Digital Commons Network^™

Homelessness And Business: Perception, Affect And Opportunity, Asatur Nor-Ashkarian

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between business owners and individuals experiencing homelessness within urban commercial districts in the United States, arguing that the dynamic is shaped primarily by spatial concentration, uneven power structures, economic pressure, and public framing rather than simple conflict between competing interests. Drawing on stakeholder analysis, business perception surveys, a mixed-methods study, and an original content analysis of 50 news articles spanning 23 states, this thesis identifies a consistent pattern: business owners broadly perceive homeless presence as negatively impacting safety, cleanliness, and consumer behavior. Local news media reinforces those perceptions through predominantly negative framing of homeless individuals. …

Capstone Review: Warn Winch Proximity Sensor, Leana Girton

University Honors Theses

This thesis reviews the mechanical engineering capstone project that designed a winch proximity sensor for WARN Industries. WARN is very interested in developing this product for market as a safety and ease-of-use accessory, and working with Portland State University was the first step in this process. A group of four mechanical engineering and four electrical engineering capstone students collaborated to research sensor types, test the selected methods, and design and build a prototype. The final design implements an inductive ring, a mechanical button, and bluetooth signaling. The project succeeded in prototyping a proximity sensor for WARN, who will have access …

Psychological Architecture: Evaluating The "Greenhouse Model" As A Structural Standard For Lgbtq+ Well-Being, Ava Lee

University Honors Theses

Traditional LGBTQ+ mental health frameworks often conceptualize psychological safety as a matter of individual endurance. This paper critiques this focus on adaptive resilience, which systematically shifts responsibility from institutions to individuals. To counter this, the study introduces "Psychological Architecture," a framework viewing social environments as constructed infrastructures that can either support or undermine queer well-being. The model contrasts performative "Glasshouses," which prioritize visibility over safety, with engineered "Greenhouses" that nurture sustainable safety through three sequential pillars: Authentic Representation (walls), Emotional Validation (insulation), and Vocal Activism (ventilation).

Grounded in the findings of a 2024 qualitative pilot study of a queer roller …

Not Everyone Gets A Tree: Housing Values, Street Trees, And Equity In Portland, Matthew Moller

University Honors Theses

Street trees are positively associated with Portland home sale prices, but exposure and capitalization are uneven by race/ethnic neighborhood context. Urban trees are ecological assets, but their economic and equity implications remain uneven. This thesis examines street-tree exposure and 2023 residential sale prices in Portland, Oregon (n = 6,414) using a mixed-methodology hedonic design. Ordinary least squares models measure inventoried street-tree counts within 20m, 50m, and 100m buffers together with structural controls and census-block racial and ethnic context. Trees are positively and significantly associated with logged prices at all radii, with scale-sensitive magnitudes and modestly better fit as wider buffers. …

The More Things Change...Reaffirming Our Commitment To Cil’S Core Values, Jane Hammons, Laureen Cantwell-Jurkovic, Jessica Denke, Allison Hosier, Sarah Lemire

Communications in Information Literacy

The new co-editors of Communications in Information Literacy reaffirm their commitment to the journal's values.

A Twilight World Of Unspeakable Horror: Lesbian Camp And The Vampire Lovers (1970), Mirielle Lemay

University Honors Theses

From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, a wave of lesbian vampire themed exploitation films proliferated through UK, US, and Western European cinemas. In critical literature on this subgenre, camp reading is often dismissed, unacknowledged, or understood as circumscribed by authorial intent and/or intended audience. With this alternating lack of attention to and dismissal of camp, the interpretive agency of the queer spectator is constrained, their spectatorship implicitly subordinated to that of the "conventional" horror audience—the voyeuristic-sadistic male spectator. Through a reading of The Vampire Lovers, a 1970 British production from Hammer Studios, I seek to explore how …

Disability Experiences Of University Students: An Interview Study, Cece Austin

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores the experiences of college/university students with disabilities within the educational system. Using a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with students who identify as disabled or having disabilities in order to explore impacts of disability on their lives, with a focus on experiences navigating academic environments and accessing accommodations. Findings revealed two recurring themes: 1) the importance of both registered accommodations and accessibility efforts from faculty, and 2) difficulties with accommodations, internalized ableism, and disclosure. This research contributes to broader discussions on disability, inclusion, and educational equity by highlighting the lived experiences of students with disabilities …

Holding Pattern: The Making Of An Ep, On Intuition, And Form Becoming The Content, Oscar Larson Phillips

University Honors Theses

This craft essay traces the making of "Holding Pattern," a three-song EP representing the culmination of five years of development in composition, production, lyric writing, and sound engineering. Each song addresses its own distinct emotional territory: the tension between confidence and self-doubt, resistance to creative conformity, and the experience of emotional dissociation. Together they form a single arc: reaching out, holding your ground, and surviving it. This essay moves through each song, examining how production decisions, lyrical construction, and the recording process each served the content of the work. Working intuitively across composition, sampling, collaboration, and recording, what only became …

Facilitators And Barriers That Exist For Patients Receiving Dental Care In Rural Communities, Monse Sandoval Brumbaugh

University Honors Theses

Rising healthcare costs and limited access to care have exacerbated the shortage of healthcare providers. Although multiple factors contribute to a clinician’s preference for practicing in rural areas, the imbalance created leads to rural communities with significantly reduced access to essential services, particularly dental care. The disparity between urban and rural healthcare is a well-documented global problem, but it remains a pressing issue in the United States, particularly in Oregon. The Full Time Equivalents (FTE) count of full-time practicing dentists in rural regions is significantly lower than in urban areas. Statewide, there are about 0.48 dentists per 1,000 residents. However, …

Gps Tracking Smart Dash Cam Capstone Review, Simrah Saleem

University Honors Theses

This thesis details our design, implementation, and collaborative development of an intelligent vehicle logging system built on a Raspberry Pi 5. Unlike standard consumer dash cams that act as closed "black boxes," our system uses a dual-camera stereo vision setup integrated with centimeter-level accuracy. While we successfully built a functional Proof of Concept capable of event-triggered recording, dual-monitor visualization, and smart detection and recognition, this paper focuses on our engineering journey and the real-world challenges we faced. Using an Agile framework, we split into three specialized sub-teams to handle hardware, database, and interface design in parallel. This structure created unique …

"Address It Or Suppress It": What We Can Learn About Rpf From Celebrity Responses, Z Maloney-Dunn

University Honors Theses

In a growing culture of parasociality, ways of engaging with celebrities are constantly changing. RPF (Real Person Fiction) is an often controversial subgenre of fanfiction written about real people. This thesis examines how celebrities respond to RPF written about them, using two case studies: the pairs of Dan Howell and Phil Lester as well as Greg Davies and Alex Horne. Both case studies have reacted positively to RPF, but have very different relationships with their audience and ways of responding to them. Through an analysis of various statements made by the subjects over the years, this thesis seeks to gain …

Information Literacy Tutorials For High Enrollment Courses: An Iterative Design-Based Approach, Kimberly Casey, Rebekah Heleen

Communications in Information Literacy

The purpose of this paper is to provide academic librarians practical guidance on how to provide information literacy support to high enrollment, general education courses. It includes a detailed description and analysis of our approach and findings throughout the project, as well as reflections and lessons learned. The project team developed asynchronous information literacy tutorials for first-year students at the University of Arkansas, utilizing a flipped classroom approach, to address challenges in delivering personalized instruction to high-enrollment courses. Collaborating with program directors, the team created online tutorials embedded with feedback surveys, which collected nearly 2,000 student responses. We also surveyed …

Assessment Of Information Literacy Instruction In Reference: Applying Vanscoy’S Conceptual And Procedural Framework In Practice, Vanessa Arce

Communications in Information Literacy

The instructional aspect of reference work has long been acknowledged, especially in academic libraries. The current RUSA guidelines include helping users develop information literacy as a goal of reference. In this context, investigating the presence and nature of information literacy instruction can be used to assess the quality of reference services. This study applied Amy VanScoy’s conceptual/procedural framework for point-of-need instruction to a sample of chat reference transcripts at Lehman College, City University of New York. One of the assessment’s goals was to determine the prevalence of instruction and type of knowledge addressed in reference interactions. Another goal was to …

Research Matters: Problem-Setting: A Research Reflection Process, Merinda Kaye Hensley

Communications in Information Literacy

In this inaugural “Research Matters” column, Merinda Kaye Hensley introduces problem-setting as an intentional research reflection process inspired by instructional design. This three-pronged approach invites librarians to examine their research agendas by surfacing prior knowledge, identifying bottlenecks, and creating an assumptions inventory. By interrogating what we think we know and where we struggle in doing research related to information literacy, problem-setting reframes our research processes as a generative, inquiry-driven practice. Drawing on an example from her own research agenda, investigating undergraduate researchers’ understandings of the publication process, Hensley demonstrates how reflective problem-setting can unstick thinking, sharpen questions and energize scholarly …

Historic Parkrose: Planning For Vacant Properties, Rowan Anderson, Julia Cruz Jones, Akasha Lawrence Spence, Clara Lietz, Cal Storrs

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Crescent Consulting was engaged by Historic Parkrose, a Portland-based non-profit, to analyze vacant and under-utilized properties along Northeast Sandy Boulevard within the Historic Parkrose Business District. The area has been the focus of many planning efforts at the neighborhood, city, and state level that have identified community needs and priorities, yet implementation has been limited. Forthcoming Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funding may create opportunities to implement these plans and encourage reinvestment that will contribute to the corridor’s vitality and economic capacity. This report is a resource for evaluating and prioritizing vacant lot redevelopment opportunities in Parkrose, helping align future investment …

Westside Foodshed Hub Initiative: Farm-To-Food-Assistance Feasibility Study, Andrew Bugh, James Shelstad, Jordan Rasmussen, Kenton Marquigny, Reed Johnson

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Westside Foodshed Planning Initiative is a feasibility study exploring how Farm-to- Food-Assistance, or F2FA, can supplement CAFE's food assistance work in Northwest and Downtown Portland. The study was conducted by Soil for Roses, a planning team consisting of members of Portland State University's Master of Urban and Regional Planning program. Through this project, Soil for Roses envisions the F2FA as a regional food aggregation and distribution hub tailored to CAFE’s goals of advancing food security and nutrition, environmental stewardship, and resilience.

Gateway: Heat Resilience Focus Area Final Report, Jill Coleman, Sletsy Dlamini, Luke Gordon, Danny Harden-Ramella, Joe Kortenhof, Devery Sheridan

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

In the Summer of 2021, Multnomah County experienced a heat dome that resulted in the tragic deaths of 75 people and caused 258 individuals to seek medical care in emergency rooms and urgent care facilities. While heat related treatment had been experienced in previous heat waves, no heat related deaths had been recorded by the county prior to the Heat Dome. Since 2021, heat-related fatalities have remained elevated above the pre-2021 baseline. Medical visits for illness and injury also remain elevated from 2021 onwards. Many of the more easily implementable short-term solutions have already been implemented in Portland, and the …

C-Tran Bus Stop Accessibility Action Plan, Grace Alston, Michelle Auster, Zoe Beckley, Noah Crawford, Ryan Gallo, Angelique Wallmann

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Project Background

C-TRAN is the regional public transportation provider for the Clark County Public Transportation Benefit Area in Southwest Washington, providing connections to the Portland, Oregon, metro region. C-TRAN connects people to opportunities, supports economic vitality, and enhances the quality of life for the community.

The challenge - 66% of C-TRAN’s bus stops are non-ADA compliant, C-TRAN’s existing capital investment strategy lacks community input and a multi-year application.

The Opportunity - Our Bus Stop Accessibility Action Plan will leverage community engagement and social metric data to develop a long-term investment strategy.

Reimagining The Cully 5 Corners, Samuel Anderson, Noah Brown, Kaitlyn Cook, Nicholas Pelster, Michael Wickham, Steven Yee

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Reimagining the Cully 5 Corners is a project spearheaded by the Cully Coalition and Confluence Planning + Design, aiming to create a vision and plan for a centralized, connected, resilient hub for this area of NE Portland, Oregon.

The Cully Coalition envisions Cully as an equitable and socially just neighborhood that enriches and uplifts all community members while minimizing displacement, improving community cohesion, and supporting economic vitality.

Like many Portland areas annexed in the late 20th century, the Cully neighborhood has experienced decades of relative underinvestment in terms of public services, urban design, and business development.

Uplifting Cully starts with …

Application Of Information Literacy Skills To Everyday Life Information Seeking In College Students: Implications For Instruction, Stephanie Ward, Rachel Dineen, Darren Ilett

Communications in Information Literacy

Academic librarians who teach information literacy (IL) skills hope students will transfer those skills to their information seeking in everyday life. However, there is little evidence that students are transferring what they learn about research to their lives outside college. This study aims to find out what search and evaluation strategies college students who have had IL instruction apply to their own personal information seeking behaviors. To do this, a talk-aloud protocol was used to record participants’ thoughts and actions as they navigated scenarios that required them to select a source that met a non-academic information need. The findings indicate …

The Spectrum Of Authority: A New Approach To Teaching Ai And Primary Source Literacies, Kristen Howard

Communications in Information Literacy

This article presents an information literacy workshop designed for undergraduate history courses that introduces students to generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) while strengthening primary source literacy. Anchored in the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, “Authority Is Constructed and Contextual,” the workshop employs an innovative pedagogical device, the Spectrum of Authority, to help students critically evaluate information sources. Through comparative analysis and guided discussion, students increased their ability to assess credibility in information sources. Student feedback indicated increased confidence in analyzing primary sources and a greater understanding of GenAI’s capabilities and …

Critical Information Literacy In Higher Education: An Evolution In Theory, Practice, And Assessment, Dan Williford

Communications in Information Literacy

This article offers a critical synthesis of scholarship on critical information literacy (CIL) in higher education from 2015 to 2026, extending and recalibrating prior longitudinal reviews to account for post-2020 theoretical, political, and technological shifts. Drawing on a corpus of 48 peer-reviewed publications published between 2020 and 2026, the study employs thematic cluster analysis—building on Tewell’s four-domain framework—to examine developments in theory, pedagogy, digital and political engagement, reflexive critique, and assessment. Rather than treating critical information literacy as a settled framework, this review positions it as an evolving and contested practice shaped by the political economy of higher education. It …

"An Open Mind And A Critical Stance": A Content Analysis Of Information Literacy Integration Into A Course About Poverty And Discrimination, Ashley Shealy, C. Rebecca Oldham, Clay Oldham, Tara L. Griffith

Communications in Information Literacy

The ACRL Framework argues that infusing curriculum with information literacy concepts can improve students’ attitudes and abilities to navigate complex information landscapes. This paper describes how a librarian and a faculty member integrated an information literacy curriculum into an undergraduate upper-division course about poverty and discrimination. Curriculum efficacy was assessed through directed content analysis of student responses to open-ended questions about engaging with news and social media, forming opinions, and having conversations about controversial topics. Responses were analyzed using a coding scheme based on course objectives derived from Framework dispositions and knowledge practices. Results indicated that exposing students to an …

Review Of Instructional Design For Teaching Information Literacy Online: A Student-Centered Approach, By J. Mattson, D. Lemmons, V. Linsinbigler, And C. Lowder, Kendall Morgan

Communications in Information Literacy

Review of Mattson, J., Lemmons, D., Linsinbigler, V., & Lowder, C. (2025). Instructional design for teaching information literacy online: A student-centered approach. Association of College and Research Libraries.

Why Choose Green Burial: Raising Awareness About An Under-Utilized Method Of Body Disposition, Gretchen Mahlberg

University Honors Theses

Green burial, the process of human burial in a biodegradable vessel without embalming, is a simple method for disposal of remains that has been used around the world for centuries, yet it is chosen less than 5% of the time in the US today. The stigma about discussing death has led to a lack of awareness about options and created an environment where morticians, as the sole sources of information, direct the bereaved towards the options most beneficial to themselves. Previous methods to raise awareness about green burial have had limited reach, being focused on people who are already researching …

Familial Roles In Grief With A Focus On Eldest Daughters In Latinx Communities, Julianna Falcon

University Honors Theses

The way in which grief impacts an individual is something that varies from person to person. However how grief impacts eldest daughters within the Latinx community and their familial roles is a subject that has had little to no research done thus far. The four participants in this exploratory study describe their own experiences with the shift in familial roles and their experience navigating grief. They all shared their experiences through semi-structured interviews. Where the findings displayed key themes surrounding expectations, support, proximity, and academic impacts within each of the interviews. More detail is provided within this study on how …

Interrupted By Design: The Impact Of Push Notifications On Stress And Task Performance, Mia Hohmann

University Honors Theses

As digital communication becomes unavoidable at work, notifications have become one of the most common and overlooked sources of interruption. Drawing from current technostress literature, this study investigates how notifications impact acute and perceived stress as well as task speed and accuracy. In an experimental setting, employed university students (N = 35) completed a data-entry task while receiving either no notifications, task-relevant notifications or task-irrelevant notifications to examine how different types of digital interruptions influenced stress and performance. Stress was measured through a pre- and post-task survey and performance was assessed through both speed and accuracy. Although results showed significant …

Rarely Asked: The Systemic Failure To Support The Mental Health Of Caregivers Of Medically Complex Children, Morgan Motsinger

University Honors Theses

Approximately one in four households in the United States cares for a child with special healthcare needs, yet the mental health of the caregivers providing that care is rarely addressed by the medical, faith, community, and social systems around them. This thesis examines the systemic gaps in mental health support for caregivers of children with life-limiting or medically complex diagnoses through a review of existing literature and an original mixed-method survey of 58 caregivers. Findings indicate that 50% of caregivers received no mental health support from their child's medical team at any point. Every respondent reported at least one clinically …

The Social Construction Of Risk: How Media Socially Constructs Risk Perceptions Surrounding School Shootings Among College Students, Natalie Jobe

University Honors Theses

Although school shootings are statistically rare events, public fear surrounding them has continuously increased across the United States. This thesis explored how college students perceive the risk of school shootings despite the relatively low probability of experiencing these violent events, with particular attention to the role of media framing, sensationalized reporting, and repeated exposure to violent social and digital media. In order to examine how media framing, social and digital media exposure, as well as ongoing encounters with violent content affect risk perception, this research conducted six interviews with traditionally aged college students from Portland State University regarding their experiences …

Grief, Silence, And Surveillance In Academic Settings, Rakhi Grey

University Honors Theses

This study examines how grief is silenced, monitored, and regulated within higher education settings. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students who experienced the death of someone significant, this study explores how institutional expectations surrounding productivity, professionalism, emotional control, and academic functioning shape grief disclosure, emotional expression, and help-seeking behaviors. Using a critical theoretical framework informed by concepts of disenfranchised grief, legitimacy hierarchies, and surveillance, findings suggest that grief within higher education is not simply individually experienced, but socially and institutionally regulated. Participants described academic environments that often left little space for ongoing grief, requiring students to compartmentalize emotional distress, …