In my life journey I have come to believe it is possible for every person to be a leader. Back to the Cottage is my story of real people in real places who have taught me the principles and character traits of true leadership - humility, integrity, wisdom, courage and collaboration. Come walk with me thru fertile farm fields, corporate hallways and factory floors, and the roads of America and beyond. In this hustle, bustle, information packed age we find ourselves in, I believe it is possible to achieve the goals and principles of leadership by returning to a simpler and more consistent way of life - Back to the Cottage. John Sipple "John Sipple brings decades of leadership experience to his book. Those of us who have known him as a senior manager and passionate coach of leaders are thrilled that he has done this. John never forgot his roots, but carefully applied them throughout his fast rise in the corporate world. As a consultant to many organizations throughout the USA, Europe and Africa, his leadership and real life advice are sought after at every level... I am one of those seekers! John's book reads like a novel and it oozes with wisdom in every page. "Back to the Cottage" wil

This book introduces community college faculty and faculty developers to the use of faculty learning communities (FLCs) as a means for faculty themselves to investigate and surmount student learning problems they encounter in their classrooms, and as an effective and low-cost strategy for faculty developers working with few resources to stimulate innovative teaching that leads to student persistence and improved learning outcomes.Two-year college instructors face the unique challenge of teaching a mix of learners, from the developmental to high-achievers, that requires using a variety of instructional strategies and techniques. Even the most experienced teachers can find this diversity demanding.Faculty developers at many two-year colleges still rely solely on the one-day workshop model that, while useful, rarely results in sustained student-centered changes in pedagogy or the curriculum, and may not be practicable for the growing cohort of part-time faculty members.By linking work in the classroom with scholarship and reflection, FLCs provide participants with a sense of renewed engagement and stimulate collegial exploration of ways to achieve educational excellence. FLCs are usually faculty-instigated and cross-disciplinary, and comprise groups of six to fifteen faculty that work collaboratively through regular meetings over an extended period of time to promote research and an exchange of experiences, foster community, and develop the scholarship of teaching. FLCs alleviate burnout and isolation, promote the development, testing, and peer review of new classroom strategies or technologies, and lead to the reenergizing and professionalization of teachers.This book introduces the reader to FLCs and to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, offering examples of application in two-year colleges. Individual chapters describe, among others, an FLC set up to support course redesign; an "Adjunct Connectivity FLC" to integrate part-time faculty within a department and collaborate on the curriculum; a cross-disciplinary FLC to promote student self-regulated learning, and improve academic performance and persistence; a critical thinking FLC that sought to define critical thinking in separate disciplines, examine interdisciplinary cross-over of critical thinking, and measure critical thinking more accurately; an FLC that researched the transfer of learning and developed strategies to promote students' application of their learning across courses and beyond the classroom. Each chapter describes the formation of its FLC, the processes it engaged in, what worked and did not, and the outcomes achieved.Just as when college faculty fail to remain current in their fields, the failure to engage in continuing development of teaching skills, will equally lead teaching and learning to suffer. When two-year college administrators restrain scholarship and reflection as inappropriate for the real work of the institution they are in fact hindering the professionalization of their teaching force that is essential to institutional mission and student success.When FLCs are supported by leaders and administrators, and faculty learn that collaboration and peer review are valued and even expected as part of being a teaching professional, they become intrinsically motivated and committed to collaboratively solving problems, setting the institution on a path to becoming a learning organization that is proactive and adept at navigating change.

Reimagining Rural: Urbanormative Portrayals of Rural Life examines the ways in which rural people and places are being portrayed by popular television, reality television, film, literature, and news media in the United States. It is also an examination of the social processes that reinforce urbanormative standards that normalize urban life and render rural life as something unusual, exotic, or deviant. This includes exploring the role of the media as agenda setting agent, informing people what and how to think about rural life. Further it includes scrutinizing the institution of formal education that promotes a homogenous urban-oriented curriculum, while in the process, marginalizing the unique characteristics of local rural communities. These contributions are some of the only studies of their kind, investigating popular cultural representations of rural life, while providing powerful evidence and unique challenges for an urban society to rethink and reimagine rural life, while confronting the many stereotypes and myths that exist.

Hitler was decisive and wanted to conquer England. The devastation was horrific. The rampant engines vibrating the airplanes and the piercing sounds of the bombs falling onto the buildings crushed the city of London. Sirens and church bells ringing alerted citizens to run to the shelters immediately. On their way to the shelters, people saw crumbled flats and businesses. Fires left charcoal rubble throughout the neighborhoods. Trucks and buses looked like twisted shrapnel. Food rationing, depleted housing and unemployment challenged the country. Throughout the London Blitz, British citizens rallied and defined their persistence to overcome the German invasion. Winston Churchill spent hours walking through London and encouraged citizens to keep calm and carry on.

Soviet Nuclear engineer, Colonel Zelta Rensky plans to use Operation Code Name Rustler — the high jacking of the US nuclear submarine, Alabaster — to defect. Lied to by the Director of the CIA he works for, her brother, Joseph Rendman a senior field agent, thinking his sister was killed during WWII, foils her attempts to escape Russia and Minister Karenev who exploited her expertise and sexuality for political gain. Her quest takes Colonel Rensky on a treacherous chase from Moscow to Cuba and back again as she comes to find love with a like-minded Russian doctor, Vassily Sovosky, and together they work frantically to outwit the KGB, Cuban Military Intelligence, and, before it’s over, even the CIA. With US war plans, shocking family secrets, hidden guerrilla outposts, an impending expatriate invasion and a sunken sub carrying nuclear missiles at stake, this lightning paced action and adventure tale expertly interwoven together with a powerful love story shocks and satisfies.<p> “When they coined the phrase page-turner, they must have been thinking about CODE NAME RUSTLER. Sipple and Wolstenholme have written a novel so compellingly realistic, I wondered if it was a true story. This book is a ticket into a terrifying yet irresistible world of intrigue and love.” -Jonathan D. Scott, author of Lenegrin and The Woman in the Wilderness-

Peruse this eclectic collection of poems written over 50 years ago, and muse along with the author. They are timeless as they explore the range of human emotions during a particular time in his life. Explore the thoughts and feelings from love, beauty of nature, hope, disappointments, dreams, fears, and being trapped in a job. Visualize these words alongside beautiful nature photography which at times adds to the poem. There are lines like this “ B52 is a firefly riding the end of a birch log skimming a sea of milk-blue opalescence’. Or’ savoring the feel of the earthskin beneath my feet.”

Having been kidnapped by a Baltimore Mob family and held for ransom, Anna Myer is used as the motivation to force he brother, Cris Weaver and his longtime friend, U.S. Customs Agent Dave Stevens to organize and carryout a gold smuggling operation from the rugged wilds of north central Mexico to the United States. Encountering dangerous weather, vicious bandits, forbidden love, hazardous mountain trails and treachery from every faction, they pursue the only available course to rescue Anna and escape with their lives, while avoiding capture by the Mexican police, being overcome by disgruntled peasants, killed by the mob or arrested as smugglers by the U.S. authorities. "Forced Intervention has an irresistible force of its own. The story propels the reader on a journey of intrigue and action with a host of unexpected turns. Be careful when and where you start to read this book—you just might not be able to stop." —Terry Baldwin, author of Tess, Terrorists and the Tiara

An exciting international espionage thriller, a continuation of the Rendman family exploits as Zelta joins forces with her brother, Joseph, and the CIA. They race through Cuba, Russia, Brazil and the United States in a perilous attempt to root out a deeply entrenched Soviet spy ring operating at the highest levels in the US, while avoiding Cuban Military Police and KGB assassins. Major American universities, the Naval Academy, even a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are complicit in a twisted web of intrigue, espionage and stolen secrets. Beginning with pure vengeance for the slaughter of complete Russian and Cuban guerrilla communities and culminating in a one day CIA clean sweep of the multi-state spy cell, climaxing in a Florida orange grove estate—a last ditch all-out effort by the KGB to kill the Rendmans. “A terrific sequel that, if you can believe it, packs more thrills than Code Name Rustler. The action comes on with a vengeance and doesn’t let up. Like its predecessor, Rustler’s Vengeance puts the reader smack in the middle of what was the Western hemisphere’s hottest flash point.” -Jonathan Scott, author of Lenegrin and The Woman in the Wilderness-