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Death Ends A Life Not A Relationship: The Embodied Mourning And Memorializing Of Pets Through Material Culture, Gemma N. Koontz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many individuals develop strong bonds with their pets, viewing them as close “furry” friends or family. When these beloved companions die, both their relational and physical absences are deeply felt. Lacking socially recognized rituals to mourn and memorialize their pets, owners turn to and adapt traditional “human practices,” primarily that of keeping meaningful or significant items of the deceased.

Using both personal experiences and perspectives from multiple fields, this thesis discusses the life-cycle of the human-animal bond, examines the types of items owners keep or create, and how these are used to facilitate both mourning (the outward expression of grief) …

First Among Equals: The Pre-Nicene Christian Eucharist In The Context Of Greco-Roman Mystery Cults, Jacob Hayden

Student Research Symposium

The Eucharist, a ritual meal which is also called communion, the Mass, and the Lord's Supper, is, for many Christians, the central activity of their worship. This study examines the phenomenon of the Eucharist in its early, Greco-Roman context, focusing on the period between the missions of Paul up to the First Council of Nicaea (approximately 50 C.E. to 325 C.E.). First, it describes the early practice of the Eucharist and then compares it to other ritual meals celebrated in Greek and Roman religion, especially the "mystery cults" of Demeter, Isis, Mithras, Cybele, and Dionysus. Christians of this period, the …

Hydraulic Fracturing, Mandilyn Hatch, Shannon Burnham

Student Research Symposium

Hydraulic fracturing or also know as fracking, the removal of natural gas and oil from shale rock, took off in the 1990s, but the anti-fracking movement didn't start taking notice until 2005. Fracking began to take place in the the south and the middle of the United States, because those areas are not known for have environmental activists. Anti-fracking groups main goal was to convince the public that fracking, caused health problems, contaminated drinking water, and increased seismic activity. Where as pro-fracking groups claim that it creates jobs, and boosts the economy for the locals in the area. Our main …

I Can't Breathe; The Effects Of Hydraulic Fracturing On Public Health, Lily Fullmer, Sophie Hancey

Student Research Symposium

This research analyzes public health risks associated with hydraulic fracturing and the public perception of these risks specifically in Denton, Texas. Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is an expensive and environmentally harmful project that might not be worth it with the potential of air or water pollution at every site. The United States Energy Information Agency released an assessment in 2012 that the Marcellus Shale contains 141 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, making it one of the largest reserves in the world (Brasier et al., 2017). More specifically, Denton County in Texas is one of the core counties …

Get The Frack Outta Here, Jordan Love, Jordan Nathan

Student Research Symposium

The term hydraulic fracturing, is a method utilized for the extraction of oil or gas from 'eccentric' supplies, for example, shale (Williams, 2017). This topic of fracking has come with two sides and has created some public misunderstanding on hydraulic fracking, with those who agree with fracking and feel it is an important environmental tool that helps the world, and helps the community bring in more revenue, and then the side that does not agree with fracking and feels the risks outweigh the rewards: contaminate ground water supplies, its hazardous conditions, and the industrialization impacts on communities (Ladd, 2014). There …

Parenting Classes For Aces Prevention, Melissa Wells

Student Research Symposium

This presentation will be an in progress report of my Spring 2019 URCO grant project Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can impact a person's life dramatically. However, the number one protective factor for preventing negative outcomes of trauma is by having a stable trustworthy adult in a child's life. The purpose of this study is to help local parents in Richmond, UT learn additional effective parenting strategies that support bonding ties and parent success in interacting with their children as well as prevent unnecessary stress in the family. In addition, we are looking for recurring patterns that indicate which parenting strategies …

Emotional Labor, Gender, And Social Interaction In Animal Care, Michael Briscoe

Student Research Symposium

Animal caretakers fill an important role in society - performing both hard and dirty work as they look after animals, and the overwhelming majority of nonfarm animal caretakers are women. This ethnographic study was conducted over the course of 11 weeks at an animal boarding facility. It finds that caring for animals is emotionally taxing labor, and that employees feel this type of work is particularly suited for women - though the exact reasons why vary. The animals themselves often serve as social facilitators between both staff and customers as employees navigate the stressful environment.

To Frack Or Not To Frack: Hearing The Voice Of The People, Megan Aagard, Mo Uasike

Student Research Symposium

Over the course of the the last decade Hydraulic Fracturing or Fracking has become an increasingly popular practice throughout the United States, specifically in rural areas. This industry has been the cause of expanded debates in communities that are nearby fracking site locations. The citizens opinions on fracking can be affected by factors such as environmental consequences, personal and public health concerns, employment opportunities, tax increase and decrease, state and county income and population fluctuation. The focus of our study is to incorporate qualitative analysis data by collecting information found by using interviews conducted with employees of fracking sites and …

Health Care Provider Recruitment And Retention In Millard County, Utah, Ron Draper

Student Research Symposium

Millard County, Utah with its remote rural location and low population density has experienced recurring problems with recruiting and retaining primary care health care providers. By conducting a series of in-depth interviews with current and past health care providers as well as administrators involved in the recruitment efforts, this research aims to improve the understanding of the root causes of provider recruitment and retention failures in Millard County. Findings of this study will help us design more effective methods of recruiting and retaining health care providers in the county. Lessons learned from Millard County may also provide valuable insights for …

Countermovement To Marketization Of Water (A Comparative Study Between Iran And Us), Elham Hoominfar

Student Research Symposium

Environmental movements are one of the important sources of resistance against degradations which are results of economic or development projects in natural resources and the marketization of the environment (Wolford &Keene, 2015; Robbins, 2012; and 2004; McAfee & Shapiro, 2010; Spronk, 2007; Escobar, 2004). Since the 1970s, environmental protests have become more and more influential with regard to neoliberal environmental policy. Environmental movements, as examined within the context of political ecology, reveal the unequal distribution of power in terms of control of the environment and access to natural resources (Robbins 2012). The study focuses on two water transfer projects to …

Poets, Pioneers, Sci Fi Authors And Arctic Explorers: Deaccessioning Audiovisual Materials In The Archives, Lisa E. Duncan, Trent Purdy

Journal of Western Archives

In 2017 the University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections (UALSC) conducted a survey of audiovisual materials in its collections. The Multimedia Archivist collected data on the content, quantity, format and condition of these materials. Deaccessioning collections was not a practice UALSC had routinely implemented in the past. However with the additional information collected during this survey obvious candidates for deaccessioning arose. The Multimedia Archivist was concerned about the long term preservation of these collections so it was imperative that UALSC take action. The backlog for the reformatting of audiovisual materials was large and the budget limited. The collections identified for …

Documenting Disasters: A Focus On Floods, Patricia J. Rettig

Journal of Western Archives

A more thorough understanding of disasters can help archivists assemble and acquire collections of depth that will be of wide use to scholars, survivors, and others. To investigate the broader context of disasters, the focus of this article is on natural disasters, looking at floods in particular, with the hope that the information can be applied to other tragedies. The article includes an in-depth examination of disaster studies literature of assistance to archivists, along with accounts of experiences working with flood collections.

Curriculum Subcommittee Minutes, April 4, 2019, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Program Proposals

• Offering a Bachelor of Science in Human Experience Design and Interaction
• Discontinuing all K-6 degree programs leading to licensure
• Changing the specialization name in Literature and Writing to Creative Writing
• Restructuring Climate Adaptation Science
• Changing the department name from Geology to Geosciences

Semester Course Approval Reviews

Other

• Appoint committee chair for 2019-2020 academic year

Curriculum Subcommittee Agenda, April 4, 2019, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Program Proposals

• Offering a Bachelor of Science in Human Experience Design and Interaction
• Discontinuing all K-6 degree programs leading to licensure
• Changing the specialization name in Literature and Writing to Creative Writing
• Restructuring Climate Adaptation Science
• Changing the department name from Geology to Geosciences

Semester Course Approval Reviews

Other

• Appoint committee chair for 2019-2020 academic year

Educational Policies Committee Agenda, April 4, 2019, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Curriculum Subcommittee
• Academic Standards committee
• General Education Subcommittee
• Appoint committee chair for 2019-2020 academic year.

Educational Policies Committee Minutes, April 4, 2019, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Curriculum Subcommittee report
• Academic Standards Subcommittee report
• General Education Subcommittee report
• Appoint committee chair for 2019-2020 academic year

Expanding The Learning Network: How Teachers Use Pinterest, Stephanie E. Schroeder, Rachelle E. Curcio, Lisa Lundgren

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This exploratory qualitative study of 117 teachers explores how educators engage with Pinterest, an online social networking site, specifically asking: (1) What similarities and differences exist in how elementary-level preservice and elementary-level in-service teachers engage with Pinterest? (2) What similarities and differences exist in how secondary-level in-service teachers and elementary-level in-service teachers engage with Pinterest? Findings indicate teachers at all levels tend to use Pinterest to search for educational resources and adapt resources to suit their classroom needs. Preservice teachers identify a more complex interaction with Pinterest than in-service teachers when determining quality resources. Findings indicate a need for future …

Queering Consent: Design And Sexual Consent Messaging, Avery C. Edenfield

English Faculty Publications

For decades, sexual violence prevention and sexual consent have been a recurrent topic on college campuses and in popular media, most recently because of the success of the #MeToo movement. As a result, institutions are deeply invested in communicating consent information. This article problematizes those institutional attempts to teach consent by comparing them to an alternative grounded in queer politics. This alternative information may provide a useful path to redesigning consent information by destabilizing categories of gender, sexuality, and even consent itself.

Curriculum Subcommittee Agenda, March 7, 2019, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Program Proposals

• Establishing a Division of Career and Technical Education
• Offering a BA/BS in Finance with emphases
• Offering an online BS degree in Technology
• Changing the name from Parks and Recreation to Recreation Administration
• Offering an undergraduate Anticipatory Intelligence Minor
• Changing the name from English: Professional and Technical Writing Emphasis to English: Technical Communication and Rhetoric Emphasis

Semester Course Approval Reviews

Other

• EPC/Curriculum Handbook

Educational Policies Committee Agenda, March 7, 2019, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Curriculum Subcommittee
• Academic Standards Subcommittee
• General Education Subcommittee

Educational Policies Committee Minutes, March 7, 2019, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Curriculum Subcommittee report
• Academic Standards Subcommittee report
• General Education Subcommittee report
• Request from the Department of Geology in the College of Science to change the department name from Geology to Earth Sciences
• EPC/Curriculum Handbook

Kids Killing Kids: Mental Illness, Adolescence, And Mass Murder, Levi Cragun

Research on Capitol Hill

Are rates of mental illness higher in adolescents who commit mass violence compared to other adolescents? Are rates of mental illness higher among adolescents who commit mass murder compared to adults who commit mass murder?

Motivations For Women’S Activism In Hydraulic Fracking, Taya Godfrey

Research on Capitol Hill

Research Question: What motivates females to become anti-fracking activists?

Hydraulic fracturing is a way of obtaining natural gas and oil from deep within the earth by injecting high powered water and chemicals into shale rock to fracture it, and therefore release natural resources (Manfreda, 2015).

We have seen much activism surrounding the issue of fracking because of the environmental and health controversies associated with it. We have also noted an increasing number of female activists and hope to determine the cause. By understanding what motivates women to become anti-fracking activist we can further encourage female activism in many other spheres. …

The Influence Of Neighborhood Cohesion On Homelessness In Cache Valley, Utah, Madison Elliott

Research on Capitol Hill

• The 2017 Utah Point in Time Count reported that 2,852 Utah residents were identified as being homeless (Utah Housing and Community Development Division, 2017).
• There is a large gap in research that explores one’s likelihood of becoming homeless and its relation to community integration and neighborhood cohesion. Community integration can be defined through the feelings of acceptance within one’s social network(s), sharing common norms and values with those around you. (Sayer, et al., 2011) Neighborhood cohesion is the sense of shared morals and trust within a neighborhood community.
• Current bodies of knowledge in social science literature discuss other causes of …

Utah State University’S Cache Valley Latinx Voices Project: Social Justice In The Archives, Randy Williams, Eduardo Ortiz, Maria Luisa Spicer-Escalante

Journal of Western Archives

Northern Utah Speaks is an in-depth ethnographic effort by Utah State University Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives (SCA) to bring diverse voices of Northern Utah communities into the Archives. Since 2006, the focus is with social justice in mind as SCA endeavors to bring the voices of underrepresented and historically excluded people into the Archives. Calls to make archival records more inclusive stretch back fifty years, however for many archival institutions this work has moved forward in fits and starts, if at all, and most often without the input and assistance from the community to be studied, collected, and included. …

Seeking Grace: Reconstructing The History Of African American Alumnae At The University Of Denver, Katherine Crowe

Journal of Western Archives

The University of Denver (DU), a private college founded in 1864–12 years before Colorado became a state–has recently begun to grapple with its complex and sometimes fraught histories with alumni of color. The DU Archives has partnered over the past five years with the Sistah Network, a student group formed by Black women faculty to support Black women graduate students, as its founder, Dr. Nicole Joseph, wished to focus specifically on the history of the University's Black alumnae. Since 2013, the Archives has completed several oral histories with alumnae from the 1960s, and have recovered the names, graduation dates, and …

The Importance Of Cognitive Diversity For Sustaining The Commons, Jacopo A. Baggio, Jacob Freeman, Thomas R. Coyle, Tam Nguyen, Dale Hancock, Karrie E. Elpers, Samantha Nabity, H.J. Francois Dengah Ii, David Pillow

Ecology Center Publications

Cognitive abilities underpin the capacity of individuals to build models of their environment and make decisions about how to govern resources. Here, we test the functional intelligences proposition that functionally diverse cognitive abilities within a group are critical to govern common pool resources. We assess the effect of two cognitive abilities, social and general intelligence, on group performance on a resource harvesting and management game involving either a negative or a positive disturbance to the resource base. Our results indicate that under improving conditions (positive disturbance) groups with higher general intelligence perform better. However, when conditions deteriorate (negative disturbance) groups …

The Birch Creek Canids And Dogs As Transport Labor In The Intermountain West, Martin H. Welker, David A. Byers

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Historically, domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have been documented as central features of Intermountain West and Great Plains Native American camps. Some of these dogs were bred specifically for largeness and stamina to haul travois and to carry pannier-style packs. Ethnographic accounts frequently highlight the importance of dogs in moving through the Intermountain West and the plains, reporting loads as heavy as 45 kg (100 lbs). We calculated body mass from skeletal morphometric data and used these to estimate prehistoric and historic dog load capacities for travois and pannier-style packs in the Intermountain West, Great Plains, and Great Basin. Specimens of …

Challenges In Columbia River Fisheries Conservation: A Response To Duda Et Al., Brian K. Hand, Courtney G. Flint, Chris A. Frissell, Clint C. Muhlfeld, Shawn P. Devlin, Brian P. Kennedy, Robert L. Crabtree, W. Arthur Mckee, Gordon Luikart, Jack A. Stanford

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The salmonid fisheries of the Columbia River Basin (CRB) have enormous socioeconomic, cultural, and ecological importance to numerous diverse stakeholders (eg state, federal, tribal, nonprofit), and there are a wide array of opinions and perspectives on how these fisheries should be managed. Although we appreciate Duda et al.'s commentary, it offers only one perspective of many in this context. The objective of our paper (Hand et al. 2018) was to provide justification for “the importance of social–ecological perspectives when communicating conservation values and goals, and the role of independent science in guiding management policy and practice for …

The Utah Statesman, January 22, 2019, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.