Digital Commons Network^™

Queering The Curriculum: Establishing Equity For Lgbtqia Students And Educators In Michigan, Miranda Findlay

All NMU Master's Theses

This project examines the state of Michigan’s efforts in creating an equitable learning and working environment for LGBTQIA K-12 students and educators, explicitly focusing on 11^th and 12^th grade English Language Arts (ELA) standards. In the first chapter, I evaluate the relationship between queer theory and pedagogy and illuminate the need to implement queer pedagogy in teaching K-12 ELA classes. The following chapter reviews the progressive state of California for its promotion of culturally responsive pedagogy and its inclusion of LGBTQIA topics in its K-12 curriculum. The third chapter analyzes Michigan legislature and policies to highlight gaps that …

Hand-Me-Downs, Hannah M. Warner

Theses and Dissertations

This is a collection of linked short stories that take place in or in relation to the town of Henning, Michigan. The characters are interrelated, but there are two families at the center: Linnea Reynolds and her son, Truman, and Tessa and Ross Wilson and their seven children. “Hand-Me-Downs” explores inheritance within families—the desired and undesired inheritance, the inevitability and assurance of it.

Improving The Lifestyle Of Andrews Korean Seventh-Day Adventist Church Members, Myung Do Park

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

The Andrews Korean Seventh-day Adventist church in Berrien Springs, Michigan has holistic lifestyle problems that are on the rise. Church members are experiencing health issues such as cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis, and insomnia. In observing dietary patterns, it was noticed that some of our members do not bother to ascertain the content of the food being eaten. Other members have express the desire to learn about a healthy lifestyle. Purposeful attention to this need of the church is necessary. As a church community comprised of mostly pastors, university students and their families it is time to advocate …

The Palimpsest Boys, Brandon Stump, Brandon Stump

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

These short stories deal with young boys and men who raise themselves in the absence of proper parenting. In particular, they wrestle with big questions about the family unit, sex, and love.

On Growing Up Finnish In The Midwest: A Family Oral History Project, Ingrid Ruth Nixon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores what oral history interviews with my mother reveal about the familial and community dynamics that influenced Finnish-American children growing up on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula between 1930 and 1950. Close to four hours of oral history interviews were conducted with Viola Nixon, who is second and third-generation Finnish-American on her father’s and mother’s sides, respectively. After conducting a narrative analysis of the interviews, five themes emerged as significant to community function: family, language, education, work and church. I grouped some of these themes together to create three stories informed by materials drawn from the interviews, a cookbook, and …

Accumulating Risk: Environmental Justice And The History Of Capitalism In Detroit, 1880-2015, Josiah John Rector

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is an environmental history of Detroit, Michigan from the 19th century to the present. Recent scholarship on the history of capitalism has largely ignored the problem of environmental inequality, and the negative externalities of economic growth. In contrast, studies of the environmental justice movement have richly documented race, class, and gender inequalities in environmental risk exposure. However, they have neglected the relationship between the development of the environmental justice movement and the restructuring of American capitalism since the 1970s, including deindustrialization and the shift to neoliberalism. Bringing these fields together, this dissertation connects Detroit’s long-term economic transformation to …

The Trash Birder's Guide, Ashely Adams

All NMU Master's Theses

This collection of essays details the author’s experience with birds and the bird watching sub-culture. The author grapples with obsession, exploration, and human-animal relationships. Essays include the search for peregrine falcons and ‘u’aus, navigating “The Biggest Week in American Birding,” and tending to owls and geese at a bird sanctuary. In addition, the essays seek to use the langue and images of birding to create an interconnected narrative that not only illuminates the birding sub-culture, but also the world of a transient young birder.

A Concurrent Mixed Method Study Exploring Iraqi Immigrants' Views Of Michigan, Kerry Luise Chamberlain

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Failure of emergency response personnel to communicate effectively with different cultures can have dire consequences during an emergency, including loss of lives and litigation costs. For emergency response personnel to communicate the risk of an emergency, it is important to understand how different groups, especially newly arrived foreign immigrants, perceive warnings and related messages. This study addressed how one of the largest category of immigrants in Michigan perceived severe tornados, influenza pandemics, power outages, severe floods, and snowstorms. The research question examined the degree to which the equation, Risk = Hazard + Outrage, explained perceptions of these hazards in Michigan …

Seasonal Roads, Lynn K. Fay

All NMU Master's Theses

Lynn Kimball Fay has been publishing for twenty-five years under the pen-name L. E. Kimball.
As a writer, I’m interested in the way Truth seems to me—intuitively—nonlinea. I’m interested in story cycles that examine Truth from different points of view, usually nonlinearly; and I’m interested in the way setting reveals Truth and how it reveals character. I’m interested in Faith—a kind that is not irreconcilable with science, the kind it takes to put that foot in front of the other.
The kind we have in one another.
I have always, therefore, been fascinated with layers of Time, the nonlinear and …

Developing Servant-Leaders At The Three Angels Fellowship Seventh-Day Adventist Church In The Michigan Conference, Frank Lugo

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

The former elders' use of stern domineering leadership behaviors at Three Angels Fellowship Church led to a schism that caused deleterious effects and lingering debility. This schismatic experience left the church body suspicious toward the remaining elders' leadership style. The church lost lay leaders, church members, financial support, and was losing ministry opportunities because the congregation dreaded authoritarian leadership. It was clear that the biblical model of servant leadership needed to be applied by the remaining elders. This study dealt with the ministry challenges at Three Angels Fellowship Seventh-day Adventist Church by equipping the board of elders to discover …

My 21st Century Expedition: Following The Route Of Schoolcraft 1820, 1832 To The Source Of The Mississippi River, Lorah Patterson

Honors Theses

The journal of Lorah Patterson during her expedition from Schoolcraft, Michigan, to the source of the Mississippi River. Supplemental file contains complete Herbarium. The thesis includes only a few examples.

A Study Of The Concomitant Problems Facing Most Of The "At-Risk" African American Students In The Benton Harbor Elementary School System: A Case For An Alternative Model, Simon M. Honore

Dissertations

Problem

It would appear that the problem of school truancy, retention, and subsequent academic failure is a major educational crisis which puts most of the African American students at risk in the Benton Harbor area schools.

Purpose

The purpose of this study has been to determine the concomitant educational problems facing the "at-risk" African American students in the Benton Harbor Elementary School System and to suggest positive changes through an alternative model.

Results

The results of the survey indicated that approximately 90-95% of Benton Harbor educators agreed to changes. Administrators and teachers strongly agreed that the recommendations, based on the …

The Introduction Of Management By Objectives Into The Buchanan, Michigan, Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Oliver Lawrence Johnston Sr.

Professional Dissertations DMin

The most urgent concern of the twentieth-century church is building an effective working team composed of pastor and laymen (or lay people) that will be responsive to the commission of carrying the gospel to the world. Methods must be discovered so that intentional pastors can help bring intentional congregations into being. In the context of management by objectives, self-assessment and goal setting may be the means by which intentional congregations are created. If this is true, the pastor needs to know how to apply the concept of management by objectives to his ministry.

To develop guidelines for the introduction of …

The Social Bases Of American Voting Behavior; Wayne County, Michigan, 1837-1852, As A Test Case, Ronald P. Formisano

Wayne State University Dissertations

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