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Lavender Graduation 2024, University Of Mississippi. Center For Inclusion And Cross Cultural Engagement

Lavender Graduation

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Jtc 24: Passion Blossoms Into A Career Path, Sri Chattopadhyay

University of Mississippi News

This story is part of the 2024 Journey to Commencement series, which celebrates the pinnacle of the academic year by highlighting University of Mississippi students and their outstanding academic and personal journeys from college student to college graduate.

Inaugural Faculty Laureate Hopes To Help Bilingual Mississippians, Clara Turnage

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – The Magnolia State has become a new destination for Latino communities, but a University of Mississippi professor said there's more work needed to bridge the gap between native Spanish speakers and other Mississippians.

An Examination Of Products That University Of Mississippi Students Consume For Managing Their Stress, Kiersten Rickard

Honors Theses

Students are notoriously one of the most stressed groups in our society. Stress is a complex topic; causes, mitigation methods, and manifestations of stress all vary in an individual. Being that stress is an universal experience, this research capitalizes on the importance of stress and the methods used to mitigate stress. This study looks at, among other ideas, stress on the University of Mississippi campus in regards to demographics and the products (caffeine, sleep aids, over the counter medicines, stress supplements, and CBD) that students use. Results demonstrate that, overall, higher stress levels correlate to higher product usage rates. The …

"Speak Arabic!": Arabic Dialect Comparison Videos And The Reconfiguration Of The Maghreb-Mashreq Language Ideology, Jacquelyn Stewart-Kuhn

Honors Theses

There is a hidden power imbalance in the Arabic-speaking world. It is not related to warfare, politics, or oil, but language. For decades, Egyptian and Levantine (Mashreqi) dialects have been over-represented in Arabic language media, to the detriment of North African (Maghrebi) dialects. This imbalance has played a crucial role in reinforcing what Hachimi (2013) refers to as the “Maghreb-Mashreq language ideology,” i.e. the belief that Mashreqi dialects are superior to Maghrebi dialects. Yet in an era of social media, Mashreqi voices and dialects are becoming less dominant, and Arabic-speakers across the region are being increasingly exposed to Maghrebi voices …

College Of Liberal Arts Annual Awards Ceremony, 2024, Lee Cohen, University Of Mississippi. College Of Liberal Arts

Liberal Arts Awards

The College of Liberal Arts presented awards to its faculty, staff, students, and alumni in the Gertrude C. Ford Center Student Union Ballroom.

Record Boren Cohort Seeks New Opportunities To Learn Languages, Erin Garrett

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – Ten University of Mississippi students have been awarded David L. Boren scholarships from the National Security Education Program, the most ever in a single year at Ole Miss.

University Names Inaugural Faculty Laureates, Edwin Smith

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – A faculty jury has chosen Stephen Fafulas, associate professor of Spanish and linguistics, and Amanda Winburn, associate professor of leadership and counselor education, as the first two honorees in an innovative new program designed to introduce the state to the creative faculty who research and teach at the University of Mississippi.

Panel Session. Game Changers: Connections And Empowerment Through Coaching, Anne Carr, Bre Henry, Rachel Martin, Connie Price Smith

WHEMN Conference

This panel spotlights the achievements and contributions of collegiate women coaches and sports administrators and will delve into the unique challenges and triumphs experienced by women in leadership roles within the realm of collegiate sports. Panelists will share personal journeys, insights and strategies for success and will offer invaluable perspectives on leadership, mentorship and breaking through barriers.

• Anne Carr, executive director, Student-Athlete Development, Mississippi State University
• Bre Henry, head coach, Volleyball, The University of Mississippi
• Rachel Martin, head coach, Rifle, The University of Mississippi
• Connie Price Smith, head coach, Men's and Women's Track & Field, The …

Panel Session. Science Superheroes: Cultivating Careers In Science And Research, Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu, Sydney Murphy, Donna Strum, Eden Tanner, Brandi Newkirk-Turner

WHEMN Conference

This panel features accomplished women scientists and researchers from Mississippi universities. The moderated discussion will include how they cultivated successful careers in their fields; lessons they have learned and how that translates into practical advice for other women; and how they are shaping the future of research and science by mentoring students and other women in their fields.

• Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu, assistant professor, Pollinator Health and Apiculture, Mississippi State University
• Sydney Murphy, dean, School of Graduate Studies in Health, University of Mississippi Medical Center
• Donna Strum, dean, School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi
• Eden Tanner, assistant …

Welcome, Charlotte Fant Pegues

WHEMN Conference

Dr. Charlotte Fant Pegues, WHEMN state coordinator and vice chancellor for Student Affairs at the University of Mississippi, leads a team of professionals who are committed to providing exceptional services and creating an environment where all students can be successful. During her 30 years of service to the university, she has served as assistant vice chancellor for student affairs, director of admissions and assistant provost and registrar. Dr. Fant Pegues earned several degrees from the university including a B.A. in Psychology, an M.A. in Education and a Ph.D. in Leadership and Counselor Education. She holds an academic appointment in the …

Schedule For Forum On Race And Ethnicity, Rebecca Lauck Cleary

Blog Posts

3rd Annual UM Faculty and Graduate Student Forum on Race and Ethnicity Monday, Feb. 26 from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., The Inn at Ole Miss (Ballroom)

Signing Her Praises, Edwin Smith

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – When Ronda Bryan first stepped into her American Sign Language class more than three decades ago, she had no idea how much it would influence her career or her passion for advocacy. Or that one of her students would end up using it on national TV.

Crosscultural Backchannelling Responses Among Second Language Learners, Chien-Hui Hsu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Backchannel responses (Yngve, 1970) have always been an essential component of conversational interactions that facilitate speaker-listener engagement and mutual shaping of narratives (Bavelas et al., 2000). This study aims to investigate the cross-linguistic difference in backchannelling responses between Taiwan Mandarin and English (General American) second language (L2) learners, and how those differences might impact communication in a cross-cultural classroom. The current study examines 20 participants, ten each from Taiwan Mandarin speakers and American English speakers. Each speaker was observed in an online conversation to eliminate the influence of non-verbal cues such as gestures and facial expressions. The backchannelling responses they …

Dixieland Do Sul: Brazilian Racial Democracy And The Recontextualization Of Transnational Confederate Symbols (Vol. 2), Maximilian Xavier Conrad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Following their defeat in the American Civil War, tens of thousands of American Southerners, many of them former Confederates, fled the United States to seek out new homelands in Latin America. Thousands would set their sights on Brazil, encouraged by the promise of arable land and the prospect of a new society in one of the hemisphere’s last slaveholding societies. Though many of these Confederados returned to the United States after Reconstruction, their influential presence in Brazil has remained a persistent factor. This thesis volume will focus on a semiotic struggle over the role of transnational Confederate symbols in the …

Demarginalizing Bede's Margins: A Digital Codicological Reassessment Of The Relationship Between Marginalia And Body Matter In Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Ms 41, James Nicholas Sumrall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The scribal activity in the margins of the eleventh-century Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 41 has long been acknowledged and studied, but rarely have scholars examined the relationship between the manuscript’s marginalia and its body text, an Old English translation of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica. As such, this thesis attempts to address this critical scholarly gap by evaluating key marginal texts of MS 41 in their original physical contexts. In the introduction and first chapter, a brief overview of the manuscript history of MS 41 and its five extant analogues is given. The second chapter focuses on the textual transmission, content, …

Student Informed Instruction: Vertical Non Permanent Surfaces, Cononiah L. Watson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I, an 8th grade mathematics teacher, have used vertical dry erase boards in my classroom for years to promote student engagement and perseverance after participating in a book study on Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl. Year after year, the implementation of this strategy was constantly refined based on research, other teachers’ experiences, and my perceived notions of students’ experiences while at the dry erase boards. I never, however, asked students to thoughtfully share their experiences. In this study, I introduce the method of student informed instruction to refine how I use vertical dry erase boards in my classroom. After …

Imaginative Play In The Inculcation Of Creativity As An Intellectual Virtue, Annie Elisabet Gustafsson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Creativity, defined as the ability to generate original and innovative ideas and products, is widely valued yet not explicitly taught. This largely stems from the understanding that creativity cannot be cultivated through traditional methods like imitation or direct instruction, as such approaches contradict the essence of creativity itself. However, we must not write it off as unteachable. To help us better understand what can be done to teach creativity effectively, we must consider its character.

This paper offers a theory of creativity as an intellectual virtue, drawing on Linda Zagzebki’s components of virtue and aligning creativity with Aristotle’s phronesis and …

The Perceived Effects On The Motivation, Anxiety, And Online Language Learning Of Saudi Efl Learners During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ali Hasan Alamry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although many restrictions initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic are no longer imposed, massive changes across the globe have impacted online language learning afterward. Technology infrastructure, students' and teachers' digital literacy, and proper distance learning pedagogies were among the challenges of online learning during the pandemic. Nevertheless, valuable lessons can be learned from the pandemic to better handle online language learning classes in the future. Globally, increasing attention in the literature has been directed toward the effects of the pandemic on L2 learners' different affective factors. Locally, this study focuses on the perceived impacts on Saudi EFL learners' motivation, anxiety, and …

An Applied Research Study On Improving Special Education Identification And Support For Grades 3-6: Assessing The Impact Of The Tier 3 Process, Nickie Malone

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Addressing the urgent need for effective literacy instruction, especially for students with diverse learning needs, is paramount in today's educational landscape. This dissertation investigates the implementation and impact of the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework, particularly the Tier 3 process, at AUES in grades 3-6. The study aims to shed light on the systemic gaps in special education identification and support, evolving pedagogical approaches, and the role of educators and institutions in shaping literacy outcomes.

Grounded in the principles of equity and inclusion, the MTSS framework emerges as a promising avenue for providing personalized support and instruction tailored to …

Tanzanian Cyberscape: Exploring Language Preference Patterns Among Instagram Users, Carolyne Saria Ulomy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Virtual platforms such as Instagram are not only characterized by massive collaboration, sharing, and access to information but also by multilingual exchanges. For example, Tanzanian social media users choose to disseminate or publish information online using different languages present in their linguistic repertoires. This study explores multilingualism in social media (Instagram) within the Tanzanian context, as well as address the statuses of Swahili, English, Swanglish/Kiswanglish, Community Languages (CLs) and Foreign Languages (FLs) on social media. Specifically, the research investigated two overarching questions: What are the factors influencing language choices among Tanzanian Instagram users? and is there an association between content …

Perceived Linguistic And Non-Linguistic Barriers Facing Saudi Female Partners Learning English, Samah Mohamad Dulli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The partners of the Saudi students who come to the United States on scholarships to earn a degree (Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D.) are eligible for full scholarships as well. However, most of them fail to proceed in earning a degree or fulfill the language proficiency requirement needed to join an academic degree program. This study surveys between 10 to 20 adult female partners of Saudi university students to elicit their opinions on how much English they think they will learn during their partner scholarship time in academic and non-academic settings. This study investigates the female partners of the Saudi degree …

Language Variation: Arabic Dialects In Madinah, Saudi Arabia, Arwa Alsindy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Arabic sociolinguistics, namely Arabic dialectology, is a demanding area of study. Therefore, the current research was conducted to fulfill some of those needs. Qualitative methods were applied in order to answer the research questions: What are the salient linguistic features of the Hijazi Hadari dialect, Urban Bedouins Hijazi dialect, and the emerging Saudi Arabic White dialect in Madinah? When are these dialects used? What changes or accommodations are made to these dialects when communicating with the other social groups? To provide answers to those questions, observations and interviews were applied. By applying the SPEAKING model (Hymes, 1974), six participants (three …

The Effects Of Multimodal Communication With Discourse In People With Chronic Aphasia, Elizabeth Grace Peeler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose

Individuals with aphasia often experience communication breakdowns. One strategy that has been shown to be useful is switching communication modalities when a breakdown occurs. While many researchers have incorporated and shown positive effects of multimodality in aphasia treatment, few studies have utilized a discourse task to generalize the methods trained during the structured tasks to everyday life. The purpose of Multimodal Communication Treatment + Discourse and Group (MCT+DG) is to train various communication modalities in both structured and unstructured settings, which include a discourse and group therapy to help generalizing the skills in daily communication.

Method

Two participants with …

The Impact Of Perception Of L1 Stress Features On L2 Perceived Fluency, Tian Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the influence of stress on perceived fluency, a critical dimension of fluency study, alongside utterance and cognitive fluency. Perceived fluency is defined as the inferences listeners make about speakers’ cognitive fluency based on their perceptions of utterance fluency (Segalowitz, 2010). Previous research demonstrated that factors such as pause phenomena and speech rate significantly affected subjective fluency ratings (Bosker et al., 2012; Kahng, 2018). Stress was also identified as a contributing factor through qualitative analysis (Préfontaine and Kormos, 2016), yet had not been thoroughly examined using quantitative methods.

The cue-weighting theory of speech perception suggests that listeners from …

Motivation And Attitudes Toward Learning English As A Foreign Language: A Case Study Of Urban And Rural University Freshmen In Saudi Arabia, Munif Almasarir

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Saudi educational system faces several challenges that contribute to low proficiency in English among Saudi students. Previous studies have focused on the EFL curriculum and pedagogical challenges, but there is a lack of research specifically examining other main psychosocial factors that contribute to the attainment of English proficiency. Motivational and attitudinal factors have been proven to have an impact on the proficiency level among EFL students. My study investigates the perceived influence of geographical location on students' attitudes and motivation toward English as a global language in Saudi Arabia. By utilizing an ethnographic approach focusing on both rural and …

Increasing Minority Student Enrollment: An Applied Research Study On Increasing The Enrollment Of Minority Students In Advanced Placement Courses, Tamekia Helm

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Addressing the disparity in Advanced Placement (AP) course enrollment among minority students at Greater High School is the focus of this research. Through an extensive review of the literature, the study examines the various factors contributing to this gap, including access limitations and systemic barriers. Additionally, teacher perceptions, student attitudes, and parental involvement are explored to understand the influence on AP course enrollment decisions. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, including surveys and interviews, data is collected from students, teachers and parents to gain comprehensive insights.

Proposed solutions to enhance AP course enrollment include targeted outreach initiatives and support for minority students. …

Improving American Learners’ Pronunciation Of Arabic Pharyngeals: Traditional Vs. Tbi Method, Yasmine Sedeek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mastering the phonological aspects of a second language (L2) poses significant challenges for adult learners, often affecting their intelligibility in acquiring that language (Derwing, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998). McAllister (1997) has highlighted L2 learners’ struggles in perceiving and producing novel segmental features, which is corroborated by The Perceptual Assimilation Model of L2 speech learning (PAM-L2) proposed by Best & Tyler (2007), which posits that the perception of L2 phonetics is a critical precursor to their accurate production. Against this backdrop, the present study aims to improve the intelligibility of Arabic pharyngeals (/ʕ/ and /ħ/) among English-speaking learners studying Arabic as …

The Relationship Between Aim Pathways Professional Development, Teachers’ Sense Of Efficacy For Literacy Instruction, And Literacy Knowledge, Among K-3 Teachers, Shakita Bagwell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teaching reading has been an ongoing challenge for many educators across the United States. Numerous studies suggest that teachers feel they were not adequately prepared to teach reading and have low efficacy in delivering literacy instruction. Teaching reading requires educators to be knowledgeable about the alphabetic principle, decoding new words, and how the brain learns to read. This exploratory study aimed to investigate the relationship between AIM Pathways Professional Development on teachers’ literacy efficacy and knowledge compared to teachers who did not receive the professional development. A survey was administered to eighty-eight teachers in Mississippi Literacy Support Schools. Multidimensional scaling …

The Role Of L1 Dialect Phonotactics On The Production Of L2 English Phonotactics By Saudi Efl Learners, Abdullah Ahmad Balbaid

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the phonological challenges and adaptive strategies employed by 30 first-year university students majoring in English from three distinct Saudi Arabian dialect backgrounds—Najdi, Hijazi, and Hasawi—in perceiving and producing English onset biconsonant and triconsonant clusters. Exploring dialectal variations, the research aims to understand how these phonological characteristics influence the acquisition and intelligibility of English pronunciation among Saudi learners. Utilizing a combination of perception tasks through ABX discrimination tasks and production tasks inspired by the Labovian model, the study provides insights into the dialect-specific phonological challenges faced by the participants.

Key findings reveal that Najdi speakers demonstrate higher proficiency …