Digital Commons Network^™

Servingness In Solidarity: How Filipina/X/O American Student Organizations Cultivate Belonging, Clarissa Mae Lico Calimbas

Dissertations

Filipina/x/o American college students represent one of the largest Asian ethnic subgroups in the United States, yet their educational experiences remain underexamined within institutional research and higher education scholarship. Aggregated under the broader Asian American category, Filipina/x/o American students are rendered invisible by data practices that obscure the distinct colonial histories, socioeconomic realities, and identity negotiations. This qualitative study examined how Filipina/x/o American students at Pacific State University (PSU) describe their involvement in Filipina/x/o American Student Organizations (FASOs) and how that involvement shapes their sense of belonging, cultural identity development, and academic persistence. Guided by a critical race phenomenological framework …

Perspectives Of Trauma Among Licensed Trauma Therapists: A Concept Mapping Study, Sean W. Bullock

Master's Theses

To address gaps between research and psychotherapeutic intervention for trauma and trauma-related issues, the current study elicited and analyzed the perspectives of licensed trauma therapists via a concept mapping process. A literature review was conducted to explore the history and limitations of trauma’s current medical use as outlined by Criterion A of posttraumatic stress disorder in the DSM-5-TR. To answer the research question regarding how practitioners understand trauma, the researcher recruited licensed trauma therapists (n = 17) to participate in concept mapping. Participants generated 126 unique statements, which they then sorted based on similarity and rated individually on importance. Hierarchical …

Vision With Grace: Intersectionality Of Education And Spirituality, Preeti Jha

Dissertations

Contemporary educational leaders face increasingly complex challenges, systemic inequities, educator burnout, and demands for transformation, yet existing leadership frameworks fail to address the inner lives and spiritual practices that sustain such demanding justice work. While research demonstrates spirituality's role in leadership effectiveness, this dimension remains largely unexplored in educational research, particularly regarding how spiritual consciousness shapes daily practices and social justice engagement. This qualitative study will examine how spirituality shapes educational leadership and social justice engagement through portraiture methodology and in-depth interviews with three spiritually aligned educational leaders in Northern California. Drawing upon the Bhagavad Gita, Spiritual Leadership Theory, and …

Unlocking Multiple Intelligence Skills Among Medical Library Professionals: An Analysis Of Nigeria And Pakistan, Mariym Muhammad Ismail, Naweed-E-Sehar, 3. Kamaluddeen Isa El-Kalash

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Multiple Intelligence (MI) plays a crucial role in comprehending extensive intellectual abilities and aptitudes among individuals. The purpose of this study is to investigate the Multiple Intelligences in medical library professionals in Pakistan and Nigeria by incorporating Howard Gardener's Theory. Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences provided the foundation for the research method implemented in this study. The current study is explanatory in nature. The research employs a quantitative approach and survey as a research method, which involves collecting and analyzing numerical data. A questionnaire with five-point Likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), was adopted to …

Pushed To The Edges? Electivity Patterns Of Urban Stream Homeless Encampments In Environmentally Burdened Areas, Serena Alexander, Bennett Williamson, Jeff Wootton, Costanza Rampini, Gregory Brian Pasternack, Yufang Jin, Rune Storesund, Igor Lacan

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Urban stream corridors in the San Francisco Bay Area have increasingly become locations for homeless encampments, yet little is known about the environmental conditions of these spaces. This study uses a geospatial electivity index to examine whether urban stream encampments in Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties are disproportionately located in census tracts with high pollution burdens, as measured by CalEnviroScreen 4.0. Findings show a statistically significant overrepresentation of encampments in census tracts in the top 25% of pollution and vulnerability scores, and a significant underrepresentation in lower-pollution areas. These results suggest that homeless individuals are being pushed toward environmentally …

Engaging Intercultural Philosophy In The Classroom: A Methodological Proposal, Gloria Luque Moya

Comparative Philosophy

The exclusion of non-Western philosophies from university curricula has been a persistent feature of academic philosophy, both in the United States and Europe. This marginalization reflects an enduring assumption that philosophy is a uniquely Western enterprise, originating in ancient Greece and developed exclusively within European traditions. This article challenges that assumption by arguing that the teaching of intercultural philosophy is not merely a pedagogical issue, but an urgent necessity in the context of globalization and cross-cultural exchange. Focusing on the limited presence of non-Western philosophical traditions in Spanish university programs, the article first analyzes the structural asymmetry in the historiography …

Teaching China Beyond Eurocentrism: Intercultural Pedagogy And The Case Of The República Del Reino De La China By Jerónimo Román Zamora, Miriam Diaz Belizon

Comparative Philosophy

Interdisciplinary approaches to teaching China in Western academic contexts often reproduce Eurocentric frameworks that reduce Chinese philosophical and cultural traditions to subordinate objects of analysis. This article proposes an alternative model grounded in intercultural philosophy and the Filosofías del Sur, arguing that China should be approached not as a distant object of representation, but as an epistemic interlocutor capable of transforming philosophical education. The article develops this argument through the recovery of the República del Reino de la China, included in the 1595 edition of Repúblicas del Mundo, as a key example of early intercultural mediation from the European South. …

Intercultural Questioning: Teaching Report On A Question-Oriented Pedagogy In Teaching Chinese Philosophy, Sai Hang Kwok

Comparative Philosophy

Language and cultural barriers pose major obstacles to teaching Chinese philosophy to Western philosophy students. Without a cultural and linguistic background, students often struggle to read the original Chinese philosophical texts. Translation also involves issues of interpretation that are difficult to be settled in undergraduate-level courses. To address this situation, this paper introduces a question-oriented pedagogy called “intercultural questioning”. Instead of aiming at a comprehensive understanding of the entire Chinese philosophical tradition, the question-oriented pedagogy reveals the implicit assumptions in one’s conceptual frameworks and unexamined questions in Western philosophy through the East-West dialogue. Students can obtain philosophical insights from Chinese …

Objectives And Methods Of Teaching Intercultural Philosophy: Introduction, Zaida Espinosa Zarate, Mario Wenning

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Universal Logic: A Cross-Cultural Archaeology Of Logical Critique, Murat Kelikli

Comparative Philosophy

This study examines critiques of logic articulated across diverse historical and cultural traditions within a comparative framework. The critiques developed in Islamic, Buddhist, Chinese, Indian, Zen, and modern Western philosophy do not, in the main, reject logic or reasoning as such; rather, they target the conceptualization of logic as a universal, context-independent, and singular normative standard. The analysis shows that objections raised at ontological, epistemic, linguistic, methodological, and political levels converge on a set of shared concerns rooted in the structural features of logic itself, most notably categorical determinacy, universalist assumptions, and claims of context-independence. At the same time, these …

Jing (敬) And Respect, Wenyang Gao

Comparative Philosophy

Jing (敬) is often translated as “respect”. Some scholars argue for a “perception of worth” reading, conceiving jing as a deontic normative attitude akin to “respect” in the Western tradition. Others propose a “directing attention” reading, holding that jing is a virtue. This article clarifies the meaning and normative structure of jing, arguing that it has three dimensions:  (1) a state of mind characterized by seriousness, (2) an intentional, respectful feeling, and (3) respectful conduct aligned with ritual propriety (Li禮). While the “directing attention” reading correctly identifies jing as a virtue, insisting that jing does …

Editor's Words

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Paperless Society, Paperless Future And Borderless Libraries, Ukoha O. Igwe

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Purpose: This study explores the indispensability of books and physical libraries despite the digital technologies and digital transformation engulfing our lives, work and society.

Design/Methodology: This study used qualitative design and methodology utilizing a systematic review and synthesis of empirical research, institutional reports and documents published between 1978 and 2025 to achieve its objectives. An extensive review of the pertinent literature was undertaken to underscore the journey and permutations of the death of books and libraries. This conceptual review synthesizes the interplay between digital technologies, digital transformation,and libraries in information dissemination. This provided a basis for inferences and extrapolation of …

Timelines Over Tokens: Summarization, Prompting, And Explainable Fine-Tuning For User-Level Suicide Risk Detection, Aditya Tekale

Master's Theses

This research presents a two-stage pipeline for user-level suicide risk detection from Reddit: first, inference-only prompting with summarization; second, fine-tuned encoder classification with explainability and expert validation. The data are user-level: each of the 500 C-SSRS Reddit items is one user’s chronologically concatenated posts and comments (a user timeline), annotated by psychiatrists. Stage one: six prompting strategies zero-shot, few-shot, chain-of-thought, tree-of-thought, least-to-most, and self-consistency are evaluated across six LLMs on multi-class and binary formulations; simple zero-shot achieves the highest balanced accuracy (0.53 multi-class). Error analysis shows longer inputs associate with misclassification (p = 0.002); domain-specific summarization (timelines >2,000 tokens) reduces …

Investigating Learning In Immersive Virtual Reality, Andrew Negrette

Master's Theses

Students often struggle with learning challenging subjects throughout their education. This also tends to lead to lower enjoyment and science self-efficacy for learning. Some subjects may be better represented in 3-dimensional spaces utilizing immersive virtual reality (IVR). Recently, IVR headsets have become more accessible and affordable and therefore are in wider use. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether differences in science selfefficacy, enjoyment, presence and knowledge retention exist between IVR and controls on an ocean acidification lesson. I predicted that participants taking the lesson in IVR would score higher compared to a laptop on all measures, due …

Interpretable Wellness Prediction From Passive Wearable Sensor Data Using Large Language Models, Cheng-Huan Yu

Master's Theses

This thesis presents a unified framework for multi-target wellness prediction using passive wearable sensor data and large language models (LLMs). The study integrates two complementary paradigms: prompt-based regression and representation-driven classification. In the first stage, structured wearable representations derived from daily physiological signals are used to prompt LLMs to predict stress, fatigue, sleep quality, and readiness. Two input representations are evaluated: statistical summaries and hybrid inputs combining statistical summaries with raw sensor values. To improve interpretability and prediction consistency, the second stage introduces a representation-centric classification framework in which wearable signals and wellness targets are discretized into categorical levels. Multiple …

Monoids With K-Strictly Local Geodesic Languages, William M. Hong

Master's Theses

A paper by Gilman, Hermiller, Holt and Rees (2011) prove that a group G finitely generated by X is virtually free if and only if the language of geodesics words in G over X is k-strictly local if and only if the word problem is context-free. If M is a monoid finitely generated by X, we define Γu(M,X) to be the underlying, undirected graph of Γ(M,X). We prove that if the language of geodesics in Γu(M,X) based at the identity is k-strictly local, then the monoid and semi-group word problems are context-free.

"Girl I'Ll Figure It Out": First-Generation Women Of Color Navigating Higher Education, Prisilla Cortez

Dissertations

This qualitative study focused on understanding the experiences of first-generation women of color at a California public four-year institution and how their intersecting identities shape their academic experiences and overall well-being. Women of Color Feminist (Crenshaw, 1991), and intersectionality frameworks guided this study. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data, and thematic analysis was used to identify patterns in participants’ experiences. Findings revealed three central themes, collective orientation and familial expectations, faculty interactions and sense of belonging, and institutional resources and access. Participants described navigating higher education while balancing family responsibilities, financial pressures, and academic demands. Although they demonstrated resilience …

Rewriting The Plan: Environmental Justice, Community Resistance, And Governance Power In Hollister, California, Rolan Resendiz

Dissertations

This dissertation examines how community-led resistance in Hollister, California, challenged environmental injustice and infrastructure governance through grassroots civic action. Focusing on the Hollister Guardians, a coalition of primarily Latinx residents who organized in response to concerns about the city’s sewer system, this qualitative case study introduces the Critical Just Sustainability Policy Praxis (CJSPP) framework, developed by integrating Critical Policy Analysis and the Just Sustainability Paradigm with a praxis-oriented focus on community action. Using critical document analysis of city council meeting minutes, local media coverage, and community-authored texts mainly from 2023 to 2025, the study explores how policy discourse, institutional decision-making, …

Addressing The Lack Of Representation Of Hijab-Wearing Teachers Of Color In Education, Feroza Solaiman

Dissertations

This qualitative study examines the lived experiences of hijab-wearing teachers of color in TK–12 public schools in Northern California. Six participants shared perspectives on representation, inclusion, exclusion, and moments of joy within their school communities. The findings highlight that increased representation of teachers of color strengthens educators’ sense of belonging, supports students’ self-esteem, and enhances both teacher and student engagement. Participants emphasized the need for greater awareness of Muslim women’s diverse cultures, languages, celebrations, dietary practices, and professional attire, as well as the importance of challenging single-story narratives through dialogue, understanding, and upstander practices. Inclusive school environments were found to …

"A Door To The Future." A Case Study In Exploratory And Culturally Sustaining Theater Curriculum, Verónica Meza

Dissertations

This study addresses the persistent inequities in access to quality arts education for Latino immigrant and linguistically diverse communities in California. Despite progressive initiatives such as Proposition 28 (The Arts and Music in Schools Act) and the California Arts Council's Racial Equity Statement, systemic barriers prevent Latino and immigrant students from benefiting equitably from the arts. The central objective of this project is to understand how an exploratory, culturally sustaining theater curriculum can serve as a transformative and healing vehicle for adult immigrant Latino students, providing emotional protection, cultural affirmation, and language preservation within a U.S. educational context. This qualitative …

Understanding The Impact Of Transfer Orientation Leadership: Student Leader Perspectives At A Mid-Sized California University, Kaci Taylor Turpin

Dissertations

Community college transfer students represent a vital source of diversity for public four-year institutions; at the same time, declining enrollments heighten the need for stronger, more functional transfer pathways between community colleges and four-year universities, especially given the significant vertical transfer gap and the unique barriers transfer students face in student leadership roles. This semi-structured interview study explored the experiential knowledge of 14 first-generation transfer student orientation leaders to understand how they navigate institutional barriers in their on-campus employment. Findings reveal that these leaders navigated institutional barriers by relying on peer networks and drawing heavily on their navigational capital. Furthermore, …

Perceptions Of Speech-Language Therapy Among Generations Of One Mexican-American Family, Sabrina A. Macias

Master's Theses

This research is a modified replication of Salas-Provance et al. (2002) and analyzes the perceptions of speech-language therapy among one Mexican-American family. It investigates opinions about causes of speech-language disorders, for whom speech therapy can be helpful, characteristics and stereotypes about people with hearing and speech disorders, and the influence of education level on such opinions. With the assistance of three family members and two cultural informants, an online survey was developed consisting of demographic factors, Mexican folk and medical beliefs, and potential stereotypes of people with speech, language, and hearing disabilities. Twenty-three family members (response rate = 76.7%) completed …

Pick Up The Pieces: Multicultural Men’S Experiences Of Represenentation And Belonging In Higher Education, Lucion Armani Fuller

Master's Theses

To examine how multicultural students experience identity, representation, and belonging within U.S. higher education structured around monoracial classification systems, the present study interviewed six self-identified multicultural male college students. Drawing on Frantz Fanon’s concept of identity fragmentation and Critical Multiracial Theory, the study explored how institutional categorization and racialized perception shape lived experiences of identity formation and misrecognition. Using semi-structured interviews and reflexive thematic analysis informed by interpretive phenomenology, participant narratives were analyzed to understand how identity is negotiated within institutional spaces. The study has three themes. The first is experiencing imposed identity and racial misrecognition. The second is navigating …

Sjsu Erfa News, Summer 2026, San Jose State University, Emeritus And Retired Faculty Association

Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFA) Newsletter

Volume 39, No 39

Different Dimensions Of Social Support On Social Media And Leisure-Time Physical Activity Intentions Among Chinese College Students Applying The Theory Of Planned Behavior: A Cross-Sectional Study, Ni Zhang, Carolyn Madison Chang, Yu Zhang, Lu Guo, Qizhi Xu

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Background:

Leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) participation among Chinese college students remains insufficient despite growing public health concerns regarding sedentary lifestyles and obesity. Social media platforms have increasingly become important channels for delivering social support related to physical activity (PA); however, different dimensions of social support on social media may exert distinct psychological influences on exercise intentions.

Objective:

Guided by the theory of planned behavior, this study aimed to examine the direct and indirect relationships between different dimensions of social support on social media and Chinese college students’ intentions to engage in LTPA.

Methods:

A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among …

System Branding In Three Public Libraries: Live Oak Public Libraries, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, And Richland Library, Patrick Roughen

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This article examines library catalogs as brand artifacts in the context of two ancient libraries: the Library of Alexandria and the library of the Temple of Horus at Edfu, Egypt. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital and brand theory, this research argues that the catalogs of these two institutions functioned as early branding instruments. The Pinakes, the catalog of the Library of Alexandria, projected a brand of universal knowledge and intellectual prestige, and the inscribed wall catalog at Edfu reflected a brand focused on sacred authority and the sustaining of cosmic order (Ma'at).  Together, they illustrate two opposing …

Explainable Multi-Agent Llm Framework For Phishing Email Detection Via Role-Specialized Evidence Decomposition, Tanya Yadav, Mohammad Masum

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Phishing email remains a persistent and operationally critical cybersecurity threat, yet existing detection approaches, including traditional machine learning and single-pass large language model systems, either lack native interpretability or provide explanations that are difficult to standardize and audit. This paper introduces an explainable multi-agent LLM framework that decomposes phishing evidence across three role-specialized agents focused on linguistic patterns, psychological manipulation, and sender identity consistency. The framework then aggregates specialist outputs through schema-governed synthesis, enabling each intermediate and final decision to be structured, comparable, and auditable. The central contribution is the treatment of role-specialized evidence decomposition and explanation structure as first-class …

Redefining The Norms: An Interdisciplinary Perspective On Language Testing In Multilinguals With Acquired And Progressive Neurogenic Disorders, Alessa Hausmann, Adolfo M. García, Ana Sofia Costa, Arpita Bose, Boon Lead Tee, Claudia Rivera-Fernandez, Eduardo Europa, Gitit Kavé, Jee Eun Sung, Maira Okada De Oliveira, Mandy Wigdorowitz, Maria Garraffa, Maria Teresa Carthery-Goulart, Michael J. Kleiman, Naama Friedmann, Samir Diouny, Sanne Franzen, Sofia Toniolo, Stephanie Grasso, Thomas H. Bak

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Accurate language assessment is essential in clinical and research contexts. However, most assessment tools and questionnaires have been developed within monolingual frameworks, overlooking the particularities of the vast multilingual population and, thus, often leading to misdiagnosis and inequitable care. Here, we examine the limitations of monolingual-centric approaches to language testing in multilinguals with acquired and progressive neurogenic disorders and explore the implications of multilingualism across linguistic, cognitive, neural, clinical, and sociocultural domains. We also address the need for technological innovation and theoretical refinement to better accommodate linguistic diversity in healthcare. Ultimately, we advocate for a nuanced, equitable, and culturally sensitive …

Non-Negotiable Responsibilities Of Librarians Despite The Presence Of Generative-Ai Powered Chatbots: An Overview, Emmanuel Chidiadi Onwubiko

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The presence of AI-Chatbots as linguistic models of Generative AI is one that has sent cold in the spines of librarians for the fear of the unknown.  Against this backdrop, it is received with mixed feelings.  To some librarians, it poses threats to their traditional responsibilities hence the fear of losing their jobs.  This paper conceptualizes the place of generative-AI Chatbots in libraries and their limitations, identifying some non-negotiable responsibilities of librarians regardless of the emergence of AI-Chatbots as well as clearing some doubts as expressed by librarians by reconciling the impacts of Chatbot and how librarians can leverage the …