Digital Commons Network^™

Before Jackie Robinson, Gerald R. Gems

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

While the accomplishments and influence of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali are doubtless impressive solely on their merits, these luminaries of the black sporting experience did not emerge spontaneously. Their rise was part of a gradual evolution in social and power relations in American culture between the 1890s and 1940s that included athletes such as jockey Isaac Murphy, barnstorming pilot Bessie Coleman, and golfer Teddy Rhodes. The contributions of these early athletes to our broader collective history, and their heroic confrontations with the entrenched racism of their times, helped bring about the incremental changes …

At The First Table, Jodi Campbell

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Research on European food culture has expanded substantially in recent years, telling us more about food preparation, ingredients, feasting and fasting rituals, and the social and cultural connotations of food.

At the First Table demonstrates the ways in which early modern Spaniards used food as a mechanism for the performance of social identity. People perceived themselves and others as belonging to clearly defined categories of gender, status, age, occupation, and religion, and each of these categories carried certain assumptions about proper behavior and appropriate relationships with others. Food choices and dining customs were effective and visible ways of displaying these …

Vice Capades, Mark Stein

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

From outlawing bowling in colonial America to regulating violent video games and synthetic drugs today, Mark Stein’s Vice Capades examines the nation’s relationship with the actions, attitudes, and antics that have defined morality. This humorous and quirky history reveals that our views of vice are formed not merely by morals but by power.


While laws against nude dancing have become less restrictive, laws restricting sexual harassment have been enacted. While marijuana is no longer illegal everywhere, restrictive laws have been enacted against cigarettes. Stein examines this nation’s inconsistent moral compass and how the powers-that-be in each era determine what is …

Nebraska Youth Tobacco Survey 2015/2017, Bureau Of Sociological Research

Nebraska Student Health and Risk Prevention Surveillance System (SHARP)

No abstract provided.

Balancing Stability And Flexibility In Adaptive Governance: An Analysis Of Tools Available In U.S. Environmental Law, Robin Kundis Craig, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Craig R. Allen, Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold, Hannah E. Birge, Hannah Birge, Daniel A. Decaro, Alexander K. Fremier, Alexander K. Fremier, Hannah Gosnell, Edella C. Schlager

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Adaptive governance must work “on the ground,” that is, it must operate through structures and procedures that the people it governs perceive to be legitimate and fair, as well as incorporating processes and substantive goals that are effective in allowing social-ecological systems (SESs) to adapt to climate change and other impacts. To address the continuing and accelerating alterations that climate change is bringing to SESs, adaptive governance generally will require more flexibility than prior governance institutions have often allowed. However, to function as good governance, adaptive governance must pay real attention to the problem of how to balance this increased …

The Division Of The Humanity, Bryan Chavez

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Jane Austen's personal experiences can be seen through the influence presented in her novel Pride and Prejudice. Austen grew up in the Victorian Era, a time period where women were socially and economically immobile, with the exception of marriage. Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice suggests that society is separated into a diversity of unfair and unequal socio-economic classes which still persists today. This is most evident in the lack of access to quality education for many members of lower socio-economic groups in the United States.

The Victorian Era heavily relied on a social structure that created socio-economic diversity …

An Ableist Society: What Does Disability Look Like?, Maricela Paramo

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

One out of every five adults in the United States has a disability. That is about 63.976 million people, yet, ableism is a common type of discrimination. This paper is an attempt to create awareness of ableism and its negative effects by providing testimonies and methods that will help people with disabilities live a life without prejudice.

The United States is nowhere close to being an ableist free society and it will remain this way until people stop using ableist language as an insult or to mock someone, until mocking the disabled is not a media entertainment, until public figures …

Estimating The Number Of Recreational Anglers For A Given Waterbody, Kevin L. Pope, Larkin A. Powell, Brian S. Harmon, Mark A. Pegg, Christopher J. Chizinski

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Knowing how many anglers use a given body of water is paramount for understanding components of a fishery related to angling pressure and harvest, yet no study has attempted to provide an estimate of the population size of anglers for a given waterbody. Here, we use information from creel surveys in a removal-sampling framework to estimate total numbers of anglers using six reservoirs in Nebraska, USA, and we examine the influence of the duration of sampling period on those estimates. Population estimates (N ± SE) of unique anglers were 2050 ± 45 for Branched Oak Lake, 1992 ± 29 for …

Nebraska Early Childhood Workforce Survey: A Focus On Providers And Teachers, Amy M. Roberts, Iheoma U. Iruka, Susan L. Sarver

Buffet Early Childhood Institute Reports and Publications

The Nebraska Early Childhood Workforce Survey was undertaken by the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska to better understand the current status, working conditions, and attitudes of caregivers and teachers working with children from birth through Grade 3. Representing the largest and most comprehensive survey ever completed of the state’s early childhood workforce, it provides important insight into the everyday challenges of the professionals who care for and educate our youngest citizens. Research has long made clear the important role adults play in young children’s lives. Children who form strong relationships with adults feel safe to explore …

Nasis 2017: Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey Questionnaire, Bureau Of Sociological Research

Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey (NASIS)

We need your help to learn about how Nebraskans think, feel, and live. Researchers from the University of Nebraska and across the state are counting on your help to learn about a variety of issues. Your responses will help shape program and policy development in Nebraska now and into the future.

125 questions; 16 pages

Adverse Childhood Experiences And Life Opportunities: Shifting The Narrative, Marilyn Metzler, Melissa T. Merrick, Joanne Flevens, Katie A. Ports

United States Public Health Resources

Substantial research shows that early adversity, including child abuse and neglect, is associated with diminished health across the life course and across generations. Lesswell understood is the relationship between early adversity and adult socioeconomic status, including education, employment, and income. Collectively, these outcomes provide an indication of overall life opportunity. We analyzed data from 10 states and the District of Columbia that used the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) module in the 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to examine the association between ACEs and adult education, employment, and income. Compared to participants with no ACEs, those with higher ACE scores …

A Randomized Trial Examining The Effects Of Conjoint Behavioral Consultation In Rural Schools: Student Outcomes And The Mediating Role Of The Teacher–Parent Relationship, Susan M. Sheridan, Amanda Witte, Shannon R. Holmes, Michael J. Coutts, Amy L. Dent, Gina Kunz, Chaorong Wu

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

The results of a large-scale randomized controlled trial of Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC) on student outcomes and teacher–parent relationships in rural schools are presented. CBC is an indirect service delivery model that addresses concerns shared by teachers and parents about students. In the present study, the intervention was aimed at promoting positive school-related social-behavioral skills and strengthening teacher–parent relationships in rural schools. Participants were 267 students in grades K-3, their parents, and 152 teachers in 45 Midwest rural schools. Results revealed that, on average, improvement among students whose parents and teachers experienced CBC significantly outpaced that of control students in …

Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Attitudes And Pedagogical Strategies Toward Hypothetical Shy, Exuberant, And Average Children, Qizhen Deng, Guy Trainin, Kathleen Moritz Rudasill, Irina Kalutskaya, Stephanie Wessels, Julia C. Torquati, Robert J. Coplan

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Children’s learning and development are directly and indirectly influenced by teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical strategies toward child behaviors. This cross-sectional study explored elementary preservice teachers’ attitudes and pedagogical strategies for working with hypothetical children demonstrating temperament-based shy, exuberant, and average behaviors in the classroom. A secondary goal was to compare attitudes and pedagogical strategies at the beginning and end of teacher training program. A total of 354 participants responded to three vignettes describing children frequently displaying these behaviors. Results indicated preservice teachers were more likely to use social-learning strategies with shy children and high-powered strategies with exuberant children. Participants were …

Lifelong Learning: A Strategic Analysis Of Education, Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Are outdated traditional education, distance education, information technological infrastructure, partnerships and financial resources common problematic issues facing many of the educational institutions in our world today? With this into considerations, are these issues vital in order to stabilize the political and economic embroidery of an institution or organization, and its psychological and sociological awareness? What is it that is to be learned and thought in our institutions and, what really is lifelong education; and how is to be carried out in the society of ours? It is found that education may be the training of the mind to perform desire …

Interdisciplinary Teaching Of Theatre And Human Rights In Honors, Maria Szasz

Honors in Practice Online Archive

One of the centerpieces of honors education is careful research and thorough analysis of what we teach and why we teach our chosen subjects. In creating my honors class Theatre and Human Rights, I explored how I would teach the course and the various components best suited to teaching this topic. After first considering the topic of human rights and its relevance to theatre in an honors context, I then considered the value of interdisciplinary teaching in such a course and what its impact could be on helping students understand human rights, specifically through the study of Athol Fugard’s 1982 …

Leveraging A Modest Success For Curriculum Development, Kathy A. Lyon

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Our primary goal as honors administrators is to deliver the highestquality honors education we can at our institutions; however, this has become more of a challenge since budgets at state-supported institutions have decreased dramatically over the last decade, a situation that Richard Badenhausen characterizes as the new normal. Although he paints a gloomy picture, Badenhausen also suggests that “[m]oney is always sloshing around in the institutional coffers. . . . You just need to know whom and how to ask . . .” (20). As Samuel Schuman wrote in 2006, we learn early in our honors administrative careers that a …

Land Tenure, Governance And Accountability In Nigeria: The Implications On Food Production To Feed The Present And The Future, Abiodun E. Obayelu, Aisha O. Arowolo, Olatokunbo H. Osinowo

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

Land is very vital for agricultural production, and for any nation that wants to be self-food sufficient. Different land reforms have taken place in Nigeria since 1960 with the aim of facilitating access to agricultural land, and make the nation self-sufficient in food production, but little changes have only been recorded. Bureaucracy by approving authorities in practice in communities where land is situated still hinders land acquisition for agricultural investment. This study therefore analyzes land policy, governance and accountability and draw out some implications on food production in Nigeria. The percentage of arable land to the total land area was …

Moving Foward With Family Centered-Care: One Step At A Time, Adrianne Nicole Dunbar

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Family-centered care is an evolving process between patients, families, and health care providers. The family centered care model emphasizes the strength families bring to the healing process. The research project was a quasi-experimental pre-and post-test study with a communication intervention phase. The study was conducted in a Surgical-Trauma Intensive Care Unit (STICU) in a university affiliated hospital in the Southeast with restricted visitation hours. The purpose of this IRB-approved study was to measure the nurses’ perceptions of communication involvement with family members before and after the intervention phase. Approximately 50% of eligible participants responded. The communication intervention phase consisted of …

A Cultural, Economic, And Industrial Analysis Of The Republic Of Poland And Its Financial Services Industry, Jeremy Eberly

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Through its thousand-year existence, the state of Poland has been a continental anomaly. The very existence of the state was questioned, challenged, and influenced by foreign powers intent on empire. At the end of World War II, the then-communist Polish state remained tightly under the influence of the Soviet Union. After years of underlying dissatisfaction with the pitiful performance of a centrally planned economy, the Poles, through “Solidarity,” forced democratic reforms in the late 1980s and capitalism was formally embraced. Explaining why the Poles rejected communism, French anthropologist and renowned political scientist Emmanuel Todd suggests that the roots of the …

The Use Of Simpson’S Diversity Index To Develop A Diverse Community For The Enrichment Of Experiential Learning, Quinn Nguyen

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Diversity is a buzz-word in our society, and within an academic institution, it plays the role as a tacit of what an institution is able to offer its students to better themselves and contribute to more knowledgeable citizens. While many programs and institutions promise diversity, some of these entities lack the requisite of diversity through their broad, loose definition. In this study, the Simpson’s Diversity Index (SDI) is introduced as a possible quantitative method for eradicating the loose definition of diversity. With that, 103 institutions were randomly sampled from a list of 1500 institutions to create a normal distribution curve. …

Authors & Endmatter (Jnchc 18-1)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

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Examining Inequalities In Science Literacy By Religious Affiliation Among Adults, Alexis Swendener

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Much attention has been given to the general public’s lack of understanding of science and the adverse effect of this lack of knowledge in our ever-advancing scientific and technological society. Religion remains an important social frame through which individuals interpret information, including scientific findings and facts and one deserving of closer examination in understanding disparities in public science knowledge. Using a random sample of adults in Nebraska, this study explored the association between religious affiliation and adult scientific literacy of human biological concepts. Results found a relationship between religious affiliation and adult scientific knowledge, even after controlling for confounding demographic …

Encouraging Self-Reflection By Business Honors Students: Reflective Writing, Films, And Self-Assessments, Stephen A. Yoder

Honors in Practice Online Archive

I never thought that a single book had significantly influenced my teaching methods for honors students until I recently reopened my copy of The Moral Imagination, edited by Oliver F. Williams. The Moral Imagination is a collection of essays written nearly twenty years ago on how we might teach students to develop a sense of moral imagination through literature, art, and film. The book’s subtitle—How Literature and Films Can Stimulate Ethical Reflection in the Business World—elucidates the focus of the book, and a good definition for Williams’s use of the term “moral imagination” is the “uniquely human …

A Review Of Women’S Leadership Conferences: Ways Public Research Institutions Support Female Students Opting-In, Tania Reis, Marilyn L. Grady

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of women’s leadership conferences at public research universities. A search of the 2015 Carnegie Classification of Institutes of Higher Education revealed a list of 157 research universities. Of these institutions, 40 held a women’s leadership conference. Implications are discussed in how a women’s leadership conference supports female students opting-in.

How Judges Can Reduce Racial Disparities In The Criminal-Justice System, Matthew Clair, Alix S. Winter

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

For decades, researchers and policymakers have been concerned about the disproportionate presence of blacks and Latinos in the criminal-justice system.1 While a fairly substantial proportion of these racial disparities can be explained by greater criminal involvement among blacks and Latinos in certain crimes,2 researchers continue to find that, even after controlling for differences in criminal behavior and other legally relevant factors, minorities are treated more punitively than similarly situated whites from arrest to sentencing in numerous jurisdictions.3 Consequently, researchers suggest that racial disparities arise not just from disproportionate criminal involvement or the disparate impact of facially neutral laws but also …

Domestic Violence Expert Witness Testimony: A Guide For The Judiciary, Victoria L. Lutz

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

WHY AN EXPERT IS NEEDED

A woman is battered in the United States every nine seconds.1 Between 25% and 31% of American women will be physically or sexually assaulted by an intimate partner at some point during their lives 2—an estimated 1.3 million women annually.3 Intimate partner homicides make up 40% to 50% of all murders of women in the United States.4 Every day in the United States, more than three women are killed by their abusers.5 The statistics from Canada are similarly astounding. “Half of all women in Canada have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual …

Writing Renewal Retreats: The Scholarly Writer, Contemplative Practice, And Scholarly Productivity, Edward Brantmeier, Cathryn Molloy, Jennifer Byrne

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article offers an exploratory case study of a program for faculty that blends contemplative practices, scholarly productivity, and renewal of faculty as writers at a retreat in a natural setting. We share faculty learning outcomes, logistics, a retreat agenda, and evaluation data from four writing renewal retreats conducted over two years to present initial insight into a contemplative approach to writing retreats that fosters a connection to self, to scholarship, and to a community of writers—key elements of a successful writing life. Through critical reflection on the role of contemplative practices, scholarly productivity, and faculty well-being, we offer a …

On The Other Side Of The Wall: The Miscategorization Of Educational Developers In The United States?, David A. Green, Deandra Little

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Educational developers around the world are employed in a range of settings and under different working conditions, including academic (faculty) positions and administrative (professional staff) roles. Curiously, in a survey of 1,000 developers from 38 countries, the authors find that a full 51% of developers in the United States are on administrative contracts, while only 16% are on employed as faculty—figures that are markedly out of kilter with the overall international data. In this paper, the authors argue that the positioning of educational developers matters because of the “wall in the head”—the perceived division between faculty and staff in United …

Assessing The Long-Term Impact Of The Preparing Future Faculty Seminar, Laura N. Schram, Tershia Pinder-Grover, Stefan Turcic Ii

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) initiative for graduate students was launched in the United States in 1993 as a partnership between the Council of Graduate Schools and the Association of American Colleges and Universities to prepare graduate students for faculty careers at different institutional types and to provide them with teaching-related professional development. PFF programs have proliferated U.S. universities over the last two decades, but there has been limited research on the long-term impact of these programs. This study at the University of Michigan examines the career paths and attitudes of graduate students who participated in an annual, intensive, five-week …

The Trouble With Cover Crops: Farmers’ Experiences With Overcoming Barriers To Adoption, Gabrielle E. Roesch-Mcnally, Andrea D. Basche, J. G. Arbuckle, John C. Tyndall, Fernando E. Miguez, Troy Bowman, Rebecca Clay

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Cover crops are known to promote many aspects of soil and water quality, yet estimates find that in 2012 only 2.3% of the total agricultural lands in the Midwestern USA were using cover crops. Focus groups were conducted across the Corn Belt state of Iowa to better understand how farmers confront barriers to cover crop adoption in highly intensive agricultural production systems. Although much prior research has focused on analyzing factors that help predict cover crop use on farms, there is limited research on how farmers navigate and overcome field-level (e.g. proper planting of a cover crop) and structural barriers …