Kenneth Alden Megill | |
|---|---|
 Ken Megill in China 2011 | |
| Born | 1939 |
| Education | BA with Honors in Philosophy, University of Kansas, 1960 University of Mainz, Germany 1961–62 Contents
|
| Occupation(s) | President, Knowledge Application Services LLC |
| Known for | Democratic Political Theory Records and Knowledge Management theory and practice Political and Trade Union activist |
Kenneth Megill is an American philosopher, trade unionist, political activist, and records and knowledge manager.
Megill's primary philosophical contribution is the development of a democratic theory in the tradition of Democratic Marxism. Megill defined democracy as a political and social order where people control where they live and work.
In 1961-1962 he studied with Karl-Otto Apel [1] who introduced him to the works of Karl Marx, Charles Sanders Peirce, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. In 1964-1965 he studied at the Free University of Berlin where he worked with manuscripts by Marx that had only recently been made available. The Free University was one of the main scenes of the German student movement of 1968. The events of the 1968 movement provided the impulse for more openness, equality, and democracy in German society. Megill participated in several seminars that were attended by students who went on to be active in the student movement in Germany and France in 1968. In addition to attending seminars in West Berlin, he commuted through the Berlin Wall and was enrolled at the Humboldt University of Berlin in an advanced graduate seminar in Dialectical Materialism taught by the head of the philosophy department in the German Democratic Republic. Megill received his masters (1964) and doctoral (1966) degrees with a dissertation on "The Community as a Democratic Principle in Marx's Philosophy" at Yale University. Richard Bernstein was his adviser.[ citation needed ]
During 1968 he was a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy [2] at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences organized by George Markus, an associate of the Hungarian philosopher and political leader Georg Lukacs. Megill met regularly with Lukacs and the members of what became known as the Budapest School. He visited philosophers and political activists in Poland and Czechoslovakia and attended the Korcula Summer School sponsored by the Praxis Group in Yugoslavia. [3] which was the major gathering for European Democratic Marxists from both East and West Europe. The theme of the conference, especially appropriate in 1968, was "Marx and Revolution". During the conference, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and brought an end to the Prague Spring and began a period of repression that led to the Budapest School losing their positions.[ citation needed ]
Megill published more than a dozen articles in philosophical academic journals. In 1970 Free Press/Macmillan published his book "The New Democratic Theory" [4] in which he argued that liberal democracy and dialectical materialism had both failed and that a new theory of democracy was needed that focused on control of the places by those who lived and worked there.[ citation needed ]
When information managers began to use the term knowledge management. Megill went back to his philosophical roots where epistemology, the theory of knowledge, is a major field. He used his philosophical work, combined with his fifteen years as a practicing information manager, to write the major book, "Thinking for a Living", in knowledge management theory. [5]
Forty years after the publication of "The Community as a Democratic Principle in Marx's Philosophy," which summarized the research he did for his doctoral dissertation, the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau (CCTB) of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party published a translation of the article in a leading philosophical journal. [6] [7] [8] He was subsequently invited by the CCTB to visit the Bureau for discussions and to present lectures at universities in Beijing on Lukacs and the Budapest School. [9]
In 1966, after receiving his PhD at the age of 26 from Yale University, Megill was hired as an assistant professor of philosophy, whose specialty was Marxism, by the University of Florida. [10] and quickly became involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. [11]
During his years as a faculty member, Megill was controversial, outspoken, and was covered widely in the press. [12] [13] Megill was awarded an "outstanding professor" award from the College of Arts and Sciences, but also said, at the same time, that "at the proper time faculty members and radical students should combine to take over the university". [14]
Police violence and political meddling are still facts of life for the public universities of Florida ... Until those who work at the university, the students and faculty, assume control of the institution where they live and work, and until the threat of police violence is removed, the public universities of Florida will be neither free nor democratic. [15] If students and faculty are to take over the university it will mean a radical change. [16]
Megill also called for the formation of "a strong teachers' union". [17] (At the time, collective bargaining by public employees in Florida was prohibited by law.) Florida Representative Tom Slade, backed by other legislators, released to the news media a letter calling for Megill to be fired; there were student demonstrations supporting Megill. [18] [19] [20] After an investigation. President Stephen C. O'Connell, a former Florida Supreme Court justice who had been appointed president of the university to "clean out" the radicals, [21] said there was no justification and refused to do so. [22]
In 1972, O'Connell overruled the recommendations of the Philosophy Department, the College of Arts and Sciences, and his own hearing examiner that Megill be awarded tenure, which meant Megill would be terminated when his contract expired in 1973 (as in fact happened). [23] [24] Widespread demonstrations followed.[ citation needed ] The state Board of Regents overruled the recommendation of the examiner it had named, who took 1,800 pages of testimony, and voted unanimously to support O'Connell's recommendation not to award tenure. [25] [26] Megill and the Gainesville local 1880 of the American Federal of Teachers sued, each asking for $500,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. [27]
An extended legal battle ended with the Fifth Circuit Court ruling that a faculty without a contract, like Megill, could be terminated for no reason, for false reasons, or for any reason at all. That ruling became an important precedent that was cited 42 times in other cases. [28]
After leaving the university, Megill became a full-time organizer for a faculty union. In 1976, the United Faculty of Florida (UFF) was elected as the bargaining agent for 6,000 faculty and professional employees in the nine (now ten) state universities. By 2014 the United Faculty of Florida (UFF) represented more than thirty thousand faculty and professional employees in Florida. [29]
In 1982, Megill left the union presidency and moved to Washington where he worked for a number of different organizations.
Starting in the late 1980s Megill became a practicing records manager and later turned his attention to developing a theoretical framework for records and knowledge management. [34] In 1987 he was hired as the first professional records manager at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Administrator of National Banks for the US federal government. He automated the operations of the Central File Room [35] and spent a year working with other OCC staff to develop a data dictionary for banking. [36] [37] [38]
He began a fifteen-year working relationship with Cuadra Associates and assisted them in developing the first software for managing electronic records. [39] [40] From 1988 to 1993, Megill taught courses at The Catholic University of America School of Library and Information Science. He was one of the first professors to use electronic technologies in teaching. [41] He developed a certificate program in federal information resources management and, with a group of federal information professionals, he published a handbook on how to bring the information revolution to the federal government. [42]
He published two editions of a book on corporate memory that gave a theoretical and practical bases for records management which was translated into Serbo-Croatian. [43] Together with Herb Schantz, an engineer who held patents on many of the technologies used for document scanning, he wrote a book for document managers. [44] Schantz was a leader in The Association for Work Process Improvement (TAWPI) which brought together technical and business leaders in optical character recognition.[ citation needed ]
As a consultant, Megill helped organizations and businesses to develop records management and archival programs. [45] [46] He spoke at professional meetings and continued his writing. [47] [48] [49] [50] [51]
In 1999, Megill began a three-year project to create an Integrated Digital Environment (IDE) for the US Air Force. [52] [53] [54]
The Air Force established a Work Culture Transformation Board made up of senior executives to transform the work culture of the Air Force from an information hoarding to an information sharing environment. [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60]
In 2005, Megill and Lawrence Tan founded a company, Knowledge Applications Services (KAS), to put his theoretical work into practice. He worked with the National Mediation Board (NMB), an agency managing labor-management relationships in the airline and railway industry. Under his leadership, NMB created the first all-electronic record management system in a federal agency.[ citation needed ]
The University of Florida Department of Special & Area Studies Collections has a collection of Megill's papers from 1967–1973, as well as material relating to O'Connell's decision to deny Megill tenure. [61] [62]
The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-performed players during the season, traditionally led by that season's premiership coach.
Horacio Enrique Accavallo was an Argentine professional boxer who competed from 1956 until 1967. He held the WBA and WBC flyweight titles between March 1966 to October 1968.
Angleball is a registered sports fitness organization and patented equipment manufacturer for North America's oldest sport, anejodi. Angleball's anejodi rules were reestablished as an American tradition during World War 2 at Brown University by collegiate Hall of Fame football and basketball coach Charles "Rip" Engle to keep American World War 2 servicemen fit prior to deployment. Angleball equipment is currently played by 1,000,000+ people in the United States and worldwide and for conditioning in the NFL and by Team USA Olympic athletes. International Angleball has 13 current member countries. The Angleball organization honors its ancient heritage by encouraging groups to produce their own anejodi equipment to Angleball's patented measurements, using available or natural materials, as long as the equipment is not sold. Angleball is a registered trademark and is sold exclusively by the Angleball company.
The Ottawa Trojans were a Canadian football team based in Ottawa, Ontario and competed in the Ontario Rugby Football Union from 1943 to 1947. After winning the 1947 ORFU championship, the team would merge with the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1948.
Andrew Jackson Bettwy, an Arizona Democrat, served as Mayor of Nogales, Arizona, from 1935 to 1937, was an Arizona delegate at the Democratic National Conventions of 1924 and 1928, and 1928, and was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in the 1930, 1932, 1934, 1936, and 1938 primary elections and in the 1932 general election.
Cecil B. Ferguson was an American professional baseball player.
Clark S. Gruening is an attorney and Democratic Party politician from the U.S. state of Alaska. He is chiefly known as the second of three persons to defeat the incumbent holder of Alaska's Class 3 United States Senate seat in the primary election.
Arthur "Art" George Bragg was an American sprinter who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics.
1956–57 was the 11th season of the Western International Hockey League.
James Hensel "Hank" Hulvey was a professional baseball player. He was a right-handed pitcher for one season (1923) with the Philadelphia Athletics. For his career, he compiled an 0–1 record, with a 7.71 earned run average, and two strikeouts in seven innings pitched. He gave up Babe Ruth's 230th homerun on September 5, 1923, in his only game starting as pitcher.
Bardstown (1952–1972) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse.
Mark Edward Lutz is an American former sprinter. He ran for his home country in the 200 metres at the 1976 Summer Olympics, finishing 5th in his qualifying heat.
The Anclote Missile Tracking Annex was a Cold War radar station of 49.65 acres (20.09 ha) in Pasco County, Florida adjacent to the Alachua Pinellas community at the mouth of the Anclote River near Tampa. The Air Force Systems Command military installation, site D 3 of the Eglin Range Complex, was used for development tests, e.g., 1950s/1960s Regulus II supersonic cruise missile firings from the Venice missile launch complex.
John P. Tatum is a former Canadian football player who won a Grey Cup with the Edmonton Eskimos. He is the father of John P. Tatum II, CEO of Genesco Sports Enterprises. He played college football at the University of Texas.
Wilson Hicks was an American journalist and author who made major contributions to the advancement of photojournalism in the period of the 1930s through the 1950s. After working for the Associated Press from 1929 to 1937 he embarked on his most significant period of work, as picture editor of Life magazine. Beginning in 1937, soon after the magazine’s inception, within three years he had built a staff of 40. It was the most accomplished pool of photojournalists assembled by any publication up to that point. Hicks later was named executive editor of Life, a position he held until leaving the magazine in 1952. Following his departure from Life, Hicks joined the faculty of the University of Miami, bringing photojournalism education to that institution. His book “Words and Pictures: An Introduction to Photojournalism” was published in 1952.
Bruce Irving Rankin, was a Canadian diplomat.
Francis B. Gouldman was an American politician, lawyer and judge from the U.S. state of Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, and the Byrd Organization, he served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1952 to 1964, representing his native Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Spotsylvania County. A year after he was defeated in the 1963 Democratic primary to retain his part-time office as delegate, Gouldman was elected a judge of the first Juvenile and Domestic Relations court in Virginia, and served until 1977.
Midge Whiteman is a former Australian race driver who competed in the 1967 Gallaher 500 with Jane Richardson in a Morris 1100S. They defeated an all-male team in an identical car and remain one of two all-female teams to ever finish the Bathurst 500.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
