Digital Commons Network^™

From Counterinsurgency To Chemical Warfare: Technology Dependence And Agent Orange, Sophia Johnson

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy approved the use of chemical defoliants in Vietnam. Taking British use of chemical defoliants during the Malayan Emergency as precedent, American counterinsurgency efforts used the potent “rainbow” herbicides to destroy enemy crops and jungle foliage. Although the use of Agent Orange was intended to be a limited counterinsurgency tactic, the rapid escalation of Agent Orange’s use, negligence in ensuring its safety, and its auxiliary intentional use on humans all indicate an irresponsible exercise in chemical warfare on behalf of the U.S. government. Sources examined include monographs such as David Zierler’s Invention of Ecocide: Agent …

A ‘Superlicious’ Feast: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Davy Crockett’S Almanacs As An Early Form Of White National Identity, Darren L. Letendre

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

Abstract: Davy Crockett’s Almanacs, published between 1835 and 1856, have been held as a prime example of nineteenth-century Anglo-American folklore. While authors have commented on their comic qualities and racist content, what has been lacking is a rhetorical analysis, as suggested by Folklorist Stephen Gencarella, which would examine the ways in which “folklore is not something that a folk does, rather… something which constitutes a folk.” This paper analyzes the almanac stories dealing with native peoples in order to understand the political and ideological discourse that was propagated by these publications. Rather than genuine folk-stories faithfully recorded by publishers, these …

"B-Ing Flexible" : Examining Creativity In Bisexual Employees, Megan Jane Snoeyink

Dissertations and Theses

Creativity is essential for organizations to remain competitive and profitable. Past evidence suggests diversity in organizations promotes creativity, however, the mechanisms through which diversity promotes creativity in the workplace are not yet understood. Diverse populations' unique experiences may promote creativity, particularly through cognitive flexibility. I investigate the potential for heightened creativity in diverse populations within the context of bisexuality. Specifically, I use the flexibility model of bisexuality to explain why bisexual employees may have greater cognitive flexibility and subsequent creativity than heterosexual employees. Additionally, I seek to understand the moderating role of supervisor support in this relationship. Participants were recruited …

Urbanization And Mental Health: The Power Of Green Space, Emma Rosenthal

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

In this presentation, I will review the negative impacts of urbanization on mental health and the positive role of green space on mental well-being. Moreover, I will provide examples of projects being conducted to increase the amount of green space in urban communities.

Socio-Ecological Perceptions Of Wildfire Management And Effects In Greece, Palaiologos Palaiologou, Kostas Kalabokidis, Andreas Troumbis, Michelle A. Day, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Alan A. Ager

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Adapting to the growing frequency of catastrophic wildfires in Greece and mitigating their effects is a complex socio-ecological problem. We used an online survey to query more than 100 engaged stakeholders who can potentially influence possible legislation and fire management organizational reform, emphasizing civil protection agencies and research entities. We focused the questionnaire on the importance of different wildfire effects to understand which were considered negative or unacceptable, indifferent, or positive. For fire prevention, we examined the range of acceptance and views on fuel management and fire use activities that are limited in extent or not allowed in Greece. We …

Racial Bias In Driver Yielding Behavior At Crosswalks, Kimberly Kahn, Peter Koonce, George Stern

PSU Transportation Seminars

This seminar discusses how pedestrian race and gender can influence drivers’ behavior in interactions with pedestrians at crosswalks. Three speakers will present different lenses to look at this topic. Kimberly Barsamian Kahn, a researcher at Portland State University, will discuss research exploring how pedestrian race and gender influence drivers’ behavior in interactions with pedestrians at crosswalks. One dangerous potential point of conflict for pedestrians within the transportation system is interactions with drivers at crosswalks, and racial minorities are disproportionately represented in pedestrian fatalities. Research tested the hypothesis that drivers’ would demonstrate unequitable yielding based on pedestrians’ race and gender in …

Covid-19 Exacerbates Existing System Factors That Disadvantage Defendants: Findings From A National Survey Of Defense Attorneys, Tarika Daftary-Kapur, Kelsey S. Henderson, Tina M. Zottoli

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

COVID-19 has impacted many facets of daily life and the legal system is no exception. Legal scholars have hypothesized that the effects of the pandemic may contribute to more coercive plea bargains (Cannon, 2020; Johnson, 2020). In this study, we explored defense attorneys' perceptions of whether and how the plea process has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Patriarchy In Publishing: Examining Effects Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Women (Non-Men) In The Publishing Industry, Grace E. Hansen

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

The purpose of my research was to determine how the Covid-19 pandemic impacted non-men in the publishing industry, and what this impact means for the patriarchal institutions in publishing in regards to the wage-gap, workplace sexism, and other factors explored in this paper. The research conducted includes anonymous survey data from thirty-four publishing employees, interviews with three professional women in management and other publishing industry leadership roles, and secondary research to substantiate my findings. A data overview suggests aspects of the patriarchal infrastructure in the professional world have been worsening with the pandemic for non-men: work-life balance, salary gaps, and …

Woman Turned Warrior: An Analysis On The Strong Female Character Trope And The Influence It Has On Gender Stereotypes Through The Use Of Back Cover Copy, Alexandria Gonzales

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

This research paper analyzes the language of young adult fantasy back cover copy and how the language is used within the Strong Female Character trope that is often found in fantasy fiction. The paper also looks at the influence this trope has on perpetuating gender stereotypes. This was done through the use of content analysis—word frequency, gendered word analysis, and thematic coding. Gendered word analysis provides qualitative evidence for the presence of gendered language in back cover descriptions, while word frequency and thematic coding provide additional context. The research found that there is a bias toward portraying women characters with …

The Influence Of Ursula K. Le Guin, Bailey Potter

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

The aim of this research study was to examine how Ursula K. Le Guin and her oeuvre were influential to contemporary and future writers, as well as what her influence was on the literary and publishing communities. Study was conducted through a qualitative interview process with seven Portlanders who have in some way been influenced by and/or who personally knew Le Guin. Using the transcripts from the interviews, I separated the information into themes and wrote out each section, synthesizing interviewee answers and using supplemental information to build my results. Ursula K. Le Guin influenced the literary and publishing communities …

Community Engagement In Oregon Water Governance: Evaluating A State Water Policy And A Collaborative Q Methodology Research Project, Clare T. Mcclellan

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

This work was primarily conducted by the Oregon Water Stories Project, an interdisciplinary research group at Portland State University, in collaboration with the Willamette Partnership, an environmental non-profit in Portland, and with additional involvement from community partner organizations across the state. The overarching goal of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities present at the intersections of water management, stakeholder engagement, community-engaged research, and environmental justice. This study investigates this nexus first through an evaluation of Oregon’s 100 Year Water Vision that points to areas for increased integration of environmental justice principles in water policymaking. In the second …

A Community Of Fear: Emotion And The Hydro-Social Cycle In East Porterville, California, Michael Egge, Idowu Ajibade

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Broader governance challenges driving water insecurity globally are well documented in the literature, however the power-laden relationships and emotions that shape water access at the household and community levels are yet to be fully investigated, especially in the context of water consolidation projects. In this article, we examine the role of emotions in mediating access to water and in the production of resource struggles among marginalized communities, existing outside of conventional regulatory frameworks. We bring together two relational approaches – the hydro-social cycle and emotional political ecology – to examine water insecurity and how it manifests in the historically disadvantaged …

Values Of Young Adults In An Increasingly Secular World, Joseph Daniel Eichenlaub

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines data from a religion and values survey entitled Young Adults and Religion in a Global Perspective (YARG) conducted in the spring of 2018. The data for this research comes from a sample of college undergraduates from diverse nations, Portland State being one of the sites sampled. This research investigates three main research questions: Do the values of college-age youth tend to be more individualistic, the less religious that they are? Do the irreligious still maintain moral values? And is irreligiosity related to a cosmopolitan-humanitarian outlook? This research finds that the overall sample is individualistic while still holding …

Multi-Institutional Study Of Self-Efficacy Within Flipped Chemistry Courses, Nicole Naibert, Kerry D. Duck, Michael M. Phillips, Jack Barbera

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Active learning environments have been shown to be beneficial for student learning; however, including such activities can be limited by the class time available. One method that can provide more opportunities for active learning during face-to-face class time is the flipped learning approach. However, studies on the impacts of flipped learning environments on student motivation are limited. Therefore, in this multi-institutional study, general chemistry students enrolled in flipped courses at three institutions responded to measures of self-efficacy and self-regulatory strategies. The results from these measures were used to evaluate how students’ academic self-efficacy (ASE) and chemistry self-efficacy (CSE) changed over …

Choose Your Own Education: Interactive Fiction And Online Instruction, Stewart C. Baker

Online Northwest

As online instruction becomes more widespread, librarians will need to understand how to create effective web-based learning resources that can be accessed by students at any time. Although short video tutorials and traditional library web guides have a decades-long history, this presentation will focus on how to create interactive text-based resources that are part game and part self-serve instruction session. Rather than discussing 'gamification,' the presentation will explore Interactive Fiction (IF), a genre of text-based games, and will provide attendees with practical tools and tips to create their own interactive resource.

A Corpus Approach Study On The Manzanar Free Press, Danielle Jochums

University Honors Theses

Past studies on the physical environment of the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II have argued that internees were able to express their agency and identity despite the dehumanization of the camps. However, studies on the newspapers circulated in the camps have argued that internees had no agency as they worked on newspapers. In a preliminary reading, it was clear that these newspapers evidenced internee agency in their language. Utilizing de Certeau's theoretical framework of tactics, this study addressed the following questions: What tactics did Japanese-American internees use to take agency when writing and editing camp newspapers? How did …

Self-Perception Of Stuttering Frequency Across The Lifespan: A Pilot Study, Natalia C. Newton

University Honors Theses

Purpose: The purpose of the current pilot study is to analyze the accuracy of self-rating of stuttering frequency as compared to clinician calculations of stuttering frequency in order to further examine possible factors that affect the accuracy of a stutterer’s self-rating of their overt stuttering.

Method: Three participants (i.e., one child, one teen, one adult) self-rated their perceptions of their stuttering frequency on a scale of 1-5 after three telepractice speech therapy sessions. Each of the telepractice therapy sessions were recorded and reviewed asynchronously after the session to conduct a disfluency count with a 300-word sample and calculate the percentage …

Creating Systems Of Shared Accountability For Early Leaver Students: Perspectives Of Principals, Lorna Kay Fast Buffalo Horse

Dissertations and Theses

Alternative high schools in the United States perform a significant role for students who drop out, are pushed out, or fall out of conventional high schools. An essential function of alternative high schools is to support some of the most underserved students in the country to graduate from high school. High school graduation is a major factor associated with higher incomes, better health, longer life expectancy, and less involvement in the criminal justice system. It also positively impacts local, state, and national economies. Despite these positive impacts, many alternative high schools are stigmatized as low-performing and even "drop-out factories" by …

Public Perception Of Air Quality Risks In Portland, Oregon, Dawn Nolan

Dissertations and Theses

The availability and demand for localized air quality information from communities are on the rise. However, not all information and not all communities are the same. Effective engagement and communication strategies will depend on a community's existing knowledge, opinion about air quality, individual experiences with inequities, and more. This study aims to understand how people living in Portland, Oregon understand and experience air pollution as an environmental risk and examine the extent to which those risk perceptions relate to confidence in science and technology. This gap is critical because of the complex interaction between air pollution and the risk perception …

Virtual Community For Fat People In Outdoor Recreation, Amber C. Stephens

University Honors Theses

This paper examines online virtual communities for fat people within outdoor recreation, and how they provide connection, complex agency, and representation for fat bodies in spaces where their bodies are seen as taboo. Furthermore, it will explore the way fat bodies have been historically viewed, the lack of representation of fat bodies in the outdoors and related communities, and the gate-keeping that occurs to those who do not conform to traditional stereotypes of an outdoorsy person. Close examination of two different Instagram accounts that highlight the fat body in the outdoors will reveal three main representational elements that are an …

Returning To Rejection: Outcomes And Boundary Conditions Of Mental Illness Stereotypes, Stefanie Fox

Dissertations and Theses

Mental illness is a common condition in the United States, with over 20% of working age adults managing a mental illness condition in a given year. Disclosure of mental illness is often required for workers to take advantage of employer-provided resources (e.g., accommodations), yet use of resources is exceedingly low (less than 10%). Negative stigma-related outcomes are a top reason for which individuals delay the use of resources. Using an experimental design in an online data collection of 242 participants over two time points, the current study builds on existing organizational diversity literature to examine the stereotypes associated with mental …

How To Effectively Manage Virtual Teams Created Due To Covid-19?, Aakanksha Santosh Rane

University Honors Theses

With the spread of COVID-19 and the social distancing regulations in place, multiple organizations have transitioned their workplace to a virtual setting. With the increase in business' transitioning to remote teams, it is first crucial to understand the various needs and characteristics of virtual teams. Through the analysis of multiple peer-reviewed articles and other texts on virtual teams, this study identifies building trust, effective communication, and performance management as the main points of focus in order to ensure effectiveness of virtual teams.

The Dark Triad And Impulsivity: Predictors And Correlates Of Workplace Representative Task Problem Solving And Decision Making, Peter Kendall Glazer Jr.

Dissertations and Theses

This research investigated group and individual differences in decision-making and problem-solving on workplace representative tasks, and whether certain personality traits correlated with or were predictors of participant strategy. In parallel studies done online (N = 214) and in-person (N = 80) with Portland State University undergraduate School of Business students, performance was measured on two workplace representative tasks under two different difficulty conditions. The Number Place experiment resulted in two major findings: First, when given a comparatively easy task, women had more Time Remaining than men. However, this was moderated by the difficulty condition, such that men had more Time …

Rewilding Language Education: Emergent Assemblages And Entangled Actions, Steven L. Thorne, John Hellermann, Teppo Jakonen

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Integrating concepts and techniques from ethnomethodology and sociomaterialism, this article investigates the observable material processes involving human action and place-based contexts of language use enabled by locative media. The focal pedagogical intervention utilized mobile augmented reality (AR) activities, the development of which was inspired by research on learning ‘in the wild.’ Applying the principle of reverse engineering, we introduce a pedagogical approach termed ‘rewilding’ for its emphasis on designing supportive conditions for goal-directed interaction outside of classrooms. Three instances of AR materials use are presented from an out-of-class activity associated with university-level language courses involving a quest-type AR game called …

The Soniferous Experience Of Public Space: A Soundscape Approach, Kenya Dubois Williams

Dissertations and Theses

This research explores the awareness and perceptions of practitioners regarding the role of the soundscape in understanding and managing public spaces. Without considering the role of the soundscape as part of public spaces, urban planners, designers, and policy officials cannot accurately engage in placemaking that provides a complete sensory experience. The antiquated practice of enforcing noise codes has been the traditional approach to mitigate noise (unwanted sounds). However, sound is an overlooked element in the sensory experience of cities and how individuals and communities construct a "sense of place." This study considers the implications of the soundscape approach and soundwalks …

Exploring "What Works" In Veterans Affairs Home-Based Primary Care, Elizabeth Catherine Hulen

Dissertations and Theses

Home Based Primary Care (HBPC) is an interdisciplinary care model involving comprehensive primary care services for patients with chronic illness who are unable to access clinic-based care. The largest HBPC program in the United States is run by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and provides team-based primary care service to Veterans with complex, chronic conditions. The VA HBPC model includes primary care visits from a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant, nurse care management, service coordination by a social worker, mental health services from a social worker or psychologist, nutrition counseling from a dietician, and help with medication management. …

The Perceptions Of Rural Teachers Engaged In Environmental Education Professional Development Workshops: A Case Study Of The Alder Creek Community Forest And The Story Of Your Place, Bryan R. Benz

Dissertations and Theses

Environmental issues can be difficult for people to understand and for teachers to address in their classrooms. Issues such as climate change and ozone depletion are difficult to comprehend and present a challenge for most people to understand thoroughly the complexity of these environmental challenges. Professional development programs could provide the tools for teachers to improve their environmental literacy and a pathway for learning new methods for engaging their students. However, in rural Oregon, where professional development opportunities are scarce, teachers rely on a lean supply of organizations to provide these experiences. Alder Creek Community Forest, a nonprofit organization, provides …

Teaching Race And Racial Justice: Developing Students’ Cognitive And Affective Understanding, Amie Thurber, Joe Bandy, M. Brielle Harbin

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Effectively addressing both cognitive and affective dimensions of learning is one of the greatest obstacles to teaching race and racial justice in higher education. In this article, we first explore the need to integrate attention to cognitive and affective development, along with evidence-based strategies for doing so. We then provide a case study of an undergraduate sociology course on environmental justice in which the instructor intentionally adopted holistic pedagogical principles of teaching race. Analyzing student responses from a pre- and post- course survey, course assignments, and instructor observations of student participation, we find that both white students and students of …

An "I" For An "I" : A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Instigated And Reciprocal Incivility, Lauren Sarah Park

Dissertations and Theses

Workplace incivility and its negative impacts on individuals, teams, and organizations have been widely studied. However, the literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of incivility from the instigator's perspective. The purpose of this dissertation was to demonstrate a set of meta-analytic relationships with instigated incivility to understand what individual, interpersonal, and organizational factors facilitate or prevent incivility instigation. Additionally, this work aimed to empirically test moderating effects of the relationship between experienced and instigated incivility, elucidating the conditions under which targets of incivility are more or less likely to instigate incivility in turn. This meta-analysis included 35,344 workers from 76 independent …

The Pacific Sentinel: March/April 2021, Mini Issue, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

The Pacific Sentinel

Editor: Vivian Veidt

Articles in this issue include:

• Letter From the Editor
• Royalty Notwithstanding
• A Man, a Plan, and a Virus
• United We Stand?
• Dreamhouse and Other Horrors
• The Art of the Podcast