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A Comparative Analysis Of Judicial Selection Methods In Tennessee And Kentucky: Appointed V. Elected, Eileen M. Forsythe Dec 2011

A Comparative Analysis Of Judicial Selection Methods In Tennessee And Kentucky: Appointed V. Elected, Eileen M. Forsythe

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This thesis explores the relationship between judicial independence and judicial accountability by investigating the question of how selection methods shape state appellate court decisions. I conducted a case study using the states of Tennessee and Kentucky and the judicial selection methods of appointments and elections. I then conducted a sample of cases and did a comparative quantitative analysis of reversal records between the two states in the hopes of finding a statistical difference from my research. The debate between judicial selection methods is not a simple question and this thesis alone cannot provide the answer, but I hope that my …


Promoting Unity Through Propaganda: How The British Government Utilized Posters During The Second World War, Elizabeth Tate Goins Dec 2011

Promoting Unity Through Propaganda: How The British Government Utilized Posters During The Second World War, Elizabeth Tate Goins

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Comprised of four separate countries, the United Kingdom is a state unlike any other. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have distinct identities, which has been a cause for discord throughout British history. However, during the Second World War the Ministry of Information, under the guidance of the Conservative government and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, launched a poster-based propaganda campaign aimed towards unifying the UK under a common national self-identity. By emphasizing shared qualities such as resilience, pragmatism, humor, patriotism and even the concept of unity itself, the Ministry of Information fostered a sense of national self-identity with the …


Objecting Objectification: Finding The Links Between Self-Objectification, Views On Harassment, And Agreement With Traditional Sex Roles, Amy M. Bishop Dec 2011

Objecting Objectification: Finding The Links Between Self-Objectification, Views On Harassment, And Agreement With Traditional Sex Roles, Amy M. Bishop

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between self-objectification levels, opinions on the impact of non-violent stranger sexual harassment on a personal and societal level, and agreement with traditional gender roles in college women. College women at Western Kentucky University were surveyed using the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale, the Social Roles Questionnaire, and original scales to measure views of street harassment. The hypotheses that viewing stranger harassment as both individually direct and complimentary would be positively correlated with self- objectification, and viewing it as innocuous in society were supported with correlation coefficients of r(103) = .211, p …


Written In Stone, Michelle Day May 2011

Written In Stone, Michelle Day

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

John Peter Zenger, Elijah Lovejoy, Gordon Parks, Walter Winchell and Katherine Graham were five famous journalists who impacted the industry in enduring ways. Whether writers, publishers or a photographer, these storytellers have had their stories told countless times over many years. This project seeks to combine journalistic research with a personal experiment in creative writing. Each chapter consists of story about one of the journalists, told either from their own perspective or someone else’s. Each piece should be considered historical fiction — not nonfiction — but the overall message and basic facts are true. Each story is different but reflects …


We Can Grow It: Reporting On Women In Agriculture In India, Belize And The U.S., Colleen Stewart May 2011

We Can Grow It: Reporting On Women In Agriculture In India, Belize And The U.S., Colleen Stewart

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Women produce more than half of the world’s food, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization. This aligns with the Chinese proverb– “Women Hold up Half the Sky.” As the role of women in agriculture increases in the developed and developing world, female economic activity in agriculture serves as a beacon for poverty reduction, increased food security, and environmental sustainability. In the United States, there has been a 30-percent increase in the number of female-run farms in the U.S. since 2002 and women, now the largest “minority” group in agriculture in the U.S., operate approximately 300,000 farms throughout the …


Once On The Dark Continent, Katrina Alexandria Bidwell May 2011

Once On The Dark Continent, Katrina Alexandria Bidwell

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Set in the fictional village of Buguta in post-genocide Rwanda, Once on the Dark Continent follows the experiences of a young doctor working for the Doctors Without Borders Program. Dr. Erica Davis unwittingly finds herself in a country where the past has continued to repeat itself a decade after a devastating civil war, unbeknownst to most of the outside world. Their history isn’t the only thing plaguing the villagers like a parasite: Erica’s careful attention to the patients at the Buguta clinic leads her to diagnose them with toxoplasmosis, a revelation that has the potential to begin solving the myriad …


Children’S Stories From Across Borders: A Contrastive Analysis Of Children’S Folk Tales In Ecuador And Appalachia, Teresa Cox May 2011

Children’S Stories From Across Borders: A Contrastive Analysis Of Children’S Folk Tales In Ecuador And Appalachia, Teresa Cox

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The Appalachian region of the United States encompasses fourteen states, ranging from southern New York to northern Mississippi. Despite the thousands of miles separating the mountain region of Appalachia within the United States and the small, diverse country of Ecuador, the two areas are decisively similar in their values. These values are clearly demonstrated in the traditional children’s folk stories, passed down orally between generations, in both Ecuador and Appalachia. Having surveyed anonymous subjects in both areas, four stories from Ecuador and seven stories from Appalachia have been collected at random in order to draw on comparison and contrast of …


A Series Of Un-Breathable Events: The Clean Air Act And The Transformation Of Environmentalism In American Society, Chelsea Kasten May 2011

A Series Of Un-Breathable Events: The Clean Air Act And The Transformation Of Environmentalism In American Society, Chelsea Kasten

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Clean air legislation was first passed in the United States by Congress in 1955 and has since been amended in 1963, 1965, 1967, 1970, 1977 and 1990. The Clean Air Act was created to ensure that Americans were not being unnecessarily exposed to harmful air pollutants. It is the legislation that allows for the regulation and control over air pollutants and the sources that release those air pollutants. This legislation is important to the maintenance and improvement of air quality in the United States. Without the Clean Air Act to regulate pollutant sources, the air could be toxic to vulnerable …


Youth And Legends: A Short Story Collection, Jennifer Kiefer May 2011

Youth And Legends: A Short Story Collection, Jennifer Kiefer

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

While young narrators or protagonists have been included in many famous works, such as J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, or Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms, typically the main character of a work of fiction is mature. The pieces in this collection of stories, however, are centered around children. Adolescents act as the protagonists of the stories, exploring an adult world. The goal of this collect is not to contribute to young adult fiction or child fiction, but to appeal in style and form to adult readers in a mature, adult writing style. …


Community-Based Research In Lagrange, Ky, Kathryn Crimm May 2011

Community-Based Research In Lagrange, Ky, Kathryn Crimm

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This project focuses on the Hispanic community in LaGrange, KY. It is a community-based research project, which includes participants in as many steps of the project as possible. The Hypothesis was that the skills and knowledge-bases of the community can be used to alleviate the issues they face. An Asset-based survey was used to acquire a quantitative analysis of the skills that exist in Hispanic population of LaGrange. The asset-based survey asked participants to answer anonymous questions about their job experience, skills, and passions. An internship at Nuevo Amanacer Baptist Church aided in the research of this project. Working within …


Lessons From Gilead: Producing A Student-Directed Musical At Western Kentucky University, Stephen G. Tabor May 2011

Lessons From Gilead: Producing A Student-Directed Musical At Western Kentucky University, Stephen G. Tabor

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In recent years there has been a surge of interest in directing musical theatre in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Western Kentucky University. Western’s theatre department offers three directing classes and three musical theatre classes, but no class that teaches how to direct musical theatre. The Musical Theatre History and Repertoire class, however, provides students with the opportunity to present half-hour summaries of musicals, in order to experience the process of succinctly telling a story with scenes and songs. It is because of this class that I and many other students have taken an interest in the art …


A Turn Of The Century Lady, Grace Delahanty May 2011

A Turn Of The Century Lady, Grace Delahanty

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The aim of this project is to explore the life of a turn of the century lady. In order to do so I first must examine the environment in which she would live, the social and historical framework that she lives within. This is a period of rapid social and political change especially in the lives of women. The ―New Woman‖ emerges rapidly gaining more independence through her active lifestyle. Carrie Burnam Taylor is one of these women. As one of the first female business owners in the Bowling Green area, she overcame economic and geographical challenges in addition to …


Changes In Newspaper Portrayals Of Women, 1900-1960, Laurel Wilson May 2011

Changes In Newspaper Portrayals Of Women, 1900-1960, Laurel Wilson

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This thesis will show how mainstream newspapers depicted women in the first half of the twentieth century, and how these portrayals changed alongside society’s view of women during this time. In addition, it will look at how coverage of women and the transformations occurring during these fifty years may have influenced and affected each other, as well as how media treatment of women contributed to the beginnings of the second wave of feminism that started in the second half of the century.


Citizen Journalism: Historical Roots And Contemporary Challenges, Wally Hughes May 2011

Citizen Journalism: Historical Roots And Contemporary Challenges, Wally Hughes

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze what effect, if any, citizen journalism is having on journalism and ethics in today’s society. It starts by examining the role citizen journalism played in the early American colonies to show that the concept of citizen journalism is not new but has played a vital role throughout American history. Next, the focus shifts to the events and reasons that led to the re-emergence of citizen journalism during the past few decades, such as media consolidation and new technology. The thesis then highlights a few of the major issues that surround citizen journalism …


The King, The Cardinal, The Concubine, And The Chronicler: A Lesson In Fluid Prejudice, Sarah Crites May 2011

The King, The Cardinal, The Concubine, And The Chronicler: A Lesson In Fluid Prejudice, Sarah Crites

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

George Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey is one of the best known contemporary biographies from the Tudor era. Written during a time that has fascinated historians for centuries, Cavendish’s work has been used and quoted by many authors from many different time periods. These writers produced biographies of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the subject of Cavendish’s biography; Henry VIII, whom Wolsey served as chief minister; and Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s love and eventual queen. The dynamics among these three individuals is shown in Cavendish’s work and in subsequent biographies related to that era. As time passed, authors became more and more suspicious …


The Casualty Of Home, Molly Koeneman May 2011

The Casualty Of Home, Molly Koeneman

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Casualty of Home is a novel-in-stories focusing largely on the displacement felt due to situation or family. Often, members of a family have trouble making connections with each other, for each has its own thoughts, desires and expectations. Still, they have something rudimentary in common: blood. Because they are related, family members are inclined to care for individuals they might not even know, much less love. Spanning three generations, the characters in Casualty of Home deal with the constraints of family, the pressures of adolescence, and the limitations of the rural Southern culture in which they live. The characters face …


Using The Web Wisely: Assisting The Nonprofit Sector With Internet Use, Lesley N. Greenwell May 2011

Using The Web Wisely: Assisting The Nonprofit Sector With Internet Use, Lesley N. Greenwell

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This study explores the unique difficulties nonprofit professionals may experience in creating and maintaining online presence. Both quantitative and qualitative methods in the form of an online survey and a focus group were used to gather data from nonprofit practitioners around Bowling Green, Kentucky. Findings revealed that nonprofits suffer from limited resources, like time, funding, personnel, and expertise, which impede their ability to take advantage of websites, social networking, and online grant research. In an attempt to address the needs identified by participants, research results were used to develop a series of training workshops facilitated by experienced professionals in the …