Digital Commons Network^™

Fostering Engagement With Voicethread In Online Intermediate Spanish Language Classes, Karen Acosta, Ericka H. Parra Dr

The Coastal Review

It is estimated that more than 1.5 billion students have been affected during the course of the global coronavirus pandemic by school and university closures. As a way to navigate this new instructional landscape, the researchers aimed to find a tool that would allow students to develop and practice communicative language skills in their online Spanish classes. In this research study, participants used VoiceThread over the course of a semester and then reflected on their comfort level using communicative skills in Spanish before and after using the tool, as well as whether they perceived that using the platform in their …

College Students And Beliefs In The American Dream: The Impact Of Race, Class, And Gender, Maggie E. Marlow

Honors College Theses

The concept of the American Dream and its promises of prosperity and social mobility, primarily through hard work, has been prevalent throughout modern U.S. history. However, what defines the American Dream has been arbitrary and varied, and research has shown that attitudes and beliefs surrounding the Dream have changed over time with shifts in the economic and political environments. The research for this thesis uses qualitative methods, specifically thematic analysis, to analyze 16 in-depth, one-on-one interviews to examine how students attending a predominantly white university in the Southeastern United States perceive the American Dream today while factoring in how those …

The Financial And Environmental Returns In Green Banking, Julia C. White

Honors College Theses

With dire climate circumstances looming, simply recycling aluminum cans and driving EV cars is not enough to offset the past consequences our planet has withstood. Large initiatives have to be set in motion to combat and ward off future problems, which takes the amount of money that is afforded by dedicated investments. Private and public sectors are putting their money into green banking, which is proving to provide impressive returns. This paper examines the progress that has been made due to green investments and how the planet can be the recipient of groundbreaking and impactful initiatives. I will focus mostly …

Eating Disorders: Barriers To Peer And Self Recognition And The Ability To Seek Or Give Help, Savannah Mcvey

Honors College Theses

A lack of knowledge concerning eating disorders has been found to play a major role in self-recognition, peer recognition, and barriers to seeking treatment at all. More specifically, straight men were more often not able to identify these issues in themselves or others. Theories that have been presented involve the image of eating disorders being a “woman’s issue” and a possible obsession with weight lifting and changing one’s body to take on a more masculine build. Combatting this issue needs to begin in the form of basic education on college campuses due to the prevalence in this particular age group. …

Artistic Representation And Self Esteem, Brianna Davis

Honors College Theses

Dependent upon the constructs of the perception of self and the viewpoint of others, humans base the value of their self esteem on outer perspectives rather than internal ones. For this thesis in particular, the outer perspective to be examined is representation in the field of the arts. This thesis project explores the process of self esteem, artistic representation in the arts, how one affects the other, a history of the correlation between the two, and ways to inform and educate the masses with the tools necessary to advance representation in the arts thus raising the self esteem of its …

The Hospitality Of The Commons: A Collaborative Reflection On A Sotl Conference, Laura Cruz, Eileen Grodziak, Diana Botnaru, Deborah Walker, Trent W. Maurer, Alan Altany, Betty Abraham-Settles, Michelle Amos, Kimberly Bunch-Crump, Alan Cook, Heidi Eisenreich, Diana Gregory, Michael L. Howell, Ioney James, Shainaz Landge, Jane Lynes, Joyce Pompey, Brendan L. Shapiro, Allison Smith, Brenda Thomas, Felicity M. Turner, Ellen H. Williams, Robin Gerchman, Miiriam Horne, Richard Hughes, Alandra Kahl, Rebecca Layson, David X. Lemmons, Jeffrey A. Stone, Elizabeth Vandeusen, Yue Zhang

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

This is a large-scale, multi-author collaborative autoethnographic study exploring the concept of building a tangible teaching commons on the example of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Commons Conference. The project organizers sought to provide a big tent and extended an invitation to attendees to respond to a series of writing prompts about their conference experience. Collaborative writing took place asynchronously over an approximately 60-day period following the close of the conference and generated ≈ 20,000 words. This corpus became the basis for a three-stage emergent coding process, conducted by the four-member steering commit-tee, which led to the identification …

Student Affairs Newsletter, Georgia Southern University

Division of Student Affairs Newsletter (2020-2023)

Message from our VP

Student Media Pacemaker Award

Open Registration Big Ideas VIP

Counseling Center Training & Workshops

New Shuttle Route

Find Your Fit Group Training

Graduate Assistant Placement Program (GAPP)

Eagle Engage

Little Convos

Transgender And Gender Non-Conforming College Students’ Challenges, Supports, And Successes: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Jennifer R. Curry, Imre Csaszar, Tiffany Shierling

Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs

We report findings from an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study of transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) participants’ perceptions of their on-campus experiences. Participants reported their lived experiences of campus culture in the Deep South. The data was viewed through a minority stress framework. Four major themes emerged: a) supports for students; b) barriers for students; c) undergoing personal change; and d) influencing systemic change.

Post-Pandemic Doctoral Mentoring: A Mentor’S Perspective, Carol A. Mullen Dr.

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

Academic mentoring has taken its rightful place alongside teaching for supporting student success. However, mentorship in higher education is complex, contextual, and laborious, as well as under-researched and not consistently recognized. Mentoring by design—focused on developmental learning that can empower and transform participants—embeds perspectives, models or theories, and evidence-supported practices/strategies. Reflection on theory-informed practice can draw lessons for mentoring PhD/EdD learners and improving doctoral environments. In this essay, a faculty mentor’s goal is to describe her philosophical approach to doctoral mentoring relative to work context, perspectives, models, application, outcomes, critical evaluation, and reflective critique. Literature on mentoring in higher education …

It’S Complicated: Instructors’ Perception Of Their Teaching Roles Online, Colleen M. Sharen, Heather Kirk

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions had shifted to primarily online teaching during the 2020- 21 academic year. This case study at Brescia University College (London, Canada) investigates the experiences of faculty members who, for the most part, had never taught online prior to March 2020. It explores faculty members’ conceptualization of their instructional role when teaching online. Instructors described the role of online teacher as creator and deliverer of content, curriculum designer, assessor, and facilitator of community. The findings confirm Community of Inquiry teaching and social presences but did not find mention of cognitive presence. We …

Sotl Best Practices: 21st Century College Students’ Perceptions Of Learning Styles And Instructional Design Materials’ Influence On The Successful Completion Of Assignments, Mary Rickard, Doreen E. Sams, Samuel Mullis, Aruna Sadasivan

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

There is a long history of interest in individual differences in learning styles. Beginning in the 1960s, academic research endeavors began examining the concept of personalizing teaching as the best scholarship of teaching and learning best practice (SoTL). This current series of interconnected empirical studies take a fresh look at SoTL by examining students’ self-perception of their learning styles and whether their perceptions relate to how they learn. Today’s college students are growing up in the information age of the 21st Century. Many educators believe that a best practice is to focus on delivering personalized instructional material through technology. Thus, …

“Expanding Our Pedagogical Imagination”: Faculty Experiences With Scholarly Digital Storytelling Across Disciplines, Kelly Schrum

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

Despite growing pressure to increase technology-enhanced assessment, research has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of widespread meaningful integration of technology in higher education. This is in part due to faculty reluctance which is compounded by lack of training and incentives. This qualitative research grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is based on in-depth interviews with 25 faculty internationally, across disciplines and teaching contexts, who integrated scholarly digital storytelling into their pedagogy. It examines their motivations for adopting this technology-enhanced assessment and their experiences implementing it, including increased engagement and student learning. It further explores challenges faced and lessons …

Rebels, Rogues, And Risk-Takers: Insights Into Personal Characteristics Of National Tertiary Teaching Excellence Awardees, Claire Goode

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

Challenges exist with the discourse in education around terms such as ‘best practice’, ‘excellence’, and ‘impact’, which raises questions around who decides what ‘excellent’ teaching looks like. To better understand the different facets of teaching excellence, this research project investigates the stories of twelve national Tertiary Teaching Excellence awardees in New Zealand, exploring awardees’ trajectories and practice, including views on their identity, and on what they consider to be excellence in tertiary teaching.

This article focuses on the personal characteristics of this group of awardees, highlighted through analysis of their narratives. Educators, mentors, and curriculum designers can gain a deeper …

Examining The Oxidative Stress Effects In Rats Exposed To 2-Aminoanthracene In Utero And High Fat Diet Three Months After, Brianna A. Lanoix

Honors College Theses

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are organic compounds that are created synthetically or found in partially burned oil, gasoline, and coal. 2-aminoanthracene (2AA) is a common example of a PAH and can affect lipid and carbohydrate metabolism and resulting in inflammatory problems and oxidative stress. The objective of the research project is to investigate oxidative stress in relation to diabetes in rats exposed to 2AA in utero and a high fat diet later in life. Pregnant dams were separated into treatment groups based on their dosages of 2AA; 0 mg/kg (control), 50 mg/kg (low), 100 mg/kg (high). During the gestation -postpartum period, …

First Impressions: Engage Your Students Starting With The Syllabus!, Virginia (Ginger) B. Wickline, Drew Appleby

SoTL Commons Conference

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2023 Conference Schedule, Georgia Southern University

SoTL Commons Conference

Virtual Schedule Link: https://sotlcommons2023.sched.com/

High Impact Practices: Faculty Perceptions And Barriers To Implementation, Virginia (Ginger) B. Wickline, Rami Haddad, Padmini Shankar, Karelle Aiken

SoTL Commons Conference

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De Médée À La Sorcière : Reconstruction D’Un Mythe Par Michelet, Caroline Strobbe

The Coastal Review

In La Sorcière, Jules Michelet uses the strength and the myth of the Medea character, which had already fascinated Corneille. In the second part of his work, Michelet creates nominative witches after authentic texts. In the first part, he creates an allegoric witch on the Medea model: the Woman, a victim of arbitrariness, injustice and repression, rises up against her oppressors, figuring the march of Humanity towards Enlightenment and Liberty. The analogies between the Witch and Medea are therefore numerous and necessary, since they help to render the defense of the oppressed against the oppressor. Would the somber Medea, …

Communicating With The Past Via Javier Cercas’ Las Leyes De La Frontera, Bobby D. Nixon

The Coastal Review

Cercas’ protagonist, Gafitas, narrates his memories of being a member of "el Zarco's" youth gang in the barrio chino of Girona during the summer of 1978, from the vantage point of the early 2000s. The novel is simultaneously viewed through the intertextual lens of José Antonio de la Loma’s cycle of quinqui films based on the life of the famous Catalan delinquent, El Vaquilla, Juan José Moreno Cuenca. There is renewed interest in these films from the Transition period of the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the success of this novel and director Daniel Monzón's film based on Cercas’ …

Native Versus Non-Native Speaker Teachers’ Perceptions About English Varieties In Designing/Developing Efl Curriculum Development, Mohamed A. Mekheimer

The Coastal Review

This study seeks to identify the perceptions of teachers, native speakers, and non-native speakers in terms of the influence of teaching varieties of English on EFL curriculum development and teaching designs and which of these factors could predict how the English curriculum should be developed for a particular variety and culture. Using the Teaching Varieties Influence Survey (TVIS), this study introspected 126 respondents of native-speaker teachers (NESTs) and non-native-speaker teachers (non-NESTs) to reflect their views using t-tests, correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression analysis. General findings from this study revealed no statistically significant differences in the two samples’ …

2023 Conference Schedule, Georgia Southern University

Southeast Conference on School Climate

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A “Post” Pandemic(S) Village Check-In: Pulse Checks And Recommendations For A Hard Re-Set In Education, Jarvais J. Jackson, Alesia Mickle Moldavan, Anne Valauri

Elementary & Special Education: Faculty Publications

Utilizing the lens of the “pandemic as portal” (Roy, 2020; Souto-Manning, 2021) and the need for a “hard re-set” (Ladson-Billings, 2021) of our current education system, this literature synthesis engages with head, health, and home to consider what a new normal could look like as we take a “village check-in” of each area. For head, we consider the systemic barriers to equitable academic achievement that have long been in place for Black and Brown students. When considering health, we look at the impact of the pandemic on teacher well-being and how this may impact their ability to teach effectively and …

Minimizing The Ratchet Effect: Why Reciprocity Preserves Customer Satisfaction In Service Environments, Kyle A. Huggins, Val Larsen

AMTP Proceedings 2023

This paper focuses on a fundamental problem for marketers: the ratchet effect. The ratchet effect occurs when actual service performance is perceived to be significantly higher than service expectations, causing dissonance and resulting consumer guilt. If left unattended, consumers relieve their guilt by increasing the perceived state of expectations for subsequent visits. Known as the ratchet effect, this causes a dilemma for the service business as they consistently strive to improve service performance. Using equity theory, our experimental study explores whether businesses can break the ratchet effect by providing mechanisms of reciprocity for consumers to respond at little or no …

The Relationship Between Isolation And Social Emotional Experiences In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Jana Arslan

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Children with ASD often face socioemotional challenges compared to their typical developing classmates (Chamberlain et al., 2006; Deckers et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2021; Locke et al, 2010; Zeedyk et al., 2015). The objective of the current study was to assess the relationship between classroom isolation and social emotional experiences (i.e., social isolation, loneliness, self-efficacy with peers, and friendship quality) in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) through self-report surveys in order to foster the best possible academic environment for children with ASD to succeed and create outlets for further research to be developed in regards to this subject. …

Extralegal Bias In The United States Military In Sexual Assault Cases, Taylor F. Blackston

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

By evaluating the case recommendations following a preliminary hearing from military sexual assault cases from fiscal years 2016-2018, this study aims to assess whether or not extralegal factors are influencing decisions of case recommendations of assigned convening authorities. Using secondary data from the Department of Defense’s annual reports on sexual assault in the United States military (n=5,171), this study aims to answer the following questions: Do extralegal factors contribute to convening authorities’ recommendations following Article 32 hearings? If so, what extralegal factors contribute to convening authority's decision on non-judicial hearing recommendations? The results of the following analyses identified several extralegal …

New Women In The Old Dominion: Race And Gender In Progressive-Era Virginia, Rachel Scott

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This thesis traces the development of Black and white Southern women’s pursuit of political power between the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Emancipation and the downfall of the antebellum planter aristocracy upset traditional Southern gender norms and opened new doors for women of both races in the political upheaval of Reconstruction. Though both Black and white women participated in the women’s club movement and joined women’s advocacy and charity groups following the Civil War, their work was distinctive both from each other and from other regional Progressive movements. The context of …

Campus Safety Data Gathering, Classification, And Ranking Based On Clery-Act Reports, Walaa F. Abo Elenin

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Most existing campus safety rankings are based on criminal incident history with minimal or no consideration of campus security conditions and standard safety measures. Campus safety information published by universities/colleges is usually conceptual/qualitative and not quantitative and are based-on criminal records of these campuses. Thus, no explicit and trusted ranking method for these campuses considers the level of compliance with the standard safety measures. A quantitative safety measure is important to compare different campuses easily and to learn about specific campus safety conditions.

In this thesis, we utilize Clery-Act reports of campuses to automatically analyze their safety conditions and generate …

Remote Sensing Of Georgia Tidal Marsh Habitats Using Aerial Photography And Planetscope Satellite Imagery, Harrison M. Currin

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Globally, tidal marshes cover about 90,800 km. Within the state of Georgia tidal marshes are primarily located behind the barrier islands and total 1,619 km². The combination of high salinity environments and daily inundation, and being dependent on river output, make these dynamic systems. Tidal marshes provide numerous ecosystem services such as carbon and nitrogen sequestration, flood control, coastal protection, and numerous biogeochemical processes. Due to their unique position, tidal marshes are under threat from sea level rise, drought, coastal development, and large-scale disturbance events. Tidal freshwater marshes are especially susceptible to these threats due to their geographic …

The Relationship Between Academic Advising And Students' Completion Of Corequisite Gateway Courses, Michael P. Moran

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This bivariate correlational quantitative study sought to determine how variables predicted students’ course outcomes in first-year English and mathematics courses within a corequisite learning support model. Course outcomes were defined dichotomously on a successful completion or unsuccessful completion basis. The participants of this study included those who initially attempted first-year English (n = 2,055) and mathematics (n = 2,843) course(s) in a corequisite learning support model for the first time between Fall 2018 and Spring 2022 and were assigned as advisees to the professional academic advisors in the centralized advising model. The examined predictors were students’ frequency of sessions, length …

Middle Savannah River: An A/R/Tographic Ecopedagogical Ethnography Experimenting With Rhizomatic Perspectives, Lisa Augustine-Chizmar

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This research is an experiment in perspective. Using the four commonplaces (Schwab, 1978), I practiced letting the Savannah River teach me what there is to know about the water, the land, the people, and the other entities that depend on ki through artistic, ethnographic, and ecopedagogical lenses. The ethnographic findings describe the social actors that depend on ki and give a voice to the River. The a/r/tographic findings display the River on a canvas map through two hundred years using paint, clay, photography, video, abstract acrylics, and fabric. Together, these methods contribute to a unique ecopedagogical journey. This word cloud …