Digital Commons Network^™

Nitrate Levels In The Tap Water Of Several Northeast Iowa Communities In 2026, Kamyar Enshayan

Faculty Publications

Tap water samples were taken from numerous sites in several northeast Iowa communities along the Cedar River to learn what levels of nitrate people are actually drinking over a several-months period in 2026, with the hope of inspiring public conversations, understanding and action. Samples were taken from February to June 2026.  None of the tap water samples violated the current outdated nitrate limit of 10 mg/l set 35 years ago. However, published public health studies in the past 15 years reveal that consuming nitrate in drinking water at levels as low as 5mg/l for a long time can increase the …

Sesquicentennial Commencement [Program], May 15-16, 2026, University Of Northern Iowa

UNI Commencement Programs

Contents:

Brief History of UNI --- 2
Board of Regents --- 3
Institutional Leadership --- 3
Ceremony Symbols & Traditions --- 4
Commencement Over the Years --- 6
University Honors Program --- 8
Graduation with Honors --- 8
Legacy Graduates --- 8
Military Science --- 9
Merchant Scholarship --- 9
Outstanding Student Leader --- 9
Commencement Student Speakers --- 9
Purple and Old Gold Awards --- 10
Lux Service Award --- 11
7 p.m. Program --- 13
College of Education --- 15
David W. Wilson College of Business --- 22
10 a.m. Program --- 29
College of Humanities, Arts & …

How Can The Endangered Species Act Critical Habitat Designation Process Be Revised To Provide Better Protection For Listed Species Today And Under Future Range Shift Scenarios Due To Climate Change?, Matt Kerber

Mary Ann Bolton Undergraduate Research Award

Humans have interacted with the flora and fauna of Earth in many ways throughout our evolutionary history. Whether that be from a place of fascination, or as a resource to be exploited, humans have relied upon the millions of species that share the Earth with them. These interactions have led humans to both destroy and degrade ecosystems, but also to conserve ecosystems so that they may continue to provide their services and intrinsic value. A major shift in exploitation of wildlife began around the advent of industrialization and the acceleration of technological advancement. The ability and rate at which species …

Geotree Center Drone Photography, Modeling And Analysis Across Uni Campus, Tim Conlon, Harriet Quarshie, John Degroote

INSPIRE Student Research and Engagement Conference

No abstract provided.

Csbs Kudos, Spring 2026, University Of Northern Iowa. College Of Social And Behavioral Sciences.

CSBS Kudos

Contents:

--- Faculty Accolades
--- Retirements - Ken Atkinson, Gregory Bruess, Todd Evans, Mark Grey, James Hall, Wallace Hettle, Mary Losch
--- Promotions - Disa Cornish, Tyler O'Brien, Jayme Renfro, Eran Hanke, Kyle Endres
--- In Memoriam - Mary Louise Franken, John Johnson, Susan Welch, Charlotte C. Wells
--- $1.22 million grant to UNI’s Center for Civic Education
--- University of Northern Iowa receives $2.4 million grant to launch Humanities Hub
--- UNI announces restructuring to strengthen humanities and public service education
--- UNI launches online non-thesis Master of Arts in Geography
--- UNI teacher education program continues to boast …

20th Annual Research In The Capitol [Program], March 9, 2026, University Of Northern Iowa. University Honors Program. Iowa State University. Honors Program. University Of Iowa. Honors Program.

Research in the Capitol Programs

Program of research presentations given at the Capitol by students from the University of Northern Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Iowa.

International Panther Monthly, March 2026, University Of Northern Iowa. Office Of International Engagement.

Office of International Engagement newsletter

Contents:

--- From the Director's Desk
--- Last Month With OIE
--- Student Spotlight
--- UNI's World Window
--- Did You Know?
--- Behind the Scenes
--- Next Month's Activities
--- Additional Opportunities
--- Get Involved

“Police Power” Or Puppeteer: Us Interventions In Latin America And Its Immigration Crisis, Alison Meagher

Honors Program Theses

No abstract provided.

Digital Gender Based Violence: A Comparative Study Between Bangladesh & The United States, Ireen Parvin

Graduate Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Mapping The Geography Of Economic Espionage In The United States (2000–2025): An Applied Counterintelligence And Spatial Analysis, David A. Turner

Graduate Research Papers

This Graduate Research Project examines whether economic espionage incidents within the United States exhibit structured geographic patterns aligned with innovation ecosystem density. Using a verified dataset of 135 publicly documented economic espionage and foreign-linked trade secret theft cases between 2000 and 2025, this study applies Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis to evaluate spatial concentration, sectoral prioritization, and foreign nexus distribution.

Kernel Density Estimation and state-level aggregation reveal disproportionate clustering within innovation-dense regions, including California, New York, and major Midwestern industrial corridors. Aerospace and defense technologies, energy technologies, and semiconductors and microelectronics collectively account for 55.6 percent of all documented cases. …

Are Iowa Pk-12 Schools Prepared For A School Shooting? A Needs Assessment Of Iowa Superintendents, Kurt Mj Devore

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

As school shootings remain a persistent threat to PK-12 education, this quantitative survey study examines the preparedness levels and beliefs of 75 out of 277 Iowa superintendents regarding active shooter events. In the wake of the 2024 tragedy in Perry, Iowa, results indicate a near-universal recognition of risk (97.3%), prompting a shift toward "muscle memory" training and the adoption of the Standard Response Protocol (SRP) to ensure a common language during a crisis. The data reveals a significant move away from high-intensity simulations in favor of trauma-informed tabletop exercises, alongside a definitive rejection of arming educators (0%) due to insurance …

An Exploratory Study In Sports Geography: The Interaction With The Environment And Sense Of Place In Endurance Running Events, Jackson Steffener

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study examines how endurance running shapes runners' sense of place through interactions with physical environments, social dynamics, and embodied experience. With sports geography, it explores how participants form emotional and spatial connections to race settings while moving through varied landscapes under physical strain. A phenomenological multi-site case study design was used, focusing on four endurance events in Iowa that differed in terrain, setting, and structure.

Data were collected from 46 participants using mental mapping and semi structured field notes. Mental maps identified meaningful locations along race courses, while field notes captured emotional responses, environmental conditions, and social interactions. Thematic …

Analysis Of Environmental Site Assessments Of Brownfield Redevelopment In Waterloo, Iowa, Sage Cappi

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis examines how Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs) are interpreted and utilized in the context of Brownfield redevelopment, with particular attention to the relationship between historical context, contamination, health risk, and future redevelopment possibilities. While ESAs are widely used to inform redevelopment decisions, there remains a gap in understanding how reported environmental data translates into meaningful assessments. To address this, this study analyzes historical and environmental data from six Brownfield sites, identifying documented contaminants, their associated carcinogenic group, and redevelopment potential. Central to this research is the development of a relational framework designed to function as a more approachable interpretive …

Integrating Literacy Into A High School Climate Change Unit, Bailey Bushman

Graduate Research Papers

The ability to read is an important skill for members of society. Teaching students to read is often left up to elementary teachers and then secondary English teachers are expected to expand on those skills, but other content areas can help teach the needed literacy skills to students. In addition to typical literacy skills like reading and writing, students need to be able to understand climate science in order to make responsible decisions about the Earth’s future.

One way to ensure that students are getting both literacy skills and disciplinary content would be for science teachers to include a variety …

On The Surface: The Mural Of Shireen Abu Akleh As Space For Encounter, Saja Abd El Hai

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis examines a mural of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the city of Baqa al-Gharbiya as a site of political encounter. Rather than approaching the mural solely as a commemorative image, the study analyzes how it generated a series of interactions through acts of creation, defacement, restoration, performance, and digital circulation. Drawing on scholarship in visual culture, graffiti studies, and political theory, I argue that the mural operates as a gendered space of political encounter through which grief, resistance, and national identity are negotiated in public space. Methodologically, the project combines visual and contextual analysis with rhetorical criticism, …

Exploring Governance And Government Policies Of Preparedness And Response To Flooding In Juneau, Alaska, Derreck Asiamah

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Flooding poses an escalating threat to human well-being, economic stability, and environmental resilience in climate-sensitive regions such as Juneau, Alaska, where the retreat of the Mendenhall Glacier has produced an actively expanding ice-dammed lake, Suicide Basin, capable of triggering an annual Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF). This thesis explores the governance and government policies shaping flood preparedness and response in Juneau, Alaska, with particular attention to GLOF risk and the August 2024 GLOF, one of the most destructive flood events in the city's history. Grounded in adaptive governance theory and political ecology, the study offers a multidimensional perspective on institutional …

Examining The Current And Potential Impacts Of Erosion, Flooding, And Permafrost Thaw On Small Businesses In The Lower Kuskokwim Basin, Alaska, Dela Yao Agbagba

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Climate change has intensified hazards such as flooding, erosion, and permafrost thaw in Arctic Communities, threatening small business buildings, disrupting operations, and reducing income. Small businesses are important to these communities because they provide essential goods and services and support local economic activity. Understanding their vulnerability and adaptation needs is therefore important for sustaining communities in the Lower Kuskokwim Basin, Alaska.

This study used GIS spatial analysis and content analysis as its two main methods, supported by a limited number of semi-structured interviews. A spatial database of 78 businesses across seven Alaska Native Communities was developed, and flood susceptibility was …

Temporal Analysis Of Supraglacial Drainage Systems On The Greenland Ice Sheet From 2009-2017 Using Very High-Resolution Satellite Imagery, Field Measurements, And Climate Models, Natalie Gallegos Nunez

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Anthropogenic disturbance and global warming are enhancing the influx of freshwater into the oceans from melting glaciers and ice sheets. The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) has experienced accelerated surface melt which is expected to reduce North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) formation and Atlantic thermohaline circulation. More than half of the GrIS total mass loss is due to meltwater runoff produced on the surface by supraglacial lakes, streams, and rivers. The goal of this study is to monitor changes in supraglacial drainage systems developed in the Southwest region on the GrIS for the 2009-2017 melt seasons and to map the impact …

Commencement [Program], December 20, 2025, University Of Northern Iowa

UNI Commencement Programs

Contents:

University Organization --- 2
Ceremony Symbols & Traditions --- 3
University Honors Program --- 4
Graduation with Honors --- 4
Legacy Graduates --- 4
Order of Events --- 5
College of Education --- 6
College of Humanities, Arts & Sciences --- 12
College of Social & Behavioral Sciences --- 19
David W. Wilson College of Business --- 26
Division of Online Education & Individual Studies --- 31
UNI Alma Mater --- 34

University Of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate Meeting Agenda, December 1, 2025, University Of Northern Iowa. Faculty Senate.

Documents - Faculty Senate

Meeting agenda from the Faculty Senate of the University of Northern Iowa.

University Of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes, December 1, 2025, University Of Northern Iowa. Faculty Senate.

Documents - Faculty Senate

Meeting minutes from the Faculty Senate of the University of Northern Iowa.

Uni Scholarworks Readership Snapshot, October 2025, Bepress

Library Documents & Reports (entire collection)

No abstract provided.

Extractive Frontiers And Indigenous Resistance: A Quantitative Analysis Of Environmental Conflicts In The Arctic, Isaac Eshun

Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) at UNI

The Arctic, like most Indigenous regions of the world, has been a target for extractive activities -mineral exploitation, coal mining and oil drilling which over the time has undermined local environment and subsistence livelihoods resulting in severe confrontations from the Indigenous people. Drawing on extractive activities from the global Environmental Justice atlas, this study employs logistic regression to examine how factors such as conflict sources, impact intensity, government involvement and number of socio-environmental harms influence resistance outcomes. Findings suggest that projects that involve multiple interconnected sources of conflicts are most likely to face intense opposition resulting in their cancellation in …

University Of Northern Iowa Graduate Studies Fifth Annual Three Minute Thesis® Competition [Program, 2025], University Of Northern Iowa. Graduate Studies.

Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) at UNI Programs

Graduate students engage with audience members regarding their research.

International Panther Monthly, November 2025, University Of Northern Iowa. Office Of International Engagement.

Office of International Engagement newsletter

Contents:

--- From the Director’s Desk
--- Last Month With OIE
--- Student Spotlight
--- UNI’s World Window
--- CIEP Spotlight
--- Did You Know?
--- Behind the Scenes
--- Next Month’s Activities
--- Additional Opportunities
--- Get Involved

Uni’S First Woman Professor: Laura Ensign And The Struggle For Fair Pay, Rank, And Faculty Governance Under Gilchrist And Seerley, Thomas G. Connors

Faculty Book Gallery

At 29, Laura Ensign’s appointment to the faculty of Iowa’s new State Normal School should have been an unqualified triumph. Yet her hiring by the Board over the objections of James Gilchrist, the school’s principal, placed her under an administrator who detested her from the start. She lived, ate, and worked with her colleagues, pupils, and Gilchrist and his family in the same isolated building on a hill two miles from town. Near her wits’ end after eight years, Ensign tried one final maneuver, one so risky that it would have cost her job had it failed: She began secretly …

Multi-Level Salmon Governance And Adaptation To Institutional Change In Indigenous Fishing Communities In Kamchatka, Russia, Tatiana Degai, Maria Monakhova, Andrey Petrov, Victoria N. Sharakhmatova, Yulia Vasilieva

Faculty Publications

Discussions around salmon governance and management systems in the Pacific remain to be the source of debate and tension between recreational fishers, commercial fishing industry, Indigenous communities, government agencies, as well as the scientists (Chalifour et al., 2022; Day, 2023; Reid et al., 2022). While decades were spent on developing the “correct” salmon governance regimes, these systems still fail to respond to the needs of salmon-dependent communities and salmon populations (Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments, n.d.; Connors, 2023). In multiple contexts multi-level governance is enforced top-down and is imposed with the pretext of achieving “better” management of resources, yet increasing …

Csbs Kudos, Fall 2025, University Of Northern Iowa. College Of Social And Behavioral Sciences.

CSBS Kudos

Contents:

--- Faculty Accolades
--- New Faculty & Staff
--- In Memoriam - Carole Edginton
--- In Memoriam - Clemens Bartollas
--- UNI names Allison Rank as inaugural director of the Center for Civic Education
--- Tradition meets tomorrow, one historic image at a time
--- Historian Serena Zabin delivered 52nd annual UNI Becker Lecture on Boston Massacre
--- UNI ROTC program to remain on campus under new U.S. Army structure
--- UNI professor starts first-of-its-kind health initiative in Iowa for retired men
--- UNI hosts third White Coat Ceremony for nursing students
--- UNI welcomes students and community to …

Stories Of Racism And Resistance: A Narrative Analysis Of Stories Told In The Uk Windrush Generation And Descendants Of The Windrush Generation, Jessica Blumsom, Jacqui Scott, Emma Karwatzki, Aishath Nasheeda, David Hernandez-Saca, Alyson Malach, Glenda Andrew

Faculty Publications

The Windrush Generation (WG) and their descendants continue to experience adversity in the UK, including racism and the Windrush Scandal, with such adversities absent from psychological research literature. Intergenerational trauma is a psychological concept explaining that adverse experiences can be transmitted from one generation to impact subsequent generations. There has been limited consideration of the ongoing impact of adverse experiences that span multiple generations, such as experiences of racism within Western Europe. This paper utilised a narrative research design to study the narratives of members of the WG and those of their descendants in the UK. Eight expert by experience …

On Good Terms: Pathways To Decolonizing Science-Appropriated Indigenous Terminologies In Arctic Research, Stanislav Saas Ksenofontov, Vera Kuklina, Alexander Kholodov, Andrey Petrov

Faculty Publications

Many western scientific disciplines adopted Indigenous Knowledge and terminology without deference to or understanding of the original meanings and values attached to Indigenous terms and concepts. This form of scientific appropriation has become a serious barrier to efforts of decolonizing Arctic research. The notion of Alaas is an example of such appropriation by the western science-based system of Indigenous knowledge about human–nature relations. This paper aims to discuss the term Alaas as it is conceptualized in both western science and Indigenous knowledge. The paper will explore the development of “alas” as an international permafrost science term and Alaas as an …