Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Endometriosis: The Psychosocial And Emotional Lived Experience Of College-Aged Women, Brianna Graffia

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Endometriosis is a condition thought to affect as many as one in ten women. It is most commonly associated with infertility, intense abdominal pain, which may affect a woman’s ability to work and maintain social relationships; and pain during sex, which may prevent or challenge her in maintaining a sexually active relationship. On top of the ways in which women’s daily lives are affected by this condition, the women who experience endometriosis are also subject to having their symptoms dismissed by their doctors as either “catastrophizing” or psychosomatic

This two-part project explores the real-life experiences of women who suffer from …

Mottos: Learned Through Life, David Edelstein

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Mottos: Learned Through Life is a is a seven-part video series, investigating leadership and life lessons in multiple forms as experienced and told by people from a diverse set of ages, backgrounds and professions. Through the telling of the story of a defining experience from his or her life, each interviewee relates the lessons he or she learned to a broader set of life mottos that any viewer can utilize. Each story of the series is designed to inspire the viewer and let the viewer feel like he or she is having a personal conversation with the interviewee. This allows …

How Will The Restoration Of Ex-Felons’ Voting Rights In Florida Affect Their Citizenship?, Rebecca Spraggins

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Definitions of citizenship in the United States require discussions about political, civil, and social rights. In Florida, over 1.5 million ex-felons experience challenges in defining their citizenship because they have been stripped of their right to vote. However, Florida’s Amendment 4 could positively impact ex-felon citizenship by automatically restoring ex-felons’ voting rights after completing their sentences. Survey data showing approval of ex-felon enfranchisement and interviews of ex-felons barred from voting provide the information used to make claims about how voting rights will affect ex-felons’ citizenship. In this paper, theoretical analyses of the data presented to suggest that public opinion supports …

Call Me Maybe: An Analysis Of The Effect Of The Celebrity Persona On The American Telethon, Kyra Meister

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This study examines the relationship between the celebrity persona and the American telethon. Today, it is rare to find a celebrity that is not connected to a specific, charitable or social cause, making apparent strides in the charity industry because of their ability to influence the general public. In the last 70 years, telethons have evolved in a myriad of ways because celebrities and charity are intertwined. Most significantly, the seriousness and sacredness of the American telethon has decreased because of how many telethons are currently in existence. Additionally, an increase in the number of celebrities involved in telethons has …

#Pawnderadoption Creating A Public Relations Campaign To Increase Adoption Rates Among Shelters In The United States, Hannah Allison

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Pet overpopulation has been a national issue for years. With thousands of unwanted stray cats and dogs found on the streets annually, local shelters are doing their best to rehabilitate and rehome animals. However, funds and resources are limited, and communication efforts are poor. Animal shelters need to begin to focus on public relations efforts in order to boost identity within their local communities. The purpose of this research was to discover what inherently goes into developing a comprehensive, successful public relations campaign. This study specifically focused on the following research questions (a) what makes a public relations campaign successful? …

Petals Of Remembrance: An Applied Pr Campaign For The Syracuse Abroad Centers In Relation To The 30th Anniversary Of The Lockerbie Air Disaster, Hannah Butler

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis uses applied public relations research and tactics to develop, coordinate, and implement a global campaign in partnership with Syracuse University Abroad and the 30th Anniversary Committee to remember the lives of the 270 victims lost in the Lockerbie Air Disaster during the 30th anniversary year. In addition to outreach, promotion, and evaluation, this campaign primarily took the form of a global rose-laying ceremony that occurred across the world during the week of October 27-November 3, 2018 at various Syracuse University Abroad Centers. Using global public relations tactics, strategic planning, and event management, this project explored the strengths, weaknesses, …

Ai In Journalism: Creating An Ethical Framework, Haley Kim

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis is an examination of the ethical use of artificial intelligence in journalism. Artificial intelligence is currently being used in all steps of the news production process: story discovery, story production and story distribution. Newsrooms utilize machine learning to analyze massive quantities of data and discover patterns that humans would normally never be able to pick up. Additionally, journalists also create templates so computers can write stories that are data-based, such as earning reports and game (sports) stories, and free them up to be able to work on other projects. Newsrooms can also use AI to personalize story recommendations …

Humanitarian Aid Logistics: Response Strategies In The 2015 Refugee Crisis, Molly O'Connell

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Humanitarian aid logistics is an emerging field that applies principles of supply chain management and logistics to the humanitarian relief sector. This thesis explores humanitarian aid logistics strategies in the context of the 2015 Refugee Crisis. An unprecedented number of refugees sought asylum in Europe beginning in 2015, where European officials and humanitarian organizations were largely unprepared to provide for them. The 2015 Refugee Crisis offers a unique perspective on humanitarian aid logistics because it requires both short-term and long-term response strategies. Through the framework of management science, a subfield of supply chain management, and logistics, this thesis creates a …

Student Journalists Fight To Protect First Amendment Rights On College Campuses, Joanna Orland

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This body of work sheds light on the obstacles student newspapers at public universities face while attempting to function as free presses. Public universities are protected by the First Amendment but some administrations take action to suppress those rights in their student journalists. Unfortunately, this trend has existed on college campuses for many years but the attitudes exhibited are increasingly paralleled by the relationship between the mainstream media and the current administration.

Universities will take measures such as cutting budgets, firing faculty advisers, denying open records requests and occasionally taking lawsuits against student publications to keep the truth from circulating. …

Quieter Hour – A Friendlier Shopping Experience For People With Autism, Rachel Brachman

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis centers on autism and the exclusionary effects of it. While there is a wealth of new research on this diagnosis indicating that while there is an entire spectrum of autism, many people are fully functional in society. Many of these people simply have limitations. If these limitations were attended to by society, there would be no need for exclusion of people with these types disabilities. Many of the changes needed to promote an environment of inclusion instead of exclusion are not incredibly difficult to make, yet they have not been made.

While people on the spectrum are excluded …

A Comparison Of Anxiety-Related Behavior On The Elevated Plus Task Following Environmental Enrichment In Two Mouse Models For Autism, Khemiah Burke

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This study pertained to the effects of environmental enrichment, which is a physical post-weaning treatment that has been shown to induce beneficial changes in behavior, in two mouse models. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that impacts social behavior and communication. It has been found to develop due to both genetic and environmental influences, and to be comorbid with anxiety disorders. The present study assessed anxious behavior, as measured by the elevated plus task, as an indirect symptom of Autism. Maternally separated CD-1 mice were used as a model of environmentally influenced autism and BTBR mice were used as a model …

Roads To Resettlement: A Global Analysis Of Refugee And Migrant Integration Policies Through Education-Based Non-Profits, Dina Eldawy

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This project is an international comparative study of migration patterns and integration models, spanning global case studies of refugee and migrant communities in Latin America, the United States, and the Middle East through personal research and experience. Using participant observation and interviews, I observed and worked with three different nonprofit ecosystems in Syracuse, NY; Santiago, Chile; and Tyre, Lebanon. This paper situates all three cities in the context of our globalizing world, where global conflicts or economic conditions that affect one country have an extremely crucial impact on other countries surrounding it and beyond. I observed three host countries that, …

Gender Differences In Child Care And Household Tasks: An Exploratory Study From An Indo-U.S. Perspective, Danielle Lippman

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The rate of immigrants coming from Asia in to the U. S. is growing at a rapid rate. However, research on Asian-Americans is scarce, particularly South-Asian-Americans. This group of immigrants face the same issues that the majority of immigrants coming to the United States face, but also face some additional unique challenges due to cultural background, religion, family expectations, and heritage. Most of these immigrants belong to transnational families. There are many discrepancies between what is expected of husbands and wives, especially when it comes to raising children and doing household chores in the Indian context. It is important to …

Neoliberalism: A Populist Crisis Of Conscience, Ryan Mullins

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The following paper examines the relationship between Populism and Neoliberalism in the early 21^st century in the U.S. Through the lens of a historical-structural analysis, it tests the hypothesis set forth by authors David Harvey, Dawson Barrett, and John B. Judis that the prominence of Populism in the 2016 election cycle could not be explained without the phenomenon of Neoliberalism in the U.S. To accomplish this, it examines the rise of income inequality and Neoliberal globalization and uses statistical and polling data to determine whether these variables were related to Neoliberalism and whether voters reacted to them in 2016. …

Sun, Sea, And Sand: U.S. Militarism And Tourism In The Philippines, Anna Strait

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This study explores the complex relationship between U.S. militarism and tourism in the Philippines. The tourism perspective that is prominent throughout challenges the equality of the military partnership between the U.S. and the Philippines. This study analyses the history of the U.S. military presence in the Philippines, starting with the colonial era at the turn of the twentieth century. Assessing infrastructure—its past and ongoing development—reveals itself as a significant connection between militarism and tourism—mobility. Ultimately, this study of the relationship between U.S. militarism and tourism provides a better understanding of the future impacts of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement—a 2016 …

The Effects Of Gender And Apology On Evaluations Of Political Misconduct, Julia Trainor

Honors Capstone Projects - All

In American politics, elected officials often engage in transgressions that result in scandals. This thesis presents the results of an experiment testing how a politician's gender and the issuance or lack of an apology affect voters' evaluations of elected officials engrossed in a financial scandal. An experiment with 530 participants shows that politicians who apologize for financial misconduct are evaluated more favorably than politicians who do not apologize. In addition, the elected official's gender does not affect evaluations, and male candidates who apologized are not favored over women candidates who apologized. However, women respondents believed female candidates who did not …

Understanding Maternal Mortality In The United States, Alexis Whellan

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Background and Purpose: The maternal mortality rate in the United States is uncharacteristically high for a developed nation. Despite a concerted effort to participate in decreasing maternal mortality rates internationally as part of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, the United States has failed many of its mothers when it comes to positive maternal health outcomes. The quality of health care in the United States is comparable to other developed nations, suggesting that the unusually high maternal mortality rate is not due to physician error and lack of proper physician techniques and rather due to social variables. There are many …

Between Somewhere And Nowhere: Navigating The Liminal Space Of Prisoner Reentry, Shatira Woods

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Prisoner reentry has been an ever-increasing topic of investigation as communities work to reduce recidivism and mitigate the negative consequences that mass incarceration and release from incarceration has on individuals and communities. This qualitative, interview-based study of a reentry program in a Northeastern City centers the experiences of formerly incarcerated persons who are currently in various stages of the reentry process over those of program staff. I use these experiences as well as existing literature on prisoner reentry, reentry programming, and labor to evaluate and understand the shortcomings of such programs from the perspective of those directly involved in and …

What’S To Blame And Whose Voices Are Heard: How The New York Times Covers School Shootings, Lindsay Jensen Finman

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This study examines how The New York Times covered the Newtown, Connecticut and Parkland, Florida school shootings, with specific attention to whose voices are heard and how media attention changes over time. A content analysis of 576 New York Times articles found that more articles were published on the Newtown shooting than on the Parkland shooting. In the first six months of coverage for both shootings, politicians were quoted more often than victims or parents, and stories largely discussed the shooting using a thematic frame; focusing on the issue of gun control. The evidence also suggests that activist-planned events helped …

The Power And Importance Of Women In Television And Film, Rachael Mackinnon

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Glazed, the pilot episode of a situation comedy series, is just beginning to explore what the world of television has in store for women in 2018. At a time like now where women across the nation are feeling the important effects of entering the Fourth Wave of feminism, there is no time like the present to celebrate the beautiful mind that is that of a woman.

For far too long, women in television have been just something to merely look at. More often than not, the crew would be comprised of mostly men: the strong-willed directors, the scandalous producers, …

Gender, Gender Roles And Academic Success In Diverse College Students, Noelle Rowe

Honors Capstone Projects - All

More than ever before, college serves as an important entity to further an individual’s personal and professional goals. An interesting pattern has emerged: women are outpacing men in college enrollment, as well as in degree attainment. Hegemonic masculinity serves as one of many theories to explain this gender gap. Additionally, little research has focused on the topic of hegemonic masculinity exhibited by men of color. Thus, this study had three purposes: to understand the academic behavior and achievement of racially diverse college students, understand how hegemonic masculinity contributes to decreased academic achievement among males, and how hegemonic masculinity differs across …

Resisting Borders, Resisting Control Examining The Multiplicity Of Identities In A Map Of Home And The Girl In The Tangerine Scarf, Zainab Abdali

Honors Capstone Projects - All

In this project I examine identities as they are expressed through the use of language in the novels A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar and The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf. Both novels are coming-of-age narratives of two Arab and Muslim-American female protagonists that depict their exploration of identity as they undergo experiences of war, migration, displacement, and racism in their respective contexts. I explore the protagonists’ negotiation of identity in the face of familial and societal pressure to conform to clearly demarcated categorizations of identity, arguing that the protagonists recognize clear borders between identities as …

The Complexities Of Coexisting: Foreign Aid Organizations And East African Governments, Lynsey Cooper

Honors Capstone Projects - All

When initiating projects, foreign aid organizations cannot simply go into another territory and begin their work. On top of the normal procedures of nongovernmental sector organizations and insitutitons, those from outside the domestic borders face additional measures. These measures are typically put in place by governments, typically on a national level. This paper explores the types of tensions and/or partnerships that may exist between foreign aid organizations and governments when crossing paths in this manner.

To narrow the scope of this broad topic, this paper focuses on developmental aid enacted by foreign aid organizations in East Africa through a case …

Saudi Arabia And Iran: Sectarianism, A Quest For Regional Hegemony, And International Alignments, Victoria Chen

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Saudi Arabia and Iran are two of the most influential countries in the Middle East. They have often clashed with each other for a number of reasons. Although Riyadh and Tehran frequently espouse their sectarian differences as an explanation and justification for their regional confrontations, sectarianism is only one variable of the complex relationship between the two countries. Therefore the main question for this research concerns the non-sectarian sources of contention between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the ways in which Saudi and Iranian leaderships frame this confrontation around sectarianism. As the first step, using constructivist framework, this paper analyzes …

Proxy Conflict Turned Civil Crisis: Understanding Syrian Political Movements To United States Foreign Policy, Katherine Barymow

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The Syrian crisis in terms of its crimes against humanity has surpassed most politicians’ wildest expectations: it seems that with every passing news cycle the west is informed of new atrocities commited against innocent Syrian civilians, in addition to violence perpetrated by Syrian Islamists themselves against westerners in ill-advised cries for help. The extent of bloodshed can be both horrifying and mystifying to the average American. How is it possible that the international community allows these crimes to proliferate and self-perpetuate in this modern day-in-age? Hearts sink with every image of a child in dire straights as a result of …

All Politics Is Local: How The South Became Republican, Alexander Amico

Honors Capstone Projects - All

From 1876 until 1964, the Democratic Party held virtual dictatorial control over the American South. Beginning after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that year’s presidential candidacy of anti-Civil Rights Act Republican Barry Goldwater, the South shifted reliably into the Republican column for presidential elections. Democrats still held a majority of all other offices in the region until the mid-1990s. This paper examines public opinion data in the American South, as well as partisan change in four Southern states, with an emphasis on the first time each state elected a Republican governor. I find that in …

Politics Of Exclusion: An Analysis Of The Intersections Of Marginalized Identities And The Olympic Industry, Emily Bonzagni

Honors Capstone Projects - All

“Politics of Exclusion: An Analysis of the Intersections of Marginalized Identities and the Olympic Industry” analyzes the policing power of the Olympic governing bodies and the media on marginalized athletes in the Olympic Games and the ways in which this system constructs norms of gender, race, class, and sexuality. By employing intersectional, Black feminist, research methods in four case studies over the span of Modern Olympic history, this research centers the stories and experiences of Babe Didrikson, Tidye Pickett, Caster Semenya and Chris Mosier to expose the discriminatory and exclusive practices of the Olympic Industry. The case studies reveal the …

International Intervention In Bosnia-Herzegovina And Macedonia From The 1990'S Through The 2000'S, Katherine Brisson

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This study researches international intervention and what makes it successful and unsuccessful. The analysis of the Bosnian and Macedonian interventions from the 1990’s through the 2000’s provides clues as to what makes intervention more successful for other international actors considering intervention. These two interventions are a great analytic tool because of their similar situations yet divergent outcomes and studying the successes and mistakes of each intervention is helpful in deciding what should be emphasized in future interventions. Bosnia and Macedonia were the two most multiethnic republics in Yugoslavia before their independence, each had forces from the United Nations and other …

An Evaluation Of Mental Health Resources At Syracuse University, Joyce Lalonde

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This Honors capstone project discusses mental health at Syracuse University. As identified through quantitative and qualitative research, as well as through personal narratives and experiences, mental health resources and awareness at Syracuse University could be drastically improved. This project’s objective is to evaluate these mental health resources on Syracuse University campus and to offer recommendations to improve said resources and build awareness. This has been done through Mental Health Awareness Week and a Mental Health Report with additive research through an annotated bibliography. Through this, the project outlines the trajectory of mental health on campus. Overall, this project has shifted …

Please Forget To Floss: Developing An Assay For Identifying Tuberculosis In Dental Calculus From The Smithsonian’S Huntington Collection (1893-1921), Soleil Young

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Tuberculosis is one of the most ubiquitous diseases in human history. Despite the long history of human interactions with the disease, tracking it retroactively is difficult because of its low rate of associated, diagnostic bony changes. Ancient DNA, also called aDNA, is a novel method for examining the presence of disease in the past. Currently, the only way to isolate tuberculosis aDNA is to drill and section bone, a method that is both invasive and expensive, limiting its use in the archaeological record. This capstone examines new ways of tracking and understanding tuberculosis in the past, utilizing the DNA trapped …