Digital Commons Network^™

An Inquiry Into Developing College Student Socially-Responsible Leadership: Ethics Of Justice And Care In The Midst Of Conflict And Controversy, Jill Frances Childress

Dissertations and Theses

Colleges not only educate students in academic discipline knowledge, but also help them develop skills to meaningfully lead and participate in our complex democracy as socially responsible citizens. All campuses have formal and informal opportunities to engage students in roles that challenge and develop students' socially responsible leadership skills including commitment, common purpose, and collaboration. However, individual and organizational elements such as differences in perspectives and hostile climates can quell leadership and educational participation, inhibit critical student development skills, and result in disempowerment, especially for those students from underserved communities. Given this, a critical question is how can colleges foster …

The Effects Of Neuron Degeneration And Methods Of Neurogenesis, Jesus I. Martinez

University Honors Theses

In the 1960’s, Joseph Altman discovered the creation of new neurons continues well into the adulthood of mammals. His work lay dormant for several decades possibly as a result of limitations in technology or the limited perceived usefulness at the time. In the 1990’s Altman’s discovery gained newfound interest and has stayed in researcher's interest ever since. A combination of improved imaging techniques, a continued shift in the public image of mental disorders, and a desire to aid those suffering from neurodegenerative disorders has led to many attempts to parse out the details of neurogenesis. After a number of studies …

Faculty Use Of Collaborative Online International Learning (Coil) For Internationalization At Home, Sally Strand Mudiamu

Dissertations and Theses

Universities are not preparing all of their students for 21st century global work and citizenship. Internationalization of the Curriculum is critical to this preparation and equity in higher education. Over the past decades, universities have relied on outbound and inbound student mobility to internationalize their institutions, the curriculum, the faculty, and student learning. However, 90% of U.S. students neither study nor intern abroad. Of the 10% who do go abroad, very few are underrepresented, Pell-eligible, or post-traditional students. Universities need to shift their focus from student mobility to Internationalization at Home so that all students may have an internationalized education …

Teachers' Critical Reflection In An Equity-Focused Professional Learning Community: A Case Study, Patrizia Lina Mastne

Dissertations and Theses

In a culturally diverse world, teachers adopt complex roles to educate a changing student body toward higher standards. They can respond to students' needs and design responsive curriculum by engaging in ongoing learning and improvement. When teachers have time and space for collaboration and reflection, they can learn and improve. Professional learning communities (PLCs) are forums for educators to think deeply about praxis. In this study, the problem of practice is that teachers have had few opportunities to reflect critically within PLCs. The purpose of my study was to describe and explain how critical reflection occurred in an equity-focused PLC …

The Stuttering Characteristics Of Spanish-English Bilingual Adult Speakers, Sima Sokolov

University Honors Theses

As the number of bilinguals and multilinguals continues to grow globally, researchers and clinicians in the field of speech-language pathology are faced with a unique challenge and opportunity - the need to understand the experiences of bilingual and multilingual clients who stutter. Yet, research and clinical guidelines about assessment and treatment of bilinguals who stutter has been scarce. There is a critical need for research to explore the types of stuttering produced by bilinguals in each of their languages. This research study has two aims: (1) to compare and contrast stuttering characteristics in two languages (English and Spanish) and across …

A Public Health Recommendation Countering The Online Anti-Vaccination Movement, Grace M. Neumann

University Honors Theses

The anti-vaccination movement had posed a threat to the health of communities, since the inception of the smallpox inoculation practice. As the anti-vaxx movement continues to grow in strength and reach, public health officials must be prepared to combat the flow of misinformation, with sound scientific data in a way that connects with individuals from all communities. Online platforms such as blogs and social media, allow newfound access to vaccine opinions and information, posing an even greater risk of vaccine misinformation being spread to the public. Different communities hold different reasons for vaccine hesitancy and avoidance. An effective public health …

The Representation Of Rape And Sexual Assault Within News Media, Katherine E. Layman

University Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to observe how the framing of rape and sexual assault within The New York Times has changed from 1980 to 2020. To achieve this study, I conducted a content analysis of 150 New York Times articles divided into three separate time periods and taking 50 randomized articles from each timeframe. The first data set was taken from 1980-84 to provide a baseline to work from. The second set is from 1993-97 to encompass significant legislative changes about sexual violence. The final data set is from 2016-2020 and provides the most recent conversation about rape …

Facilitating Mixed Self-Timed Circuits, Alexandra R. Hanson

University Honors Theses

Designers constrain the ordering of computation events in self-timed circuits to ensure the correct behavior of the circuits. Different circuit families utilize different constraints that, when families are combined, may be more difficult to guarantee in combination without inserting delay to postpone necessary events. By analyzing established constraints of different circuit families like Click and GasP, we are able to identify the small changes necessary to either 1) avoid constraints entirely; or 2) decrease the likelihood of necessary delay insertion. Because delay insertion can be tricky for novice designers and because the likelihood of its requirement increases when mixing different …

Sudden Cardiac Death In Young Adults With Long-Chain 3-Hydroxyacyl Coa Dehydrogenase Deficiency (Lchadd), Ajesh Saini

University Honors Theses

Long-chain 3-Hydroxyacyl CoA Dehydrogenase Deficiency (LCHADD) is an autosomal recessive defect in fatty acid oxidation that presents with hypoketotic hypoglycemia and/or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in infancy, and recurrent rhabdomyolysis in adolescence, however, sudden cardiac death has not been a previously reported complication of LCHADD. We have conducted a case review study comparing young adult LCHADD patients who have experienced sudden cardiac arrest events (n=5) to similar patients who have not (n=5) for the purpose of evaluating associated cardiac risk factors. We reviewed medical records from ECG tests, hospitalization reports, acylcarnitine, and complete metabolic panels, clinic notes, and autopsy reports. Retrospective chart …

Exploring Telepractice For Stuttering: A Case Study, Yatta D. Barnett

University Honors Theses

The purpose of this research was to describe how telepractice can be used as a speech-language pathology service delivery model with a school-age child who stutters. Specifically, the research questions were: 1) Can a school-age client who stutters increase their use of stuttering modification strategies to manage their stuttering through telepractice? 2) Can a school-age client who stutters increase acceptance of stuttering through telepractice treatment?

Music Education As A Potential Mediator For Social Decline, Gabriel V. Trees

University Honors Theses

Many cultures around the world are experiencing a decline in social wellness. This may be attributed to the decrease in quality and quantity of social connections people have been experiencing in recent times. Among the activities that seem to help humans feel connected and accountable to each other are the community singing, dancing, and drumming that has been part of our human heritage since before the beginning of written history. Active participation in group music making has been shown to promote prosocial attitudes and behaviors. Music education for preschoolers and primary school students may be an effective method of providing …

De-Stigmatizing Mental Health Through First Person Narration In Young Adult Literature, Tatum E. Francis

University Honors Theses

This thesis project includes a written short story titled "Quiet Dissonance" that explicitly depicts anxiety and depression within the genre of Young Adult literature. The purpose of this story is to consciously de-stigmatize the mental health issues by depicting these mental disorders as authentically as possible with both research and my own real-life experience of being diagnosed with both anxiety and depression, rather than relying upon stereotypes and the influence of the media. This story is consciously written through the point of view of first person narration, allowing for further exploration into the interiority of the thoughts of the protagonist …

Troublemaker: An Exploration Of Praxis In Leftist Political Theory, Emerson Hamlin

University Honors Theses

This project seeks to make recommendations on praxis, or the actions that embody theory, to present and future leftist organizers. I will do so by completing a literature review: in this case, reading and analyzing works of some of the foundational thinkers in leftism, and by reading the works of the leftist thinkers of today. By doing this review, I seek to find my own, and other activists’ answers to Lenin's eternal question: What is to be done?

Fidelity And Rhetorical Strategies: An Introduction To And Translation Of Arunika Senarath’S Diese Eine Nacht (2017) With An Interview With The Author, Malcolm A. Goldman

University Honors Theses

Arunika Senarath’s 2017 novel Diese eine Nacht [That One Night] addresses political themes ranging from right-wing extremism to racism to sexual assault, which are combined with the day-to-day life of the main character, a young woman attending university in Dresden. This combination is aimed to increase political engagement in young people by making difficult or complicated topics accessible, while also exposing them to a more diverse range of perspectives. The novel is situated in contemporary Dresden, examining the prominence of right-wing populist movements such as PEGIDA in former East Germany (GDR) and their impact on people of color. …

Oregonian Holocaust Memory: Creating A Portal To The Past For Oregonians, Max Blust

University Honors Theses

Since the end of the Second World War, Holocaust Memorials have spread beyond Europe and become established in the United States. The genocide of European Jews and other ethnic minorities was an international event, spreading from Western Europe all the way into the Soviet Union. The international coalition which invaded Germany and ended the Second World War, resulted in Holocaust survivors resettling all across the globe. In the United States, where thousands of survivors joined existing Jewish communities, there arose interest for memorializing the victims of genocide and the trauma endured. The Oregon Holocaust Memorial (OHM) is a product of …

Toward A Definition Of Adult Sibling Resilience, Cheyenne R. Drover

University Honors Theses

The sibling relationship is considered one of the longest lasting connections an individual will have to another person. Despite this, it is a consistently understudied population in family research and, when studied, siblings are primarily examined during adolescence and often only in the context of conflict and rivalry. Additionally, much of this research does not examine the effects of sibling relationships on the larger family system. This thesis seeks to address this gap in the literature by understanding how the adult sibling literature presents and defines dimensions of sibling relationships. In doing so, it also seeks to examine whether these …

Developing A Conceptual Framework For Research On Social Media And Political Polarization, Audrey C. Sanders

University Honors Theses

Americans in 2020 live in a time of unprecedented political polarization. Scholars often study this trend of increased polarization in conjunction with the use of social media platforms, or social networking sites (SNSs). Despite a nearly twenty-year existence, however, the discourse community surrounding the relationship between SNS use and political polarization has yet to develop past a scattered and largely theoretical body of literature. What follows is a description of the current state of the literature followed by a description of a conceptual framework scholars can use when approaching the field and designing their own research in order to make …

Workplace Motivation: Addressing Telework As A Mechanism For Maintaining Employee Productivity, Kaitlyn Fujii

University Honors Theses

This research seeks to identify social and psychological factors that affect satisfaction levels of employees. The thesis suggests teleworking as a renewed tool for communicating and executing work in organizations; and moreover, demonstrating how telework systems can motivate millennial and gen-z workers to be productive. The main factors identified for said analysis have been determined through the study of business and academic literature about workplace culture and how it is changing. Such research investigated the differences between baby boomers, millennials and gen-zs, and furthermore how providing employees with the option to participate in telework may enhance their output. To make …

Urban Hostility: Cpted, Hostile Architecture, And The Erasure Of Democratic Public Space, Matthew M. Carr

University Honors Theses

Free and open public space is essential to the health of urban living. In theory, it is purely neutral, acting as a social equalizer providing those of all backgrounds space to co-exist within the confines of the built environment. However, truly democratic public space has consistently been threatened and reduced in cities, affecting none more heavily than marginalized and impoverished populations. The creation of the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design agenda gave birth to hostile architecture, a detrimental form of urban exclusionism. By using hostile design typologies, cities can render public spaces unusable to undesirable citizens, and subsequently erase images …

A Methodological Review Of Resilience Approaches For Coral In The Face Of Climate Change, Gabriella L. Martinez

University Honors Theses

A literature review of research on Resilience Based Management Theory, Aquaculture, and Assisted Gene Flow and Evolution being explored as possible methods to help the coral bleaching crisis.

Psychoterratic States: Designing The New Language Of Climate Change, Savannah C. Quarum

University Honors Theses

In this project, I want to explore psychoterratic states and how they affect us in our daily lives. Psychoterratic states are emotions that people feel in relationship to the earth. The term was created by Professor Glenn Albrecht of Murdoch University, who observed the need for a new vocabulary to describe the emotions we feel as we witness the historical degradation of the planet on a global scale. The term literally translates to earth psyche with “Psycho” meaning psyche, and “terratic” meaning earth. This will be the focus of my thesis project, looking at the emotional states we experience in …

The Role Of A Nurse In The End-Of-Life Experience Of People Who Don't Have Family, Laurynn E. Leonard

University Honors Theses

Childlessness is becoming more common and this has important implications for those at the end of life. Literature on hospice and care of people at the end of life is heavily focused on family. A major emphasis of end-of-life care is how to support family members, the family role in providing support, and the influence the family has on the patient. Little research, however, has been conducted to determine the difference in how hospice and palliative care can best be provided to those without a spouse, adult children, or siblings compared to those with family support. This research aims to …

The Effects Of Instagram Influencers And Appearance Comparisons On Body Appreciation, Internalization Of Beauty Ideals And Self Esteem In Women, Juliane K. Bauer

University Honors Theses

The current study investigated how exposure to thin bodies on different (social) media platforms affect body appreciation, internalization of beauty ideals, and self-esteem in female and non-binary participants. The participants (N=116) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: exposure to content from a) Instagram influencers, b) models in magazines, or c) peers. Participants completed an online survey, answering questions about their feelings towards the women depicted in the media content as well as appearance comparison tendencies, body appreciation, self-esteem, internalization of body ideals, and BMI. Overall, significant differences between groups were found for the internalization of body …

The Potential Of Solidarity In Existential Feminist Discursive Methods, Bella Brown

University Honors Theses

The following paper will be dissecting the ways in which Simone de Beauvoir’s examination of the intertwined nature of selfhood and freedom regarding the body offer a facet of liberation around the construction of womanhood. I will consider the extent to which Beauvoir’s concept of the politicized essentialless body in contemporary feminist scholarship (existentialist, phenomenologist, and post-structuralist) is incomplete in that there are many contemporary scholars who expand her idea of essentialless properties and their effects on identity. The importance of the individual and their freedom in discourse is to work towards solidarity through difference with others in order to …

The Role Of Marketing Education In Reactions To Advocacy Advertising, Tobin Carlberg

University Honors Theses

The present research aims to explore whether marketing education creates a positive or negative reaction towards advocacy advertising in general. To test this, consumers with varying levels of marketing education were either interviewed or surveyed to gauge their level of persuasion knowledge, advertising appreciation, and overall reactions to advocacy advertising. Thus, a combination of qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (survey) methods were employed. Interview results suggested that those with greater marketing education held more favorable attitudes toward advocacy advertising, and survey results illustrated a strong correlation between those with more marketing education and one’s appreciation for advocacy advertising, which influenced positive …

Emergence In The Strengths And Love Of My People To Counter Invisibility For Liberation In The White Academy, Emily D. Carrillo-Casares

University Honors Theses

Through a literature review and personal reflection, my thesis will focus on the strengths and love of my people to counter invisibility for liberation in the white academy. More importantly, my aim in this paper is to illustrate the strengths, courage, and will-power I came across to dismantle the concealed barriers in a system that misperceived my values. I will speak from the first person to express my feelings and experiences. When I use the words, my people, I mean people who identify themselves as Hispanic/Latino or non-white. The goal of this paper is to explicate how I remained strong …

Autistic Representation In Television, Sarah E. Audley

University Honors Theses

Little research has been done on how these characters affect perception and understanding of individuals on the autism spectrum and whether these characters are accurate portrayals of autism. The purpose of this study is to examine the connection between an individual’s relationship with the autistic community and their knowledge of autism, and how that relationship might influence their perception of authentic autistic representation in television. This survey was aimed at individuals on the autism spectrum (e.g., autistic, Asperger, neurodivergent), professionals and students who work with the autism community, family and friends of the individuals in the autism community, and individuals …

Pregnancy And The Apocalypse: The Enlistment Of Reproductive Futurism In Aid Of Nationalism, Emily E. Horger

University Honors Theses

While America has long held a fascination for the end of the world, the apocalypse has enjoyed a surge in popularity over the past twenty years, rising the ranks from cult classic to mainstream media - many examples of which include representations of pregnancy. Reproductive futurism is exemplified in such varied recent sources as A Quiet Place, Bird Box, Train to Busan, The Walking Dead, and more through their representations of pregnant women in apocalyptic settings. The prevalence of this trope, in addition to specific messages found within the contexts of each example, coincide with recent …

A Colorless Nature: Exploring The Mental Health (Help-Seeking) Experiences Of Pre-Adolescent Black American Children, Christopher Ashley Burkett

Dissertations and Theses

Black American children and adults seeking help for mental health concerns face countless obstacles rooted in systematic oppression, institutional inequalities, and structural disparities; consequently, accessing essential services at much lower rates than their White American counterparts. The unidentified and untreated mental health issues of Black American children and youth can have catastrophic life outcomes for them. Some researchers cite barriers such as stigmatization, negative attitudes toward mental health services, and a lack of culturally relevant treatment models as explanations for these impediments to mental health (help-seeking). It is my contention that these analyses are arguably incomplete, despite having accurate elements. …

In Search Of A Third Place On Campus: An Exploration Of The Effects Of Built Space On Students' Sense Of Belonging, Kimberly S. Stave

Dissertations and Theses

Despite decades of environmental behavior research demonstrating the impact physical space has on human behavior, the American university has been slow to adopt this data into campus design and renovation plans. Campus ecology literature has demonstrated that the physical environment of the university campus communicates messages that influence students' feelings of well-being, mattering, and inclusion within the campus community, all significant contributors to student learning and retention.

Campus spaces designed for community building are essential to cultivate a sense of belonging for university students, however, locations dedicated to this type of social interaction, such as third places, are an often-underestimated …