Digital Commons Network^™

Impact Of Pollution On Marginalized Communities: Case Study Of Omaha, Nebraska, Miqaela Davis

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Environmental justice has been a struggle within our country for years. The goal of Environmental justice is for the fair treatment and equal voice for every single individual regardless of race, income, gender, etc. There has been environmental injustice and racism in many cities, but this study focuses on Omaha, Nebraska. Key questions include: What are some specific pollutants that are prevalent in areas with differing racial majorities in Omaha? What are some of the health patterns in these areas and does it relate to environmental racism? How has Omaha reinforced environmental racism through city planning? Using the Climate and …

Educational Influences On Environmental Perception: A Semester Analysis Of The New Ecological Paradigm Scale In Undergraduates, Zoe Zingler

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

This study evaluated the impact of a geography course, GEOG 181: Global Environmental Issues, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on students’ endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) using a pre-course and post-course NEP scale survey. Analyzing paired responses (n = 40) through t-tests and z-scores, only four of 15 statements had statistically significant shifts observed for the entire sample. However, a targeted analysis of students initially possessing lower endorsement of the NEP—early deniers—revealed significant paradigm shifts post-course. While women initially showed stronger NEP endorsement, men demonstrated notable changes following the course towards endorsement of the NEP. Academic majors, whether …

Paying To Reduce Disparity: Financially Incentivizing Workforce Diversity And Its Effects On Managers’ Promotion Decisions And Employees’ Effort, Bret S. Sheeley

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Disparities in employee representation persist in higher-level organizational positions despite recent attention to workforce diversity and its associated benefits. In response, companies have begun integrating diversity initiatives with varying degrees of specificity (hereafter, “initiative specificity”) into their managers’ compensation packages to increase underrepresented employees’ representation in higher-level organizational positions. This study uses an experiment to examine how offering managers financial incentives to accomplish diversity initiatives (hereafter, “diversity incentives”) and initiative specificity interact to influence managers’ promotion decisions and employees’ effort choices in a promotion setting.

The results suggest that as underrepresented employees’ pre-promotion efforts increase relative to overrepresented employees’ efforts, …

How Gender Affirming Care Affects The Current Sex Estimation Standards In Forensic Anthropology: A Preliminary Study, Dakota Taylor

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Current sex estimation standards in forensic anthropology are based on individuals whose gender matches their biological/osteological sex, also known as Cisgendered individuals. Recently, transgender individuals have started to become more common in the forensic context due to the increase in hate crimes and violence. This research builds upon past research done on how facial feminization surgery can affect both visual and metric methods, where it was found that forensic anthropologists should rely on the visual methods if they suspect someone to be transgender due to it being more accurate and being able to clearly state the scars left on the …

The Kruger Collection Reimagined: A Case Study In 3d Scanning And Interactive Exhibit Design, Annissa Davis

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

This thesis examines the use of 3D modeling in museum exhibition to create exploratory exhibits that facilitate unique relationships between the visitors and the collection beyond what is provided by the collection’s in person counterparts. Typical use of 3D modeling in museums is currently often representative rather than exploratory. By employing a Digital Humanities lens to approach the development of a digital exhibition utilizing 3D technology and interactive elements created in a video game engine (Unity), this thesis project evaluates these potential new relationships. Using the Eloise Kruger Collection of Miniatures as a case study, the following text details the …

Five Suggestions Towards User-Centered Data Repositories In The Social Sciences, Elias Herman Kruithof, Christophe Vanroelen, Laura Van Den Borre

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Data repositories for the social sciences are facing some discipline-specific challenges. This essay provides an overview of the four key challenges. In addition, five suggestions are made to strengthen domain-specific online data repositories in the social sciences, supported by good practices. Using a user-centered approach, these suggestions aim to further open up the social sciences data landscape. The essay first addresses insights regarding the sharing of quantitative and qualitative data in light of the specific needs and issues regarding these two types of data. Thereafter, we suggest (i) ‘data labs’ for novice data re-users, (ii) advocate for the repository as …

Mental Healthcare Differences Between The United States, Costa Rica, And Sweden, Michaela Diehm

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Countries such as the United States, Costa Rica, and Sweden differ in the ways that they approach treatment of mental health disorders, which is due to the structure of their healthcare as well as the culture, affordability, accessibility, and type of treatment that is available to the people of that country. A literature review did not reveal a comparison of the three countries related to the topic of mental healthcare, nor use of the three selected countries to review their structures to determine the best approach to combating mental disorders before. Costa Rica and Sweden are both countries with universal …

Building A Culture Of Creativity And Thinking In The Special Education Classroom, Megan Pitrat, Kimberley D'Adamo

Kimberley D'Adamo: Art, Curriculum, Publications, and Other Scholarly Works

Building a Culture of Creativity and Thinking in the Special Education Classroom

National Art Education Association, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2024

Art TEAMs Contributors

About Megan Pitrat

About Kimberley D'Adamo

Grounded in theory and evidence

Evolution of Kimberley's practice

Searching for better

Art TEAMs: Teaching with arts and emerging media, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Re-imagining my teaching practice

Metacognitive visual metaphor project

Exhibition of learning

Generalizing across the curricula

Generalizing creativity for life

Sex Differences And Sex‑Specific Regulation Of Motivated Behavior By Melanin‑Concentrating Hormone: A Short Review, Isabel R. K. Kuebler, Mauricio Suárez, Ken T. Wakabayashi

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Recent preclinical research exploring how neuropeptide transmitter systems regulate motivated behavior reveal the increasing importance of sex as a critical biological variable. Neuropeptide systems and their central circuits both contribute to sex differences in a range of motivated behaviors and regulate sex-specific behaviors. In this short review, we explore the current research of how sex as a biological variable influences several distinct motivated behaviors that are modulated by the melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) neuropeptide system. First, we review how MCH regulates feeding behavior within the context of energy homeostasis differently between male and female rodents. Then, we focus on MCH’s role …

Unl Emeriti And Retirees Association Newsletter, Spring 2024

UNL Emeriti and Retirees Association: Newsletters and Other Materials

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Emeriti and Retirees Association Newsletter, Spring 2024

The Bloodless Period: A Transfeminine Experience, Rin Nguyen

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

There is limited research exploring menstruation in transgender and gender diverse (TGD) populations, and studies have primarily examined the relationship between menstruation and gender congruence. Findings revealed menstruating TGD people experienced distress related to decreased gender congruence (Eisenberg et al., 2021), and 88% of TGD people expressed interest in menstrual suppression to manage the distress (Schwartz et al., 2022). By contrast, Lowik (2020) highlighted a transfeminine person who wished to menstruate to achieve womanhood and commented on the “bloodless period” (i.e., menstrual-like symptoms in the absence of bleeding) upon receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy. To the author’s knowledge, there is no …

Between Pages And Politics: An Interdisciplinary Exploration Of Book Bans, Hannah Morrison

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Across the United States, school boards are being inundated with requests to ban books. While these conversations are often localized, what the rise in censorship across the country suggests is that there is a fierce movement behind censoring young adult literature. What is frequently erased in these campaigns are stories of people of color and queer communities, alongside topics such as sexuality, drugs, or violence. The presiding conclusion within childhood studies on how we have reached a point where censorship is abundantly common in American schools is that public discourse views children as less than or not fully formed, thus …

Characterizing And Developing Chemistry Students’ Data Analysis And Interpretation Of Chemical Data, Stephanie A. Berg

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

All chemistry students must develop competency in analyzing and making sense of data. However, there are many difficulties that chemistry students may experience while analyzing data. Many students may not use relevant prior knowledge to aid in making sense of data, or they may not form conclusions using all the data provided. Additionally, prior knowledge seems to influence one’s data analysis, but little is known about how students use it to make sense of data. Thus, I interviewed undergraduate students as they analyzed graphical data for a task and characterized how they used their prior knowledge throughout. My findings suggest …

"It's Profound To Be Understood": Negotiations Of Household Labor In Trans Families, Eliza Thor

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The gendered division of household labor has long been of interest to family scholars. For heterosexual couples, labor is often unequally divided, with women normatively taking on more labor than their partners. This inequality is often justified through time availability, resource dependency, and gender ideology. However, less studied is the division of household labor in relationships in which at least one partner is transgender or gender diverse (TGD). Drawing on the framework of “doing gender,” I explore how performing labor that aligns with traditional gender expectations affirms the gender identities of TGD individuals, making the division of labor in the …

Teacher Roles In Correction: Understanding Disciplinary Alternative School Programs In Nebraska, Philip Thomas White Iii

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Through semi-structured interviews with teachers and semi-structured interviews-turned-testimonios of students, I have sought to understand the purposes and consequences of Disciplinary Alternative Programs (DAP). Four different locations from across the state of Nebraska were utilized with 16 teachers and two students participating. Research questions considered the purpose of DAPs to better understand how these programs fit into broader systems of schooling. While highly cautious IRB oversight limited the number of students who could be participants in this study, their insights were substantially augmented by the sixteen educators from such environments who were also interviewed. Participant responses offered nuanced and …

Constructing Refugee Identity: A Heuristic Inquiry Into Experiences Of Ukrainian Refugees, Deana Tsabak

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Besides the despicable atrocities and devastation, Russia’s war in Ukraine caused the emergence of a group of refugees previously unknown in the U.S. and the world. The phenomenon of “Ukrainian refugees” is new to the immigration and resettlement agencies, host communities, employers, and educators. This research explores how five Ukrainians who left their homeland after the beginning of Russia’s war construct their refugee identity in the United States. Furthermore, this study aims to discover in what ways learning English in the English Language Learning (ELL) program at a community college in Nebraska influences refugee identity construction in resettlement.

This study …

A Collaborative Campus Community Policing Model: A Case Study In Fostering Collective Efficacy Among Students, Faculty And Staff, Hassan Ramzah

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This qualitative, single case study explored whether and how a campus police agency’s community policing model fostered collective efficacy among students, faculty, staff members and campus police. Using Bandura’s (2000) collective efficacy theory, this study was guided by the following questions: (1) How does a campus police department use a community policing model to build partnerships with students, faculty, and staff? (2) How do police officers, students, faculty, and staff perceive these partnership-building efforts, particularly as it relates to fostering collective efficacy within the campus community? (3) Through what processes have campus police partnerships with students, faculty, and staff contributed …

The Relationship Between General And Content-Specific Classroom Practices And K-6 Student Math Achievement: A Multi-Method Analysis, Karen Alexander Glueckdert

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Research has suggested that measures of both general classroom observational tools (Classroom Organization and Teacher Emotional/Instructional Support) and content-specific observational tools (Ambitious Math Instruction and Errors and Imprecision) are related to K-6 student math achievement and therefore there is encouragement to use both types of observational measures as part of teacher evaluation. This study aims to provide policy makers, practitioners, and researchers with an overall picture of the expected relationships between the observational measures and K-6 student math achievement to inform decisions, policies, and future research. A multi-method analysis was conducted in which a meta-analytic structural equation model, a quantitative …

Exploration Of The Mental Health Impacts Of Drought On Rural Nebraskans Via Remembered Perceptions, Grace Schleining

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Drought is a sociological phenomenon. It is a well-known occurrence across the midwestern United States; the drying out of the soil, the failing of crops, and the constant dryness and heat... this is all drought. Inspired by my earliest memory of this climate phenomenon, my research question: Can we identify negative effects of drought on rural Nebraskan mental health and/or wellbeing? In this study, rural Nebraska community members, who are involved with the agricultural sector, were interviewed. They were asked questions regarding their perceptions and stories of drought using purposive sampling and snowball sampling methods. Themes throughout indicate negative mental …

Beyond The Looking Glass: Dreams And Somnial States And Spaces In Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Anne N. Nagel

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Poised between a waning magico-theological tradition of symbolic dream interpretation and the rising influence of scientific dream theories, which equated dreaming with disorder, the dream occupied a unique space in nineteenth-century Great Britain. Dreams were coming untethered from signification, as natural philosophers deemed their content indecipherable and chaotic. Yet vestiges of early modern beliefs could still lend supernatural power and polyphony to dreams.

This was not simply a matter of making a binary choice between two ways of thinking about dreams but instead a site of collisions and coalescences. I contend that the ways in which dreams were conceptualized in …

Equality In Times Of Uncertainty: Economic Downturn And Body Image Messaging Toward Women, Ritsa Giannakas

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

A vast body of literature indicates that the economy and the status of women are interlinked, with higher levels of economic well-being tending to correspond with advancements in women’s rights. However, little of this research has investigated the changes in the wellbeing of women as it pertains to their physical and mental health, especially as it pertains to exploring the impacts of economics on eating disorder rates and societal messaging toward women. This thesis investigates a novel theory linking economic uncertainty and downturn to the spread of pro-eating disorder content online, positing that economic uncertainty may coincide with a “conservative …

Identity-Driven Targeted Violence: Attending To Identity, Emotion, And Personality-Related Predictors Of Attitudinal And Behavioral Prejudice, Patrick Timothy Mcgonigal

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Identity-driven targeted violence driven by gender identity, sexuality, race, and religion overwhelmingly impacts marginalized groups of individuals. Existing evidence suggests that acts of bias on college campuses are often unreported by students, leaving those who engage in these behaviors to continue without proper redress. A great wealth of data illustrates the deleterious impacts of identity-driven behavior on student victims, including heightened psychological distress, poorer academic performance, and lower retention. In contrast, limited research has examined relevant underpinnings of perpetrating identity-driven harassment. The current dissertation developed and disseminated a large survey to undergraduate students spanning three years of data collection. The …

Perceptions Of College Campus Climate Among Queer Female Sexual Assault Survivors, Elyxcus J. Anaya

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

One-fifth of women in the United States report at least one lifetime experience of rape (Black et al., 2011; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014; Smith et al., 2018). Sexual assault (SA)is a common experience among cisgender women college students, with 20% reporting experiencing a rape during their time in college (Cullen et al., 2000). Universities generally have resources designed to help survivors of SA, though research suggests many of these resources are underutilized by survivors. The current study was guided by social constructivism and used a transcendental phenomenology approach to explore six queer, female participants’ decision-making processes about …

Unlocking The Door To Access And Success: The Keys Program, Timothy Paul Barshinger

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The Keystone Education Yields Success (KEYS) program is a welfare-to-work program in Pennsylvania meant to promote financial independence through education. Across the community colleges in the state of Pennsylvania, the KEYS program has often allowed financially disadvantaged students to succeed on par with—and often surpass—their non-KEYS classmates, defying metrics that typically suggest that low-income students will struggle to succeed. The purpose of this study was to understand how and why the KEYS program at a single community college in Pennsylvania was able to foster that level of success. The study was conducted as an instrumental case study of one KEYS …

Tuning Out: Intersections Of Music And Literature In The Contemporary French-Language Novel, Alexander Claussen

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The past thirty years have seen a shift in French-language novels as authors move from the self-reflexive formal experimentation of the nouveau roman and its successors toward a literature that is again concerned with plot, character, and above all, the problems of the contemporary world. This “retour au récit” is accompanied by a resurgence of interest in writing the self (through experiments in autofiction), the past (through explorations of collective memory and collective guilt), and the present (through novels that challenge existing social structures and seek to define and develop new collective or national identities). This dissertation examines the (re)turn …

Do Bisexuals Thrive In The Corridor? Liminal Identity, Communication, And Well-Being, Katie Kassler

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

In this dissertation I aim to test direct and moderating associations between bisexual liminal identity, social identity complexity, micro-aggressions and micro-affirmations, and well-being. In Chapter One, I offer my theoretical definition of and position bisexuality as a liminal identity. Next in this chapter, I (a) hypothesize a direct association between bisexual liminal identity and well-being, (b) posit competing hypotheses related to social identity complexity as a positive cognitive appraisal moderator (i.e., social cure perspective) and negative cognitive appraisal moderator (i.e., uncertainty identity perspective) of the main effect, and finally (c) posit hypotheses related to individual- and group-aimed micro-aggressions and micro-affirmations …

Exploration Of The Mental Health Impacts Of Drought On Rural Nebraskans Via Remembered Perceptions, Grace Schleining

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Drought is a sociological phenomenon. It is a well-known occurrence across the midwestern United States; the drying out of the soil, the failing of crops, and the constant dryness and heat… this is all drought. Inspired by my earliest memory of this climate phenomenon I sought to determine whether we can identify evidence of negative mental health impacts and/or well-being in rural Nebraskans due to drought, thus my research question: Can we identify negative effects of drought on rural Nebraskan mental health and/or wellbeing? In this study, rural Nebraska community members, who are involved with the agricultural sector, were interviewed. …

Tuning Out: Intersections Of Music And Literature In The Contemporary French-Language Novel, Alexander James Claussen

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The past thirty years have seen a shift in French-language novels as authors move from the self-reflexive formal experimentation of the nouveau roman and its successors toward a literature that is again concerned with plot, character, and above all, the problems of the contemporary world. This “retour au récit” is accompanied by a resurgence of interest in writing the self (through experiments in autofiction), the past (through explorations of collective memory and collective guilt), and the present (through novels that challenge existing social structures and seek to define and develop new collective or national identities).

This dissertation examines the (re)turn …

Undergraduate Biology Lecture Courses Predominantly Test Facts About Science Rather Than Scientific Practices, Crystal Uminski, Sara M. Burbach, Brian A. Couch

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Scientific practices are the skills used to develop scientific knowledge and are essential for careers in science. Despite calls from education and government agencies to cultivate scientific practices, there remains little evidence of how often students are asked to apply them in undergraduate courses. We analyzed exams from biology courses at 100 institutions across the United States and found that only 7% of exam questions addressed a scientific practice and that 32% of biology exams did not test any scientific practices. The low occurrence of scientific practices on exams signals that undergraduate courses may not be integrating foundational scientific skills …

Implications And Recommendations For U.S. Security Alliances: South Korea's Anticipated Nuclear Proliferation, Ethan Czapla

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In 2023, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol suggested South Korea should consider pursuing a sovereign nuclear weapon arsenal, a striking departure from the history of South Korea’s non-proliferation posture. The pursuit of a nuclear capability or redeployment of nuclear weapons has gained traction among the South Korean public, as over 70% supported acquiring a sovereign nuclear capability in 2021. In this paper, I argue nuclear proliferation in South Korea would (1) destabilize regional security, (2) diminish U.S. security alliances, and (3) undermine the international rules-based order regarding non-proliferation and offer policy recommendations for U.S. defense practitioners in order to boost …