Digital Commons Network^™

Virginia Commonwealth University Commencement Program [2014], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Virginia Commonwealth University Graduate And Professional Programs Bulletin Courses [2014], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Bulletins

Listing of professional and graduate courses for 2014-2015.

Qualitative Inquiry In An Age Of Educationalese, Gustavo F. Fischman, Adai Tefera

Foundations of Education Publications

In this introduction we reflect on two key questions that initiated this special issue on qualitative inquiry: What can qualitative researchers do to regain their post-paradigm-wars cache? How do we avoid distracting “science wars” in the future? We suggest that the strong tendency to narrow the research methods accepted as “scientific” – because they adopt quantitative perspectives and are presumed a priori to be more rigorous – has created an educationalese, a narrative of rigid categories that has not necessarily contributed to more effective or persuasive educational research. The article ends by suggesting that the use of “knowledge mobilization” strategies …

Frequently Asked Questions: Community-Engaged Research (Cenr) And Vcu's Institutional Review Board (Irb), Cynthia George

Community-Engaged Research Resources

No abstract provided.

Assessing Design Thinking Through The Activation Of A Social Challenge In Higher Education: An Academic Inquiry, Amin Matni

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an inquiry that documents, identifies and assesses the effectiveness, circumstances, and potential resources related to addressing the gap between social needs and higher education as stated in the National Development Strategy 2011-2016. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate the response of the students on the collaborative, human-centered, result-oriented aspects of design thinking while addressing the eating experience topic, an articulated theme from the wicked problem of obesity. The eating experience theme provided students from design, business and engineering majors a contextualized topic to test design thinking in a series of workshops conducted in three different …

Quality Of Life In Emerging Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Staci Carr

Theses and Dissertations

This study is focused on exploring quality of life in young adults in the autism spectrum and the factors that contribute to their own perception of satisfaction with their lives. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurodevelopmental disability that is associated with deficits in social interaction and communication and with restricted and repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). There has been a documented increase in the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), making it to be one of the fastest growing diagnosed disabilities in children (Hartley-McAndrew, 2014). In the United States, the prevalence of ASD is approximately 1 in 68 children, …

Old To New And New To Old: A Study Of Dematerializing Transitions Between Old And New Architecture, Jane Ellen T. Moss

Theses and Dissertations

This project explores the juxtaposition of classical and contemporary architectural forms as they coexist within Richmond City’s urban fabric. It is an assessment and understanding of how the built environment can reinforce transitions between old and new in ways that both integrate architectural differences and embrace historical identity.

Richmond, and a large part of Virginia in general, has been shaped by the historical events of its existence. The sights of the city reveal a clash of the old and new. It is a city where newer developments and traditional elements have been trying to co-mingle.

The design incorporates a contemporary …

Journal Of Hip Hop Studies

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

The Hip In Hip Hop: Toward A Discipline Of Hip Hop Studies, Monica Miller, Daniel White Hodge, Jeffrey Coleman, Cassandra D. Chaney

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Editorial.

Speech Is My Hammer, It's Time To Build: Hip Hop, Cultural Semiosis And The Africana Intellectual Heritage, Samuel T. Livingston

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

The article examines Hip Hop music's relationship with African cultural symbolism and the discipline of Africana Studies. The author maintains that Africana Studies must reclaim the study of cultural semiosis, which may be used to contextualize Hip Hop praxis. Examining semeiotic traces within African and Afrodiasporic primary sources, including Hip Hop lyrics, the article posits that Hip Hop is the latest development in a long tradition of Afro-Kemetic oral artistry, semeiotic systems and the uses of these dual literacies as modes of resistance and affirmations of Black historical and cultural agency. The article adapts Harryette Mullen's literary model of African …

Journal Of Hip Hop Studies

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Breaking Grahamstown; Breakin' The Dance: Exploring The Role Of Break Dancing In The Construction Of A Break Dancer's Identity, Lauren Kent

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Presented at the Hiphop Symposia in Johannesburg, this article is a shortened version of an Honours research paper that the author wrote in fulfillment of her B.A. degree in Anthropology at Rhodes University in 2010. In the paper, she explores the complex interplay between break dancing and identity formation processes by offering a case-study of a break-dancing crew based in Grahamstown, South Africa.

Characteristics Of Effective Communication About Mental Health In An African American Urban Community: A Qualitative Analysis, Jeannette Porter

Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown African Americans experience mental health issues at the same rate as the general population but seek treatment at only one-third that rate. Eleven African American low-income urban community leaders with basic training in mental health issues were interviewed about their perceptions of African American patterns of communication on mental health issues. Findings included a general consensus that the topic is generally not discussed, although passing references to a party’s perceived mental illness may be made using humor. When such discussion does take place, it happens only in a “safe space” with a trusted dialogue partner. Non-verbal cues …

Dīpaṅkara Buddha And The Patan Samyak Mahādāna In Nepal: Performing The Sacred In Newar Buddhist Art, Kerry Lucinda Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Every four years, in the middle of a cold winter night, devotees bearing images of 126 Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other important deities assemble in the Nepalese city of Patan for an elaborate gift giving festival known as Samyak Mahādāna (“The Perfect Great Gift”). Celebrated by Nepal’s Newar Buddhist community, Samyak honors one of the Buddhas of the historical past called Dīpaṅkara. Dīpaṅkara’s importance in Buddhism is rooted in ancient textual and visual narratives that promote the cultivation of generosity through religious acts of giving (Skt. dāna). During Samyak, large images of Dīpaṅkara Buddha ceremoniously walk in procession to the …

Cultural Factors Associated With Utilization Of Antenatal Care Services In Rural India, Anjali Om

UROP Posters

Despite vast economic growth in developing countries in the past few years, infant mortality continues to plague underdeveloped regions, particularly rural regions of India. Many of these deaths are caused by a lack of education and motivation in regard to utilization of antenatal and neonatal care services to prevent and treat consequences of unhygienic umbilical cord care.

For years, high incidences of neonatal tetanus have plagued rural areas of India as a result of cultural practices that encourage topical applications of cow dung to cut umbilical stumps either directly or by using ghee heated with cow dung to warm umbilical …

Designing Connection, Laurie K. Culshaw

Theses and Dissertations

Social connection is an essential human need. Personal connections exist at a variety of depths and within different types of relationships. Small daily choices determine the strength of those connections and their impact on our well-being as individuals and as a community. Modern society and technology have altered the speed and channels of connection, increasing communication but decreasing meaningful connection. It is critical to understand how the methods of communication affect the depth of connections. Through a series of participatory graphic design projects, I analyze the strengths and weaknesses of one-on-one, small group and community connections within an established taxonomy …

Fred Kabotie, Elizabeth Willis Dehuff, And The Genesis Of The Santa Fe Style, Jessica W. Welton

Theses and Dissertations

Those scholars who have overlooked the relevance of Fred Kabotie and the Santa Fe Style he developed have missed an important historical segment of early Native American painting. This dissertation underscores the convergence of diverse intellectual, artistic and cultural backgrounds, especially those of Kabotie and Elizabeth Willis DeHuff, his first art teacher, which led to the formation of the Santa Fe Style in 1918. This style was formative for Dorothy Dunn’s later Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian Boarding School.

This first generation of the Santa Fe Style of watercolor painting was empowered by highly educated men and women, …

Development And Preliminary Validation Of The Youth Therapist Observational Cultural Competence Scale, Carrie Tully

Theses and Dissertations

The increasing diversity of the United States creates a pressing public health need to investigate methods to increase the engagement, retention, and efficacy of mental health services for racial/ethnic minority (REM) youth. Evidence from the adult psychotherapy treatment literature suggests that enhancing therapist cultural competence leads to increases in client satisfaction, alliance, and retention (Constantine, 2002; Sodowsky, Kuo-Jackson, Richardson, & Corey, 1998; Worthington, Soth-McNett, & Moreno, 2007). However, this relationship has not been adequately explored in youth mental health services, due in part, to a lack of valid and reliable measurement. This research project included measure development and initial validation …

Theorizing When User Reaction To It Implementation Is Neither Resistance Nor Acceptance, But Constructive Behavior: A Case Study Of Healthcare It Implementation, Kaveh Mohajeri

Theses and Dissertations

The prevailing discourse of “resistance vs. acceptance” in IT implementation research mostly personalizes the issue as “users” versus IT implementers (e.g., managers, CIOs, CMIOs, etc.). This kind of discourse has created an IT-implementer-centric attitude among IS scholars and practitioners. The IT-implementer-centric attitude, while embraces “acceptance” as a desirable reaction almost unconditionally, frequently holds for minimizing or more conservatively suppressing “resistance” to IT implementation. In other words, the mainstream IT implementation research, almost completely, treats “users” as passive recipients whose choices, as they face pre-developed/pre-designed/pre-rolled-out technology being implemented, can only be defined on a spectrum from “acceptance” to “resistance.” The current …

Vintage Anxiety, Bradford Pearce

Theses and Dissertations

Poems

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’S Multivalent Tower Of Faces, Grace Astrove

Theses and Dissertations

Holocaust survivor Dr. Yaffa Eliach collected over 6,000 photographs depicting residents of Eishyshok, a small Jewish settlement in Eastern Europe, taken between 1890 and 1941. Eliach survived the Nazi-led massacre in 1941 that killed nearly the entire Jewish population of Eishyshok. As a way to commemorate the destroyed town of her youth she began to collect photographs from other survivors and residents who fled Europe prior to the Holocaust. She subsequently selected 1,032 photographs from the Yaffa Eliach Shtetl Collection for display in The Tower of Faces, a permanent exhibition in The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, located in Washington, …

Shaping This Space Between Us: Using A Reflexive Journaling Process To Explore The Complex And Malleable Space In Which Identity Exists, Lina Mahusain

Theses and Dissertations

While some parts of identity remain constant throughout one’s life, many aspects of a person’s identity are subject to rapid and constant change and negotiation. Using theories regarding the role possessions play in the construction, reinforcement, and manifestation of a person’s identity, this thesis project explores the potential to facilitate meaningful insights and awareness into one’s own identity. This will be achieved by designing a reflexive journaling process. A qualitative evaluation of this prototype journal process used by a pilot group of young creative individuals will generate an assessment of the proposed process

“The Flow Of Blood In Nature” Franz Marc’S Animal Theory, Morgan Rinehart

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues for a coherent theory of the animal in the written and visual works of the German Expressionist painter, Franz Marc. By contextualizing Marc’s animal theory within the history of animal studies, this thesis will analyze how Marc’s animal theory corresponds with several central concepts within this field. One of these concepts—a theory of animal death—is central to the artist’s greater theory of the animal and to the analysis this thesis provides. In examining Marc’s theory of animal death, the following work will propose that the artist’s theory of animal spirituality is his greatest legacy within the field …

Code-Switching In The Classroom: Teaching The Neutral American Dialect To The 21st Century Student, Hollis Louise Casini

Theses and Dissertations

Language is a personal process, a product of not only our development, but of one’s culture. Yet in the United States, an actor must be able to speak without a detectable dialect to be competitive in the entertainment world. How can voice teachers in a multi-cultural society, train students with more attention to the individuality of the students we educate? In this thesis, I present the information I have found important in my development as a voice teacher that has influenced my approach to training actors to use the Neutral American dialect. I begin by outlining human language acquisition and …

Examining The Relationship Between High School Deviant Behavior And Substance Use In College Students., Amanda Ndemo

UROP Posters

The main purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between deviant high school behavior and substance use, as limited to alcohol and cigarette use. Deviant behavior as analyzed was defined by symptoms of conduct disorder and alcohol and cigarette use was limited to the past 30 days of the individual’s college career. The Conduct Disorder (CD) symptoms queried in the survey included setting fires, fights and things of that nature. Deviant behavior sum scores were created based on a pattern of related behaviors and the frequency at which each occurred. Data from 2022 VCU freshman who completed the …

Female Leadership In Powhatan Indian Tribes: Changes From First Contact With The Europeans To The Present Day, Brittany Allen

UROP Posters

The negative effects of European colonization on Native American groups have long been observed and studied, but little attention has been given to the impact those negative effects had on the roles of women in the leadership of tribes. All Native American groups faced disease, warfare, and limitations of their rights after the arrival of European settlers in their land, but women in particular were affected by hardships that resulted from colonization. By analyzing records of women acting as chiefs in the century immediately following the Powhatan tribes’ first contact with the Europeans and comparing the high number of women …

Incomplete Reflections: Addressing Potential Bias In Digital Curation, Rachael Hulvey

UROP Posters

Digital scanning technology offers many benefits to archaeology and curation in its ability to preserve virtual representations of artifacts in databases without harming the object. However, various selective pressures may limit which artifacts are digitally curated. The material of an artifact or details on an object’s surface may prevent it from scanning properly. Scans which inaccurately portray the surface detail of an artifact may be ignored by those who edit and process the files in favor of a more attractive scan. Scanning efforts designed for public outreach may favor certain artifacts over others. These selective pressures may produce unintentional bias …

Applied Theatre: History, Practice, And Place In American Higher Education, Joseph A. Obermueller

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this paper is to examine the practice of Applied Theatre in order to better define the genre and make a case for its legitimization and inclusion in higher theatre education. By looking at the theatre practitioners of the 20th century who paved the way for its existence as well as modern practitioners, a definition will be distilled down to five core characteristics of the practice with several case studies illustrating those characteristics. Once a clear distinction has been made between Applied Theatre and other similar genres, the case will be made for why the field should be …

Fragments Of Social Life, Rachel Leah Cohn

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines selected events from biography and how those events have influenced my philosophies about art-making as well as the work I have produced while a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University. This thesis is an attempt to give an expanded context for my work through various lenses, including the personal, the traumatic, the historical and the material.

The Role Of Family Organization In Family Health History Communication About Cancer, Vivian M. Rodríguez

Theses and Dissertations

Family health history (FHH) has been recognized as an important tool in cancer prevention and health promotion. To date, literature on FHH discussions about cancer have largely focused on patient-physician communication or the dissemination of cancer-specific genetic tests results within the family. Fewer studies have sought to identify family factors that may promote FHH discussions, yet this type of information could be used to identify families needing support in having these conversations. Thus, the present study examined relations between family organization (cohesion and flexibility), communication openness, and FHH communication about cancer within a diverse group of women recruited from an …