This article describes an alternative method for the study of first-year students’ impressions of their first-semester experiences in higher education. Using an innovative, phenomenologically-oriented, individual-environment interaction technique, a sample of undergraduates from a public four-year comprehensive university were asked to take a series of reflexive photographs, representative of their impressions of the university, describe in writing the reasons why the photographs illustrated their experiences, and discuss the various underlying themes of their photographs in subsequent focus-group interviews. This reflexive photography technique breaks the study subjects away from the typical researcher-oriented quantitative technique and allows for a more open and creative analysis of student perceptions. Our research revealed a number of primary themes including perceptions about the university’s physical environment, interactions with faculty, interactions with other students, student support services, and career counseling and preparation for the future with a level of detail and university specificity not available through quantitative techniques alone.

❖ This article describes an alternative method for the study of first-year students' impressions of their first-semester experiences in higher education. Using an innovative, phenomenologically-oriented, individual-environment interaction technique, a sample of undergraduates from a public four-year comprehensive university were asked to take a series of reflexive photographs, representative of their impressions of the university, describe in writing the reasons why the photographs illustrated their experiences, and discuss the various underlying themes of their photographs in subsequent focus-group interviews. This reflexive photography technique breaks the study subjects away from the typical researcher-oriented quantitative technique and allows for a more open and creative analysis of student perceptions. Our research revealed a number of primary themes including perceptions about the university's physical environment, interactions with faculty, interactions with other students, student support services, and career counseling and preparation for the future with a level of detail and university specificity not available through quantitative techniques alone.

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The National Ocean Service (NOS) is responsible for charting the Nation's coastal waters and, therefore, is the lead Agency for the portrayal of maritime limits of the United States of America. The 1958 Geneva Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone states " ... the normal baseline for measuring the breadth of the territorial sea is the low waterline along the coast as marked on large-scale charts officially recognized by the coastal state." In 1976, NOS was requested to show various maritime limits on its regular issue of nautical charts. The paper presents the history of maritime boundaries on National Ocean Service (NOS) charts, methods used in constructing the various maritime limits, the definition of the limits, the push for lateral seaward boundaries, and the technical aspects of maritime limits.

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