The Rise and Fall of Depressive Symptoms and Academic Stress in Two Samples of University Students

Self-reported depressive experiences are common among university students. However, most studies assessing depression in university students are cross-sectional, limiting our understanding of when in the academic year risk for depression is greatest and when interventions may be most needed. We examined within-person change in depressive symptoms from September to April. Study 1 (N?=?198; 57% female; 72% white; Mage?=?18.4): Depressive symptoms rose from September, peaked in December, and fell across the second semester. The rise in depressive symptoms was associated with higher perceived stress in December. Study 2 (N?=?267; 78.7% female; 67.87% white; Mage?=?21.25): Depressive symptoms peaked in December and covaried within persons with perceived stress and academic demands. The results have implications for understanding when and for whom there is increased risk for depressive experiences among university students.     

Are Science and Religion Complementary Perspectives?

Eugene Goodheart provides an eloquent defense of the non-literalist, religious imagination before the aggressive atheism of several of today’s leading neo-Darwinists. But the position that he takes—that science and religion represent “complementary perspectives” serving different, yet equally permanent needs—is undermined by two fundamental problems. First, the claim that science can only tell us how the natural world works, while religion offers meaning, value, and moral guidance, may hold true when science is understood on the model of mathematical physics, but not when evolutionary biology and its derivatives are considered. Even Stephen Jay Gould, whose famous defense of science and religion as “nonoverlappling magisteria” resembles Goodheart’s, acknowledges that the case of evolutionary biology is profoundly different. Here evolutionary fact and moral values bleed together obscuring the boundary between science and religion. Second, religion and legacy of the religious imagination embedded in our culture, lose their ability to provide meaning, morals, and consolation when core elements of religious teaching are no longer believed to be true.

Competition,commercialization, and the evolution of nonprofit organizational structures

This article explores competition both in settings where nonprofits compete among themselves and where they compete with for-profits. Growing competition among nonprofits raises questions as to the impacts of this rivalry. How does competition affect nonprofit behavior and does it cause nonprofits to become more commercial in orientation? Does it alter organizational structures and does it cause nonprofits to become less focused on their charitable missions? The answers to these questions can influence public policy toward the nonprofit sector. A definition of competition is presented and Porter's five competitive forces are introduced and used to explore competition in nonprofit marketplaces. Conditions under which commercialization is likely to occur are discussed and the nature of competition is then examined in settings where nonprofits compete in mixed (for-profit/nonprofit) markets. Organizational structures from the health care industry are then used to highlight the evolving legal structures that nonprofits employ in competition with for-profits. Five policy implications of the analysis are examined and the need for additional information is highlighted.