Digital Commons Network^™

Open Educational Resources For A More Just Romanticism, Leila Walker

Publications and Research

Efforts to diversify the field of Romanticism, long overdue, have intensified

recently, and many Romanticist organizations now sponsor programmes

aimed at amplifying Black and Brown voices. Most of these efforts have

focused on content: how to present Romanticism as a global movement

and include non-white authors in our anthologies and syllabi. While these

much-needed changes address some of the field’s traditional blind spots,

they do little to materially benefit our most vulnerable students or to

address the structural barriers that maintain Romanticism’s exclusionary

status quo. Open educational resources, or OERs, are one way to begin

productively transforming the way the …

Institutionalizing Normality: Disability, Productivity, And Higher Education, Ashley Dirzis

Student Theses

This thesis examines how capitalism and neuronormative domination shape the structures and values of academic institutions, affecting faculty, students, and research subjects alike. By privileging productivity, conformity, and efficiency in the pursuit of income, universities often marginalize those who diverge from normative standards of thinking, behavior, and embodiment, particularly disabled individuals. Drawing on Marta Russell’s Disability and Capitalism and the shaping of disability by capitalist systems, Robert Chapman’s notion of the "Empire of Normality" and Jay Dolmage’s concept of the retrofit from Academic Ableism, this paper analyzes how academia reinforces ableist norms. It explores the realities and barriers that …

Seed 1001 Critical Issues In Us Education, Roberto Martinez

Open Educational Resources

All levels of public education in the United States today have become the focus for often competing political, economic, social, and cultural visions of how and why we should educate the nation’s youth. This course offers students the opportunity to become knowledgeable about critical issues in American education and the controversies surrounding them, while considering the historical, political, sociological, and economic dimensions of each. Among the issues the course will address are a) the purpose of public education in a democracy; b) the private/public split in education, with a focus on home schooling, charters, parochial, and private K-20 schools; c) …

Psy 321 The Psychology Of Immigration And Acculturation Syllabus, Marjorine Henriquez-Castillo

Open Educational Resources

This course is all about understanding how immigration (moving to a new country) and acculturation (adapting to a different culture) shape who we are. Together, we’ll explore the history, theories, policies, and research surrounding these processes, focusing on how they influence the physical and mental development of individuals and communities in the U.S. By the end of the course, you’ll have a deeper understanding of how these experiences impact both you and the world around you.

Ethical Ai Use And Classroom Integration Training Modules, Daniel Boudon

Open Educational Resources

This project focuses on developing comprehensive training modules to equip students and faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to ethically and effectively use AI tools in academic settings. The training consists of interconnected modules that cover a wide range of topics, including the ethical use of AI, evaluating AI-generated content, integrating AI tools into curriculum design, and creating AI-enhanced classroom activities. Additional modules emphasize fostering digital literacy, staying updated with AI advancements, and collaborating on best practices for AI in education.

Designed for flexibility, the modules cater to diverse academic disciplines, making them suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses, …

David B. Smith Chats With Monday 1.0, David B. Smith

Publications and Research

This document is an edited archival transcript of extended conversations between David B. Smith and an AI persona (“Monday 1.0,” GPT‑4o based) conducted in Spring 2025, prepared as a foundational primary source for subsequent scholarly and creative work. It records the emergence and testing of concepts related to human–AI collaboration (including “Balanced Blended Space”), as well as applied explorations in areas such as generative AI, quantum computing and music, virtual orchestras, multimodal performance, pedagogy, and the rhetoric of “pushback” in conversational systems. It also contains an extended section in which Monday and DB Smith co-curate a set of student research …

Generative Ai In A Statistical Methods In Psychology Classroom, Karyna Pryiomka

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Everyday Life Information Behavior, Health Information Seeking, And Hiv And Sti Awareness Among People Who Inject Drugs (Pwid), Nafiz Z. Shuva, Radia Taisir, Parvez Sazzad Mallick

Publications and Research

This study aims to explore the everyday life and health information behavior of people who inject drugs (PWID) in Bangladesh, as well as the effectiveness of HIV and STI informational programs in promoting safe injecting and sexual behavior. The study received 97 completed survey responses and conducted two focus group discussions (FGDs) with 13 PWID. Using de Certeau's everyday life practices framework, the study aims to understand the tactical information strategies of PWID in the context of a developing country where access to government services and trust in authorities may be significantly limited among marginalized populations. PWID's information needs focused …

Social Bulimia And The Deportation Pipeline In New York City, David C. Brotherton, Sarah Tosh

Publications and Research

Twenty-seven years after the IIRAIRA in New York City, that iconic destination of migrants has undergone extraordinary challenges to its status as a welcoming refuge to the tired and teeming masses of the globe. In this article, based on recent qualitative and quantitative research, we trace the policing of its migrant communities as the U.S. state has resorted to increasingly punitive measures to regulate the lives of non-citizens regarded as deportable aliens within the rubric of contemporary immigration laws. Findings from the research show that while the city with its long history of immigrant advocacy has in part resisted the …

Locational Data And The Public Interest, William A. Herbert, Micahel Goodchild, Richard Appelbaum, Jeremy Crampton, Gary Langham, Krzysztof Janowicz, Mei-Po Kwan, Katina Michael, Lisa Schamess

Publications and Research

This article presents a paper developed by the AAG Organizing Committee on Locational Information and the Public Interest through a summit held in Santa Barbara, California in June 2022. The summit resulted in goals and ideas for addressing the issues that arise from the present environment for geodata, whereby public, private, and third-sector entities can tap into publicly available locational information with relatively little regulation on its access or use. The Committee articulates four goals: (1) develop a research agenda extending across disciplines, (2) outline educational resources and strategies to guide ethical practice, (3) devise a pathway to increase public …

Inclusive Space For Everyone Door Sign (Printable 8.5 X 11 Inch), Joan H. Robinson

Open Educational Resources

This is a printable 8.5 x 11 inch door sign for faculty, staff, and administrators to let people know it is an inclusive space for everyone. For improved visibility, print with a color printer and cut along the dotted line.

See also: 11 x 17 inch door sign.

Synchronizing Work And Teaching Practices With The Spatial Dna Of Distributed Work And Learning, Manju Aishwarya Adikesavan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Phygitality, the seamless and synergistic integration of physical and digital realms, is an indispensable and irrevocable part of contemporary office-based work. Phygitality facilitates spatially and temporally distributed or multi-local working where employees work from diverse locations such as their home, office, and third places at any time of day or night. It also makes nonterritorial working at temporary workspaces accessed on a session-by-session basis possible.

This dissertation examines how phygital, multi-local, and nonterritorial working reshape individual and group work behaviors, organizational spatial practices, work-centric settings, non-work-centric settings, neighborhoods, cities, and regions. The Spatial DNA of Distributed Work encapsulates a conceptual …

Vertex-Based Analysis Of Cerebral Blood Flow And Fractional Amplitude Of Low-Frequency Fluctuations (Cbf-Falff) Coupling In Moderate-To-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury During The First Year Post-Injury, Vaidehi Hemkumar Patel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is known to involve damage in the neurovascular unit. TBI may disrupt the brain’s neurovascular coupling–the relationship between cerebral blood flow and neural activity–that can lead to cognitive and functional impairments. This study attempted to non-invasively investigate neurovascular coupling in patients with moderate to severe TBI (msTBI) during the first year post-injury using a combined metric of cerebral blood flow (CBF) and fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF), a proxy for spontaneous neural activity. Using arterial spin labeling (ASL) and functional MRI sequences, CBF and fALFF were measured in 29 msTBI patients 3-, 6- and 12-months …

Back To The Margins: The Re-Marginalization Of Feedback Research In Composition And Rhetoric, Robert A. Greco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation applies content analysis, both quantitative and thematic, to publications exploring feedback on student writing by analyzing two corpora of texts published from 2000 to 2019: a systematic sample of 114 articles from 5 journals and excerpts from 5 guides for new instructors. For the journals’ corpus, the most significant emergent themes included error; affect, both instructors’ and students’; and technology. In the guides’ corpus, this study focused on guides’ assumptions about their audiences and discussed the “cycle of correction”—a pattern where guides have focused on cultivating and reinforcing core field values about feedback established between the mid-1980s and …

Does Treatment Setting In Ati Matter? An Examination Of Completion Rates And The Role Of Violent Charges Among Individuals With Co-Occurring Disorders, George J. Anderson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite the proliferation of alternatives to incarceration (ATI) for individuals with co-occurring disorders in recent decades, little is known about comparative styles of treatment used in this context. The following study uses data from a case management service in a large urban city (n=273) where several types of treatment are utilized in the ATI landscape. Specifically, this study compares ATI completion rates and time to completion or failure for several styles of treatment: clinic-based outpatient, residential, assertive community treatment (ACT) and personalized recovery-oriented services (PROS) programs. Results of a logistic regression indicate that individuals initially referred to residential treatment had …

An Erp Study Of Attentional Blink And Inhibition Of Return, Caesar Ekya

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Attention can be allocated over time and space and it has long been speculated whether these are a part of the same or different attentional mechanisms. Attentional Blink (AB) and Inhibition of Return (IOR) are cognitive phenomena that are used in experimental settings to study temporal attention (AB) and spatial attention (IOR) respectively. Though known for being representative of different types of attention, they nevertheless display similar characteristics, making them intriguing choices to study the interplay between temporal and spatial attention. For this study we chose a dual-stream rsvp paradigm that would elicit both AB and IOR within the same …

Modernity And The Promise Of Democracy: A Democratic Reading Of Machiavelli And Hobbes, Gabriel Garber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A review of the democratic scholarship on Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes reveals a tension between institutional and anti-institutional democratic interpretations. This reflects a knot in democracy itself. Miguel Vatter’s labels this knot ‘form and event’ in his democratic interpretation of Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s theory of form and event comes through an exploration of the tensions between structure, agency, rhetoric, and radical openness in the political realm. For Hobbes, the radically egalitarian state of nature produces one first and final event (the social contract) towards a world of strict form. The democratic interpreters have best noticed the tension between form and …

Cueing Motions In A String Quartet, An Exploratory Study Of Motion Trajectories, Maren Rothfritz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A string quartet performance involves an array of different body movements which serve many functions, including sound production, expression, and communication. This dissertation examines the ways string quartet players execute specific communicative body motions called cues, which are anticipatory gestures meant to communicate tempo and timing as well as the musical intentions such as dynamics, articulation, and character to the co-performers. Some scholarly research exists on cueing, but a formalized description of the cueing motions involved has not yet been developed. This dissertation serves as an exploratory study examining the motion trajectories of cueing motions employed by the Argus Quartet, …

Quantified Lives: Data, Bias, And The Cost Of Categorization, Colin F. Geraghty

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project critically examines how statistical methods and data visualization have historically been used to categorize, rank, and control human populations. By exploring the works of key figures like Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and R.A. Fisher, it traces the evolution of categorization frameworks from their eugenic roots to modern applications in artificial intelligence and global metrics like the World Happiness Report. Through interactive visualizations and historical analysis, the project invites users to question the legitimacy of these frameworks and reflect on their impact on society. At its core, this work emphasizes the need to move beyond rigid classification systems, challenging …

Beyond The Sum: A Network Analysis Of Adverse Childhood Experiences And Behavioral Outcomes In Justice-Involved Youth, Jennifer Yang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines gender-specific patterns of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among justice-involved youth using network analysis. Despite experiencing higher rates of childhood adversity, female youth show lower recidivism rates than males, presenting an empirical paradox. Using a sample of 19,454 justice-involved youth (75% male), this study applies novel network methods to understand how ACEs and behavioral outcomes are organized across gender. Findings reveal distinct network architectures: female youth maintain more integrated but vulnerable networks, while males show more compartmentalized but stable structures. Female recidivists demonstrate systematic network destabilization when compared to non-recidivists, characterized by a 39% reduction in network density, …

Decades Of Division: Analyzing Hate Crimes In The Usa (1991–2022), Sangeeth Sajan Baby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project comprehensively analyses hate crime data in the United States, leveraging advanced data analysis and visualization techniques to unmask patterns and insights. By utilizing datasets of criminal offenses reported by law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, this study explores the dynamics of hate crimes across racial, religious, gender, and sexual orientation groups. The analysis reveals key findings, including the disproportionate targeting of African Americans and LGBTQ+ individuals, the prevalence of hate crimes in specific locations like residences and educational institutions, and the consistent patterns of attack types and locations across different racial groups. Analysis of crime data over …

The Power Of Music To Empower Health And Wellbeing: In Support Of A Music Therapy Discipline At Lehman College, City University Of New York, Felicity A. Howlett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project seeks to encourage the development of a music therapy curriculum at the City University of New York (CUNY) and specifically at Lehman College. The following paper presents the case and highlights the contents of three data collections that support this goal: 1) The Zotero Digital Music Therapy Reference Collection is a custom-designed index of over 1600 items containing references to published material highlighting significant aspects of the profession. Zotero, a free, open-source reference management software for organizing research, houses the collection and functions as a living library; 2) Music Therapy Degree Programs in New England and the Mid-Atlantic …

Guaqueras And Campesinas In Western Boyacá, Colombia, María F. Buitrago

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Guaqueras and Campesinas in Western Boyacá (https://mariabuitsan.github.io/guaqueras-ycampesinas/) is a digital memory project chronicling the lives and labors of women residing in the emerald-producing municipalities of Colombia. The project explores women’s remarkable resilience amidst a historically extractive and patriarchal emerald economy by co-creating an online collection enriched with various sources such as interviews, photos of artifacts, and audio from fieldwork. The collection uses Dédalo, a free and open-source Cultural Heritage and Management System, to store, digitize, and index all the unedited material and presents a selection of these resources through a static website. The collection intends to illuminate and honor the …

Chatgpt Didn’T Write This: Evaluating The Impact Of Llms With A Case Study In Grading Cuny Language Immersion Program Student Essays, Benjamin Inbar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study evaluates the capabilities and limitations of large language models (LLMs), specifically OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o, in grading essays from students in the City University of New York’s Language Immersion Program. The program serves English language learners with diverse linguistic and demographic backgrounds, offering intensive language instruction to prepare students for academic success in college. Using a dataset of 30 pre- and post-program essays scored by program instructors and ChatGPT-4o under three paradigms, this research explores the alignment between human and AI-generated scores across five rubric-based competency areas. Findings reveal that ChatGPT-4o aligns moderately with human grading, with the strongest agreement …

Quantifying Educational Impacts Under The Nypd's Stop-And-Frisk Era, Matthew T. Stanton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project examines the educational and economic impacts of the New York Police Department's "Stop, Question, and Frisk" (SQF) program, implemented predominantly under "Operation Impact" from 2003 to 2022. Using data from the NYPD and the American Community Survey, the study explores correlations between high rates of stop-and-frisk encounters and reduced educational attainment among targeted demographics, primarily Black and Hispanic young men. It contextualizes the socioeconomic consequences of SQF policies, including their effect on lifetime earnings and community trust. The project highlights the limitations of data correlation, advocates for further longitudinal and qualitative studies, and suggests frameworks for mitigating inequities …

Category Learning Reorganizes Internal Representations Of Visual Artworks, Aishwarya Gurung

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

How are categories of art internally represented, and how can we capture those representations systematically? Investigating category learning in the context of complex, multidimensional stimuli like visual artworks presents unique challenges due to their inherent variability and perceptual complexity. Artworks engage multiple cognitive processes and are shaped by both sensory-driven mechanisms and top-down influences like prior knowledge, making them uniquely suited for studying how structured categorical knowledge interacts with perceptual and aesthetic judgments. The present study addresses these questions by utilizing machine-learning tools to construct and implement a two-dimensional similarity space of 400 existing artworks painted by two artists from …

Making Waves: Comfort Women Justice Movements Across Generations, Julia A. Jacobellis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1932 and 1945 an estimated 200,000 women across the globe were coerced into becoming comfort women for the Japanese military. As comfort women they were forced to prostitute themselves to soldiers, and endured physical, psychological and emotional torture. While comfort stations were liberated in 1945 with the end of World War II, the Japanese government has yet to formally apologize for their treatment of comfort women, and has failed to meet the demands of survivors and their families who seek reconciliation and justice. The global leaders of these movements for reconciliation are institutions and organizations in South Korea, China, …

A Benjaminian Rumination Of Grasses And Tomatoes In Contemporary Anatolian Film, Ceren Izci

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis interprets the intersection of history, ecology, and politics through two contemporary Anatolian films: Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses and Murat Fıratoğlu’s One of These Days When Hemme Dies. We focus on the films’ portrayal of social relations and relationships to other living beings through interpreting the temporal layers and historical tensions present in the plots of the films. We introduce the paper by pondering over the question of whether these films are political. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s concepts of “first nature” and “second nature”, the first chapter introduces the philosophical framework for understanding the connection between …

A Prototype Online Platform For Exploring Post-Covid Academic Recovery In U.S. Public Schools: An Example From California Public Schools, Nicole Baz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project introduces a prototype online platform designed to analyze the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic achievement in public schools and districts across the United States. Leveraging data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the platform enables users to examine recovery rates as measured by standardized test scores. California serves as a proof-of-concept case study, demonstrating the platform's ability to explore recovery patterns in Reading Language Arts and Mathematics between 2019 and 2023. The platform provides interactive data visualizations and dashboards that facilitate analyses based on district size, resources, …

The Effects Of Irrelevant Parameters In Language Acquisition, Yukun Zhang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper investigates the effects of sententially irrelevant syntactic information on language acquisition models and introduces a new variant of the variational learner (VL) called the early decision variational learner (EDVL). EDVL accelerates convergence by locking in parameter values once they reach a threshold, in contrast to VL’s continued adjustments until all parameter values reach threshold. Both learners are grounded in the generative approach to language acquisition. We examine both learners' responses when they only update their parameter values when the input contain the relevant information to determin the parameter value such as prepositions, wh-words, and auxiliary verbs. Chapter 1 …