes? What challenges, threats or opportunities are posed by these stakeholders?

2. What economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities does the company have, and what is the nature and extent of these responsibilities?

3. If the case involves company actions, evaluate what the company did or did not do in handling the issue affecting it.

Recommendations

1. What recommendations do you have for this case? If a company’s strategies or actions are involved, should the company have acted as it did? What action should the company take now? Why? Be as specific as possible. List several options as well as the pros and cons of each alternative. Be prepared to discuss why you eliminated those options you discarded and defend your chosen alternative. Mention and discuss any important implementation considerations. This last step is crucial because recommendations that cannot be implemented are worthless.

• Article Review – ProfessionalAssignmentI’m Done Due April 27 at 11:59 PMPurpose: The purpose of this assignment is for you to show your understanding of peer-reviewed empirical articles through: 1) reviewing original research; 2) evaluating claims, methods, and conclusions; and 3) communicating your analysis in a way that translates scientific information into common terms for a general audience. In writing an article review, you gain skills in summarizing key points and findings, interpreting results, evaluating the validity of the methods used and results reported, and communicating information to an audience in ways they understand.

  Step 1: Read the tips from the UMGC library on “Finding Experimental (Empirical) Research Articles.” Pay special attention to the sections on “Scholarly Research Articles” the “Structure of An Experimental Article”
  Step 2: Using the UMGC Library electronic databases, find an article published in the last seven (7) years in an academic, peer-reviewed journal related to clinical or counseling psychology (e.g., Professional Psychology: Research & Practice). The article should describe, specifically, an experiment or empirical study by the researchers. This means that the researchers conducted a study that contains easily identifiable independent and dependent variables. (Do not select meta-analyses, summaries, editorials, or theoretical articles.  It is your responsibility to make sure that the journal article you select is appropriate. If you are unsure about the relevance of your article, contact your instructor for approval.).
  Step 3: Read the article starting with the Title and Abstract, which will give you a quick preview of the purpose and results of the article.
  Step 4: Read the Introduction. Highlight the purpose of the article and the author’s hypothesis (e.g., what was studied, what did the author predicted, and why did they find the topic worthy of study). Pay attention to the context provided for the research (i.e., what research has been done previously in the field? what issue or problem is this study trying to address?).
  Step 5: Read the Methods section. Note the description of the participants and any tests, surveys, questionnaires, apparatus, or other materials that were used. Pay particular attention to the details involved in the experimental procedure. How were the variables manipulated or measured? Recall that the Independent Variable (IV) is the variable that is manipulated by the research (i.e., whether the room is hot or cold (if that is the variable of interest) or whether participants are given a placebo, shown any type of media or other stimuli, given talk therapy, or instructed to take medication (if that is the variable of interest). Remember that the Independent Variable is what was different about the experiences of the different groups. Recall also that the Dependent Variable (DV) is that variable that is measured, or, the outcome of the study.
  Step 6: Read the Results. Try not to get intimidated by complex statistical analysis. Instead of focusing on the numbers, focus on the short descriptions that accompany the findings explaining what the researchers found (i.e., Did the researchers find evidence that supports their hypothesis?)
  Step 7: Read the Discussion. Pay special attention here to what the authors say about the importance of their findings or the lack of findings. Think about other things you could do to look at this issue.
  Step 8: Prepare a 1-2 page summary of the article in your own words.  Be sure to address the following questions in your summary:

  • What is the purpose of the research? (Address specifics regarding the overall purpose of the research in question.)
  • What hypothesis is tested? (Provide a clear statement of the researchers’ prediction.)
  • How did the researchers investigate their research question? (Provide details regarding the study methodology.)
  • What are the pertinent results of the manipulation? (What were the findings and conclusions drawn?)
  • What is your personal opinion of the study conducted? Should it be repeated?  What could be improved?
  • What is your overall impression of the work? What are the implications of the study for the practice of counseling psychology?
  • Your summary should be written as a coherent essay (do not format as a list of answers to these questions). You may include additional insights in your analysis, but you must address these key issues.
    Step 9: Prepare your Article Review according to the following guidelines:
    Formatting:  Structure your paper utilizing APA style (7th Edition); this includes title page, headings, in-text citations, reference page, and general paper format (1-inch margins, double-spaced, appropriately sized sans serif or serif fonts – e.g., 12 Times Roman).  An abstract is not required.
    Submit to your Assignment Folder as a single document in either Microsoft Word, PDF, or RTF format.