The whistleblower website WikiLeaks is changing world politics in profound new ways. Within the past year, the site has posted four massive information leaks, including classified war reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as thousands of secret diplomatic cables. Several major newspapers have published stories based on the data in the leaks, giving the once unknown site significant exposure. For journalists, leaked information can be a double-edged sword. The U.S. Government routinely condemns the data release, claiming that it puts innocent lives and military assets in jeopardy. WikiLeaks says the opposite, claiming that the information it publishes has been verified and vetted by volunteers to avoid putting lives in danger. This conflict of interests creates tremendous responsibility for journalists—who must weigh the competing interests of disclosure in the public interest versus government secrecy. I will use the program Prezi for a presentation that will lead viewers piece by piece through a diagram that explains journalism’s responsibility regarding WikiLeaks disclosures. As a whole, the diagram will move like a flowchart, illuminating journalists’ decision-making process while also exploring viewpoints from past leakers, U.S. officials and media outlets. Different media outlets have handled the leaks differently. American media have been forced to tread lightly around the leaks, while foreign newspapers have used the data in its entirety. This era of “datajournalism” has created a new ethical standard in journalism—in which reporters must understand the gravity of publishing incriminating, classified data on a level that transcends international borders.

Data mining is the process of using a scientific approach in identifying patterns from large data sets. This approach to data analysis supports customer relationship management, an organization’s efforts to understand and provide enhanced service to its most important customers. Data mining is used by many organizations today and non-profit agencies have discovered the benefits to utilizing this scientific approach in their marketing efforts and projections. Drawing on existing empirical academic writings and research by UM faculty, as well as other documented research, this paper examines what data mining is and how non-profit agencies can utilize this approach in donor profiling. As a result of this analysis, the pros and cons of data mining are identified. Additionally, the relationship between how non-profit agencies use this data analysis to target fundraising opportunities and the effectiveness of this approach is examined.

In 1969 James Cone, AME minister and professor of theology, published Black Theology and Black Power with the aim of theologically redefining the place of the Christian church in terms of black oppression. My paper aims to show how Black Theology proponents answered the black community’s need for more radical empowerment after the Civil Rights Movement by articulating the necessity of spirituality to achieve liberation. I show the “dilemma” of being African American and Christian by contrasting the progress of the religiously fueled Civil Rights Movement with the emergence of militant Black Power movements in the context of continued racial violence and socio-economic injustice. In addition, I would like to raise discussion about problems and successes of Cone’s published theology in terms of African-American history. I have conducted my research through the close examination of a variety of both secondary and primary historical texts, including peer-reviewed journals, contemporary and historical interviews and articles from major African-American periodicals from the 1960s. My goal with this research is to reveal the complexity of the African-American struggle for Civil Rights and highlight the historical importance of Black Theology to religion, politics, and society in the United States. I believe my access to diverse sources spanning the past fifty years, and careful observation of Black Theology and its origins, provide a more intricate perspective both to the study of United States history and to the African-American experience.

Police officers face great challenges every day at work, ranging from frustrated citizens, angry parents, and drug abuse, to interdepartmental pressures, conflicts, and regulations. Women police officers face all of that – and more. Traditionally male dominated, police departments and the public treat women officers differently than they do men, whether intentionally or not. This historical analysis traces the journey of females in law enforcement, beginning in 1910 with the commission of the first woman police officer, up to present day women in law enforcement. The study encompasses the general span of women in law enforcement and addresses a variety of specific cases, experiences, and policies related to women in this field. Past information is examined to reveal any differences or changes in the treatment of men and women, including level of supervision, ability to be promoted, assigned responsibilities, equality policies, and perception of the public. The information collected highlights important landmarks revealing the progression of women in law enforcement. The results of this analysis reveal the true status of women in the field and the hardships they faced to reach where they are today. The analysis addresses this career by focusing on the progress women have made in the past century and will speculate where women in law enforcement will stand in the future.

College students interested in legal careers have few opportunities for structured career guidance. What information would be for helpful to potential law school candidates? My research was designed to answer questions that pre-law students at the University of Montana might have about practicing law. I interviewed eight lawyers practicing in the Northwest. The questions focused particularly on why they decided to pursue a legal career and whether their experience after law school had been personally rewarding. Analysis of these interviews yielded the lawyers’ own explanations of their motivations and experiences. Their answers complicated and challenged my assumptions about the legal profession. For example, although several lawyers interviewed were very successful financially, no lawyer expressed wanting to practice law for purely monetary reasons. I also expected individuals who entered law with a clear understanding about why they wanted to practice law to be more satisfied than those with unclear goals. Yet only one lawyer I interviewed knew exactly why he wanted to practice law when entering law school. Prospective law school students will gain insight from these interviews. These interviews provide a clearer picture of what being a lawyer entails, what to expect from three years in law school, and examples of jobs they might expect after graduation.

An Agile Methodology is a set of pre-defined steps which define the process of creating a new piece of software. These methodologies are becoming increasingly more popular over traditional ones but still have their own limitations. The purpose of this research is to examine these standards and define a new hybrid methodology which will benefit software development within today’s industry. The methods used to produce this research included taking previous case studies on companies who use agile development techniques. This allowed us to look at which of their projects were unsuccessful and see which parts of the agile process caused them to fail. Also we looked at the theory and concepts associated with each agile method, in order to understand how they could be improved. The originality of this research is that although there have been many studies and papers produced on what makes up agile methodologies, little research has been produced on ways in which the core elements of these different methodologies can be integrated to produce new, more powerful standards. The significance of this research is that it opens up the field for computer scientists to expand on this research and create new methodologies.