Education Commons^™

Asserting Individuality In A Futuristic Dystopia: A Critical Analysis Of "Dirty Computer", Sam Spethman

Honors Theses

"Dirty Computer" is a groundbreaking science fiction film directed by visionary artist Janelle Monáe, which delves into the complexities of individuality in a dystopian future dominated by oppressive societal forces. Through intricate narrative construction and thematic depth, the film asserts the indomitable nature of human identity against the backdrop of advanced technology and mind control. This paper explores how "Dirty Computer" challenges traditional narratives of conformity and celebrates the power of self-expression and authenticity. By employing critical lenses such as feminist, queer, and racial critiques, along with narrative and visual analysis techniques, the analysis highlights Monáe's embrace of her Black …

Building Before: Community Resiliency As Emergency Management, Alexandria Rinne

Honors Theses

This project seeks to address gaps in emergency preparedness education related to tornado response. Through an examination of current research about best practices for tornado emergency management response and an examination of the needs of FEMA Regions 7 and 8, the author has identified key strategies and stakeholders to increase positive outcome through building community engagement and resiliency. Three presentations were created for delivery to key community stakeholders—local government officials; non-governmental organizations, social networks, and associations; and individual private citizens. The project offers an overview of background research and provides presentation slide decks, scripts, and discussion guides, all created with …

Nebraska Politics And The Environment: Framing Political Communication In The State Of Nebraska In Comparison To National Level Discourse, Samuel Taylor

Honors Theses

Environmental public policy has seen little change on the national level in recent decades due to Congressional gridlock. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have entrenched their opposing viewpoints, and their communication on the topic utilizes issue frames to help sway the public to see their side. On the Republican side, these issue frames take the form of the “scientific uncertainty” and “economic consequences” frames. This study, based on issue framing, surveys the communication of Nebraska’s Republican State Senators to determine if they utilize the same issue frames or if they diverge from their national counterparts. By analyzing recent …

Treating A Viral Culture: Using Cultural Competency And Social Informatics To Design Contextualized Information Literacy Efforts For Specific Social Information Cultures, Rachel N. Simons, Aaron J. Elkins, Shengnan Yang (Ed.), Xiaohua Zhu (Ed.), Pnina Fichman (Ed.)

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This chapter proposes a novel theoretical framework, Social Information Cultural Competency (SICC), that may be used for designing contextualized information literacy efforts. The SICC approach leverages the frameworks of social informatics, cultural competency, and psychosocial understandings of information behavior to encourage information professionals to develop more nuanced understandings of specific social information cultures. After defining this approach, the chapter then applies the SICC framework to a case study considering information literacy interventions addressing a social information culture engaged in sharing COVID-19 misinformation through social media. As part of this case study, the chapter discusses three current information literacy approaches to …

An Ethical Discussion About The Responsibility For Protection Of Minors In The Digital Environment: A State-Of-The-Art Review, Charles Alves De Castro, Aiden Carthy, Isobel Oreilly Dr

Articles

Many ethical questions have been raised regarding the use of social media and the internet, mainly related to the protection of young people in the digital environment. In order to critically address the research question "who is responsible for ethically protecting minors in the digital environment?", this paper will review the main literature available to understand the role of parents, the government, and companies in protecting young people within the digital environment. We employed a holistic process that covers a state-of-the-art review and desk research. The article is divided into four sessions; (1) Government Policies from the European Union (EU) …

Which Police Departments Make Black Lives Matter, Which Don’T, And Why Don’T Most Social Scientists Care?, Robert Anthony Maranto, Wilfred Reilly, Patrick Wolf, Mattie Harris

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

In part via skillful use of social media, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has become among the most influential social movements of the past half century, with support across racial lines, and considerable financial backing (Fisher, 2019). Will this translate into public policy reforms which save Black lives? After all, higher education is a key institutional backer of BLM, and a considerable literature dating back decades (e.g., Lindblom & Cohen, 1979) casts doubt on the effectiveness of social science in solving social problems, for numerous reasons. Often, the best social science is simple counting. This paper makes two unique contributions. First, …

Calls For Change: Seeing Cancel Culture From A Multi-Level Perspective, Tomar Pierson-Brown

Articles

Transition Design offers a framework and employs an array of tools to engage with complexity. “Cancel culture” is a complex phenomenon that presents an opportunity for administrators in higher education to draw from the Transition Design approach in framing and responding to this trend. Faculty accused of or caught using racist, sexist, or homophobic speech are increasingly met with calls to lose their positions, titles, or other professional opportunities. Such calls for cancellation arise from discreet social networks organized around an identified lack of accountability for social transgressions carried out in the professional school environment. Much of the existing discourse …

Free To Hate: Hate Crimes' Intertwinement With The Evolution Of Free Speech In The United States, Lee F. Paulson

Honors Theses

In response to the growing tension between civil liberties and civil rights, this research investigates the relationship between the relative expansiveness of free speech and a the nationwide propensity for hate crimes. I argue that government’s legal limitations of speech influence the development of linguistic and hierarchical norms in a national culture. Given structural inequality’s association to violence and crimes of intimidation, I hypothesize that as the government expands the legal bounds of free speech, the national propensity for hate crimes decreases. Text analyses of 50 influential freedom of expression rulings in the United States (U.S.) Supreme Court from 1919-2019 …

Perceptions Of Black Lives Matter: An Analysis Of The Movement And Its Impact On The Relationship Between The Lincoln Police Department, The Media And The Public, Paige Heinemann

Honors Theses

This study examines the relationships between the Lincoln Police Department (LPD), the Lincoln Journal Star (LJS), and the public as they interacted during the Black Lives Matter protests in Lincoln, Nebraska, during June 2020. In order to analyze the relationships between the three actors, I utilized previous research that examined the role of the media on perceptions of police, how media framing of police brutality influences perceptions, and how the four models of public relations function in communities. This led me to pose the following research question: How do the relationships between the Lincoln Police Department, the media and the …

Leadership Crisis Communication During The Pandemic Of 2020, Daryl Watkins, Steven Walker

Publications

COVID-19 provided a unique opportunity to examine leadership communication strategies during an extended crisis. The authors used political discourse analysis to review the crisis communication of President Donald Trump and seven U.S. governors using the U.S. Center for Disease Control crisis communication framework. The findings demonstrated that U.S. governors typically used effective communication strategies during their press briefings. President Trump often did not use effective crisis communication. The governors’ crisis communication styles were consistent with the CDC’s guidelines. The governors’ communication styles demonstrate that they are “in the arena,” while President Trump has attempted to remove himself from the arena.

Constructions Of Democratic Citizenship And Civic Education In Tunisia, Abigail Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Although Tunisia has made significant progress in establishing procedural democracy since the 2011 revolution, the state still faces significant challenges in consolidating their new spirit of democracy throughout society. This trouble includes difficulty fostering participation from its citizens, particularly among youth aged 18-30. This article hypothesizes that these difficulties stems largely from the state’s failure to construct a concept of Tunisian citizenship in line with democratic ideologies. Citizenship construction is considered as a political science concept that describes the mechanisms by which states relate with their citizenry with the goal of defining citizen interactions with the government and national community. …

Rhetoric And Race - Background And Assignment - Shu Mlk Symposium 2020, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

Provides an overview of Rhetoric and describes the historical development of Race as a rhetorical construct. Offers two associated assignment options: a digital audio interview plus video debrief on contemporary racism, and/or an essay on 21st century abolitionist rhetoric. - Jon Radwan and Angela Kariotis

Envisioning Critical Social Entrepreneurship Education: Possibilities, Questions, And Guiding Commitments, Mark Congdon Jr., Liliana Herakova

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Higher education institutions continue to be increasingly interested in examining how social entrepreneurship and community engaged approaches to education can work together. In light of the recent growth and interest in such programs, scholars and educators have called for attention to specific considerations when developing SE and community-based education, which can be summed up in three areas - pedagogy, relationships, and impact. The present essay builds on such propositions, and calls for a critically-orientated approach to SE, grounded in community engagement, collaborative dialogue among diverse voices, and a commitment to transforming oppressive structures

Googly Eyes And Yard Signs: Deconstructing One Professor’S Successful Rebuffing Of A Right-Wing Attack On An Academic Institution, Theresa Catalano, Ari Kohen

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Right-wing populism is on the rise worldwide, and political attacks against universities have increased in the United States since the election of Donald Trump. In 2017, an incident occurred at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln which resulted in accusations of hostility toward conservative students. Just over a year later, political forces again attempted to denigrate the university’s reputation, but this time they did not succeed. This (multimodal) positive discourse analysis/ generative critique combines collaborative auto-ethnography to describe the way these events were represented in the media, deconstructing a professor’s methods of countering a right-wing attack on an academic institution. Findings demonstrate …

Los Efectos De La Socialización Política En Las Percepciones Sobre Los Migrantes Centroamericanos, Katherine Fulcher

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since early 2018, xenophobic attitudes towards Central American Migrants have spiked among Mexican adults. However, it is largely unknown if youth in Mexico feel the same way. This research explores xenophobia among university students through the lens of political socialization, which is the process of developing political opinions, attitudes, and behavior. This study sought to discover what agents of socialization (family, social media, traditional media, and a university education) are most prominent among Mexican youth and what effects these agents have on student perceptions of Central American migrants and migration. To address these questions, a sequential explanatory mixed methods design, …

Typed Document: The College And University Women’S Public Leadership Consortium Mentors

Saffy Collection - All Textual Materials

List of mentors for The College and University Women's Public Leadership Consortium. No date given Box: 7 Folder: 15

Spa 2201hs Spanish For Heritage Speakers (Syllabus_Fall 2019), David Sánchez-Jiménez

Open Educational Resources

SPA 2201HS Spanish for Heritage Speakers is an intermediate course intended for students who were immersed in or exposed to the language while growing up, but who have received little or no formal instruction in Spanish. Strengthens students’ competence in the oral and written standard varieties of Spanish by building on their previous knowledge to expand their vocabulary, strengthen their command of grammar, and achieve more confidence and fluency in speaking and writing while learning about the diversity of the Hispanic cultures. The skills acquired in this course will help reinforce students’ bilingual abilities and cultural competence.

Life Events Which Motivate Youth To Become Climate Activists In Sydney And Canberra, Phoebe Dolan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Climate activism is the tool of young people to rise and fight for their future and the future of the planet. Today it is necessary that young people engage as climate activists. My research asks what life events motivate youth to become climate activists. I looked into the initial life events which spark the motivation of young people to understand their initial motives for joining the climate movement. I looked into where the motivation came from, a concern for nature, a concern for social justice or the interconnectedness of the two. I also looked into the life events of individuals …

Missing The (Turning) Point: The Erosion Of Democracy At An American University, Anthony Fucci, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

On August 25, 2017, student members of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a right-wing conservative organization who advocates for smaller government and free market enterprise, recruited on the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) campus. Members of the UNL community protested nearby. Part of the protest was recorded on video and released to social media leading to harsh public criticism that accused the university of restricting free speech and being an unsafe environment for conservative students. Drawing on cognitive linguistics (e.g. metonymy, framing) and multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), this paper explores how the TPUSA incident at UNL was recontextualized in local and …

Ua3/2/4 Wku President's Office-Garrett Speech File, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Speeches and notes for speeches written by and delivered by Paul Garrett.

Will Democracy Endure Private School Choice? The Effect Of The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program On Adult Voting Behavior, Corey Deangelis, Patrick Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We employ probit regression analysis to compare the adult voting activity of students who participated in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) to their matched public school counterparts. We use a sophisticated matching algorithm to create a traditional public school student comparison group using data from the state-mandated evaluation of the MPCP. By the time the students are 19-26 years old, we do not find evidence that private school voucher students are more or less likely to vote in 2012 or 2016 than students educated in public schools. These results are robust to all models and are consistent for all …

Ua3/10/1 Investiture Address, Timothy C. Caboni

WKU Archives Records

Speech delivered by Dr. Timothy Caboni upon his installation as president of WKU.

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Policy Communication And The Influence Of Agricultural Communities On Karst Landscapes: A Case Study In Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, Vietnam, Elizabeth Willenbrink

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Karst landscapes are vulnerable to human influence, especially agricultural practices. The interconnectedness between surface activities and subsurface environments make karst landscapes particularly susceptible to soil erosion and water contamination. The likelihood of these two phenomena happening increases when agricultural intensification, irrigation, or fertilizer application occurs. This situation arises frequently in Vietnam, where 18% of the country is karst terrain and 60% of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods (Farming First 2009). In order to mitigate the negative consequences of agriculture on karst landscapes, effective implementation of policy to regulate human activities and increased communication of these policies to …

The Use Of Zingari/Nomadi/Rom In Italian Crime Discourse, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study examines the use of the metonymies zingari/nomadi/rom [Gypsies/Nomads/Roma] in Italian media discourse, in order to critically reflect on their relation to the perception of Roma. The author analyses the frequency of these terms in general discourse and crime discourse, as well as the way they are used in context. The findings reveal that nomadi and rom are used to directly and indirectly index Roma, and have a sig­nificant impact on their ethnicization and criminalization. In addition, the episodic framing of crime events, combined with the use of these metony­mies, erases the Italian government’s responsibility for the conditions of …

The Complexity Of Learning To Teach News Media In Social Studies Education, Mardi Schmeichel, Jim Garrett, Rachel Ranschaert, Joseph Mcanulty, Shannon Thompson, Sonia Janis, Christopher Clark, Stephanie Yagata, Briana Bivens

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This research reports on data generated through an initial teacher certification program for secondary social studies teachers that introduced a specific and program-spanning focus on news media literacy. Growing out of the urgent need for pedagogies that address and promote critical engagement with the kinds of news media sources upon which civic decisions are made, our project follows teacher candidates from their initial certification coursework through the culminating student teaching semester. Our work with teacher candidates over this time was explicitly intended to intervene in and develop teacher candidates’ understandings of news media literacy, its place in social studies education, …

Investigating Preferences For Patriarchal Values Among Muslim University Students In Southern Thailand, Mahsoom Sateemae, Tarik Abdel-Monem, Suhaimee Sateemae

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

Recent research on Muslim populations has offered interesting but limited insights about values preferences. This mixed-methods study examines the prevalence of support for patriarchy among a sample of religious Muslim university students in Southern Thailand using items from the World Values Survey. It also investigates the durability of these preferences by examining correlations between support or opposition to patriarchal values with preferences towards courtship practices, and elements that influence respondents’ views on gender roles, particularly related to the contemporary socioeconomic and political situation facing the Muslim minority of Southern Thailand.

Ua12/2/1 College Heights Herald, Vol. 92, No. 27, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Archives Records

WKU campus newspaper reporting campus, athletic and Bowling Green, Kentucky news. This issue contains articles:

• Board Names Preferred Presidential Candidate – Timothy Caboni
• Kast, Monica. University Senate Calls Meeting for President – Timothy Caboni
• Austin, Emma. Students Join Women’s March on Washington, DC
• Alvey, Rebekah. Topper Grill & Pub Awaits Liquor License Approval
• Alvey, Rebekah. Campus Construction Continues Progress – Hilltopper Hall
• Reigning Regents: Shared Governance Must Be More Than a Concept
• Editorial Cartoon re: President Timothy Caboni
• Potter, Abby. The People United – Donald Trump, Protests
• Harry Potter Fans Pair Up in Magical Speed Dates
• Chavis, Danielle. Social Justice …

Law-Based Arguments And Messages To Advocate For Later School Start Time Policies In The United States, Clark J. Lee, Dennis M. Nolan, Steven W. Lockley, Brent Pattison

Homeland Security Publications

The increasing scientific evidence that early school start times are harmful to the health and safety of teenagers has generated much recent debate about changing school start times policies for adolescent students. Although efforts to promote and implement such changes have proliferated in the United States in recent years, they have rarely been supported by law-based arguments and messages that leverage the existing legal infrastructure regulating public education and child welfare in the United States. Furthermore, the legal bases to support or resist such changes have not been explored in detail to date. This article provides an overview of how …

Othering Others: Right-Wing Populism In Uk Media Discourse On “New” Immigration, Grace E. Fielder, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Right wing populism is on the rise. Through the use of othering, right-wing groups delimit their own identities while excluding others. The purpose of this chapter is to shed light on how European mediated public spheres (such as reader responses to media discourse) constitute an important domain of identity articulation and struggle through the discursive construction of the ‘Other’. In this case, the others come from the Central and Eastern European countries that are perceived as newcomers to Western Europe due to the consecutive enlargements of the European Union. Specifically, this chapter provides an in-depth analysis of 236 reader comments …