Digital Commons Network^™

Frameworks For Repatriation: Moving Beyond Nagpra, Ashley Joplin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Museums and similar federally funded educational institutions have been collecting human remains since the Enlightenment era in the 1800s. Since then, these institutions have developed various collections practices that have encouraged the collection of human remains. Often unethical in nature, these collections have harmed historically marginalized communities, such as Indigenous and African American communities. While the ethics of collecting have been under scrutiny for decades, it was not until 1990 under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) that mainstream attention was drawn to the ethics of collections practices.

This thesis explores these collections practices and the repatriation …

Museums In Public Libraries: An Ethnographic Case Study Of The Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library, Yadira Y. Quintero

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Access to information is a human right, and this thesis explores the benefits and challenges of integrating museums into public libraries by conducting an ethnographic case study of the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. The study's findings highlight the complexities of integration. The biggest benefit is the increased access to museum collections, information, and resources. However, challenges arise from the lack of cohesion within the museum and library disciplines, as well as strained community relations. Engaging the community is crucial for successful collaboration, emphasizing the importance of a bottom-up approach that allows for active participation. Integrating museums into public libraries …

Archaeological Predictive Meta-Modeling In Pre-Columbian Mexico, Peter Stamm

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Archaeological Predictive Modeling stands firmly as an important tool for Archaeologists to predict undiscovered sites from civilizations all across the globe. While powerful, this methodology is not without its own set of qualms. Striking a balance between pure a data-driven approach while also observing leading expert theories can be a complicated task. Going further, deciding on the specific domain of features to emphasize or overlook can be a challenge within itself, as one misstep can drastically change the output of model, sometimes for the worst. In addition, creating models that can expose their reasoning process can be rather difficult to …

The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence, School Culture, And School Leadership, Virginia Lorean Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This study was a qualitative instrumental single holistic case study as outlined by Robert Stake in

1995. It focused on three research questions. The goal was to gain perspectives from teachers

and a principal on teacher retention and the culture of a campus. The emotional level of the

principal was evaluated on social awareness, self-awareness, relationship management, and self-

management by the principal taking part in an emotional intelligence assessment. The single

holistic case study approach was used, which had six phases of analyzing the data. The results

were then compared to the teachers’ interviews and surveys that were …

Exploring The Meaning Of Moshing: An Ethnographic Study Of The Relationship Between Hardcore/Punk Culture And Catharsis, Clayton Kempf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research looks at “moshing,” an aggressive style of dancing that occurs primarily at hardcore/punk concerts. Moshing involves people at a concert throwing their bodies, swinging their limbs, running into people, and hitting one another. I aim to explore how mosh pits and hardcore/punk culture provide participants with an emotional release through catharsis. Catharsis looks at releasing emotion to help alleviate pent-up stress physically and emotionally. A cathartic release can temporarily offer peace of mind, clarity, and joy that overrides the feelings of negative emotions and stress. I will examine the process people go through to reach this cathartic release …

Chronic Pain: An Exploration Of The Experience Of Chronic Pain, Andrea Alzalde

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chronic pain is a pervasive public health issue within Western society today and amongst humans worldwide. Although chronic pain is something that many people have or will experience sometime in their life, it is a complex experience that does not have a simple universal solution or immediate cure. The causes of pain can be a multitude of things and the treatments that work for some may not work for others. The current research seeks to explore the experience of chronic pain to help fill gaps in the wider research of pain. This study pursues answers to two research questions including; …

Shifting From Damage Towards Desire At History Colorado: An Exploratory Case Study, Amanda Cali

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the paradigm shift within the fields of anthropology and museum studies away from decolonization and towards indigenization through a case study of the changes in museological practices of the History Colorado Center in Denver, Colorado, and one of its community museums, the Ute Indian Museum in Montrose, Colorado. This thesis examines the changes in consultation and collaboration, the care and stewardship of collections, the implementation of the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM), and co-curation of exhibits. This thesis looks at the paradigm shift as a movement away from “damage-based research” within communities to “desire-centered research” …

Illness Terminable And Interminable: A Lacanian Exploration Of Medical Assistance In Dying, Matthew Devine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

More and more people worldwide are requesting euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide (PAS), or medical assistance in dying (MAiD). Arguments in favor of expanding access to MAiD tend to prioritize the rational, competent, autonomous subject who has the right to make decisions about their body, including their death. Some have argued that this perspective – common in biomedical and bioethical literature – tends to neglect the fact that requests for assisted dying involve a relational structure: a relationship between the subject who requests an assisted death and the Other to whom this request is addressed. After reviewing relevant psychoanalytic approaches to suicide …

Narrative As Story And Ground: Toward A Dialogic Communication Theory Of Narrative Care, Preston Carmack

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We live in a historical moment when a nuanced understanding of narrative as both ground and story is essential. In examining the work of two primary scholarly voices working with narrative and operating from a communicative lens, Walter R. Fisher and Ronald C. Arnett, this project lays a theoretical foundation for understanding the dialogic interplay of narrative as story and narrative as ground. Through tracing Fisher's and Arnett's contrasting interpretations of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, a preeminent neo-Thomistic philosopher whose work has significantly contributed to the study of ethics and narrative construction of human rationality, coordinates related to telling …

"That’S Not A Meal, Bestie”: Humor, Identity, & Feminized Consumption In “Girl Dinner”., Claire Tudor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the viral “Girl Dinner” trend as a case study in how gendered consumption, digital identity, and feminist humor intersect in digital spaces. Using “Girl Dinner” as a rhetorical artifact, this thesis explores how women use gendered trends to navigate visibility, labor, and autonomy in online spaces. Through thematic analysis of TikTok content, media coverage, and branded adaptations, the research traces the evolution of the trend from a lighthearted joke to a site of cultural negotiation. This study reveals that while “Girl Dinner” may appear empowering and relatable on the surface, it often reinforces traditional gender expectations under …

Empowerment Through The Sisters Lifting As We Climb Network: Examining The Organization’S Impact On Black Women, Sharnay Hearn Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological case study examines the role of empowerment within the “Sisters Lifting as We Climb Network” through the experiences of Black women participants in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Utilizing in-depth semi-structured interviews, the research investigates the organization's origins, evolution, and social support mechanisms that foster empowerment, as well as participants' experiences with programs and activities over the past nine years. Additionally, the study identifies areas for organizational improvement to further enhance participant empowerment.

The findings of this research support the empowerment theory framework by clarifying the preconditions, processes, and outcomes of empowerment within the Network, which fosters sisterhood and enhances participants' …

Examining The Lived Experiences Of International Students At East Tennessee State University, John The Baptist Anodjo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the lived experiences of international students at East Tennessee State University (ETSU), specifically examining how they navigate social, academic, and structural challenges. Through in-depth interviews with 20 international students from a variety of nationalities, I analyzed issues related to legal status, housing, food insecurity, healthcare, and social integration. I found that students encounter barriers due to immigration policies, financial constraints, and limited access to essential resources. Additionally, international students benefit significantly from support provided by campus services, community organizations, and their social networks, which play a vital role in their adjustment process. While institutional resources are beneficial …

Electronic Health Record Downtime, Grace R. Baldauf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electronic health record (EHR) downtime presents significant challenges to patient safety and care quality in acute care settings, particularly regarding timely medication administration. This project addressed the problem of late or absent medication doses during planned or unplanned EHR downtime. The investigator aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a structured downtime plan in improving nurses’ ability to administer medications on time during periods of EHR unavailability. The investigator used a quantitative design to implement a downtime plan evaluation paradigm. Data were collected using retrospective chart reviews of medication administration records pre-implementation and postimplementation of the downtime plan. The sample included …

A Ritual Of Institutions: The State Industrial School In Golden, Colorado And The Shaping Of American Youth, Cyndal Groskopf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the Colorado State Industrial School as a ritualistic institution that influenced boys aged 7 to 19 through Americanization practices between 1881 and 1930. By employing primary documentation, drone imagery, and LiDAR technology, the study examines how cultural and physical activities, along with personal statements, described and maintained the ritualized nature among these incarcerated youth. The findings reveal how institutional routines and activities reinforced narratives of American identity, particularly in relation to themes of personal identity, conformity, and agency. These rituals played a crucial role in institutionalizing cultural ideals and shaping the identities of marginalized youth. The research …

Movement As Metamorphosis: An Examination Of Transformative Learning In Dance, Whitney Egstad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the arts-based methodology of Educational Criticism and Connoisseurship (Uhrmacher, Moroye, & Flinders, 2017) to examine the curriculum and pedagogy of a Colorado-based dance studio, this qualitative dissertation explores how transformative learning (TL) unfolds within the context of adult dance education. Grounded in Mezirow’s (1991) theory of transformative learning, the study investigates how dance becomes a medium for personal transformation, identity reconstruction, and emotional healing. Data collection included six hours of interviews with instructors and students and twelve hours of class observations, focusing on how adult learners experience curriculum not just as technical instruction, but as an embodied, relational journey …

Culture And Environment: The Calling Lakes Ecomuseum As A Community Sustainability Initiative, Kace N. Anders

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Located in Saskatchewan, Canada, the Calling Lakes Ecomuseum, CLEM, is a community-based organization focused on water management and sustainability. Ecomuseums are holistic organizations that occupy landscapes, are responsive to community needs, conserve in situ heritage, and incorporate sustainability along with community development. The ecomuseum movement came from a need for holistic heritage management that disengaged with conventional museology and created space for communities to engage with their heritage in ways that promote community identity. This thesis analyzes the Calling Lakes Ecomuseum and how it utilizes the ecomuseum concept alongside environmental sustainability. Both semi-structured interviews and place-based field observations were used …

Pilgrimage, Trade And Empire: A Gis Investigation Of Pre-Hispanic Roads In The Ocoña And Chorunga Valleys Of Peru, Geri Evilla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines Inca imperial expansion into the Ocoña and Chorunga Valleys, through an investigation of precolonial roads and trails. It focuses on the Middle to Late Horizons (700 BCE-1534 CE), with specific attention to the last 100 years, when the region was occupied by the Inca state and experienced a rapid increase in population and architectural development. Data collected in excavations, and pedestrian, and drone surveys were used in geographic information systems, to map pre-Hispanic road systems. A combination of Least Cost Path and viewshed analyses were used to investigate land use patterns and tie this region into the …

The Role Of Imagination In Archaeology: Linking Contemplation And Method At The Amache National Historic Site, Sami Zepponi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Archaeology is both a science and an interpretative process, blending material discovery with imagination to reconstruct past experiences. This research, conducted through the 2024 University of Denver Amache Field School, explores the archaeological imagination and the creative and cognitive engagement that shapes historical interpretation. Using Amache, a WWII Japanese American incarceration site, as a case study, this thesis examines how material culture, landscape modifications, and reflection inform archaeological understanding. This study explores how imagination connects tangible findings to cultural narratives by integrating community-based archaeology, place and landscape theory, and contemplative inquiry. Findings highlight imagination as essential to archaeology, enabling deeper …

E Ho’Omau Mākau, We Will Continue: The Living Sovereign Entities Of Contemporary Hawaiian Songs, Kēhaulani Lagunero

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the relationship between contemporary Hawaiian mele (songs) and Hawaiian ea (sovereignty), focusing on how mele acts as sovereign living entities representing cultural resilience, identity, and resistance to settler-colonial influences. Through semi-structured interviews with Kānaka Maoli, participant observation at cultural events, and close analysis of mele, I identify that these songs are not only expressions of cultural memory, but also living embodiments of ea—sovereignty because they are alive, and they are alive because they are ea. Drawing from the frameworks of cultural survival, survivance, symbolic power, and defiant indigeneity, I explore how mele actively engage …

A Raced Theology Of The Human Person: An Expanded Theological Anthropology, Cary W. Dabney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on race as a critical, yet largely unaddressed, topic in Catholic theological anthropology. In Catholic colleges and universities that are recognized as members of the Cardinal Newman Society, theological concerns about race are deemed irrelevant for theological education in the faith and are altogether absent from the theology of the human person. As a result, this collection of institutions treats race as a specialty within pastoral theology, one that is significant to groups, but not a part of the fundamental theology of the human person. This ‘un-raced’ theological anthropology results in the institution’s inability to respond effectively …

Entropy And Incarnation In The Duchamp Room: An Inquiry Into Aesthetic Time, Jesse Goodman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the posthumous installation of Marcel Duchamp, Étant donnés, as a test case for how particularly historically situated artworks may or may not change over time. It begins with an overview of Duchamp’s biography, and his own theories of art’s relationship to temporality (which influenced the piece’s construction). It then moves through contrasting accounts of aesthetic time from Adorno and Robert Smithson. Section two works with Walter Benjamin’s writing on photography and aura to produce an account of estrangement between the piece and the viewing subject induced by the historical development of the artwork’s “translation” and “replication”—through …

The Contribution Of Catholic Compromise Principles In Global Health, Scott N. Helstad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Roman Catholic tradition has developed comprehensive ethical principles to address complex practical scenarios that encounter foundational value compromises. These are referred to as compromise principles and they have both a narrow and a broad focus. Narrowly, these compromise principles are critical for Catholic healthcare organizations in the United States with regard to the guidelines of the US Bishops in their Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. More broadly, these compromise principles are relevant in the secular realm regarding global health. This dissertation examines these varying perspectives, hence its title, “The Contribution of Catholic Compromise Principles …

Hospital Organizations’ Obligation To Promote Spiritual Well-Being Among Nurses: Development Of A Normative Ethical Argument, Michael Jordan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents an innovative strategy to promote the support of nurses' spirituality within hospital organizations. By focusing on the spiritual well-being of nurses by hospital organizations, with a natural extension into nursing schools, the approach aims to enhance nurse’s ability to protect their own spirituality, provide comprehensive spiritual care to patients, and increase nurse moral resilience. By investing in nurses' spirituality and spiritual growth, hospitals can potentially increase job satisfaction among nursing staff, improve patient care outcomes, and create a more holistic healing environment for both nurses and patients. As the nursing shortage continues and the number of nurses …

Kenneth Burke's Epideictic Rhetoric Of Science, Andri Kosasih

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses Kenneth Burke’s challenges, notions, and perspectives on modern science and how we should view, utilize, and apply science to our lives. This project argues that we need more than the rhetoric of science; we need an epideictic rhetoric of science. The term epideictic is important because the encounter between science and society creates a tension between maintaining and changing beliefs. Because science involves belief and is itself a belief, every time we engage with science, it demands a verdict from us: to believe or to reject it. On the other hand, as we seek to maintain our …

The Ethical Imperative Of The Renewal Of Virtue Within The Moral Community Of Catholic Healthcare, Amanda Altobell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Catholic healthcare is one of the largest nonprofit organizations and providers in the United States, offering medical care to many diverse communities. The fundamental mission of Catholic healthcare is to bring about Christ’s healing ministry and live out the fundamental principle of caring for the vulnerable in pursuit of the common good. However, there have been many missteps, not only due to a more polarized and secular community but also to scandals and conflict due to previous hierarchical and rules-based anthropology that often misses the person's lived experience. Therefore, this dissertation will argue that for Catholic healthcare to survive the …

Thresholds, Dagon Blank

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Thresholds focuses on liminal spaces, moments of change, and those who cross these boundaries. For instance, transitions from the old to the new, unconscious to conscious, the known to the unknown, or where man meets nature. Sometimes, I think of them as a threshold where both sides are trying to cross simultaneously, but the door is only big enough for one to fit. The scenes in these paintings focus on the figure set in the contemporary world, referencing symbols of classical paintings, mythology, and philosophy.

The scenes are dynamic and driven by the expressiveness of the human figure and the …

Tracing Clovis Landscapes: Chert Sourcing At The Copelin Valley Site In Kentucky., Shaylee Scott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study conducts a raw material sourcing analysis of Clovis lithic artifacts from Copelin Valley, Hart County, Kentucky, a key Clovis occupation site. Over a decade of documenting private collections and recent archaeological investigations confirm the site's significance within the Paleoindian landscape. Using reflectance spectroscopy, a non-destructive technique, this research assesses chert source probabilities for over 100 Clovis points and tools. By integrating spectral data with geological sourcing frameworks, this study examines raw material procurement strategies and their implications for Clovis mobility and settlement. The findings reveal patterns in material selection, shedding light on occupation intensity, technological organization, and landscape …

“Souls Cannot Rest In Contested Places”: An Ethnographic Case Study And Archeological Environmental Assessment Of The North Shore Cemeteries., Henrietta K. Ransdell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an ethnographic case study and archeological-environmental assessment of the North Shore Cemeteries to derive condition commentary and care recommendations for the landscape, cultural resources, descendant community, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Framed by theories of space-place culture, dispossession, and public lands co-management, this multi-methods, interdisciplinary thesis combines historical context, environmental conditions, archeological documentation, participant observations, and ethnographic interviewing of NPS and community affiliates to derive applied strategies for cemetery repair, operational efficacy, and this specific, public lands “co-management” relationship. With data from 12 interviews, eight participant observations, and six condition assessment surveys, it’s argued that perceptions …

Black Women Under The White Gaze: Resistance From Enslavement To Incarceration And Reentry., Barbie C. Parker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Black women in the United States who are currently incarcerated or have previously served time in prison have a particular need for protection as they move through the criminal “injustice” system because they frequently act as the primary caregivers for their families. Consequently, Black female convicts have historically had to create their social networks inside and outside carceral spaces as a form of resistance to white supremacist ideologies and as a site of protection. By highlighting Black women’s history of enslavement and incarceration, the different forms of resistance, and centering their narratives, we can paint a more complex picture of …

Healthcare Access And Agency In Material Culture: A Specialized Analysis Of Pharmaceutical Artifacts From Louisville’S West End., Sara Marian (Deurell) Ignacio

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The American Victorian Period of the 1870s to 1920s was a time of significant transitions in medicine. In Louisville, Kentucky, this period saw an influx of Black healthcare professionals and the founding of Louisville National Medical College, the state’s first medical school open to people of color. A number of these professionals lived and/or practiced in the Beecher Terrace study area, which was excavated between 2017 and 2020. Patent medicine brands and archival records were examined qualitatively in order to understand neighborhood and case study household health concerns and consumer choice. Statistical analyses of the medicine bottles recovered during the …