Digital Commons Network^™

Active And Public Transportation Connectivity Between North Temple Tod And Jordan Park River Trail, Ivis Garcia Zambrana, Christie Oostema

TREC Final Reports

The project seeks to capitalize on existing community assets—several TOD stations and a regional bike and pedestrian trail system—by studying how these can be linked. The overarching goal of this project is to increase scholarship on networking safe routes that can encourage public and active transportation choices and thus, encourage a healthier lifestyle and advance sustainability. By expanding pedestrian, bicycle and transit connections to green space and offering the most potential for TOD, this proposal clearly demonstrates the greatest priorities of NITC. Moreover, nationwide, communities like Salt Lake’s West Side are in greater need of sustainable transportation choices that foster …

Critical Library Management: Administrating For Equity, Candise Branum, Turner Masland

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

Social justice and critical theory frameworks have been utilized to discuss library pedagogy and cataloging, but librarians have been slow in applying critical theory to how we actually manage libraries and lead staff. Management is not glamorous; rather, many still hold the traditional view of management as upholding hierarchical values. At its core, both libraries and management are about people, and library managers and administrators have the power to formulate and uphold the library’s values.

Libraries do not exist in a vacuum; we work to empower the communities we work with, and social justice issues directly impact our patrons. In …

Teaching "In Their Best Interest": Preservice Teachers' Narratives Regarding English Learners, Amanda T. Sugimoto, Kathy Carter, Kathleen J. Stoehr

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the United States, teachers are increasingly working with English Learners (ELs) in mainstream classrooms. Several areas of focus have been proposed to guide the preparation of teachers for working with ELs, including: language related knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This narrative study examined how field-based experiences shaped 49 preservice teachers' dispositions toward ELs. An iterative and thematic analysis of collected narratives found that preservice teachers often completed their practicum in classrooms that did not model positive dispositions or pedagogical practices toward ELs. These findings have implications for the tasks and experiences given to preservice teachers during their preparation sequence.

Proximal Predictors Of Alcohol Use Among Japanese College Students, Staci Wendt, Cynthia Mohr, Mo Wang, Sarah Haverly

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background and Objectives: This study investigated how negative social interactions (e.g., disagreeing with a friend) predicted subsequent drinking behaviors among Japanese college students. Because of social influences on drinking, and cultural norms for maintaining social harmony and making amends in response to social transgressions in Japanese culture, the authors hypothesized that students would consume more alcohol socially following increases in negative social interactions. Drinking refusal self-efficacy and social self-efficacy were also studied as moderators of social drinking.

Methods: Fifty-five college students (79% women) of legal drinking age completed a once-daily Internet survey for 30 days, providing 1195 daily reports …

Use Of Gene Editing In Usda Research, Mark R. Mclellan, Patsy Brannon, Adriana Campa, Carrie Castille, Steven Daley-Laursen, Roch Gaussoin, Govind Kannan, Mark Lawrence, Dawn Thilmany

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Science Advisory Council was established in FY2016 as a subcommittee of the National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Economics (NAREEE) Advisory Board by the Chief Scientist as a result of recommendations from the 2012 report on Agricultural Preparedness by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The Council's charge is to provide advice and guidance, on a scientific basis, on the overall strength, practicality, and direction of agricultural research, including emerging technology and scientific issues and report any findings publicly to the NAREEE Advisory Board.

The USDA Chief Scientist first asked the Council to examine rigor and …

Framing Homelessness As Crisis: A Comparative Content Analysis Of Local Media Reports On Portland's Tent Cities, Katrien Cokeley

Dissertations and Theses

This content analysis of mainstream and alternative news narratives interprets the use of the crisis media frame, and describes the relationship between local policy initiatives, media discourse and public opinion on tent cities, organized by people experiencing homelessness in Portland, Oregon. Framing homelessness and housing as a crisis intensified the public debate, attested by an increase in mainstream media reports on tent cities, and by controversial policy changes that addressed the individually-experienced traumatic impacts of the City's anti-camping ordinance, as well as the systemic lack of affordable housing and emergency shelter. Media discourse related to city-sanctioned tent cities blurs the …

Escalating Language At Traffic Stops: Two Case Studies, Jamalieh Haley

Dissertations and Theses

In recent years, the public has seen a rise in recorded footage of violent encounters between police and Black American citizens, partially due to technology such as cell phones, dash-cameras, and body-cameras. This linguistic study examines how these encounters get escalated to the point of violence by asking 1) what kind of directives were used, 2) how were they responded to, 3) how the directives contributed to escalation, and 4) how might power and authority have played a role. I use two case studies to analyze directives and their responses. Findings reveal that repetition of directives on the part of …

The 2016 Presidential Election: Demographic Transformation And Racial Backlash, Skyler Lillian Brocker-Knapp

Dissertations and Theses

Despite analysts' predictions and assertions prior to the 2016 presidential election, the Hispanic vote did not prove decisive. Donald Trump's victory elucidates a new electoral calculus, one that will be ruled simultaneously by changing demographics and the backlash against such change. While Hispanic voters largely supported Hillary Clinton, structural and individual impediments hinder their access to the voting booth and their turnout on election day. This thesis explores the reasons why the Hispanic electorate did not prove decisive in the 2016 presidential election. It further illuminates the changing Electoral College map, in which the Midwest and the Rustbelt are determined …

Intraminority Support For And Participation In Race-Based Collective Action Movements: An Intersectional Perspective, Jaboa Shawntaé Lake

Dissertations and Theses

Due to high profile police shootings, collective action movements addressing racial bias in policing, such as the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, have come to the forefront of societal concern. Though these movements and actions directly address police use of force against Black people, a number of non-Black racial minority individuals and organizations have declared solidarity and joined in protests with BLM. This study takes an intersectional approach to examine racial intraminority attitudes (i.e., racial minorities' attitudes toward other racial minority outgroups) toward support for and participation in protests against police excessive use of force and the BLM movement, through …

Health Disparities In Veterans: A Map Of The Evidence, Karli Kondo, Allison Low, Teresa Everson, Christine D. Gordon, Stephanie Veazie, Crystal Lozier, Michele Freeman, Makalapua Motu’Apuaka, Aaron Mendelson, Marl Friesen, Robin Paynter, Caroline Friesen, Johanna Anderson, Erin Boundy, Somnath Saha, Ana Quiñones, Devan Kansagara

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Goals for improving the quality of care for all Veterans and eliminating health disparities are outlined in the Veterans Health Administration Blueprint for Excellence, but the degree to which disparities in utilization, health outcomes, and quality of care affect Veterans is not well understood.

Objectives: To characterize the research on health care disparities in the Veterans Health Administration by means of a map of the evidence.

Research Design: We conducted a systematic search for research studies published from 2006 to February 2016 in MEDLINE and other data sources. We included studies of Veteran populations that examined disparities in 3 …

"Are We Building Biking Solidarity": Gendered, Racial, And Spatial Barriers To Bicycling In Portland, Oregon, Kyla Jean Tompkins

Dissertations and Theses

Although Portland, Oregon is widely regarded as a "bike friendly" city, its bike equity remains in question. This thesis explores the barriers to biking that women and people of color face in Portland. This research uses feminist geography scholarship to understand how cycling spaces are unequal for marginalized cyclists. Using data from 28 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with infrequent and marginalized cyclists, I found that gender and race inequalities shape their barriers to biking. A hegemonic white, elite, and masculine bike culture controls the domination of cycling spaces. Women's gendered spatial inequalities are shaped by their childrearing demands, geography of fear, …

Holocaust, Memory, Second-Generation, And Conflict Resolution, Leslie O'Donoghue

Dissertations and Theses

Ten Jewish second-generation men and women from metro Portland, Oregon were interviewed regarding growing up in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The American-born participants ranged in age from fifty-one to sixty-four years of age at the time of the interviews. Though the parents were deceased at the time of this study the working definition of a Holocaust survivor parent included those individuals who had been refugees or interned in a ghetto, labor camp, concentration camp, or extermination camp as a direct result of the Nazi Regime in Europe from 1933 to 1945.

A descriptive phenomenological approach was utilized. Eight open-ended …

Trade-Offs: The Production Of Sustainability In Households, Kirstin Marie Elizabeth Munro

Dissertations and Theses

Over the past half-century, environmental problems have become increasingly serious and seemingly intractable, and a careless, clueless, or contemptuous consumer is often portrayed as the root cause of this environmental decline. This study takes a different approach to evaluating the demand for resources by households, assessing possible pro-environmental paths forward through a study of highly ecologically-conscious households. By modeling "green" households as producers of sustainability rather than consumers of environmental products, the sustainability work that takes place in households is brought into focus. An investigation of household sustainability production makes possible the evaluation of the trade-offs inherent in these pro-environmental …

Social Constructions Of Childhood: From Not-Yet-Adults To People In Their Own Right, Sophia K. Biddle

Anthós

Across the globe it is clear that children are a marginalized group. Children are not allowed to vote or be taken seriously in political circles (Sharpe, 2015), are kept away from public spaces (Valentine 2004), navigate inhospitable working conditions (Gamlin et. al., 2015), and are rapidly losing the time and space to foster their own child culture (Woolley and Griffin, 2014). Adults continue to institutionalize children’s play and restrict children’s access to public space. This serves to reinforce children’s position as second-class citizens. A mounting body of work shows that children are suffering in their physical and social development due …

Privatizing The Second Gender: The Origins Of Private Property And Its Relation To Female Sexual Enslavement In The Capitalist Economy, Van Thao Tran

Anthós

With this inquiry, I seek to establish that the privatization of women as property not only originates from but also propagates the creation of private property as is theorized by Thorstein Veblen – and, through both Veblen’s and Friedrich Engel’s research, we can entail that the erosion of women’s agency and ownership is enforced during the early sedentary stages of human development. Throughout the course of history, women’s barbaric status as war loot has evolved into a more insidious institution of naturalized slavery and sexual encumbrance through the adoption of John Locke’s natural rights philosophy into the businessman’s practice, the …

Galen’S Analogy: Animal Experimentation And Anatomy In The Second Century C.E., Annastasia Conner

Anthós

Galen of Pergamum (129 – ca. 216 C.E.) is truly one of the most pivotal characters in the history of medicine, and particularly the field of anatomy. A physician in the ancient Roman Empire, he did not allow his work to be constrained by contemporary boundaries, instead delving further into the field of anatomy and physiology than any doctor had yet done. He built upon the existing work of his predecessors as well as making new discoveries through which he would shape contemporary and future understandings of anatomy, and of medicine as a whole. Although a luminary in his field, …

Evaluative Criteria For Autoethnographic Research: Who’S To Judge? (Chapter 15), Robert Schroeder

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

This chapter is a exploration of autoethnography and shows how entrenched positivist assumptions are in our field. The chapter includes a reflection of the author's own experiences with research and to connect them in ways to my academic library community.

Increasing Youths' Participation In Team-Based Treatment Planning: The Achieve My Plan Enhancement For Wraparound, Janet S. Walker, Celeste L. Seibel, Sharice Jackson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Wraparound is a frequently implemented approach for providing individualized, community-based care for children and adolescents with serious mental health conditions and, typically, involvement in multiple child—and family-serving systems. Both Wraparound’s principles and its theory of change stress the importance of youths’ active participation throughout. However, research focusing on the experiences of youth in Wraparound indicates that they are often not particularly engaged in the process or participating actively with their teams, and the findings point to a lack of alliance between the young people and their teams. This article describes a randomized study testing the Achieve My Plan (AMP) enhancement …

Knowing Nature In The City: Comparative Analysis Of Knowledge Systems Challenges Along The 'Eco-Techno' Spectrum Of Green Infrastructure In Portland & Baltimore, Annie Marissa Matsler

Dissertations and Theses

Green infrastructure development is desired in many municipalities because of its potential to address pressing environmental and social issues. However, despite technical optimism, institutional challenges create significant barriers to effective green infrastructure design, implementation, and maintenance. Institutional challenges stem from the disparate scales and facility types that make up the concept of green infrastructure, which span from large-scale natural areas to small engineered bioswales. Across these disparate facilities 1) different performance metrics are used, 2) different institutions have jurisdiction, and, 3) facility types are differentially classified as assets, producing epistemological and ontological variegation across the spectrum of green infrastructure that …

Global Intersections: A History Of Women's Liberation In Egypt, Jordan Earls

University Honors Theses

The following work investigates the role that colonialism and its modern neocolonial predecessors have played in the oppression of Egyptian women. The work is situated in Kimberle Crenshaw's articulation of intersectional feminist theory, which argues that feminists must investigate the intersections of oppression which augment gender inequality or else risk reinforcing the oppressions which are left unaddressed. The framework for the investigation utilizes feminist sociologist Dorothy Smith's work on "relations of the ruling," which are the systems of power and social processes that produce oppression. In order to examine how colonialism and its predecessors influenced women's oppression in Egypt, the …

Contexts Of Reception And Constructions Of Islam: Second Generation Muslim Immigrants In Post-9/11 America, Shahriyar Smith

Dissertations and Theses

The World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001 fundamentally transformed the context of reception for Muslim immigrants in the U.S., shifting it from neutral to negative while also brightening previously blurred boundaries between established residents and the Muslim minority. This study explores how second-generation Muslim immigrants have experienced and reacted to post-9/11 contexts of reception. It is based on an analysis of ten semi-structured in-depth interviews that were conducted throughout the Portland Metropolitan Area from January to April of 2016. It finds experiences of discrimination to be primarily affected by two factors: public institutions and gender. It also finds, …

Music And Race In The American West, William Steven Schneider

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the complexities of race relations in the nineteenth century American West. The groups considered here are African Americans, Anglo Americans, Chinese, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans. In recent decades historians of the West have begun to tell the narratives of racial minorities. This study adopts the aims of these scholars through a new lens--music. Ultimately, this thesis argues that historians can use music, both individual songs and broader conceptions about music, to understand the complex and contradictory race relations of the nineteenth century west.

Proceeding thematically, the first chapter explores the ways Anglo Americans used music to …

Stereotype Threat And Effects Of Students' Perception Of Their Math Teacher's Fairness On Their Math Self-Efficacy, Alexis Jocelyn Devigal

Dissertations and Theses

Gender inequalities perpetuated by educational and occupational segregation may be exacerbated in part by socialization processes that occur in the years leading up to when high school students typically begin considering postsecondary options. Students’ feelings of self-efficacy in certain subjects can be an important factor that informs their decisions to pursue coursework and programs. This study used stereotype theory to understand how students' perceptions of their 9th grade math teacher's fairness affected their 11th grade math efficacy and how this relationship was moderated by the gender of the student and their math teacher. Using the High School Longitudinal Study of …

When You Aren't Who Your Friends Are: The Moderating Influence Of Racial Similarity On The Association Between Friendships And Mental Well-Being, Philip Tostado

Dissertations and Theses

Friendships are a mental health resource for adolescents. Their availability and strength have been shown to predict lower levels of depression, higher self-esteem, and higher life satisfaction. They can also alleviate the stress that often leads to negative mental health outcomes. However, studies examining the stress process rarely consider the fact that social networks like friendship groups are not a static resource that effects all people the same way. Rather, demographic characteristics of both the individual and their friends could change the role of friendship networks within the stress process.

In this thesis, I investigate the importance of one such …

Reorienting An Information Literacy Program Toward Social Justice: Mapping The Core Values Of Librarianship To The Acrl Framework, Lua Gregory, Shana Higgins

Communications in Information Literacy

Since the publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education librarians have grappled with the purposes, impact, and meaning of this teaching document for their daily instructional practice, for curriculum development, and for institutional and programmatic assessment goals. A strength of the Framework is its emphasis on context, an emphasis aligned with the goals of critical pedagogy and one that acknowledges investment in specific community needs. This article reflects on an attempt to contextualize the Framework for an information literacy program concerned with social justice and student agency by connecting it …

Teaching And Un-Teaching Source Evaluation: Questioning Authority In Information Literacy Instruction, Katelyn Angell, Eamon Tewell

Communications in Information Literacy

This study details the design of instruction sessions for undergraduate students that intended to encourage critical source evaluation and the questioning of established authorities, and appraises these instructional aims through a thematic analysis of 148 artifacts containing student responses to group and individual activities. The authors found a widespread reliance on traditional indicators of academic and scholarly authority, though some students expressed more personal or complex understandings of source evaluation, trustworthiness, and authorship. Based on the findings, recommendations are made for academic librarians interested in promoting learners' senses of agency and authority.

Pakistan’S Role In China’S One Belt One Road Initiative, Grant M. Farr

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In 2014, China initiated a massive economic development project called One Belt One Road (OBOR). This initiative involves China spending over $3 trillion during the next several decades on infrastructure investments in 68 countries. The goal is to recreate the old Silk Road, which flourished during the Han Dynasty in China between 207 BCE and 220 CE. This ancient Silk Road connected China with the Middle East, Africa, and Europe using caravan routes through Central and South Asia. When completed this new Silk Road initiative will link China to Europe and Africa using roads, railways, airports, fiber-optic connections, and seaports. …

Socioeconomic Determinants Of Health Disparities By Race And Ethnicity: The Mediating Role Of Social, Psychological And Behavioral Factors, Amanuel Zimam Melekin

Dissertations and Theses

Socioeconomic status (SES) is inversely related to health status. Disparities in health status among races and ethnic groups are partly attributable to differences in SES, but the indirect pathways by which SES may influence health status are not widely studied.

Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data, this dissertation examined the pathways by which SES, via social, psychological, and behavioral factors predicted physical impairment and overnight hospitalization, and asked whether these indirect relationships differed by race/ethnicity. The HRS is a nationally representative multistage area probability sample administered biennially to respondents over the age of 51 and their spouses. Data …

Psu Green Building Summer Internship Final Report, 2017: Interior Environmental And Indoor Air Quality Assessments Of Workspaces For Future Maintenance Of Parkmill’S Constant Air Volume (Cav) Hvac System, Bassam Alduhaim, Sofia Chavez Cruz

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

Parkmill’s Design, Construction, and Mechanical Systems

The Parkmill building is located on the lower south section of Portland State University’s (PSU) urban campus between SW Park Avenue and SW Mill Street.The lot space, originally selected for the design proposal in 1956, was located between two buildings including the acquired Parkway Manor (currently designated as PSU housing) and former frame house-type buildings. The proposed building would supplement the evening and summer curriculum courses offered by the General Education Division (GED) in partnership with Portland State College and would become a vital resource for students in the Portland metropolitan area.

In Peer Matters, Teachers Matter: Peer Group Influences On Students' Engagement Depend On Teacher Involvement, Justin W. Vollet, Thomas A. Kindermann, Ellen A. Skinner

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study focused on the joint effects of teachers and peer groups as predictors of change in students’ engagement during the first year of middle school, when the importance of peer relationships normatively increases and the quality of teacher–student relationships typically declines. To explore cumulative and contextualized joint effects, the study utilized 3 sources of information about an entire cohort of 366 sixth graders in a small town: Peer groups were identified using sociocognitive mapping; students reported on teacher involvement; and teachers reported on each student’s engagement. Consistent with models of cumulative effects, peer group engagement and teacher involvement each …