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Institutional Racism And Public Policy : A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The War On Drugs, Kyle L. Mahannah

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Through reviewing the concept of institutional racism, I examine how this concept has been employed in the discourse on the war on drug. Moreover, I explore how this term has been employed by opponents and proponents on the war on drugs. First, I explore how the term 'institutional racism' is defined by various authors and scholars. I then reviewed how the United State Supreme Court has set precedents regarding intentional and unintentional discrimination. I also investigate how the concept of institutional racism is used in the discourse on American institutions of education, economics, law, and politics. l then review how …

The Application Of Bok’S Undergraduate Educational Framework In The Analysis And Acquisition Of Core Competencies Among Camp Adventure Youth Services Seasonal Staff, Bin Ruan

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to investigate the growth trajectory of college and/or university students in core competencies from entry to exit in the Camp Adventure™ Youth Services (CAYS) experience using the lens offered by Bok's framework. Specifically, students' growth patterns in core competencies were charted at three phases, namely, (1) baseline of their core competencies at entry level; (2) after receiving knowledge and practical training on the theory and implementation of CAYS' course but before its field experience; and (3) immediately after the CAYS' field experience. The core competencies included in the study were, according to Bok's framework, …

Development Of A Spatial Decision Support Tool For Watershed Critical Area Identification Of Soil Loss And Best Management Practices (Bmps) Evaluation, Luhua Cai

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Soil erosion has been identified as a major contributor to water quality degradation. Agriculture is historically known for accelerating soil erosion. In Iowa, with 88% of land in agriculture use, agricultural practices have became the dominant source of nonpoint source pollution and soil erosion is the leading water problem in Iowa. Controls of soil erosion are needed. Best Management Practices (BMPs) are recognized as the most efficient way to control non-point source pollution, and numerous BMPs have been developed for soil erosion control. Therefore, it is important to have a decision support tool that can identify the soil erosion problem …

The Writer-Of-Violence-As-School-Shooter Stereotype: How Columbine, Virginia Tech, And Public Fear Make Writing Violence Dangerous For Students, Matt Foy

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In a period when students, parents, teachers and administrators are bombarded with images related to school shooting attacks, efforts to prevent such attacks in the future and to identify students who pose a threat to school safety have intensified. These efforts to fight the seemingly mounting wave of school violence have contributed to the rise of stereotypes of what a school shooter looks, talks, and acts like. This study examines one of these stereotypes: the writer-of-violence-as-school-shooter stereotype. This stereotype, which gained attention after 1990s rampages such as those at Heath High School (Kentucky) and Columbine High School and became highly …

The Effectiveness Of Colored Overlays On Reading Achievement And Attitudes Toward Reading For Students With Scotopic Sensitive Syndrome, Hanan Ali Bagabas

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study investigated the effects on students identified with Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS) or Irlen Syndrome (IS) when using colored overlays as an intervention (immediately and over time) to assess reading performance (rate, accuracy, and comprehension); to measure visual-motor integration; and to assess attitude toward reading. SSS/IS is a visual perceptual problem related to a collection of symptoms that affects an individual's performance when reading. Three participants, all males (one 3rd -grade student, one 4th -grade student, and one 5th -grade student), were identified as having SSS/IS and other learning disabilities.

The study involved five test instruments (Irlen Reading Perceptual …

The Thought Processes Of Administrators As They Review And Make Evaluative Judgment Of A Second-Year Teacher Portfolio: A Qualitative Study, Terri Anne Lasswell

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This qualitative study explored the thought processes of administrators as they reviewed and judged second-year teacher artifacts (a portfolio) relative to the Iowa teaching standards and criteria (ITS/criteria). In addition, data was collected pertaining to the tools principals used as they conducted portfolio evaluation and the amount of bearing the portfolio had on a licensure decision.

Data for the study was gathered via a think-aloud process in combination with guided interview questions. Nine principals participated in the study; three each from elementary, middle, and high school. The nine principals were also representative of rural, suburban, and urban geographic/demographic regions. The …

The Effects Of Varying Seeding Rates Of Bouteloua Curtipendula And Mowing On Native Plant Establishment In A New Prairie Reconstruction, Ryan Leon Welch

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

A major problem early in prairie reconstruction is weed competition. Research has shown that mowing in the first year can increase establishment and survival of prairie plants. The use of nurse crops (companion crops) has been suggested as an alternative to mowing for weed suppression. The goal of this study was to examine various seeding rates of B. curtipendula, as a nurse crop in mowed and unmowed plots to determine if it suppressed weeds and aided in the establishment of natives. We hypothesized that increasing the seeding rate of B curtipendula will reduce weed growth and promote an increase in …

A Phylogeographic Analysis Of Fiddler Crabs, Uca Longisignalis And U. Pugnax, Cydney Brooks

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Uca pugnax and U. longisignalis are fiddler crabs commonly found in the southeastern United States. These sibling species occupy distinct regions. Uca pugnax is found on the Atlantic and U. longisignalis on the Gulf coasts. Their distributions are separated by the Florida peninsula. Many different taxa with similar distributions in this region have been the focus of phylogeographic studies. In these studies, it appears there is no simple pattern to explain genetic variability. Previous studies of Uca pugnax and U. longisignalis reveal no significant morphological or physiological differences within either species across its respective region. The purpose of this study …

The River Of Heart: A Novel, Salma Akbar

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The River of Heart: A Novel is the story of Naureen - a young, rebellious girl who finds her voice after her family buries her. In Naureen's village, the family honor is more precious than life, and women pay the price of honor. Naureen falls in love against her parent's wishes. Fearing her father's wrath, Naureen runs away from home. After reading her obituary in a newspaper, Naureen escapes to America with a fake identity. In Iowa City, she takes care of Amma, an elderly, blind woman. From Amma, Naureen learns to be self-reliant. In order to settle a past …

Racial Prejudice And Political Orientation: A Test Of Dovidio And Gaertner’S Integrated Model Of Racism, Abbie Anne Chalupnik

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Although the direct expression of racial prejudice is no longer accepted in society, it has not altogether disappeared. Aversive racism is characterized by pro and anti-Black attitudes, which have been largely socialized, creating an intrapsychic conflict sometimes causing overcompensation in favor of minorities (Nail, Harton, & Decker, 2003). Modern racism stems from traditional values and the Protestant work ethic, and is expressed through attitudes about social policies yet remains fundamentally racist (Kinder & Sears, 1981; Sears & McConahay, 1973). This study extended Dovidio and Gaertner's (1998) Integrated Model of Racism, which links political liberals with the expression of aversive racism …

Further Delineation Of The Role Of The Amygdala In Face Processing And Racial Categorization, Osman Afzal Chowdhry

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

DNA exonerations in the legal system have increased steadily since 1989 from one or two per year to an average of 21 per year since 2001. A disquieting number of these exonerations originated from wrongful convictions following cross-racial identifications. Explaining the prevalence of erroneous cross-racial identifications centers on the Cross Race Effect (CRE), a phenomena whereby recognition for one's own race greatly outweighs recognition ability for other-race faces. Forty years of research in this area has produced a number of competing explanations. Recent neurological evidence has demonstrated separate neural regions for the processing of same-race and other-race faces as well …

A Master's Recital In Percussion, Matthew M. Andreini

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This recital was given in partial fulfillment of a Master of Music degree in Percussion Performance at the University of Northern Iowa. The selections included in this program are works which are representative of both the historical and contemporary styles of percussion composition. The following abstract provides discussion in the historical background, compositional styles, systems of notation, and performance techniques used in each of the works from the program.

Employee Personal Wellness Programs: Benefits And Barriers To Participation, Amanda Bakeris

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This research study uses the health belief model as a theoretical framework for investigating employees' perceived costs and benefits to participation in a utility company's personal wellness program. A questionnaire was administered to the employees of the company gauging their current use of the program, as well as costs and benefits they perceive to affect participation. The barrier dimensions investigated were time-effort, social, physical effects, and specific obstacles. The benefit dimensions investigated were social, psychological, body image, and health. Based on the descriptive statistics and regression analysis, it was concluded that the benefits significantly related to participation, biometric participation, satisfaction, …

Identifying Communication Skills Necessary For Two-Year College Graduates To Succeed In The Changing And Competitive Workplace, Sarah R. Baker

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Today's job market is increasingly competitive and businesses require job candidates to not only have degree-program expertise, but possess other general workplace skills as well. This poses a unique challenge for community colleges because instructors have just two years or less to prepare students for the workforce. They need to ensure that all career related material is taught as well as other workplace skills such as oral and written communication. The purpose of this study was to identify workplace skills, specifically those related to communication, desired by companies that hire community college graduates and explore a possible need to expand …

A Motor Speech Programming Investigation Using Inhibition: Part I, Jeffrey Thomas Backlin

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The current study investigated stop/go boundaries for speech acts (i.e. saying "uh, annul, annulment") in a speech inhibition task modeled on Slater-Hammel's (1959) experiment. Specifically, the project sought to answer the following research questions: (1) Can human speakers learn to stop a sweep hand using their voice? (2) What is the absolute (100%) inhibition threshold for "uh?" (3) What is the threshold at which one half of the spoken response for "uh," can be inhibited? Two additional studies were conducted for the additional stop targets "annul" (Williams, 2009) and "annulment" (Corbett, 2009). Self-report and informal speech-language screening assessed ten adult …

Baseball As Family: Successful High School Coaches’ Perceptions On Effective Communication, Aaron Barber

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study focuses on what successful high school baseball coaches think they do to communicate effectively. Interviews were used to find emerging themes and to gain anecdotal insight as to how coaches communicate in particular situations. Through the analysis of the interviews, the themes of family, leadership, credibility, identity and organization became apparent in all coaches interviewed. Each coach applied these themes using their own unique style of communication. Understanding and reflecting upon this qualitative study will provide useful insight for leaders of all types and are not limited to only coaches.

A Speech Motor Programming Investigation Using Inhibition, Alison Michele Corbett

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Motor learning and its applications have been extensively studied, particularly in the area of sports physiology and kinesiology. From these fields, many theories of movement and its control mechanisms have evolved. Previous research has drawn upon these theatrical principles to investigate the specific parameters of skilled movements, specifically the time required to complete an action. In particular, a finger-lift task has been used to study the refractory period during which a motor program can not be inhibited when trained to occur at a particular temporal target (Slater-Hammel, 1959). The current study applies key methodological concepts from Slater-Hammel's work to examine …

Gender Violence Prevention: The Effects Of A Forum Theater Program On Bystander Efficacy And Behavior, Jennifer Nicole Crawford

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Sexual victimization on college campuses has been and remains a concern. In 1987 Koss, Gidycz, and Wisniewski reported that the prevalence of sexual victimization, including unwanted sexual contact, sexual coercion, attempted rape, and rape, among female college students was 54 percent, nearly three times that of women in the general population. The most recent National College Women Sexual Victimization study (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000) reported that 2.8% of women experienced rape or attempted rape during the academic year, with closer to 5% experiencing violence across twelve months. These findings, and those like them, have led to a rapid increase …

A Master Of Music Recital In Flute, Nicole M. Davis

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Nicole M. Davis performed a Master of Music Flute Recital at six o'clock in the evening on Friday, April 3, 2009 in Davis Hall, Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center. Collaborating with Ms. Davis to present selected works by various composers were Angela Reynolds (flute), Angela Staron (bassoon), Genadi Zagor (piano), Sean Botkin (piano) and Serena Hou (piano). The program opened with C.P.E. Bach's Trio Sonata in E Major, Wq. 162, H. 580 for two flutes, continuo and keyboard, followed by Theobald Boehrn's Grand Polonaise in D Major, op. 16 for flute and piano. The haunting sounds of Ian Clarke's Orange …

Iranian American Women Writing Their Lives: Poststructuralist Analysis Of Lipstick Jihad, Funny In Farsi And Saffron Sky, Chelsea Ann Thiebaut Delucenay

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study analyzes Azadeh Moaveni's Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran, Firoozeh Dumas's Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America, and Gelareh Asayesh's Saffron Sky: A Life Between Iran and America all examined within, against, and through the lens of poststructuralist feminism. Emphasis is placed on issues of hybridity and naming in a dual-cultured, dual-languaged world. Moaveni, Dumas, and Asayesh begin the task of writing a memoir in order to better understand themselves and to attempt to create a solid identity based on both Iran and America. By …

Investigating The Potential Contributors To Non-Suicidal Self-Injury: Stress, Emotional Dysregulation, And Alexithymia, Kelly K. Espenschade

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Research has investigated perceived stress, non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), emotional dysregulation, and alexithymia independently. However, there have been no studies to date that have simultaneously examined the relationship among all these variables. The purpose of this study was to examine these variables among those who had or had not engaged in NSSI. Five hundred seventy-seven college students completed self report measures of non-suicidal self-injury, perceived stress level, emotional dysregulation, and alexithymia. As hypothesized, those who had engaged in self-harm behaviors reported higher levels of perceived stress, emotional dysregulation, and alexithymia. There were no gender differences except on perceived stress levels, where …

Social Support And Work-School Conflict: A Daily Study, Eric John Faurote

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The goal of this study was to examine within-person associations between work-school conflict (WSC), social support at work, job satisfaction, and negative affect. There were 108 undergraduates for a Midwest university that participated in this study. Greater WSC was associated with decreased job satisfaction and increased negative affect (NA). Social support buffered the relationship between WSC and job satisfaction such that individuals with low social support experienced a decrease in job satisfaction when WSC was high, but they did not experience this decrease with social support was high. Greater social support from co-workers was associated with increased job satisfaction and …

Rape Myth Acceptance In A Dynamic Environment: Application Of Social Impact Theory To Rma, Zebbedia G. Gibb

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study examines conditions under which attitudes related to sexual assault, commonly known as rape myths, may be transmitted through culture by applying the tenets of Social Impact Theory (Latane, 1981). Social impact theory suggests that three forces influence attitude change, namely the immediacy of the source to the target, the strength of the source, and the number of sources of a message. It was hypothesized that participants who chatted with a confederate who was similar to them and endorsed rape myths would report accepting those beliefs at a higher rate than participants who chatted with a confederate who was …

The Whisper Of An Echo And Other Stories, James Timothy Frazier

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

"The Whisper of an Echo and Other Stories" is a collection of short stories written during my many, many years of scholarship at the University of Northern Iowa

Risk Management Of Commercial Overland Food Transport And Distribution, Lucas Charles Hartman Geadelmann

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this research was to study the contemporary safety issues related to the overland transport of perishable food items via semi-truck and trailer. An anonymous survey instrument consisting of 20 questions was developed in order to examine semi-truck driver habits. The questions pertained to truck driver safety and subsequent food safety matters related to the perishable food items contained within the trailers. The paper surveys were distributed to the semi-truck driving employees of two food distributors located in the upper Midwest, which had agreed to voluntarily participate in the study. A total of 90 surveys were completed and …

Resistance To And Virulence Of Fusarium Verticillioides, Tracy Lynn Bruns

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The filamentous fungus Fusarium verticillioides is plant pathogen that is responsible for billions of dollars in crop loss world wide. Fusarium verticillioides is of concern as it causes serious infections in maize and other agronomically important crop plants worldwide. Toxins produced by this fungus make grains from infected crops unusable. Plant resistance (or lack thereof) to disease is and has been for centuries a problem in agricultural productivity. Recent advances in the understanding of plant disease resistance promises to allow us to discover ways to counter the invasive properties of Fusarium verticillioides. Currently, very little is known about the virulence …

An Analysis Of State-By-State Variations In African American Incarceration Rates, Kristen Laura Johnson

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

A great deal of social scientific research has examined the overrepresentation of African Americans in the American criminal justice system. Many of these analyses have focused on racial disparities in sentencing, and the disproportionate confinement of African Americans in jails and prisons. While the overrepresentation of African Americans in the criminal justice system is indisputable, explanations for this condition are often complex and controversial.

Evaluating The Sentencing Of Non-Violent Drug Offenders, Christopher Joseph Koch

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

A great deal of criminological literature asserts that many non-violent drug offenders are being unnecessarily incarcerated in our nation's prisons. This argument suggests that those offenders typically specialize solely in drug crimes and alternative sanctions would be the most logical and cost-effective way to handle this growing segment of offenders. The purpose of the current research is to examine sentences for non-violent drug convictions and to assess whether presumably non-violent drug offenders pose a significant risk or threat to public safety. An analysis of a sample of 530 convicted drug offenders shows the majority do indeed have significant criminal histories …

A Comparison Of Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Sexual Minority Students And Issues In Schools With And Without Gay Straight Alliances, Kelli Ranae Otis Brus

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' attitudes toward sexual minority students (including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students) and issues related to this population of students. A sample of 166 high school teachers from schools with and without gay-straight alliances (GSAs) were compared on several measures to determine if teachers from schools with GSAs were significantly more supportive toward sexual minority students and issues than teachers in schools without GSAs .. Participants completed research packets containing the Professional Attitude Index Scale (PAIS) (Sears, 1992), a hypothetical situation of homophobia in a classroom for participants to provide …

Using Community Resource Mapping To Improve Systems Of Positive Behavioral Support And Wraparound, Daniel Innes

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This paper will discuss the use of a technique known as resource mapping in an effort to improve systems of Positive Behavioral Supports (PBS) and Wraparound provided by the school system. The concept of PBS will be defined and discussed, along with a common student support philosophy known as Wraparound. Next, resource mapping will be discussed along with its associated benefits for schools and communities. Finally the results of a resource mapping project in a medium sized Midwestern community will be presented along with a discussion of the obstacles associated with such a task.