Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Collecting: A Process Of Learning, Growth, And Forming Identity, Nate Trachte

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Why do people stuff their homes full of things that have no real utility and attach such great personal attachment to them? It is the relationships involved in any action that provide a lasting sense of satisfaction. Transformation in life as with education is about being able to sit with uncertainty, asking questions, and seeking to understand with the spirit of earnest curiosity. We should seek to hold each other gently in the uncertainty of learning and growth. What if instead of focusing on rushing to meet standards and goals, we slow down and embrace the process of learning missteps …

What To Make Of A Diminished Thing: Re-Envisioning Spirit And Relation In Environmental Education, Zoe Wadkins

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Traditional westernized systems of education reflect complex historical, social, and political forces that prioritize uniformity at expense of people’s multi-dimensionality. This paper details a returning to relation via education’s potential to entwine multiple perspectives in mutual understanding of lived experience. Education in this way becomes an interwoven tapestry and a means to speak across difference in mending, rather than in mutual deterioration. Enjoining personal storytelling with indigenous epistemology, the author pursues hope in reconfiguring the display of our educational tapestry.

Nourishing Solidarity: Critical Food Pedagogy And Storytelling For Community, N. Tanner Johnson

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

This piece was delivered in four parts in tandem with a four-course meal, with the intention of providing the audience with time to engage in the sharing of their own perspectives around food and eating. Foodways, the particular cultural and social contexts within which food sits offer a unique entry point into deeper, more connective opportunities for environmental education. The food justice and food sovereignty movements provide a foil for traditional forms of environmental education which reinforce settler-colonial narratives about the more-than-human world. Food is something that everyone has some sort of interaction with every single day. At the same …

The Queer Agenda: A Fluid Education, Charlee Corra

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Throughout this paper, I weave together various aspects of my identity in order to investigate how fluidity and questioning form an undercurrent of my being and therefore of the way I teach. Through metaphors and narratives of my experiences within environmental education and experiential learning I seek clarity and expansiveness rather than definitive answers, leaning into the certainty that change is inevitable and there are rarely any static answers. Using queerness, Judaism, and my scientific background as the layers of my unique identity lens and positionality, I explore the ways in which the power of questioning, critical thinking, democratic education …

Pedagogy Of Tarot: Simultaneity Of Past, Present, And Future, Ashley S. Hill

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

A three card tarot spread can represent the past, present, and future. As a reflective practice, tarot does not divine the future; rather it invites the practitioner to consider context and imagine multiple futures. Simultaneously experiencing the past, present, and future of education is valuable and is possible through a pedagogy of tarot. A pedagogy of tarot connects fxminist and democratic approaches to education through non-hierarchical relationships that honor lived experiences - calling teachers and learners to remain conscious and awake to one another. By acknowledging the possibility of multiple truths within current sociopoliticial and hxstorical contexts, we can make …

Klipsun Magazine, 2020, Volume 51 Issue 01 - Fall, Colton Rasanen

Klipsun Magazine

Dearest readers, This is the section that my predecessors have carved out to write something profound about Klipsun’s theme and the stories you will find with- in. Yet, as I write this, I realize there isn’t anything inherently profound to say about pride. Pride is something most people understand from a young age. Life is filled with proud moments. Pride in education and sports, pride in family and pets, even pride in our ability to meet milestones like talking and walking. As I list all these moments, I wonder why it was so hard for me to feel pride growing …

Technological Bodies, Serena Riley

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The human body: a vessel of health, of life, of expression. Our bodies house systems of complex behaviors, chemical reactions, and intricate biology beyond human comprehension. Internal and external bodily systems allow us to not only survive, but also allow us to perceive the world in our own unique ways. We are stimulated by various external forces; by nature, by modern technological advancements, by other’s physical forms. Modern society is full of increasingly unattainable societal expectations and rapidly changing technological advances that impact the ways we view and change ourselves, both physically and mentally. As the world continues to advance …

Learning To Fish Together: Imperialism And Hope In International Volunteer Service, Sadie De Luca

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

An anthropological look at (neo)imperial frameworks of international volunteering, and at new directions for cross-cultural understanding and justice. This paper seeks to investigate many questions. For instance, since the majority of international volunteer organizations appear to be based in previously-colonizing countries in the “Global North,” mainly with aims to provide humanitarian aid in previously-colonized countries in the “Global South,” how does that preexisting history and relationship impact “humanitarian actions,” in intent, practice, and consequences? Additionally, in acknowledging this history and potential relationship, is it possible for an international volunteer organization to exist outside of Empire, or are they inseparable? And …

The Political Economy Of Nuclear Energy: Why There Is Not Broad Public Support For Nuclear Policy & Why There Should Be, Willa Grace Mei Lee

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In this paper, I examine how the nuclear incidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima impacted public support for nuclear energy in the United States. Particularly, I look at the ways the media has influenced public perception, and thus, nuclear policy. I also consider the economic arguments for and against using nuclear power and highlight the effects of decommissioning nuclear fleets as was seen in the aftermath of the major nuclear incidents. Lastly, I discuss how the public can become better informed on nuclear energy.

Ultimately, the three major nuclear incidents spurred anti-nuclear sentiment, which shut down nuclear plants, …

Covid-19 And The Us-Canada Border Report 2: Canadians And Taxable Retail Sales Within Whatcom County, Border Policy Research Institute, Western Washington University

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

On February 29th, 2020, the first death from COVID-19 occurred in Washington State. Over the weeks following, both Washington State and British Columbia implemented various efforts aimed at reducing the spread of the virus. On March 14th, B.C. announced closures of many businesses, made recommendations against non-essential travel, and implemented a voluntary two week self- quarantine on Canadians returning to Canada. Two weeks later, Washington issued a stay-at- home order which went into effect March 23rd. These state and provincial measures aimed at limiting mobility were soon followed by coordinated decisions by the U.S. and Canada to limit cross-border travel. …

Cross Border Regional Planning: Insights From Cascadia, Francesco Cappellano, Kathrine Richardson, Laurie Trautman

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

This analysis focuses on different levels of Cross-Border Regional Planning (CBRP) processes in the Cascadia borderland. The region is home to the business-led initiative ‘Cascadia Innovation Corridor’ (CIC), designed to foster cross-border economic integration. The CIC strives to build a global innovation ecosystem in Cascadia, including a new high-speed train to connect Seattle and Vancouver. This paper focuses on the scope of the CIC as a CBRP case. The authors evaluate engagement of city governments and coherency between different planning scales to determine whether the CIC has been addressing the major challenges that may prevent tighter economicintegration in Cascadia. The …

An Analysis Of Vogue: Femininity & Intersectionality As A Societal Standard In Fashion, Cassidy Tamburro

Scholars Week

The goal of this research project is to see if Vogue has evolved or changed its fashion coverage to be more intersectional as well as evolved in what it means to be ideally feminine. The research question that guided my work is: How has Vogue’s intersectionality and feminine ideals evolved in its fashion coverage from 1975 to 2019? My methods include a semiotic analysis of Vogue magazine covers images from 1975 and 2019, examining model diversity, cover-photo elements, and representations of styles. A qualitative analysis, including content-coding, of Vogue fashion articles 1975 and 2019. The main findings included that Vogue …

Asian American Happiness: A Preliminary Analysis, Kris Tran, Hannah Proctor

Scholars Week

Happiness has been a long celebrated and pursued goal throughout the history of man. As the field of cross-cultural psychology looks to expand research boundaries, Asian Americans experience a unique blend of multiple cultures, and as a result, also hold a unique perception of happiness and subjective well-being. To understand their experience, we assessed relevant studies of life satisfaction in Asian American groups to uncover their population’s true mean level of happiness. We also looked to systematize and collate the various theories impacting Asian American happiness, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of subjective well-being and happiness overall.

Epa’S Meaningful Involvement In Ej: Mission Accomplished?, Dawn Weimer, Gail Sandlin

Scholars Week

Forwarding research analyzing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Justice Small Grant (EJSG) program. According to the EPA, Environmental Justice is built around “the meaningful involvement of all people… with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies (EPA, 2014)”. The former research of Abel and Stephan analyzed grants years 1996-2002 and Sarver’s 2003-2011 analysis. Their analysis confirmed EPA’s EJSG program capacities have been granting civic capacity the least, which contradicts the EPA’s mission to EJSG program. This forwarding research hypothesizes is that EJSG’s will track the previous research’s trends given the historical data. In …

Kulshan Gives: Helping A Nonprofit Choir Create A Culture Of Giving, Emily Jackson, Schuyler Shelloner

Scholars Week

How can a nonprofit organization change from a culture of caring to a culture of giving? Emily Jackson, Schuyler Shelloner and Emma Calvert sought to answer that question in Fall 2020 during their public relations course, Research and Campaigns. They formed the Skyline Group agency and developed a PR campaign proposal for the Kulshan Chorus. This nonprofit, social-justice-oriented choir wanted to raise awareness about their mission, increase funding and involve more choir members in more community outreach. In response to their request for proposal, the Skyline Group conducted research, defined target audiences and created a 53-page campaign booklet with deliverables …

Black Power Imagery As Resistive Memory-Making, Courtney Kruzan

Scholars Week

The “Four Black Panthers” is a photograph of Assata Shakur (middle left), Dhoruba bin-Wahad (far left), and two other unknown individuals (middle and far right) that was found attached to the essay Assata Shakur, Excluding the Nightmare After the Dream by bin-Wahad. “Four Black Panthers” is a part of a rich genre of Black Power Era imagery that attempts to portray the collective memory of Black communities and to articulate an alternative history that challenges the hegemonic narrative put-forth in the U.S. The narrative of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s is that peaceful, non-violence made the movement. Dr. …

Journalism In The Age Of Doxxing​, Kathrine Huntington

Scholars Week

Doxxing is something that is becoming more and more of a reality to many journalists today and that reality can quickly become a nightmare if used in the wrong way. Doxxing is known as the release of private information without consent of the person it is directed towards. It is important for journalists today to be familiar with what doxxing is, what ethical dilemmas it creates as well as how to protect themselves against being doxxed. Anyone can be doxxed but journalists face the highest risk in today’s modern world due to easy accessibility to technology as well as our …

Reducing Stress For Student Journalists, Melody Kazel

Scholars Week

As a student in JOUR 214 and 414, I noticed that stress levels in the class were high. I asked students, currently in the class or who’d taken it one quarter previously, to fill out a survey about their stress levels and causes of stress. In order to prevent unconscious negative bias because of the nature of a survey about stress, I included questions about student satisfaction levels and causes of satisfaction. The majority of students rated stress at an eight or ten out of ten. Satisfaction levels were more varied; most students rated their satisfaction at a four, five, …

Self-Care Practices Among College Students Today: Coping With Mental Illness, Ashley Manawa

Scholars Week

This study focuses on aspects of mental health and illness experienced by college students who access the university Wellness Center. In this study, researchers conduct qualitative interviewing with participants to better understand their perspectives and experiences, as well as treatment in the form of self-care practices. Implications of this study include the impact that the self-care practices have on the students experiencing mental illness.

The Advocacy And Rhetoric Of Students Experiencing Hunger In The Pursuit Of College Degrees, Mckenzie Goff

Scholars Week

The following proposal is examining the interaction between college rhetoric of hunger with the self-advocacy of students experiencing food insecurity. The study will be a face to face interview with 20 students of any gender, between the ages of 19 and 25. The face to face interview will cover questions on experiences in food insecurity as well as comfort level when partaking in self-advocacy and it will be followed up with an email with the same questions. The results of this study will be used to examine current rhetoric of hunger used by college administrations to reform said rhetoric.

Journalists Need To Be A Voice For The Weakest Stakeholders In The Climate Crisis, Lucille Giaccio

Scholars Week

The paper covers the ethical dilemma concerning Journalism and its lack of coverage of the animal perspective. The research was done using Western Washington University's library databases and other news articles about the issue. The articles and websites focused on the ethical aspect of the "Voice for the Voiceless" including animals and nature. The primary issue with news organizations failing to discuss the animal suffering in the climate crisis was because they claimed it was too complicated. The challenge after that is writing for a human audience with a nonhuman perspective. Many journalists have adapted their style to cover all …

Decolonizing Disability: An Independent Research Project, Audrin Thorn

Scholars Week

It may appear that the marginalization of people with disabilities/impairments and the marginalization of colonized subjects are separate issues, even if they sometimes intersect in the bodyminds of disabled Indigenous individuals. However, the marginalization and oppression of disabled and Indigenous people goes beyond the “simple” intersecting of oppressions. Indigenous peoples and those constructed by Western culture to have disabilities are disempowered and marginalized by deeply overlapping and mutually reinforcing mechanisms of oppression. My academic goal for this research was to engage in a borderland dialogue between Indigenous and Western worldviews around conceptions of health and unwellness, as a basis for …

"Contained: The Separation Wall In Palestine/Israel", Tyler Durbin

Scholars Week

Despite international legal consensus declaring the separation wall in Palestine/Israel as illegal, Israel has continued this geopolitical project unchallenged. Examining the judicial decisions of the International Court of Justice and Israel’s High Court of Justice on the wall, and their following political developments, reveals that Israel’s wall project was motivated by a political desire to protect illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories, confiscate Palestinian land, and constrict their movement and space. Analyzing the entirety of the wall through the lens of containment illuminates how the wall’s fracturing of Palestinian land created the material conditions, or the ‘facts on the ground’, …

Klipsun Magazine, 2020, Volume 50 Issue 03 - Spring, Zoe Deal

Klipsun Magazine

For the Reader, The lake is silent on a cool spring morning. As a thick mist rises from the water’s glassy surface, there is a harsh rumble, and a white speedboat rushes through. All that remains, when the buzz fades to an empty echo, is a white-capped trail, rippling, rippling, gone. While the wake of one boat disappears as quickly as it comes into existence, add one, two or 50 more to the mix and, well... just imagine the insurmountable waves. It is not difficult to picture this familiar wake. But to recognize this metaphor on a greater human scale …

Beyond Thoughts And Prayers: Understanding Mass Violence Through An Investigation Of Masculinity In The White Nationalist Movement, Paige Chun Lai Toop

Western Libraries Undergraduate Research Award

Mass violence is a growing concern in the United States. In August 2019, two mass shootings occurred less than 24 hours apart, but far too often these incidents are lost in the waves of hashtags, tweets, and posts offering thoughts and prayers, but such attention rarely results in action. I hypothesize that the current conceptualization and enforcement of masculinity breeds resentment and frustration toward women and when taken to the extreme results in violence. Based on data collected on Stormfront.org, the first major hate website, three archetypes were created, the New Victim, the Critic, and the Traditionalist. Each engages with …

Public Perceptions Of #Metoo Gay Male Sexual Assault Disclosure: A Qualitative Content Analysis Of Facebook Comments, Eleanor Young, Rowan Salton, Hanna Estes

Western Libraries Undergraduate Research Award

The present study explores public perceptions of male victimization in the age of #MeToo. Utilizing qualitative content analysis, Facebook comments from popular news media pages’ breaking news posts of Kevin Spacey’s alleged assault against Anthony Rapp were analyzed for themes. After coding, six initial themes emerged: indirect blame, victim support, non-support of victim(s), perpetrator support, non-support of perpetrator, and trauma distancing. These themes resulted in three overarching findings. Facebook commenters either commented on circumstances surrounding the victim, acts or inactions taken by the perpetrator, or they distanced themselves from the trauma by commenting on happenings separate from the alleged abuse. …

The Eastern European Fertility Crisis, Sebastian Dominic Zgirski

Anthropology Department Scholars Week

The Eastern European Fertility Crisis by Sebastian D. Zgirski

In the years following the 1989 collapse of communism in Eastern and Central Europe, demographers noticed a sharp decline in total fertility rates in many of the countries of the region. While this trend is consistent with a general worldwide trend, it does seem to be even more pronounced in the region, with many countries having fertility rates significantly below replacement. This puzzled demographers as in previous years the region was considered to have some of the highest fertility rates in Europe. Additionally, there is worry that with fertility rates below …

A Review Of The Mandible, Emily Hill

Anthropology Department Scholars Week

A Review of The Mandible by Emily Hill

The mandible is one of the 22 bones in the human skull. This paper aims to encapsulate the basic features of the human mandible while also addressing the evolution and morphological mandibular variation between mammals. It also aims to address the role that anthropology and all its sub-disciplines has played in the exploitation and erasure of Indigenous peoples. There must be a significant push to decolonize the field of osteology. The mandible is useful for forensic applications such as post-mortem identification. In a rapidly expanding technological world, new ways of studying the …

Left In The Dust: How Staff At River Heights Assisted Living Facility Adjusts To Change And Covid-19, Victoria Hill

Anthropology Department Scholars Week

“Left in the Dust: How Staff at River Heights Assisted Living Facility Adjusts to Change and COVID-19”, by Victoria Hill

In this study, the Housekeeping and Caregiving Departments at River Heights Assisted Living Facility in Bellingham are being investigated. The initial research was aimed at understanding how the lax regulations of the Housekeeping Department affected its capacity to complete necessary job duties. Collected testimony pointed to the conclusion that specific individuals within the department proved to be problematic which resulted in the overall quality of work to stray from facility standards. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the employees at this facility …

Red Or Green? Gentrification In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Michael Patterson

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

It is my goal to explore the policies that Albuquerque is implementing to expand into a major city, while also trying to protect low-income communities, especially low-income communities of color. I think it would also be important to discuss the increase in police surveillance in gentrifying neighborhoods. The influx of wealthier residents changes the social dynamics and expectations, which in turn leads to the criminalization of activities that were previously considered normal, such as loitering. This increased surveillance in gentrified areas can be seen by the city of Albuquerque’s push to “decrease the prevalence” of the homeless population in the …