Digital Commons Network^™

Teen Dating Violence, Janessa Rivera

Violence Against Women conference

Teen Dating Violence (TDV) is a topic rapidly increasing in the lives of our youth, however it is not discussed in the schools or in the community. Individuals who suffer from dating violence in their youth are more likely to experience domestic violence with an intimate partner as an adult. This presentation raises awareness of the term “dating violence” and highlights the impact of TDV in the Latino community in an interactive format that includes open discussion of cultural norms and appropriation in the Latino community, which can enable TDV. Healthy strategies to prevent/identify/escape TDV are also included, along with …

The Constituent Women Of Violence Against Women, Wilmer Morales, Jocelyn Martinez, Samantha Amaro

Violence Against Women conference

The Violence against Women Initiative is a very important framework in a time in which women need a platform to be able to discuss the problems and inequality they face in society. Throughout history women have been demonized, abuse, and treated unfairly, which has affected the way women respond to acts of violence. However, recent events have allowed women to gain the courage to stand against acts including verbal, physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. Society, in general, has to be educated and be made aware of how to respond and meticulously act during events that violate the rights of women, …

Demanding Accountability In Domestic Violence Courts, Johnna Pike

Violence Against Women conference

This presentation explores whether specialized domestic violence courts are achieving their stated objective of abuser accountability. Domestic violence emerged from the private realm of family life into the public consciousness during the 1970s. Since then, there has been a largely successful movement to reframe domestic violence as a “real” social problem necessitating meaningful criminal justice intervention. Within the criminal justice system, victim and feminist groups have mostly prevailed in controlling the discourse around domestic violence as a gender-based offense. As a result, a criminal court model aimed at empowering victims and at holding abusers accountable has emerged. However, the efficacy …

The “Pedagogy Of Cruelty ” In The “Putero” Narrative, Agueda Gómezsuárez

Violence Against Women conference

This paper is focused on research regarding the sexual grammar of the narrations of prostitution customers in Spain in relation to the work of anthropologist Rita Segato, with the purpose of understanding why men pay for sex. In order to understand the causes that articulate the “putero” narrative, the discourses of prostitution customers were analyzed through semi-structured in-depth interviews, group interviews, and discussion groups. The succession of socio-sexual paradigms in our country illuminates the comprehension of this phenomenon that places Spain as the European country with the highest rate of make prostitution consumption. The stories are classified in four categories: …

Breaking The Silence: Discussions About Disability, Sex, & Gender Identity, Janet Sauer, Kirsten Bond, Cassidy Donahue, Molly Wolber, Hannah Hunter, Elizabeth Bellin, Katherine Deluga

Violence Against Women conference

Silence often accompanies topics about disability, sexuality, and gender identity. This panel of Lesley students, alumni, and faculty discuss the issue of silence involving social stigma and ignorance that can often lead to violence against people with disabilities. The panelists participated in an interdisciplinary course, Disability Studies, in which students chose to research these topics for their social action projects and papers. Panelists who see themselves as allies and/or self-identify as disabled share their research, personal experiences, and interviews with the audience to provide insights into some of the systematic exclusion of people with disabilities in these discussions, particularly in …

A Scholar’S Reflection On Intimate Partner Violence In The Cape Verdean Community, Dawna M. Thomas

Violence Against Women conference

The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have brought about a social shift and cultural change that validates women and men who have reported sexual abuse in the workplace and other forms of abuse, including intimate partner violence. This movement follows in the footsteps of several decades of other pioneers who advocated and fought for survivors of all types of abuse. Their efforts have not only increased public awareness, but also brought about legislation, support systems, and a greater understanding regarding the complexity of intimate partner violence. Yet culturally diverse communities such as the Cape Verdean community continue to face a variety …

What’S The Real Bottom-Line? Cultivating Compassion: Leading From The Heart In Memory Care Facilities, Paula Webster Ms., Laurie Smith

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

The aim of this panel is to present an emerging if not visionary approach to caring for patients with neurodegenerative disorders. We will present the thesis work of Laurie Smith “A New Approach to Dementia Care Including Visual Cues and Person-Centered Activities” and Paula Reardon-Webster “Cultivating Compassion as a Tool for Everyday Leadership”. Using research and personal experience, the presenters will consider the possibilities of applying mindfulness-based leadership to provide compassionate care in memory care settings. This session will appeal to students of compassionate care, creative therapies, and applications of mindfulness practice.

• Laurie Smith’s work says: “Providing quality care for …

Wellness & Psychoeducational Empowerment: An Innovative Approach To Mental Health & Education, Myisha R. Rodrigues

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

Given our current cultural and sociopolitical climate, it is highly imperative that first generation, black and brown students are positioned to live sustainable lives of choice. Traditional and non-traditional post-secondary opportunities will afford them the ability to have the skills and the knowledge they need as advocates for unheard voices and to challenge equitably unjust institutional systems. However, these leaders of our future will not be able to fully access such success if their general wellness and mental health is not intact. It has been my personal mission for the last 7 years, developing myself as a leader for a …

Anxiety And Alternative Facts: An Arts-Based Critical Social Improvisation Project, Rebecca Zarate, Nancy Beardall, Talaye Zarafshandardaky, Brooke Rutstein

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

According to Grayson and Meilman (2011) the stakes are too high in current campus culture to not acknowledge the social roots of mental health issues such as anxiety, and concerns of students as related to campus safety. This arts-based, music performance project responded to concerns on campus from recent political and social events. More specifically, it aimed to explore the concept of “alternative facts” and how this idea plays with the collective concepts of truth and falsifications. It explored applications of clinical improvisation and the concept of collective anxiety as a social phenomenon expressed through arts including music, dance, and …

Leading From The In-Between: Disability, Leadership, And Identity, Xochitl Mendez

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

The daily lives of individuals challenged with physical disabilities shed light on the intersections, as well as the friction, between the identities we forge as individuals, and the social identities of the public space. In this interdisciplinary presentation, I will explore the fault lines between the social concepts of disability and the personal realities and specifics of biology and adaptation.

Exploring my own experiences with disability, pedagogy, and art, I will further delve on how the social realm (Arendt, 1958) evaluates and judges identity from expected modes of interaction that are often not available to the disabled person. Further, using …

Bringing Dis/Ability Identity Into The Curriculum & Pedagogical Practices For Social Change, Janet Sauer, Simone Dupont, Molly Wolber, Lizzy Bellin, Cassidy Donahue

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

This panel is comprised of a faculty member, students, and alumni from CLAS whose work focuses on bringing about equity that includes dis/ability identity markers. Each of the students were or currently are enrolled in an interdisciplinary Disability Studies course involving a social action project. For their project, two Special Education majors responded to the need for ual education curriculum for youth with disabilities. A counseling major produced a photo essay “to get able bodied people to see things from a different perspective, specifically the perspective of people with disabilities” by creating “normal body” access signage around the Lesley community. …

Lesley University And Unitwin: International Network On Life Design And Decent Work, Donna M. San Antonio, Meenakshi Chhabra, Marion Nesbit, Raquel Stephenson

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

Two years ago, a UNESCO-affiliated international network of organizations and universities (UNITWIN) was established to collaborate on research, innovative leadership, and education, focusing on concerns related to access to work and working conditions for the most vulnerable groups at a time of increasing economic and political instability and inequality.

A year ago, Lesley University became the only university in the country to join this effort, along with 17 other universities and institutes in South America, Africa, and Europe. Through this project, Lesley faculty have attended international conferences and have been engaged in an international research project titled, Perceptions of Decent …

Expressive Flamenco: Healing Possibilities With The Art Of Flamenco, Laura Sanchez

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

The objective of this presentation is to share the results of an auto-ethnographic arts based research project that explores the holistic healing possibilities with the art of Flamenco, which hypothesizes that flamenco can be considered an expressive arts therapy approach.

Flamenco an art form that is born of profound emotion, facilitating the process of self-knowledge and allowing individuals connect with their inner self to find their true identity, their DUENDE. We will begin by describing the origins and roots of flamenco to understand the nature of this art and thus demonstrate that its essence has a therapeutic component. We assert …

The Effects Of Rhythm For Social Emotional Learning Skills Development, Jonathan O. Mande

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

Many people talk about the importance of music in school and learning, we all know about its effects on cognitive development for children and adults. Though despite these universally known facts, music education programs are increasingly underfunded in schools, private lessons are not accessible to most people, while our country is simultaneously suffering from an increase in academic retention and destructive societal conflicts. Music brings all people together and at its core is rhythm. It makes available a space for joy; to fully express love, build bonds and strengthen our individual spirits. When used intentionally, music heals and is a …

Cross-Cultural Virtual Exchange: Innovative Learning For Social Change, Jo Anne Hart

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

I want to demo for my Lesley colleagues the cross-cultural virtual exchange that my undergrad students are taking part in for 8-weeks this semester. Each Lesley student in my Modern Middle East History course is matched into a weekly two-hour live video discussion group of about 12-15 other undergraduate students living in the Middle East, Europe, and around the US. This is a structured, moderated, synchronous international forum with a trained facilitator run by an international non-profit called Soliya.

Intended as a deep-dive into diversity and difference, this innovative approach allows students to “explore how their identity …

Social Media's Influence On Adolescent Identity, Kerri Doble

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

The fact that social media plays a prominent role in many lives today led me to ask the question: how does digital stress from social media use influence adolescent relationships? This research question was formulated out of concern that the shifting norms related to social media use may impact identity formation and a teens search for belonging, potentially stalling development. Taking the perspective that if we lead by example, we will help them lead, my aim is to share information with adults involved in the lives of teens to promote the modeling of healthy social media behavior. My creation of …

A Visual Tool For Interdisciplinary Investigations, James J. O'Keefe

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

Interdisciplinary investigations using the Gapminder dynamic interactive software will be the focus of this seminar.

Embodied Compassion In Teaching--Subversive Dismantling Of Inequity, Melanie Brown

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

Community of Scholars Day at Lesley University

Ego Development, Defense Mechanisms, And Adaption In Transgender And Gender Nonconforming Individuals, Jack Girardi

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

This presentation talks about ego development, starting in early childhood, for transgender and gender nonconforming individuals and how that in turn manifests into defense mechanisms. These defense mechanisms are being misattributed to other factors as a result of societal stigmas that also play out in the immediate home, school community, and clinical atmospheres of the individual. Early psychoanalytic theories are used to explain the transgender and gender nonconforming individual's negative sense of self and low self-worth. This negative sense of self is then transformed into defense mechanisms which then have the power to destroy interpersonal relationships, career development, and academic …

Leadership In Lgbtq Research And Practice Within Counseling Psychology, Sue L. Motulsky, Sidney M. Trantham, Kimberly Cherry, Maura Mccullough, Carla Rosinski

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

Many issues affecting the well-being of LGBTQ individuals and communities need more research to inform clinical and counseling practice. Transformative leadership employs a social justice framework to focus attention, resources, and research on critical LGBTQ agendas so that this marginalized and underserved population can receive needed services and programs. This panel of Counseling and Psychology faculty and doctoral students discuss how they are taking a leadership role through research, practice, and training in specific LGBTQ issues.

• Bisexuality is commonly misunderstood as society struggles to move from binary conceptualizations of sexuality and gender to new paradigms. Queer women are often confronted …

Watering Black Roots (Reconnecting Human+Nature), Stormy Saint-Val, Angelica Pinna-Perez

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

“I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and with the spirit of the universe”. -Alice Walker

Growing up with a strong connection to nature, I struggled balancing the joys and sorrows of being the only black person in my environment engaging in outdoor activities. It took 26 years for me to find spaces where people of color were either centered or inclusively involved in the strong connection with the natural world. Interacting with wildlife in …

Autoethnographic Inquiry Into Identity Transformation And Posttraumatic Growth Following (Tbi) And (Ptsd), Dee Phyllis Genetti

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

Autoethnographic Inquiry into Identity Transformation and Posttraumatic Growth

Following (TBI) and (PTSD)

Abstract:

Posttraumatic Growth (PTG) is a phenomenon of growth in the aftermath of suffering extreme life adversities that challenges one’s core beliefs and worldviews. Psychological well-being may be positively changed in domains of self-perception, relationships, and philosophy of life. Psychological growth, however, is not inevitable after trauma. My research is an autoethnographic inquiry into my journey of resilience, on-going recovery and identity transformation. I explore the phenomenon of PTG concurrently with my recovery as a survivor of a devastating traumatic brain injury (TBI) and co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder …

Do It Yourself But Never Alone: Creating Social Change From Punk To Politics, Joe Mageary

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

This presentation will use punk rock culture as a context within which to address the question of how decentralized social movements can focus the energy of concerned citizens on direct action and meaningful change-making. Goals of the presentation include: addressing how do-it-yourself (DIY) punk culture is engaging in social activism as a response to social injustice; demonstrating how punk is using the arts for social engagement; and providing an example of how punk can be a form of empowerment via radical education.

These points will be illustrated through the presentation of original qualitative research conducted by the presenter during a …

Right Of Adoption For Same-Sex Parents, Youjia Chen

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

The gay right has been one of the hot topics in the world, especially when the same-sex marriage legalized, there are few controversial topics still cannot be solved. I mainly discussed do same-sex parents have the right to have children or to be the adoptive parents. I have read several articles and research about how the same-sex parents affect their children, would their sexual orientation will affect the children etc. the result was the influence for children who grow in a homosexual family is same as heterosexual family, in conclusion, the same-sex parents definitely have the right to have children. …

Situated Narratives: Hearing The Voices Of Jewish Adolescent Girls, Cheryl Weiner

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

The project offers an in-depth analysis of life story narratives from Jewish adolescent girls (McAdams, 1993) to better understand what Jewish identity means to them and how it shapes their feelings, attitudes and responses to inter and intra-personal issues regarding Whiteness, Judaism, social responsibility, gender and privilege. Findings from this project will contribute to the development of a conceptual framework for understanding Jewish adolescent girls’ identity development and as a means for engaging Jewish girls in important social justice work.

McAdams, D. P. (1993). The stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self. Guilford Press.

Visual Sociology: A Model For Liberal Arts And Professional Studio Learning Exchange In Japan, Kazuyo Kubo, Kristina Lamour Sansone, Michael Talbot

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

This collaborative project in its third year explores cross-disciplinary teaching and learning through integration of sociology and professional studio arts and design. The project is a major part of the travel course in Japan that I have taught with Lesley Art + Design (LA+D) colleagues in Animation, Illustration and Design. The project examines how past and current students of liberal arts and arts and design have made associations across disciplines as well as to explore what new knowledge this cross-disciplinary collaboration can bring to each field.

Assessing Bias Among Boston Monument Attendees, Allison Rodgers, Keren Tersooi

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

Boston is a city, which is conflicted by the disparity between its liberal beliefs, as it is ranked the 5^th most liberal city in the U.S, and the reality of its culture (Tausanovitch & Warshaw, 2013; Johnson, 2017). Studying Boston monuments, which are a large tourist attraction and significant financial revenue stream, can provide additional insight into the contributing factors surrounding Boston’s racist reputation (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2016; Gaertner & Dovidio, 2005; Franca & Monteiro, 2013; Scennell & Gifford, 2017; Gurler & Ozer, 2013). Relevant theories such as implicit bias, aversive racism, place attachment, compositional hierarchy, and the …