Digital Commons Network^™

Entheogens: The Hallucinogenic Plants That Shaped Religion, Nicolas A. Michaud

Young Historians Conference

Entheogens have played a pivotal role in religious and spiritual practices across diverse cultures, aiding in the pursuit of divine connection and higher consciousness. Evidence suggests that dating as far as back as a million years ago, early human species such as Homo erectus and Homo habilis experimented with hallucinogenic plants like psilocybin mushrooms, introducing the earliest forms of shamanic practices. As societies became more structured, the use of entheogens expanded throughout various parts of society. In ancient Greece, oracles utilized plants like henbane to communicate with the divine, molding military and political policy. During the Middle Ages, Tibetan Buddhism …

Exposing The Truth Behind The Stanford Prison Experiment, Leo Novack

Young Historians Conference

In 1971 Philiip Zimbardo, a Stanford University professor, designed an experiment to study human behaviors in the prison system. He sought to understand the effectiveness of the prison system, however, the experiment ended early due to the ethical concerns toward participants. It is considered one of the most important psychological experiments, not for what it helped reform, but for what it pointed out about the importance of safety for research participants. Calling upon primary sources from participants and the researchers’ findings, as well as secondary sources primarily from psychologists and research ethics, the research reveals that this study was unreliable …

A Crucial Western Foothold: Uyghur-Americans In The Fairfax-D.C. Metro Area, Jake C. Mccauley

Young Historians Conference

Since the 1980s, the Uyghur people of East Turkestan, now known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, have migrated from their ancestral homeland in China in search of a better life. As an ethnically, linguistically, and religiously distinct group, the Uyghurs face severe oppression, with the Chinese state targeting them economically, socially, and physically. Since 2017, mass internment efforts have escalated, leading to the establishment of labor camps that claim to transition Uyghur labor from agricultural to industrial sectors but also serve as sites of ideological indoctrination, torture, and death. As a result of these human rights violations and other …

Guidelines For A Good Life: How Morality Tales Have Shaped Communities And Cultural Landscapes, Kate E. Mcfarland

Young Historians Conference

Morality tales have played a crucial role in shaping moral and political structures throughout history. These stories, varying in format from plays, to books, to even musical albums, are easily accessible to readers. They use simple language and terms that can be understood between social classes and strata to teach people how to live a more “moral” life. This paper studies the socio-political effects of these morality tales through in-depth analyses of the Greek Aesop’s Fables, Confucius’ the Analects, the Indian Panchatantra, the medieval play Everyman, and a modern American musical album “Free to Be… You …

“Through Science To Justice” Magnus Hirschfeld’S Role In Queer Liberation, Katarina L. Stoll

Young Historians Conference

Magnus Hirschfeld was a scientist who researched sexuality and gender, as well as an activist for “sexual minorities.” He challenged previously held beliefs that homosexuality should be treated as an illness and is credited with being the first to view gender identity as separate from sexuality. Additionally, Hirschfeld argued that queer people simply act in accordance with their nature. Through the creation of various institutions, he worked to uplift the queer community through publishing his research, undertaking advocacy work, and creating safe spaces. Though not immune to the prejudices of his time, Hirschfeld was able to help improve the lives …

Face Value: Cosmetics As A Unit Of Historical Analysis, Sophie Durocher

Young Historians Conference

Cosmetics are a universal concept that have been inherent in society all throughout history. This paper explores four unique cultures from across the globe and their primary cosmetic of choice. A tube of lipstick from a Bronze Age Persian burial ground sheds light on the early uses and significance of lipstick in Ancient Persia. A compact of powdered pearls from China in the 11th century reveals the widespread importance of facial powder in China. The Maya applied paint and perfumes to denote social status and in ritual traditions, as evidenced by artwork and archaeological evidence. Ancient Egyptians famously painted their …

Teaching From Past Example: Various Interpretations Of Livy's Rape Of Lucretia, June Baeck

Young Historians Conference

The final kings of Rome were expelled in 509 B.C.E. after one of their princes raped a woman, driving her to end her own life. Pure and chaste, this woman was the utmost model of feminine virtue. Her death would bring great political change at the end of the sixth century B.C.E., but her story would be carried on and projected to provoke something similar for millennia. One significant driver of this was Titus Livius, who wrote of her in the first book of his Ab Urbe Condita, a history of Rome written c. 29 B.C.E. His account showcased …

Reflecting Life Back: The Influence Of Mirrors On Human World History, Helen F. Cruz-Uribe Bandstra

Young Historians Conference

Ten thousand years ago, humans first created mirrors. They were developed simultaneously all over the world, reflecting the innate human desire to see something so close to us, yet so hard to view. Our own face. While this invention had a simple initial purpose, it quickly became tied to many of the more complicated developments of human life, including, but not limited to, religion, power, and technology. We see this reflected in everything from the polished obsidian mirrors of Mesoamerica, used to commune with the gods and revered for their reflectiveness, to the bronze mirrors of Greece used in early …

The Color Of Society: A History Of Textile Dyes, Tess L. Nestel

Young Historians Conference

This paper will examine how textile dyes have been linked to cultural status and hierarchy throughout history. The colors of clothing have long served as outward expressions of wealth and power due to the rarity of natural dyes. With a limited range of colors, each hue became symbolic and took on specific meanings. In China, a strict color code was enforced, with the emperor wearing the most important color; in the Byzantine Empire tyrian purple became the hallmark of royalty and power. Beginning in the 15th century, colonization opened up extensive trade routes that introduced American cochineal and created a …

Form Follows Function: An Analysis Of De Architectura And Its Influence, Weston Klein

Young Historians Conference

Over 2000 years ago, the Roman architect and engineer, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, scribed De Architectura, a multi-volume work unearthed in the 15th century, in St. Gallen, Switzerland. As the only surviving architectural source from antiquity, the book has been indispensable in the study of Greco-Roman architecture, positioning Vitruvian and Greco-Roman architectural concepts in many ways as one in the same. Additionally, Vitruvian ideas, as expressed in De Architectura, regarding architectural form, materials, location, and process have been foundational to the evolution of Western architecture. This paper explores De Architectura’s impact on Western architectural theory and practice spanning the Early Middle …

35th Annual Young Historians Conference Program, Portland State University History Department, Portland State University Challenge Program

Young Historians Conference

This is the 2025 Young Historians Conference schedule and abstracts.

Seeking Common Ground With A Conversational Chatbot, Judit Dombi, Tetyana Sydorenko, Veronika Timpe-Laughlin

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Conversational AI is advancing rapidly, enabling significant improvements in chatbots’ conversational abilities. Currently, available conversational chatbots (e.g., Snapchat’s MyAI) appear to generate fairly realistic, often human-like output. As collaboration between humans and machines becomes more common, and AI systems are increasingly viewed as more than just tools, understanding human communication in such contexts is crucial. Despite the vast array of applications and the increasing number of human-bot interactions, research on how humans interact with conversational chatbots is scarce. One possible reason for this gap is that studying human-computer communication may require adaptations of existing pragmatic frameworks, due to the unique …

Do Gun-Purchase Waiting Periods Save Lives?, Grace E. Arnold, Mitchell Blaine Priestley

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We study the impact of gun-purchase waiting periods on suicide rates using county-level mortality data from 1991-2019. We find that waiting periods are associated with a reduction in both firearm and overall suicide rates of approximately 5% and 2%, respectively. Novelly, we find that counties that are within 50 miles from a state without a waiting period experience no statistically significant reduction in suicides. Our findings reveal that the decrease in suicides under a waiting period is driven by counties that are more than 50 miles from a non-restricted neighboring state.

The Effects Of School Safety Strategies On K-12 Schools: Armed Civilians, School Resource Officers, And Metal Detectors As Contributors To The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Rebeca Petean

Dissertations and Theses

In recent decades, K-12 public schools have introduced get-tough measures ostensibly to improve school safety through punitive responses to misconduct and delinquency--expanding from traditional security measures to more punitive, zero-tolerance policies and surveillance-based approaches. Academic literature and media accounts highlight that such efforts continue to proliferate and extend across our nation's school spaces. This three-paper dissertation examines how specific safety practices--namely, the presence of armed civilians, School Resource Officers (SROs), and random metal detector checks--influence student outcomes and contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline. Rooted in Becker's (1963) and Lemert's (1967) labeling theory, as well as Sampson and Laub's (1997) cumulative …

Rupert Raj’S Written Acts Of Activism And Care Throughout The 1980s And 1990s, Mia Jakobsen

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

In researching acts of activism and care in Canadian queer and trans racialized history, I examined how Rupert Raj advocated and cared for other trans individuals through his writing in the 1980s and 1990s. He noticed that there were few publications for trans individuals so he created easily accessible methods to share vital information regarding research and support that would have otherwise been difficult to acquire. Raj’s writings shared vital transgender research, literature, and expertise from across the globe. He provided critical support to and for other trans men through his easily accessible publications and letters, serving as an information …

Inciting Action By Analyzing Pachirat, Rhi N. Soto

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

The book Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight by Timothy Pachirat explores “the politics of sight”, or the intentional invisibilizing or transparentizing of repugnant acts in order to encourage or limit them, through the case study of a beef slaughter house in Omaha, NE. While also utilizing the politics of sight, Pachirat hopes for great political and social change concerning the immoral acts that happen at meat plants through a radical act of transparency: a narrative ethnography. Writers with similar goals of great change in social and political issues can make use of Pachirat’s techniques, which …

"I Know Who I Am": Draw-And-Tell Conversations With Gender-Creative Children, Eline Leemans Lenne

Dissertations and Theses

A growing number of children identify in various gender-creative ways, likely due to broader social awareness and affirmation of transgenderism. Gender-creative children face higher risks for adverse social, academic, mental health, and healthcare outcomes compared to non-transgender peers. Support from loved ones along with guidance from pediatric providers can mitigate poor outcomes and ensure that gender-creative children live healthy and happy lives. Young gender-creative children's perspectives about the aforementioned topics are markedly absent from the literature, which instead highlights adolescent and adult proxy perspectives.

In this participatory arts-based study anchored by a constructivist epistemology and informed by post-structuralist, queer, and …

Pathos, Spring 2025, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

An Equitable End: Meeting The Needs Of Queer Families Within Deathcare, Nyssa Peck

University Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to explore end-of-life care experiences of queer families, focusing on interactions with palliative and hospice caregivers. Currently, end-of-life (EOL) practitioners in institutional and medical care settings are often poorly equipped to interact with queer families due to inadequate cultural training models, personal biases, and ignorance regarding the queer identities of their clients. This manifests in substantial inequities within deathcare systems regarding the accommodation of the unique needs of queer familial structures. Drawing upon multidisciplinary scholarship, I sought to examine these needs, which diverge from that of heterosexual families due to queer families’ absence of legal protections and …

Improved Biomass Cookstove Use In The Longer Run: Results From A Field Experiment In Rural Ethiopia, Alemu Mekonnen, Abebe D. Beyene, Sahan Dissanayake, Randall Bluffstone, Zenebe Gebreegziabher, Daniel Lafave, Peter Martinsson, Michael Toman

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study examines longer-run usage frequency of Mirt improved biomass cookstoves (ICS), one of the most important ICS promoted in Ethiopia. Mirt has been shown to improve childhood health, and reduce fuelwood consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, but to generate those benefits, households must regularly use it over extended periods. Thus, this paper focuses on longer-run use using stove surface temperature data over five time intervals. We find that, close to its estimated lifespan, 63 per cent of households had their stoves in place after more than 3.5 years. Of those who abandoned their stoves, over 80 per cent did …

Beyond The Bickering: Examining Event, Victim, And Offender Characteristics For Sibling Abuse Incidents In Oregon, Isabella M. Starr

University Honors Theses

Sibling violence (SV) is the most prevalent form of intrafamilial and domestic violence, yet it remains underrecognized and lacks the systematic attention given to other forms of family violence. Often minimized or misclassified as typical sibling rivalry, SV can inflict serious and lasting physical, emotional, and psychological harm on its victims. This study explores the characteristics of sibling violence incidents reported to law enforcement in Oregon between 2016 and 2023, using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Through an analysis of 5,793 single-victim, single-offender incidents, the research examines demographic patterns among victims and offenders, incident dynamics, and typological …

Digital Child Labor Exploitation In Sharenting: Proposing Legislative Solutions For Enhanced Child Protection, Joana Guzman Gonzalez

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores the implications of sharenting -- the practice of sharing children's information on mass media--raises urgent concerns about child safety and potential human rights violations -- and the exploitation of children in digital spaces, focusing on the risks of privacy, safety and mental health pose by the rise of kidfluencers – children influencers under the age of 18 – and family vlog channels. Through a comprehensive literature review, the research examines children's online presence's emotional, legal, and societal impacts, drawing from case studies such as Sheri Franke, Wren Eleanor, Ryan Kaji, and JoJo Siwa. The analysis reveals a …

Disrupting The Abuse-Prison Nexus: The Gendered Violence Of Prosecution And Abolitionist Feminist Approaches To Social Care Work, Sid P. Jordan, Emily Thuma, Aylaliyah Assefa Birru, Deirdre Wilson, Romarilyn Ralston, Norma Cumpian, Joseph Hankins

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

The vast majority of people in U.S. women’s prisons are survivors of interpersonal violence, a pattern that organizers and advocates have referred to as the abuse-to-prison pipeline. This article critically examines criminal prosecution from the perspectives of survivors of interpersonal violence who faced long prison sentences in California. In-depth interviews and group discussions were generated through a participatory process at a gathering to launch the University of California Sentencing Project, a partnership with the community-based organization California Coalition for Women Prisoners. The twenty-two formerly incarcerated participants had collectively spent more than 300 years imprisoned. Drawing on their lived experiences spanning …

College Outcomes For Young Adults With And Without Learning Disabilities And Adhd: Formal-Disability-Programming And Informal-Disability-Supports, Dara R. Shifrer, Rachel Springer, Hannah Sean Ellefritz, Ned Tilbrook

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Inequalities by disability status in college outcomes contribute to inequalities throughout adulthood in multiple domains. As the share of students with learning disabilities and/or ADHD increases on college campuses, research is needed on how best to support these undergraduates, both through formal and informal means. We integrate the social and medical models of disability with data on nearly 17,000 young adults in the US, who typically finished high school in 2013, and find that formal-disability-programming relates negatively to college enrollment but has no apparent bearing on college persistence. Among youth with similar sociodemographic backgrounds and comparable end of high school …

Investigating Key Structures In Protective Scenes For Llms, Eben M. Weisman

University Honors Theses

This research delves into the realm of "protective scenes" within Large Language Models (LLMs), exploring their impact on bias mitigation, deception, and context preservation. The study investigates the use of roleplay prompting human-like behavior and reasoning in LLMs, focusing on the Character-LLM framework's concept of protective scenes with graduated levels of protection. By combining insights from psychology, cognitive science, and computational analysis, this research aims to develop a framework for understanding how protective scenes influence roleplay performance in LLMs, ultimately contributing to the development of more reliable and ethical AI systems.

The Impact Of Covid-19 On The United States Higher Education System, Phoenix Daniel Van Wormer

University Honors Theses

In the spring of 2020, colleges across the United States rapidly transitioned to online/remote learning during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Since then, online and remote learning have evolved into an integral component of higher education. This thesis examines the extent to which COVID-19-mandated remote and online learning impacted students pursuing higher education in the United States. By utilizing research that compares academic structures before and after the pandemic, I demonstrate how the shift to online and remote learning has changed teaching and learning methods. I also evaluate the impact of these changes on student performance and engagement, with particular focus …

From Farm To Friend: Fostering Compassion Toward Farmed Animals Through Design, Natalie Kosmos

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores how human compassion for farmed animals can be fostered through design. By analyzing the existing language, imagery, and social norms surrounding animal commodification, the research highlights the root of the issue: how humans perceive farmed animals in relation to themselves. Understanding how humans view and think about farmed animals is important for creating a message that disrupts these existing norms. The culmination of this thesis is a campaign, "From Farm to Friend" which is designed to be approachable and informative, encouraging the audience to have compassion for farmed animals and change their perception, from farm--to friend.

Working Paper No. 93, The Father, The Son, And The ‘Sulphuric’ Spirit: Reflections Upon Gunnar Myrdal's Early Writings Dealing With J. M. Keynes, Plus The ‘Great Recession’, Niccolo Cellini

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry explores Gunnar Myrdal's contributions to counter-cyclical fiscal policy, emphasizing his belief in accumulating surpluses during economic growth and deploying them during downturns. The first section discusses Myrdal's critique of traditional austerity measures, advocating for transparency in deficit spending and highlighting the psychological impact of fiscal policy. The second section compares Myrdal’s views with John Maynard Keynes’, noting their shared concerns regarding unemployment while emphasizing Myrdal's focus on social equity and institutional reform. The final section applies Myrdal’s framework to the U.S. response to the Great Recession, analyzing the limitations of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and …

Risk Factors For Substance Use Among Serious And Violent Offenders Undergoing Reentry, Elizabeth Bozarth

University Honors Theses

Formerly incarcerated individuals often experience an intensely chaotic and stressful reentry environment, riddled with barriers and challenges that make them more susceptible to substance use and other risky behaviors. This literature review focuses on the most prevalent and pervasive risk factors for substance use among serious and violent offenders undergoing reentry. By examining research published within the last decade on serious and violent offenders in the United States, several major themes were identified: social bonds, housing and employment, mental health, and surveillance and addiction treatment. The results showed that risk factors for substance use are deeply embedded in ex-offenders' social …

Exploring Health Equity With Culturally Specific Providers Of Permanent Supportive Housing, Judith Solomon

University Honors Theses

Chronic homelessness is an important public health issue. Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) is a promising opportunity for transitioning people experiencing homelessness into housing, however there remain unaddressed racial inequities in service provision and outcomes. The aim of this study is to better understand the role of culturally specific (CS) providers of PSH in improving health equity. I analyzed interviews with CS PSH providers for themes related to health and healthcare. Providers spoke about the importance of connecting clients to healthcare. Providers stressed the importance of honesty and lived experience, highlighting the strong sense of responsibility to the community. Providers also …