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Seattle Times: Emotional intelligence measures professional success
The term emotional intelligence, referring to understanding one’s own emotions and the emotions of others and the ability to respond to them effectively, was coined 13 years ago. The concept now is gaining acceptance as being as important as cognitive intelligence not just in personal relationships, but also in determining professional success, says the May 7 Seattle Times. Those who test high on the emotional intelligence scale, for example, often distinguish themselves in their professions. Kathy Kram, an SMG professor of organizational behavior, says that “emotional competence,” as she calls it, is assumed to be a requisite for success in business. She points out that some younger students challenge that notion, but older students who have more work experience are not as skeptical. While there are corporate titans who succeed despite shortcomings in emotional intelligence, she adds, leaders who rule by fear or are autocratic can unwittingly undermine their effectiveness by stifling creativity and motivation or not articulating their vision. She cites as an example former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Giuliani’s reputation portrayed him as an aggressive and egotistical politician. But his sensitive and empathetic response to the victims of the attacks rehabilitated his image and gave him a national leadership role. “The crisis provided him an opportunity to demonstrate his emotional intelligence,” says Kram.
MetroWest Daily News: Rising childhood cancer rates linked to household, environmental toxins
A report entitled Toxic Chemicals Can Cause Childhood Cancer, published by UMass-Lowell and based on dozens of scientific studies, shows that childhood cancers are on the rise in Massachusetts and concludes that exposure to toxins in foods, home, the workplace, and the environment play a critical role, says the May 9 MetroWest Daily News. Childhood cancer is the second leading cause of death in children ages 15 and younger in the United States, and more than 8,000 cases are diagnosed each year. Richard Clapp, a School of Public Health professor of environmental health and former member of the state’s Department of Public Health, which tracks childhood cancers, contributed to the report. He says the studies show that a combination of exposures to toxins such as those found in drinking water, lawn chemicals, and household products have a greater chance of leading to certain cancers. He says the exposures are preventable but not enough is being done to make sure products on the market are safe. Lawn and garden pesticides, solvents in the glues used to install a wood floor, and combustion byproducts from incinerated materials are some examples of environmental toxins cited as unsafe by the study. “People are not aware,” Clapp says. “There’s inadequate testing on a lot of these products.”
Voice of America News: Can SARS bring about reform in China?
The SARS epidemic in China has been compared to the Chernobyl
disaster in the former Soviet Union and there has been speculation that
how the Soviet Union responded to Chernobyl — through government reforms
and a more open media policy — could be replicated in China as it fights
SARS. But the comparison is invalid, says Merle Goldman, a College of
Arts and Sciences professor emerita of history, in an article in the
Voice of America News on May 11. She contends that Mikhail Gorbachev
was willing to reform at the time of the disaster, but that it is too
early to say whether China’s current leaders, President Hu Jintao
and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, can bring SARS under control. “They
[the Chinese government] were not open about it in the beginning,” says
Goldman. “But if you remember, in the beginning, the first evidence
of this was back in the fall of 2002, in Guangdong. And who knows if
the local government there even sent that information to the central
government, so that it became aware of that.” She says the Chinese
government’s experience in fighting SARS should bring greater openness
eventually, but that change will not happen overnight. “They [the
Chinese people] want change, and they want political change, but they
do not want it abruptly. They want a gradual process. Because they believe
that if they do it the way it was done in the former Soviet Union, it
will lead to chaos — luan, as they say — and that is their greatest
fear.”
14
May 2003
Boston University
Office of University Relations