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Journal Of Communication Pedagogy, Complete Volume, 2020

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Albert E. Copolillo, Phd, Otr/L, Faota

OJOT Sponsor Profiles

No abstract provided.

Wiser Assessment: A Communication Program Assessment Framework, Michael G. Strawser, Lindsay Neuberger

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Learning outcome assessment is a fairly recent trend in higher education that began in the 1980s (Lubinescu et al., 2001). Today, many faculty perceive assessment reporting to be tedious, time-consuming, and irrelevant busywork (Wang & Hurley, 2012). Unfortunately, this systematic process created to use empirical evidence to measure, document, and improve student learning has in many cases lost sight of this central goal. As a result, faculty may be justified in their opinions about it. This essay proposes a framework for addressing this thorny issue via WISER. WISER is an acronym for five content pillars of the communication discipline faculty …

The Feeling Heart In Medieval And Early Modern Europe: Meaning, Embodiment, And Making, Katie Barclay, Bronwyn Reddan

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

The heart is an iconic symbol in the medieval and early modern European world. In addition to being a physical organ, it is a key conceptual device related to emotions, cognition, the self and identity, and the body. The heart is read as a metaphor for human desire and will, and situated in opposition to or alongside reason and cognition. In medieval and early modern Europe, the “feeling heart”—the heart as the site of emotion and emotional practices—informed a broad range of art, literature, music, heraldry, medical texts, and devotional and ritual practices. This multidisciplinary collection brings together art historians, …

The Western Insider, Western Michigan University

The Western Insider

• 2019: A Year of #1s at Western
• The top WMU News stories of 2019
• Professor named AAAS fellow for watershed hydrology work
• Staffer accomplishes her college goal
• WMU enrollment is up in teacher preparation programs
• Western Michigan University ranked 'Best Hidden Gem' in nation
• He's changing the way Michigan teachers help children with trauma
• Goodwill taps WMU program for professional development

Reshaping The United States' Anti-Trafficking Legislation: The Need For Uniform Reporting And Victim Rehabilitation, Bryant Cross

Honors Theses

Trafficking in persons—or “human trafficking”—is a prevalent issue in the United States in the twenty-first century. Since the turn of the century, awareness surrounding the national and international problem of human trafficking has gradually risen. This rise in awareness came hand-in-hand with Congressional efforts to combat the trafficking of human beings through federal law—namely, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 and its subsequent reauthorizations. Unfortunately, federal legislators’ initial framing of the trafficking in persons problem as an international issue—rather than a national issue—led to the creation of a weak legislative foundation for anti-trafficking efforts in the United States. …

Childhood Trauma And Early Adult Engagement In Deviant Behavior: A Measure Of Experiential Avoidance And Impulsivity Association, Angelene Green

Honors Theses

Childhood trauma (CT) has been associated with early adult behavioral deviance (BD), as maintained by previous research. The current study examined experiential avoidance (EA) and impulsivity (IMP) as mechanisms through which childhood trauma and resulting behavioral deviance are related. Participants for the study included 588 students of Western Michigan University, comprised of both males and females. The participants ranged between the ages of 18 and 35. For data collection, participants completed an online survey through an online platform. Participants were directed to select responses in accordance with the variables of interest. For the purpose of identity preservation, the survey responses …

The Peaceful Transition Of Spain: How Authoritarianism Became Democracy, Emma Haiser

Honors Theses

The peaceful transition from authoritarianism under Francisco Franco to a democratic constitutional monarchy after Franco’s death stands as a critical juncture in modern Spanish history because of the uniqueness of the historical event. The transition occurred without direct foreign intervention to manipulate Spanish politicians into passing democratic legislation; instead, the transition was initiated by Francoist leaders who willingly enacted the regime’s change which undermined their initial place in society. The Spanish transition was caused by three main factors: societal opposition to the Francoist regime, democratic international influence, and progressive leaders taking office after Franco’s death. This paper will explore the …

Rain Gardens: The Return Of Ecosystem Services, Katie Dehaan

Honors Theses

In the modern world impervious surfaces, especially in urban areas, abound. These include roads, highways, sidewalks, parking lots, and roofs that have replaced permeable surfaces, mainly open land, forests, and wetlands. Rainwater runs off of these surfaces collecting pollutants on its way to permeable areas. Rain gardens collect and process rainwater. Native plants with deep root systems process large volumes of rainwater and the microorganisms living in the soils and roots can process pollutants. The purpose of my research was to find out what variables affect species presence or absence in rain gardens. Species presence or absence at the time …

Liking Mozart By Chen Chia-Tai, Elaine Wong

Transference

"Liking Mozart" is an English translation of a Chinese poem written by the Taiwanese poet Chen Chia-tai (1954- ).

Transference Vol. 7, Fall 2019

Transference

Complete issue with covers of Transference Vol. 7, Fall 2019

Autonomous Vehicle Interior Design, Nathaniel Torchalski

Honors Theses

As technology in the automotive industry advances and self-driving vehicles become more commercially available, design concepts for their interiors must also be developed. Research was conducted on automotive design and autonomous technology, drawing inspiration from production and concept vehicles of the past, present, and future. A survey was conducted to gauge possible consumer needs. Hand sketches, small-scale models, and a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) model was produced. A full-size model was developed using various material-forming processes, including 3D printing, woodworking, clay sculpting, and metal machining. The interior was designed with consideration for safety, comfort, and technological advancements to satisfy the needs …

Autonomous Vehicle Interior Design, Luis Vargas

Honors Theses

As technology in the automotive industry advances and self-driving vehicles become more commercially available, design concepts for their interiors must also be developed. Research was conducted on automotive design and autonomous technology, drawing inspiration from production and concept vehicles of the past, present, and future. A survey was conducted to gauge possible consumer needs. Hand sketches, small-scale models, and a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) model was produced. A full-size model was developed using various material-forming processes, including 3D printing, woodworking, clay sculpting, and metal machining. The interior was designed with consideration for safety, comfort, and technological advancements to satisfy the needs …

How Do Israelis And Palestinians Interpret Their Own Histories As Evidence That They Have Claim Over Israeli Held Territory?, Jacob Kubiak

Honors Theses

The Israeli-Palestinian War over Israeli-held territories has been a major controversy for many years. The modern conflict has been raging on since 1948. This conflict has caused the displacement of 1.4 million Palestinians, uprooting them from what they believe to be their ancestral home. Along with this displacement, the conflict has caused infrastructural collapse and the rise of terrorist organizations within Israel and Palestinian territories. Both groups have their own evidence in claiming the Israeli-held territory, including archaeological history and ancient texts to argue that they are the rightful owners of this land. The narratives of land claim belief are …

December 2019 Newsletter, Haworth College Of Business

Haworth College of Business News

• NABA promotes diversity, professional development
• Business student named Wuerffel Trophy recipient
• Sales and business marketing students clinch victories
• Students claim second place in HR games
• Human resource management student earns competitive scholarship
• Sustaining success
• Top 10 reasons to give

Scaffolding Choice, Increasing Access: A Summer Initiative To Promote Middle School Students’ Book Reading, Lauren Capotosto

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Middle schools often mandate summer reading as a means of stemming summer learning loss, but research suggests that many students do not read any books during the summer months. Limited book access and difficulties self-selecting books are two barriers that can impact students’ summer reading practices. To address these challenges, students in one Grade 7 classroom participated in an initiative designed to scaffold book choices prior to summer break and to increase students’ access to high-interest books. Compared to students in a randomly selected business-as-usual classroom, students who participated in the book scaffolding initiative were more likely to read at …

Social Media Sentiment Analysis With A Deep Neural Network: An Enhanced Approach Using User Behavioral Information, Ahmed Sulaiman M. Alharbi

Dissertations

Sentiment analysis on social media such as Twitter has become a very important and challenging task. Due to the characteristics of such data (including tweet length, spelling errors, abbreviations, and special characters), the sentiment analysis task in such an environment requires a non-traditional approach. Moreover, social media sentiment analysis constitutes a fundamental problem with many interesting applications, such as for Business Intelligence, Medical Monitoring, and National Security. Most current social media sentiment classification methods judge the sentiment polarity primarily according to textual content and neglect other information on these platforms. In this research, we propose deep learning based frameworks that …

Change In Attribution Perspective, Shame, And Academic Identity For Freshmen On Probation Enrolled In University Academic Recovery Courses: A Mixed Methods Study, Christine L. Robinson

Dissertations

Student retention is critical to the success of the student, the college or university, and society in general. Consequently, institutions of higher education continue to focus efforts on student retention strategies and one such strategy utilizes academic recovery courses to support probationary freshmen. Previous research studies of these courses largely focus on academic outcomes without examining the “why” or “how” behind such outcomes. Some studies also discuss constructs including attribution perspective, shame, and academic identity. However, the relationship between these constructs has not been researched, particularly with regard to any change that may occur for probationary freshmen engaged with an …

The Wrongful Conviction Program: A Program Evaluation, Ashley M. Chlebek

Masters Theses

The Western Michigan University Wrongful Conviction Program (WCP) operated under a grant awarded by the Department of Justice (DOJ) from 2015 through 2018. The WCP partnered with the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School’s Innocence Project (WMU-CIP) to assist in the screening, review, and investigation of claims of innocence. The WCP trained undergraduate students to conduct case investigations and supported WMU-CIP in several ways.

The evaluation presented here examines the activities of the WCP to understand the ways in which it achieved its intended goals, as well as the ways in which it impacts participating students and the innocence movement. …

Pcr Analysis On The Effects Of Alpha Synuclein Treatment On C6 Rat Glioma Cells, Michael John Helmus

Masters Theses

Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) is a rare neurological disease that mainly implicates the neuronal protein, alpha synuclein, as being centrally involved in MSA pathology. Despite synucleinopathy dogma, little is known about alpha synucleins role in MSA pathogenesis. The Ide laboratory previously conducted an Affymetrix gene expression study utilizing the post-mortem pons tissue from eight individuals with MSA and five individuals without any known neurological disorders. One conclusion from that study was that downregulation of numerous mitochondrial homeostasis related genes had occurred. It is hypothesized that alpha synuclein can perturb mitochondrial homeostasis through direct interaction with mitochondria. This study utilized Reverse …

Female Senior Student Affairs Officers’ Experiences In Decision Making Across Their Careers, Somaia Hamza Mustafa

Dissertations

This study explores the experiences of female Senior Student Affairs Officers (SSAOs) in decision-making across their careers in colleges and universities. This study focuses on female SSAOs who work in public and private institutions in the Midwest region of the United States. The experiences and perspectives of female SSAOs focused on the changes in decision-making styles while making small or large-scale decisions over time, the skillsets utilized, the challenges that they faced and the strategies that they employed. This study also explores female SSAOs’ experiences and perspectives regarding decision making when handling crises on campus.

The research design for this …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Ion-Implanted Gold Nanoparticles, Nurlathifah Fnu

Masters Theses

Gold negative ions of 70 keV energy were implanted within the quartz substrates at room temperature at seven different fluences starting from 2 x 10¹⁶ particles/cm² to 8 x 10¹⁶ particles/cm² with the increment of 1 x 10¹⁶. Prior to the implantation, Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM) calculations were carried to obtain the Bragg peak below the surface of quartz. Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) was carried out using 2.0 MeV He⁺⁺ ions to measure depth and implanted fluence of gold, and learn how they varied with fluence. Backscattered He particles …

Ultrafast Relaxation Dynamics In Graphene Oxide-Dye And Perovskites Nanocomposites, Abubkr A. Arzaq Abuhagr

Dissertations

Novel materials such as graphene oxide (GO), reduced graphene oxide (RGO), and Perovskites nanocomposites nanosheets have shown interesting electrical and optical properties. These materials have shown prominence in research regarding optical sensing applications. The interaction of different fluorescent molecules like dye molecules with GO, and RGO have been studied recently to develop novel optical sensors, photo-catalysts, and light-harvesting agents. In this study, we have monitored the excited state interactions of dyes covalently attached to GO and RGO nanosheets. Three amine derivatives of anthracene, pyrene, and coumarin were covalently bound to different systems via amide bonds and diazotization. Characterization of different …

Multiple Ssid Framework For Rss-Fingerprint Based Indoor Positioning Systems, Ahmed Kareem Abed

Dissertations

Location-Based Indoor positioning systems significance stems from the bloom of recent applications in various fields such as in tracking services for an elder or a patient within large living communities, mobile robot localization, and several other security applications. Currently, Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are the most widely used location-sensing technique. However, satellite-based GPS signals require line of sight (LOS) to work correctly, which is something cannot be achieved inside buildings. Fortunately, wireless LAN can be employed in indoor positioning systems (IPS), and since all large buildings such as malls, hospitals, airports, schools, and museums have hundreds of Wi-Fi access points, …

Analyzing Impacts Of Transportation And Non-Transportation Activities On Human Health With An Advanced Platform For Collecting Travel And Physical Activity Data, Raed Abdullah Hasan

Dissertations

Recently much attention is paid to the lack of physical activities that may cause the health problems in many counties. Travel activities provide a certain amount of physical activities, and the active transportation, such as walking and cycling, becomes more important as an essential element of transportation. The active transportation is expected to contribute to improving human health by reducing cardiovascular disease, obesity, and premature death. However, detailed relationship between the transportation choices and human health has not been well understood. Therefore, there is a need for investigating traveler behaviors and how their choices affect physical activities and public health. …

Toward Self-Reconfigurable Parametric Systems: Reinforcement Learning Approach, Ting-Yu Mu

Dissertations

For the ongoing advancement of the fields of Information Technology (IT) and Computer Science, machine learning-based approaches are utilized in different ways in order to solve the problems that belong to the Nondeterministic Polynomial time (NP)-hard complexity class or to approximate the problems if there is no known efficient way to find a solution. Problems that determine the proper set of reconfigurable parameters of parametric systems to obtain the near optimal performance are typically classified as NP-hard problems with no efficient mathematical models to obtain the best solutions. This body of work aims to advance the knowledge of machine learning …

The Impact Of Character Education Programs On Middle School Bullying Behavior, Kelly M. Amshey

Dissertations

Bullying is recognized as a barrier that must be addressed by schools to ensure that all students have access to educational opportunities. Due to high accountability with limited resources, schools must identify strategies to address issues such as bullying in a manner that provides the maximum benefit to students. Character education (CE) programs, which contribute to the bullying deterrent of positive school climate, may also lessen bullying through explicit teaching of character traits and prosocial skills.

The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a relationship between utilization of character education and prevalence of bullying in middle …

Supporting Black Mothers At The Transition: A Collaborative Design Prenatal Coparenting Program, Jordan Ebanaya

Masters Theses

Despite having the highest infant mortality rate of similarly developed nations, infant mortality rates have trended downward in the United States, however, the infant mortality disparity between Black and White infants persists. The causes of the disparity have been traced to social considerations of the mother especially while pregnant. These social situations include racism and discrimination, marital status of the mother, social support and pregnancy intentions, pointing to one commonality: stress. Using Boss and colleagues 2017 Conceptual Model of Family Stress, this study proposes a solution to address some of the social support, or resources, available to the expectant mother; …

The Vikings Reimagined: Reception, Recovery, Engagement, Tom Birkett, Roderick Dale

Northern Medieval World

Rediscovering the Vikings explores the changing perception of Norse and Viking cultures across different cultural forms, and the complex legacy of the Vikings in the present day. Bringing together experts in literature, history and heritage engagement, this highly interdisciplinary collection aims to reconsider the impact of the discipline of Old Norse Viking Studies outside the academy and to broaden our understanding of the ways in which the material and textual remains of the Viking Age are given new meanings in the present. The diverse collection draws attention to the many roles that the Vikings play across contemporary culture: from the …

Monkey Mind: Everyday Observations Of Mental Illness, Mikhayla Dunaj

Honors Theses

When I first was able to identify that I dealt with anxiety, I was 18 years old. At the time, I didn’t know how to explain it, and assumed it was only because I was in an unhealthy relationship, after already having been in an abusive one. At the end of my third year at Western Michigan University, I suffered a mental breakdown and started counseling.

The process of counseling was difficult, because as I opened up more, I realized that I had spent a majority of my life stuffing down things that were actually anxiety symptoms, assuming that it …