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Lindenwood Digest, April 22, 2026, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

Event & Date: The Lindenwood University Employee Digest, published on April 22, 2026, outlines various campus activities including the Lindenwood Showcase and Pickleball with the President scheduled for April 23, 2026; Documentary Night on April 27, 2026; and Fashion Education Week occurring from April 27 through May 2, 2026. 

Geographic Grounding: Events are hosted across several venues including Harmon Hall, the Library and Academic Resource Center (LARC), the J. Scheidegger Center for the Arts, and the Lindenwood Theater at Lindenwood University, St. Charles, Missouri. 

Key Honorees/Awards: Notable mentions include Phil Sayers as the new Head Women's Basketball Coach; honorees from …

Therapeutic Applications Of Tabletop Role-Playing Games In Treatment Of Depressive And Anxious Symptoms In Young Adults, Dash Degrote

Honors Theses

Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) are played by a large population and involve the engagement of social and emotional skills, with the largest portion of the population playing them being adolescents or young adults. The therapeutic application of TTRPGs in the treatment of depressive and anxious symptoms shows potential with this population. In a literature review, three major themes are identified: TTRPG culture, stakeholder perspectives of TTRPGs, and examples of therapeutically-applied TTRPGs. Overall, evidence suggests that TTRPGs can positively impact the concerned symptoms, though more research is needed for games outside of Dungeons & Dragons as well as stakeholder perspectives.

The Importance Of Trauma-Informed Care In The Juvenile Justice System, Kalinowski Lillian

Honors Theses

Trauma is a common experience among justice-involved youth, though its developmental and behavioral impacts are not always fully accounted for within juvenile justice systems. Trauma-informed care has emerged as a promising framework for addressing these challenges, however, limited research has examined how consistently such approaches are implemented in practice. This study explores the implementation and perceived effectiveness of trauma-informed care within the juvenile justice system by drawing on semi-structured interviews with five clinicians who have professional experience working with justice-involved youth in the Midwest. The findings indicate that trauma-informed care is not consistently implemented across institutional settings, with 80% of …

The Benefits Of Handcrafting, Madison Mallory

Honors Theses

Handcrafting encompasses physical creative activities such as crochet, wood working, pottery, knitting, and many others. This study includes qualitative research to focus on the impact of handcrafting on individuals. This research was conducted via interviews with 11 individuals. The parameters for individuals to be included in this study is being 18 years of age or older and having experience with handcrafting. Through these interviews two interviewees referred to hand crafting as a form of meditation while seven others expressed feeling similarly using words such as feeling present, calm, focused, and relaxed. Two people share experiences of using handcrafting as coping …

Exploring How Experiential Learning Enhances Undergraduate Education: Insights From The Wmu Cold Case Program With Michigan State Police, Maura Killips

Honors Theses

Experiential learning has become an increasingly important component of undergraduate education, particularly in fields that demand high levels of professional judgment, empathy, and technical skills. This thesis examines how the Western Michigan University (WMU) Cold Case Program (CCP), in partnership with the Michigan State Police, serves as a model of experiential learning that both enriches students’ academic experiences and contributes to real-world investigative work. Drawing on literature about experiential learning as well as my firsthand participation in the program, I analyze how structured hands-on engagement with unsolved homicide and missing persons cases has shaped undergraduate development at WMU.

Key program …

The Relational Good Life: Entrepreneurship Education And Grounded Sumak Kawsay In Otavalo, Ecuador, Vanessa I. Lozano Hardman

Theses and Dissertations

Indigenous Kichwa communities in Ecuador’s Otavalo region have long participated in local and transnational markets, historically as mindalaes, specialized traders of the northern Andes. Yet in recent years, international development-oriented NGOs have framed entrepreneurship education as newly necessary for economic development. These approaches emphasize individualized narratives of vision, self-reliance, and growth, often characterizing Indigenous peoples as lacking entrepreneurial skills or the appropriate mindset. Drawing on ethnographic research with youth, mothers, and teachers at Saminay–El Legado, an agro- technical, intercultural bilingual secondary school (UECIB) in the parish of San José de Quichinche, this article examines how entrepreneurship education intersects with grounded …

The Evolution And Impact Of Fashion Marketing In The Age Of Social Media, Lillie L. Warrington

Honors Theses

This research paper aims to analyze the effect of social media on consumer behavior in fashion marketing by investigating how fashion brands have adapted their strategies to leverage social media platforms effectively and exploring the role of social media influencers in shaping brand perception and consumer loyalty. By addressing these objectives, this research seeks to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on digital marketing in the fashion industry, offering valuable insights.

The study will be conducted through a comprehensive review of existing research and primary research, including a survey of 143 participants, to better understand how social media affects …

Centralizing &Streamlining Learning Commons Communications, Alyssa Darden, Samantha Kapp

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The Learning Commons at Franklin University needed an innovative approach to communicating changes within our organization and to the broader university community. Migrating to a new LSP, changes in proctoring vendors, and other high‑impact changes are frequent within a department that includes library, testing, and academic support services. We faced many challenges while we figured out what worked (and what did not) and celebrated many wins along the way. We would like to share our experience and what worked to streamline our communications to stakeholders, adjuncts, faculty, staff, and students alike.

How Positive Psychology Coaching May Influence Authentic Leadership Development, Amy Lynn Weilbacher

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Although organizations often articulate values driven missions, failure by leaders to consistently embody these values in practice can erode credibility and effectiveness. Organizational leaders need to understand the role of positive psychology coaching in authentic leadership development because mission credibility depends on the leaders’ enacted values. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore how positive psychology coaching may influence authentic leadership development. This study was guided by a conceptual framework integrating positive psychology and authentic leadership. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 11 U.S.-based organizational leaders who participated in positive psychology coaching. Six key themes emerged …

Effects Of The Historical, Current, Social, And Political Influence Of White Supremacy On The Young, Black Male In Mobile, Alabama, Nicole Moore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research has shown the negative effects of White supremacy and its historical influence on societal and political factors in the United States. These negative effects include excessive aggression, hate, and violence toward and degradation of Blacks, Indigenous, and people of color that lead to physical and mental health issues, identity crises, and trauma. However, studies have not examined the specific effects of the influence of White supremacy on the daily life of young adult Black males who have attended community college in Mobile, Alabama. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to identify the perceptions of such Black males …

Sense Of Agency And Control, Self-Esteem, And Psychological Distress Among Undergraduate Students In The U.S. And China, Wenqi Zhang, Peiyi Wang, Chuansheng Chen, Yufei Li, Baojuan Ye, Jianmin Shao

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Beliefs about oneself are closely related to one’s psychological distress, yet little is known about how different dimensions of self-perception interact to predict psychological distress and how these relationships vary across cultural contexts. This study examined cultural differences in the sense of agency and control, their associations with psychological distress, and the protective role of self-esteem among undergraduate students. The sample included 501 U.S. students and 336 Chinese students. Results revealed systematic cultural differences in agency and control: U.S. students reported higher levels of sense of positive agency and personal mastery, but lower levels of sense of negative agency and …

Scholarly Networking In A Rural Indian University: A Study Of Academic Social Networking Site Use Among Research Scholars At Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot Gramodaya Vishwavidyalaya, Deepali Jain Ms.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The present research focuses on how Academic Social Networking Sites (ASNS) can influence perceived outcomes of research in scholars by going beyond the adoption-centered methods to an outcome-centered perspective. The study deconstructs the effects that the primary dimensions of ASNS usage, namely the awareness, access, purpose, and challenges, have on research-related benefits using a quantitative research design. Results indicate that functional and behavioural factors are more decisive determinants of results as opposed to sheer awareness. Specifically, the availability of digital platforms and intentional interaction have a strong positive effect on the effectiveness of the research, and the issues related to …

The Item Response Warehouse: What It Is, How To Use It, And Targets For Potential Improvements, Savira D. Nadela, Hansol Lee, Nishka Jain, Ayaan Gupta, Xingyi Zhang, Benjamin W. Domingue

Chinese/English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation | 教育测量与评估双语期刊

The Item Response Warehouse (IRW) is a repository of harmonized item response datasets designed to support secondary analysis and methodological research in psychological and educational measurement. This paper serves as a practical guide for researchers interested in using the IRW. We describe the structure of IRW datasets and the quantitative and qualitative metadata available for dataset selection, and we demonstrate how researchers can navigate the IRW website to explore and compare available tables. We further show how the IRW R and Python packages can be used to filter datasets programmatically, download response-level data, and generate standardized citations for reproducible research …

Lists Of Selected Full-Text Databases By Subscription In East Asian Studies, Anlin Yang, Michiko Ito, Ellie Kim, Jian P. Lee

Journal of East Asian Libraries

No abstract provided.

Council On East Asian Libraries Statistics 2024-2025 For North American Institutions, Michiko Ito, Ellie Kim, Jian P. Lee, Anlin Yang

Journal of East Asian Libraries

No abstract provided.

Lessons Learned For Improving Trainee Engagement And Utilization Of Education And Training Materials For Cancer Research, Katerina M. Santiago, Tania Galindo, Michaela A. Dinan

Advances in Cancer Education and Quality Improvement

Background: A core component of the National Cancer Institute Cancer (NCI) Cancer Center Support Grant requires cancer centers to coordinate research career enhancement and related activities. The Yale Cancer Center, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, established the Cancer Research Training and Education Coordination (CRTEC) component in 2016. In response to the needs of trainees, CRTEC has developed several initiatives that we have identified and described here as best practices to engage and support trainees.

Methods: We had 2 aims to improve engagement: 1) increasing our visibility and trainee awareness of CRTEC and nurturing bidirectional communication and 2) offering …

Public Policy & Economic Diversification In The Uae: Beyond Oil Dependence, Khawatir Esam Alfalasi

Thesis/ Dissertation Defenses

Diversification in the UAE reflects a state-led transformation aimed at moving the economy beyond oil through targeted public policies. Research shows that there is a limited knowledge of how public sector policies and national strategies contribute to promoting economic diversification requiring a more detailed analysis of the UAE’s diversification strategies. This thesis addresses three research questions which are: Tto what extent do the federal public policies promote economic diversification in the UAE? To what extent do federal policy documents acknowledge Resource Curse mitigation as a priority? To what extent do economic growth and governance indicators capture the UAE’s diversification efforts? …

Rest For The Weary Soul: A Mixed Methods Psychospiritual Exploration Of Faith As A Path To Mental Health Recovery Among Students, Fremativo A. Vergara, Melvin G. Barete, Evan P. Taja-On

Journal of Catholic Education

Many individuals turn to faith for strength, guidance, and resilience, particularly at times of emotional hardship. As concerns continue to grow about mental health, particularly that of students, exploring how faith influences coping mechanisms and recovery offers valuable insights into alternative approaches to emotional wellbeing. The study found that students exhibit high levels of resilience and spiritual intelligence, suggesting that faith-based beliefs are crucial in students’ ability to cope with adversity. A strong positive correlation between resilience and spiritual intelligence indicates that students who integrate faith into their lives are more likely to develop the psychological strength needed to navigate …

Scientific Research In Cuba: A General Analysis With A Special Focus On Energy, Agriculture And Technology, Henri Dou, Pierre Fournie

International Journal of Islands Research

An analysis of science in Cuba is carried out using data from the OpenAlex database. Examples are developed: agriculture, rice, technology in relation to the current situation: national food supply, energy and medicine. The predominance of research in biology and medicine and the low commitment in the fields of agriculture, energy, medicinal plants and technology are highlighted. Various development schemes are proposed. The conclusion is that research must be directed towards strategic areas: food and energy, must be less dispersed and that technology must be better taken into account. Three proposals are made: the development of a chemical analysis platform …

Silent Struggles: A Qualitative Study On Mental Health Stigma And Help- Seeking Among African Individuals In The U.S, Ololade Ekwere

Dissertations

Approximately one-third of African Americans and Caribbean Blacks who require mental health services seek and utilize them (Evans & Sheu, 2019). Research has shown that stigma surrounding mental health treatment contributes to lower rates of professional help-seeking among Black Americans (Pederson, 2023). Despite the growing diversity within the Black community, limited research exists on how stigma influences professional mental health help-seeking among Africans living in the United States.

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the effect of public stigma on the mental health help-seeking behaviors of Africans living in the United States. Demographic data were collected, …

Exploring School Administrators' Perceptions Of Zero Tolerance Policies For African American Female Students, Keysha D. Knight

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Zero tolerance policies disproportionately affect African American female students and contribute to their accelerated entry into the school-to-prison pipeline. Existing literature indicated that these policies subject African American female students to harsher disciplinary practices and that their behaviors were often misunderstood by school administrators. However, there is limited research on how school administrators’ discretionary implementation of zero-tolerance policies contributes to these disparities. The purpose of this general qualitative study was to explore how school administrators interpret and exercise discretion when implementing zero tolerance policies affecting African American female students through the lens of Lipsky’s street-level bureaucracy theory. Four themes were …

The Role Of Green Infrastructure In Enhancing Flood Resilience: A Spatial Perspective, Jinhee Han, Yoomi Kim, Katsuya Tanaka

Center for Public Service Publications and Reports

The aim of this study is to empirically assess the effectiveness of green infrastructure (GI) in South Korea as a way to enhance flood resilience. We applied a spatial analytical approach to examine the impact of GI on flood resilience. Specifically, we tested spatial dependence with Moran’s I and local indicators of spatial association, addressing it with spatial lag and spatial error models. We compiled government data on GI and other regional attributes for 226 administrative districts in South Korea. Unlike previous studies that focused only on damage costs, this study incorporated both damage and recovery costs to calculate flood …

Leadership Practice And Organizational Culture In Reducing Burnout Among Sud Supervisors, Christine Arismendi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Burnout in supervisors/managers working in residential substance use disorder (SUD) treatment settings poses serious threats to the agency, staffing, and client care. Behavioral health leaders need to understand how organizational culture and leadership practices shape burnout and resilience in their teams. This qualitative case study drew on the Leadership and Workforce categories of the Baldrige Excellence Framework to examine the influence of leadership and organizational culture on staff emotional well-being and resilience at a Boston-area nonprofit residential SUD treatment center. The study sought to answer: (a) how organizational culture and leadership affect supervisor and manager well-being and resilience; and (b) …

Church, Mosque, And State: The Impacts Of Sectarian Politics On Lebanon’S Democracy, Tonia Attie

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

As Lebanon seeks to reform multiple sectors of the country, it is crucial to understand how its consociational government, centered on religious identities, interacts with its citizens. Electoral accountability is the process by which an electorate holds politicians liable for their actions while in office. While previous studies, such as Vincent Hutchings’ “Public Opinion and Democratic Accountability,” have shown how electoral accountability functions within traditional party systems based on political ideology, there is little research on how accountability mechanisms operate in confessional party systems based on religion. This paper posits that within countries with confessional systems, voters are less able …

Self-Concept Clarity And Relationship Satisfaction: The Mediating Role Of Approach And Avoidance Motives For Sacrifice Among Heterosexual Couples, Hannah F. Hatch

Theses and Dissertations

While individuals often engage in relational sacrifice to promote positive outcomes like connection (approach motives), they may also sacrifice for a partner to avoid negative outcomes like conflict (avoidance motives). These distinct motives for sacrifice have been repeatedly linked with divergent couple outcomes, yet little is known about the personal and relational factors which shape them. The current study addressed this gap using dyadic data from 289 mixed-gender couples to examine how self-concept clarity (SCC) predicted changes in relationship satisfaction via approach and avoidance motives for sacrifice. Participants represented diverse ethnic and sociodemographic backgrounds across all demographic regions of the …

Effective Courts Of Last Resort: The Supreme Court’S Limited Docket And The Rise Of The Courts Of Appeals As Final Arbiter On Minors’ First Amendment Rights, Lillian Powers

Honors Theses

This thesis explores how the Supreme Court’s power of selecting its own docket has resulted in fewer cases being addressed annually and its effect on minors’ First Amendment rights. Minors’ First Amendment rights is one of the many niche areas of law that do not receive hearings in front of the Supreme Court. My research shows that the Supreme Court’s neglect of these issues led to Court of Appeals taking on the role of a court of last resort. As precedent from select Supreme Court cases such as Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), Bethel School District …

Narratives, Neurons And Narcotics: The Neurological Impacts Of Biased Crime Media And How It Disproportionately Impacts Black And Brown Drug Defendants, Jade Celestine

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how crime media and neurological bias shape the experiences of Black and Brown drug defendants in the United States criminal justice system. Drawing on existing research in psychology and neuroscience, this explanation outlines the role of perception and threat detection in the formation of implicit bias while also emphasizing a need to expand the use of neurocriminology to all legal actors. Particular attention is given towards the influence of media portrayals of criminal cases, especially for drug-related offenses and how that impacts the audiences on a neurological level. An analysis of historical factors, such as the War …

Responsibility Without Rescue: Community-Based Participatory Research, Legal Insecurity, And Ethical Accountability In Borderland Courtrooms, Ruben Morales Jr.

The Agora

In the context of immigration law and legal insecurity, this article examines how community-based participatory research (CBPR) reshapes ethical responsibility for researchers. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted during a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF REU) along the border between the United States and Mexico, the study reflects on how courtroom practices reproduce access to justice, how research itself influences what knowledge becomes visible, and how the researcher’s positionality influences ethical engagement. The article finds that doing ethical research in settings of legal precarity requires the researcher to shift from a neutral observer to an accountable participant, maintained …

Corrupt, Control, Repress, Noah Schimenti

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This three-article dissertation discusses the competition for power and resources in regimes with weak or nonexistent democratic accountability. I begin with an overview in the introduction and then turn to the individual articles in each chapter. In chapter 2 I investigate the composition of post-conflict transitional power-sharing governments. I hypothesize that a greater number of rebel organizations included in the transitional government is associated with increased corruption levels. Using data on 44 post-conflict countries, I find little support for this hypothesis; the number of rebel organizations in the transitional cabinet has no effect on corruption levels.

In chapter 3 I …

Memory Representations In Cortico-Hippocampal Systems, Angelique Ibanez Delarazan

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Episodic memory often captures both the content of past events (e.g., people, places, and situations involved) and the specificity with which those events are remembered, ranging from summary-level to detailed recollection. Content-based theories, including the PMAT Framework, propose that cortical networks are organized around the types of information memories contain. In particular, the Anterior Temporal Network (ATN) supports entity representations, including characters, and the Posterior Medial Network (PMN) support contextual information, such as locations. Specificity-based theories, including the Trace Transformation Theory, propose that the level of recall specificity maps onto functional gradients within the hippocampus, with posterior regions (pHPC) supporting …