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Graduate School And University Center Archives Finding Aid - Record Group V-A: Presidents' Files: Rees, Graduate Center Library, Cuny

Finding Aids

This is part of the finding aid to the Graduate School and University Center (GSUC) Archives. Record Group V-A is the papers of Mina S. Rees from when she was president of the GSUC (1969-1972).

Should Sociology Care About Theories Of Human Nature?: Some Durkheimian Considerations On The ‘Social’ Individual, Michael W. Raphael

Graduate Student Publications and Research

Theories of human nature underlie major positions not only in social science but also in the public sphere and its relationship to inequality. When it comes to Durkheim, his theory of human nature is often confused with his critiques of intellectual individualism and his historical argument concerning moral individualism. This paper proposes to analytically separate Durkheim’s apparently intertwined positions to show Durkheim’s concept of the ‘social individual’ as found within his theory of human nature. This is the difference between society as the object of analysis where the individual is slowly expressed historically in regard to the transition from mechanical …

Holistic Flood Risk Assessment In Coastal Areas - The Pearl Approach, Zoran Vojinović, Yared Abebe, Arlex Sanchez-Torres, Neiler Medina, Igor Nikolic, Natasa Manojlovic, Christos Makropoulos, Mark Pelling

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Coastal floods are one of the most dangerous and harmful natural hazards affecting urban areas adjacent to shorelines. The present paper discusses the FP7-ENV-2013 EU funded PEARL (Preparing for Extreme And Rare events in coastaL regions) project which brings together world leading expertise in both the domain of hydro-engineering and risk reduction and management services to pool knowledge and practical experience in order to develop more sustainable risk management solutions for coastal communities focusing on present and projected extreme hydro-meteorological events. The PEARL approach draws upon the complexity theory and the use of complex adaptive system (CAS) models as tools …

Integrated Urban Water Resources Modeling In A Semi-Arid Mountainous Region Using A Cyber-Infrastructure Framework, Erfan Goharian, Steven J. Burian

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Water resources management in cities is facing growing challenges related to increases in water demand, uncertain future climate variability, and conflicts related to water rights and access. Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is an inter-disciplinary framework which connects separated infrastructures and elements of a water resource system together which have dynamic interconnection. An IWRM process broadly involves water supply systems, stormwater management, wastewater collection, climate variables, groundwater and other water related sectors to solve the water and environmental problems. In this study, an integrated framework applying the GoldSim Monte-Carlo simulation software is presented to provide dynamic simulation of inter-related parts …

Yap (Youth Advocate Programs) Assists Youth In Finding And Securing Employment, Douglas N. Evans, Sheyla A. Delgado

Publications and Research

This report, conducted by the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College, examines the impact of the Youth Advocate Programs (YAP) on youth employment outcomes. A study of 1,523 youth aged 15-17 showed that YAP participation significantly increased the likelihood of employment, with nearly a 300% rise in employed clients between entry and discharge. Employment rates rose from 6% to 15%, while unemployment decreased from 68% to 55%. The findings highlight the effectiveness of YAP in improving job prospects for justice-involved youth, particularly those with prior legal issues or out-of-home placements.

Revisiting The Feminine Mystique, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Processing Government Data: Zip Codes, Python, And Openrefine, Frank Donnelly

Publications and Research

While there is a vast amount of useful US government data on the web, some of it is in a raw state that is not readily accessible to the average user. Data librarians can improve accessibility and usability for their patrons by processing data to create subsets of local interest and by appending geographic identifiers to help users select and aggregate data. This case study illustrates how census geography crosswalks, Python, and OpenRefine were used to create spreadsheets of non-profit organizations in New York City from the IRS Tax-Exempt Organization Masterfile. This paper illustrates the utility of Python for data …

Punishment Without End, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

Criminal justice punishments are an investment that societies make to protect the safety and order of communities. Following decades of rising prison populations, however, U.S. policymakers are beginning to wonder if they have invested too much in punishment. Policies adopted in previous decades now incarcerate large numbers of Americans and impose considerable costs on states. Mass incarceration policies are costly and potentially iatrogenic—i.e., they may transform offenders into repeat offenders. Public officials and citizens alike often assume that known offenders pose a permanent risk of future offending. This belief entangles millions of offenders in the justice system for life, with …

Hispanic Residential Ethnic Density And Depression In Post-Acute Coronary Syndrome Patients: Re-Thinking The Role Of Social Support, Ellen-Ge Denton, Jonathan A. Shaffer, Carmela Alcantra, Lynn Clemow, Elizabeth Denton

Publications and Research

Background: The ethnic density hypothesis suggests that ethnic density confers greater social support and consequently protects against depressive symptoms in ethnic minority individuals. However, the potential benefits of ethnic density have not been examined in individuals who are facing a specific and salient life stressor.

Aims: We examined the degree to which the effects of Hispanic ethnic density on depressive symptoms are explained by socioeconomic resources and social support.

Methods: Patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS, N = 472) completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and measures of demographics, ACS clinical factors and perceived social support. Neighborhood characteristics, including median …

The Create Strategy For Intensive Analysis Of Primary Literature Can Be Used Effectively By Newly Trained Faculty To Produce Multiple Gains In Diverse Students, Leslie M. Stevens, Sally G. Hoskins

Publications and Research

The CREATE (Consider Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment) strategy aims to demystify scientific research and scientists while building critical thinking, reading/analytical skills, and improved science attitudes through intensive analysis of primary literature. CREATE was developed and piloted at the City College of New York (CCNY), a 4-yr, minority-serving institution, with both upper-level biology majors and first-year students interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. To test the extent to which CREATE strategies are broadly applicable to students at private, public, research-intensive, and/or primarily undergraduate colleges/universities, we trained a cohort of …

Youth Realize Educational Gains Following Their Participation In Yap, Douglas N. Evans, Sheyla A. Delgado

Publications and Research

This report, conducted by the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College, examines the impact of the Youth Advocate Programs (YAP) on academic outcomes for 1,851 youth aged 14-17. The study found that YAP participation was linked to improved academic achievement and school attendance. The percentage of youth graduating or earning a GED increased from 2% at entry to 12% one year post-discharge. Additionally, school attendance improved, with fewer youth not attending school post-discharge, highlighting the program’s positive impact on academic engagement.

Culinary Star Wars: A Review Of The Cultivation Of Taste: Chefs And The Organization Of Fine Dining By Christel Lane, Claire Stewart

Publications and Research

The Cultivation of Taste: Chefs and the Organization of Fine Dining researches the world of Michelin-starred restaurants and the chefs who run them. Author Christel Lane conducts a comparative study of restaurants in Britain and Germany, and applies her findings in an effort to examine the broader issue of social and economic differences in these two societies, placing chefs in the center of this intriguing universe. Book review by Claire Stewart.

Practicing Patienthood Online: Social Media, Chronic Illness, And Lay Expertise, Collette Sosnowy

Publications and Research

The use of digital technologies and social media by people with serious illness to find, share, and create health information is much celebrated but rarely critiqued. Proponents laud “Health 2.0” as transforming health care practice and empowering patients. Critics, however, argue that a discourse of developing lay expertise online masks the disciplinary practices of the neoliberal state’s emphasis on individual responsibility. Notably, the perspectives of people who are engaging with social media related to their health and illness are under-represented in this debate. This research examines the experiences and perspectives of women who blog about their lives with Multiple Sclerosis …

Compensating Victims Of Crime, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

Victims of violent crime are often unable to access financial compensation to offset the costs of victimization (e.g., medical, lost wages, funeral expenses) despite the massive amounts of money set aside for just that purpose. Currently, there is about $11 billion in the federal Crime Victims Fund (CVF). Less than 10 percent of this amount is allocated to state victim compensation programs. This report explores the funding mechanisms used by federal and state governments to compensate victims of crime, and it describes the administrative and policy problems in these systems. The report offers several recommendations for improvement. States have their …

The Mixed-Method Library: Qualitative Research And The Future Of Assessment In Higher Education, Donna M. Lanclos

CUNY Library Assessment Conference

This presentation was offered as part of the CUNY Library Assessment Conference, Reinventing Libraries: Reinventing Assessment, held at the City University of New York in June 2014.

The Application Of Dispersion Staining And Infrared Microspectroscopy To Analyze Physical Evidence In Developing Countries, Thiti Mahacharoen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In developing countries like Thailand and in remote forensic laboratories around the world, scientific investigations of crimes are limited by the shortage of trained personnel and financial resources. The premise of this research is that polarized light microscope and dispersion staining methods will be developed which allow investigators with limited training to analyze physical evidence at a minimal cost. This research identifies specific liquids for the analysis of trace evidence using the dispersion staining technique. The development of dispersion staining technique and identification of specific liquid will extend the application of forensic science to remote laboratories and in the field …

The "Social Factory" In Postwar Italian Radical Thought From Operaismo To Autonomia, David P. Palazzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the "social factory" as it developed conceptually within postwar Italian Autonomist Marxism. This concept is defined historically as an outgrowth of the critique of political economy that accompanied a rethinking of Marxism in postwar Italian working class political thought through the experience of Quaderni Rossi, which culminated in the theoretical and practical work of Potere Operaio, with fragments in the area of Autonomia. Historically, this dissertation locates the "social factory" as derivative of two figures: Raniero Panzieri and Mario Tronti, as well as two subsidiary movements that were articulated, separately, by Antonio Negri and Mariarosa Dalla Costa. …

Latinas Converting To Islam In New York: Habitus’ Influence In Modern Identity Formation, Amalia Alonzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper explores the topic of religious conversion in relation to Pierre Bourdieu's theory of habitus, with a focus on Catholic Latina converts to Sunni Islam. Bourdieu suggests that these types of religious choices are not choices at all, but predetermined by an individual's history, culture, and setting. That is, an individual already has dispositions that are taken for granted. While this study's participants report that Islam is a new religion for them and not a continuation of their Catholic faith (as habitus would suggest,) this study shows that these converts retain dispositions that are consistent with their previous religious …

Women In Foreclosure: Social Reproduction & Mortgage Strain In The Subprime Era, Amy Baker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Advisor: Professor Mimi Abramovitz

This research captures the experiences of 31 single female homeowners with risky lending markets and mortgage foreclosure in the city of Philadelphia. In-depth, semi-structured interviewing was employed to build knowledge about single women's experiences with seeking a loan, buying a home, entering default and attempting to stall foreclosure. Thematic analysis of the data demonstrated that risky lending and foreclosure did not mark the onset of financial instability among study participants. Instead, it functioned as a tipping point for single women unable to access upward mobility and asset accrual throughout the lifespan. Women's status as the strongest …

Reclaiming Space: Buildings In Modernist Literature And Film, Sreenjaya Ria Banerjee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that modernists like Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and Alain Resnais construct literary and filmic works that rely on interruptions and elliptical narration to gesture towards an aesthetics of modernity that counters the interest in monoliths concurrently shown by architectural modernism. This is particularly evident in the context of the war memorial, where regimented public memory is countered by the artistic works discussed through their emphasis on private memorials that are changeable, contingent, and mutable. This is a fundamentally altered vision of twentieth century modernity than that embraced by the architectural mode.

Don't Push Me Over The (Knowl)Edge: The Social Correlates Of Latino High School Dropouts, Robert Charles Baskerville

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

According to the forecast of the US Census Bureau, Latinos are the largest, fastest-growing ethnic group within the United States today and will comprise the majority of the US labor force sometime during the mid-21st century. Yet today, the youth of this diverse segment of the population are plagued by alarmingly high high school dropout rates, about double that of African-Americans youth and triple that of white youth. This yawning disparity prompts the examination of the social conditions contributing to this social crisis. How do demographic, aspirational, school-level, and socioeconomic variables affect the decision that so many Latino youth make …

Bureaupathology And Organizational Fraud Prevention: Case Studies Of Fraud Hotlines, Chelsea Ann Binns

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examined the effect of organizational bureaucracy on fraud hotline performance. Fraud hotlines are used to receive anonymous fraud tips from employees in all sectors to prevent and detect fraud. This work contributes to the research on fraud hotlines, which today is very light. This work also examined individual hotline performance against organization theory, which is absent in the literature. The literature also doesn't include studies using social media data to determine organizational climate. This work contributes to that literature by providing a collective case study examination of the fraud hotlines in six organizations. Their hotline performance was examined …

Post-Treatment Drug Use, Recidivism, Analogous Behaviors, And Perceptions Of Fairness: Examining Whether Parolees With Low Self-Control Will Benefit From The Collaborative Behavioral Management Intervention, Sriram Chintakrindi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation tested Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) low self-control theory and its relationship with post-treatment outcomes by conducting a secondary-data analysis of a randomized controlled trial on parolees (n=569) called the Step'n Out study (2005). The Step'n Out study (2005) compared the results of a control group (standard parole) with an experimental treatment for parolees called the Collaborative Behavioral Management (CBM) intervention which was designed to improve substance-use treatment outcomes, reduce drug use, and reduce recidivism for parolees participating in the study.

Low self-control theory states that individuals with character traits that are impulsive, risk-seeking, self-centered, and display volatile temper …

(Remember) The Future: The Preemptive Governance Of Memory In The Age Of Mass Catastrophe, Kimberly J. Cunningham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is a critical engagement with the preemptive turn in post-biopolitical governance in psychotherapies to treat traumatic memory and its related clinical diagnosis, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in the wake of the mass disasters of the 21st century. Emerging in the post-911 era of increased anticipatory action in the governance of populations and also, increasingly ubiquitous and large scale threat such as global recession, climate change, and terrorism/war, traumatic memory of these events is framed increasingly as a population-level contagion to be addressed by anticipatory action. A study of trends in emerging and favored psychotherapies for trauma post-911 …

Run For Health: Health(Icization), Supplements, And Doping In Non-Elite Road Running, April D. Henning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Running races are commonly viewed as one of the clearest examples of competition and it is less common to view training or racing as a non-competitive health practice. However, the majority of non-elite runners who participate in races do so in order to reap benefits from the training process many undertake in preparation for a race. This dissertation is a study of non-elite or amateur runners' pursuit of health, their varied understandings of health, the ironies and inconsistencies of healthism, and the folk measures of health employed within the running community. Through qualitative interviews with amateur runners in New York …

Translator, Traitor: A Critical Ethnography Of A U.S. Terrorism Trial, Maya Hess

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Historically, the role of translators and interpreters has suffered from multiple misconceptions. In theaters of war, these linguists are often viewed as traitors and kidnapped, tortured, or killed; if they work in the terrorism arena, they may be prosecuted and convicted as terrorist agents. In United States v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a/k/a "Abu Omar," a/k/a "Dr. Ahmed," Lynne Stewart, and Mohammed [sic] Yousry, 02 Cr. 395 (JGK) (S.D.N.Y. 2003), Yousry, an Arabic linguist and scholar of Middle Eastern history, was labeled such an agent, his work as translator/interpreter construed as material support to terrorism, and his expertise recast as dangerous …

I Didn't Consent To That: Secondary Analysis Of Discrimination Against Bdsm Identified Individuals, Larry Iannotti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sadomasochism (BDSM) sexual behavior is an understudied phenomenon within the social sciences generally, and social work in particular. While BESM sexuality encompasses a wide variety of activities a community of individuals interested in BDSM is identifiable and has coalesced around organized groups, events, political activism, and shared sexual interests. This community has experienced discrimination, violence, and harassment (DVH) as a result of social approbation and stigma associated with BDSM practices. The study examines results of a secondary analysis of data from the Survey of Violence & Discrimination against Sexual Minorities, conducted in 2008. Severity and frequency of various types …

Successful Aging: Use Of Communication Technology In An Adult Day Program, Wendy Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigated the relationship between learning digital communication technologies in an intergenerational intervention and successful aging among older adults. The specific goal of this study was to uncover the effects of this intervention on the cultural constructions of aging in an urban Adult Day Program in Trinidad and Tobago. This mixed method study utilized the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS; Sheikh & Yesavage, 1986), a life satisfaction scale, well-being measurements, open-ended survey questionnaires and a focus group session. The results from the quantitative items indicated no significant differences after the intervention; however, the focus group discussion and open-ended surveys provided …

"She Said Plain, Burned Things": A Feminist Poetics Of The Unsayable In Twentieth Century Literary & Visual Culture, Leah Souffrant

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the way silence, blank space, and other forms of creative withholding attempt to translate the unsayable, or to convey the unsayability of language in artistic form. Through a study of the works of Sylvia Plath, Jean Rhys, Rachel Zucker, Marguerite Duras, Anne Carson, and visual images, this work observes the connection between women's writing in the 20th century and the communication of painful subject matter through attention to absence. This study attends explicitly to how formal qualities in artistic works attend to ontological concerns through an examination of the intersection of concerns with phenomenology, feminism, and formal …

Brothers In Motion: Religious Practice, Political Action, And The Mobilization Of The Early Muslim Brotherhood, Ian Henry Vandermeulen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In light of Randy Martin's proposal to use dance as an analytic tool for understanding social movements, this article seeks to reconstruct the early mobilization of the Muslim Brotherhood as "bodies in motion." Through a re-examination of both primary and secondary source material, this study highlights the ways in which founder Hasan al-Banna appropriated both Islamic and colonial choreographic logics into the Muslim Brotherhood's pious training regimen, scouting programs, political expression, and social welfare projects. I argue that the Muslim Brotherhood was mobilized through al-Banna's revival of traditional Islamic practices concerning the body, reconfigured for the goal not of otherworldly …