Digital Commons Network^™

Non-Indian Reservations, Joshua Matthew Rosenau

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis is a skeptical treatment of the logical distinctions presumed to exist between “Indian” and “non-Indian” people. Despite representing 99 percent of the U.S. population, “non-Indians” represent a legal identity which has no explicit definition. The basis for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions regarding non-Indians and Indians rests not on any objective, empirical or logical criterion or proof, but rather on the “assumption of a ‘guardian-ward’ status. This thesis investigates this assumption, and recommends that we suspend judgment on whether the difference between “Indians” and “non-Indians” can be determined either by logical argument or by legal assumption.

Social Connectedness, Community Participation, And Health, Ari B. Silverman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Persons with disabilities (PWD) experience social, economic, and environmental disadvantages which have contributed to marginalization, health disparities, and challenges with community participation. Various forms of social closeness appear to serve as protective factors against physical and mental health for the non-disabled population, but it is unclear whether social connectedness is associated with community participation and health for PWD. This within-subjects, correlational design study used survey and Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) data from a sample of persons with mobility impairments (MI) to determine the direct and indirect effect of social connectedness and participation on health, the barriers and facilitators to participation …

Effects Of A Suicide Assessment And Intervention Training On Participant Preparedness, Comfort, And Competence, Kelley Margaret Donisthorpe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study evaluated the effects of a six-hour strength-based suicide assessment and treatment workshop on participants knowledge, feelings of comfort and preparedness, skills and confidence, and self-reported suicide competence. Participants included school and mental health counselors, as well as other professions in related fields who completed one of the three workshops in Billings, Bozeman, or Victor, Montana. Participants completed a pretest before engaging in the six-hour workshop, and then completed a posttest packet immediately following the workshop. Participants were assessed using the SCAF (Cramer et al., 2013), and three unpublished measures: Suicide Knowledge Quiz (SKQ), Suicide Skills Survey (SF-SSS), and …

School Counselor Self-Advocacy And Trait Emotional Intelligence As Predictors Of Professional Quality Of Life In School Counselors, Kindle Dawn Lewis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

School counselors are integral to the holistic success of students and are needed now more than ever as high rates of youth mental health issues, traumatic events at schools and global crises have become part of every school year. Unfortunately, as with most helping professions, many school counselors are struggling with maintaining a healthy professional quality of life due to chronic stress work environments. School counselors who have higher levels of compassion fatigue (burnout and secondary traumatic stress) and lower levels of compassion satisfaction are more likely to have decreased quality of care for students, decreased self-efficacy, decreased overall wellbeing …

Marketing The Golden Rule: Near East Relief And Philanthropy’S Role In The Political Economy, 1915-1930, Elizabeth Berit Barrs

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The history of the American aid agency Near East Relief (NER), particularly its Golden Rule Sunday campaign from 1923 to 1928, reveals an integral part played by philanthropy in the broader political economy in the interwar years, specifically in the American food industry. Millions of Americans participated in the campaign by eating a simple four-cent orphanage-style meal and donating the cost difference from their normal Sunday dinners to support starving children orphaned by the Armenian genocide. By the mid-twenties NER’s Golden Rule Sunday became a nation-wide cultural phenomenon.

Near East Relief was founded in 1915 as a temporary effort to …

The Tongass Futures Roundtable: Distrust, Inequity, And Collaboration In Southeast Alaska, Hannah M. Wilson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Collaborative processes are increasingly being used to address complex natural resource management challenges, and trust between participants has been highlighted as a key component of successful collaboration. However, little research has focused on why collaboratives fail and the role of distrust in collaboration. This study examined trust and distrust in the Tongass Futures Roundtable, a collaborative group in Southeast Alaska that attempted to address timber, conservation, and Alaska Native land management issues, but was widely perceived to have failed. The history of conflict between timber and conservation interests as well as between Alaska Natives and other stakeholder groups meant that …

Complicity And Climate Change, Shalomita Kristanugraha

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As individuals, how should we understand our personal complicity in climate change related harms? In this thesis, I argue that the predominant way we think of complicity within the Western moral paradigm—that is, as a distribution problem—is inadequate in helping us understand the nature of our complicity in climate change related harms. This inadequacy, in turn, psychologically hampers individual citizens residing in high-emitting nations of the Global North from effective and sustainable social and political engagement with climate change. To address the inadequacy and obstructions that result from it, I follow the discussion between Christopher Kutz and Iris Marion Young …

Education Is Your Most Powerful Weapon: Gaining Understanding From Apsáalooke Knowledge, Salena Ann Beaumont Hill

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

American Indian college students have many motivating factors for pursuing a higher education. One common theme among American Indian college students is the motivation to give back to their tribal nation. This study explores the expectations of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation for college students returning home. An Indigenous Research Methodology with Apsáalooke epistemology is used. Along with tribal practices and protocols, situational analysis was adapted to align with the methodology. The findings include four major elements informing Apsáalooke expectations of returning students: culture and identity, the college student experience, the realities of returning home, and expectations of Apsáalooke students who …

Addressing Long-Standing Water Contamination Issues In Diné Communities Using Indigenous And Western Scientific Approaches, Ranalda Lynette Tsosie

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The intent of this study was multifaceted and based on a research framework that incorporated the Diné worldview and Diné Science. Diné Science describes a holistic approach to conducting scientific research. It encompasses Diné foundational concepts and philosophies and applies them to the scientific method and western scientific approaches. The four major philosophies, Nitsáhákees (Thinking), Nahat’á (Planning), Iiná (Implementing/Living) and Siih Hasin (Reflection/Assurance), were applied to this research process.

The main motivation is first and foremost to improve the quality of life of the Diné people especially those living in close proximity to abandoned mines and who are continuing to …

Perceived Threat And Left-Wing Authoritarianism: The Effect Of Framing On Persuasive Messages, James Donald Mcfarland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Past research reveals a strong connection between feeling threatened and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA). This relationship is considered to be an integral part of authoritarianism and the nature of its presence in the left-leaning populace is still being fully explored. This study examined the relationship between perceived threat and Left-Wing Authoritarianism (LWA) through the framing of persuasive messages. Participants (n = 256) were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and given a list of reward- or threat-framed statements concerning the possible ramifications of voting in future elections and then asked to rate the quality and persuasiveness of the respective statements. …

“Meet Them Where They're At”: Faith-Based And Secular Homeless Outreach Approaches, Larissa K. Fitzpatrick

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Many organizations strive to provide resources for individuals experiencing homelessness both in and outside of shelters. Studies analyzing the effects of religiosity on the practices of homeless shelters show that both faith-based and secular shelters generally offer a variety of services, from the accommodative, such as food and shelter, to the restorative, like housing, substance-use rehabilitation, and spiritual transformation (Snow and Anderson 1993). Although both types of shelters may require clients to participate in the latter to access the former, faith-based shelters often show a belief-based rigidity, with many requiring prayer, sermon attendance, or a proclamation of faith to access …

Digitizing The Corporeal: The Affect Of Mediatized Elements In Theatrical Performance, Kurtis Layne Hassinger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores the affect of digital media in live performance. The research is generated from work with integrated digital media in Carol Ann Duffy's 2015 adaptation of Everyman as well as Samuel Beckett's radio play Cascando. Through experimentation and implementation of motion tracking digital elements and actor-manipulated sonic and visual digital media achieved with MIDI and OSC mapping, I explore the embodiment of performances by actors when their various characters are represented on the physical as well as the digital stage simultaneously.

The research interrogates digital media in storytelling when actors can manipulate imagery and language in real time …

Predictors Of Financial Responsibility Composite Scores At Catholic Colleges And Universities, Sarah Nicole Agostinelli

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this quantitative study was to understand the relationships of the demographic variables of religious order, program length, and geographic region interact with the score a Catholic institution receives on the U.S. Education Department test for financial responsibility using descriptive statistics. The research study showed a statistically significant negative correlation between the institution’s composite score on the financial responsibility test and student loan default rates using the Pearson correlation coefficient, with a small effect size. The research study also showed a statistically significant positive correlation between the institution’s composite score on the financial responsibility test and enrollment using …

Enhancing The Impact Of Behavioral Activation Via Prospection, Chelsey M. Maxson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

"Black Colorism And White Racism: Discourse On The Politics Of White Supremacy, Black Equality, And Racial Identity, 1915-1930", Hannah Paige Mcdonald

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The following study unravels how Garveyite black nationalists, black integrationists, and Virginian white supremacists understood the race problem and its solution between 1915 and 1930. The racial identity and experiences of these three distinct groups, each informed how they understood the race problem and its solution. The divergent notions about the source of and solution to the race problem coalesced with colorism, sowing seeds of intraracial and interracial conflict and cooperation between the Garveyite black nationalists, black integrationists, and Virginian white supremacists as they navigated how to redress white supremacy and black equality. According to black integrationists and Garveyite black …

A Snapshot Of Care: Creating Models Of Care For Individuals Included In The Terry Collection, Felicia Robyn Sparozic

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Utilizing the bioarchaeology of care model, this research formulates a model of care based on ethnohistorical and skeletal markers of pathologic conditions. The index of care is the method used to create models of care, and this requires social, cultural, economic, environmental, and mortuary contexts to determine the resources required to aid a person through injury or disability. This paper investigates the impact of known medical, occupational, and morgue records that accompanied each selected individual in the skeletal collection. This additional information, beyond what is gained from skeletal analysis, generates a complex model of care. A more complex model of …

Self-Compassion As A Protective Factor Against Minority Stress For Lgbt Individuals, Morgan Christine Bowlen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Objectives: Research has found that anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders are more prevalent in LGBT individuals than heterosexual individuals (Fergusson, Horwood, & Beautrais, 1999). An explanation for these differences has been put forward by Meyer (2003), the Minority Stress Model, which is a theoretical framework that proposes that individuals who occupy a stigmatized minority status, such as LGBT individuals, may experience increased stress on the basis of stigmatization associated with this status. Results from multiple studies support the relationship between mindfulness and coping skills, life satisfaction, and positive health outcomes for LGBT individuals (Crews & Crawford, 2015; Gayner …

Fabrications, Molly V. Rivera

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The objects that surround us tell a story of our past, and act as physical stand ins for a person, place, or experience no longer present. My work explores the significance of objects and how we use them to preserve our memories and make them tangible. Memory is ephemeral and changes over time, simultaneously growing weaker and stronger. I use clay to accentuate this relationship, visually depicting both preservation and decay.

Inspired by my personal narrative, I recreate specific objects of significance by hand. This results in subtle variations of the original, much like the changes in our memory over …

Preliminary Investigation Of An Aphasia-Friendly Version Of The Patient Health Questionnaire – 8 (Phq-8) Compared To Other Patient And Proxy Reported Outcome Measures Of Depression, Kaylee Marie Walter

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Persons with aphasia (PWA) experience post-stroke depression more frequently than stroke survivors who do not have aphasia. Currently, no patient reported outcome measures that screen for depression have been created specifically for PWA or modified to be aphasia friendly for PWA. The purpose of this preliminary study is to modify the Patient Health Questionnaire- 8 (PHQ-8) to an aphasia friendly format and to assess the feasibility of administering the modified assessment compared to other patient-reported and proxy-reported outcome measures used to screen depression. This retrospective analysis examined pre- and post-treatment outcome measures of depression for seven stroke-survivors with aphasia. The …

Coalescent: A Collection Of Defining Life Experiences, Stephanie A. Dishno

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Coalescent: A Collection of Defining Life Experiences, reflects on my experiences and curiosities of important life events that a person may use to construct their narrative identity. In this paper, I discuss my reflections, influences, and materials used to create my thesis exhibition, Coalescent. I describe my work as a collection of life experiences that are used to construct a narrative identity.

A Search For Community, Alexander Moore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I attempt to understand what is meant by community by grounding the analysis in Raymond Williams’ historical definition. From this, I work the criteria of community as described by Williams so to determine their precise meaning and primacy. I attempt to show why community must be small in size while arguing that humans are in a community with nonhumans. Building upon this move, I take up an argument for the role of place in community formation. This preceding inquiry is meant to prime an analysis of both virtue ethics and literature, specifically an application of Martha Nussbaum’s Central Capabilities to …

Linking Health Behavior Theory And Interventions To Increase Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Uptake, Gretchen Elizabeth Neal

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease in adults in the United States (US). Persistent HPV infection can cause several cancers, including cervical, oropharyngeal, and anal cancer. To prevent these cancers, the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends that all adolescents start the HPV vaccine series at ages 11-12 years. Despite the safety and efficacy of available HPV vaccines, vaccine uptake rates remain lower than public health goals. In the US, only 51.1% of eligible adolescents have completed the vaccine series, a rate lower than the Healthy People 2020 goal of 80% coverage for series completion. …

Metabolic And Cardiovascular Marker Alterations During Critical Training In Wildland Firefighters, Shae Gurney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Introduction: Wildland firefighters (WLFFs) are confronted with numerous physical and mental stressors. Pre-fire season includes an intense 2-week critical training (CT) period; a preparatory phase of multiple activities that can result in injury, illness, and rhabdomyolysis. The purpose of this study was to identify physiologic changes in metabolic, inflammatory, and oxidative stress biomarkers during 2 weeks of CT in WLFFs.

Methods: Eighteen male (29.4 ± 1.1 yr, 182.1 ± 1.6 cm) and three female (26.7  2.6 yr, 169.5  4.2 cm) participants were recruited from a Type I interagency hotshot crew and monitored over their 2-week CT. Fitness was …

Shuttles In Wonderland: Assessing The Perceived Impact To Residents’ Quality Of Life Based On The Proposed Implementation Of A Voluntary Shuttle System In West Yellowstone, Mt, Carter Wyatt Bermingham

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As visitation to the national parks across the United States continues to increase, more and more park service units are exploring the possibility of implementing alternative forms of transportation to help mitigate some of the negative side effects associated with vehicle-related congestion issues. Although research efforts have examined the role of alternative transportation systems (ATS) in helping to improve the visitor experience in the national parks, fewer research efforts have focused on the impacts of these transportation systems on the affiliated gateway community, particularly with respect to the perceived impacts an ATS may have on quality of life in gateway …

Computer Modelling Of Neurotoxicity And Auditory Processing Disorder In The Rat After Chronic Lead Intoxication, Silas Brewer Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Objective: Past research documents the ototoxicity of inorganic lead (Pb), which in children may include associated auditory processing and learning disabilities. The present investigation aims to explore in computer modelled rats, as a laboratory animal model, the persistent effects of Pb-contaminated drinking water on measures. i.e., wave latency and amplitude, of auditory brainstem function and specifically the response to a known evoked-potential assessment of Backward Masking (BM) as a marker of Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). BM refers to the disruption of an animal's response to a stimulus when succeeded by a later stimulus temporally.

Methods and Study Design: In order …

2890-Fish On Fluoxetine: Before During And After Behavioral Analysis, Susan Marie Greene

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Chemical concentrations of antidepressants have increased over the years steadily building in surface waters globally. These drugs have had various impacts on the animals tested, such as impacts on movement, motivation, and reproduction. In order to further investigate the effects of the antidepressant fluoxetine, male Betta splendens were exposed to the drug. These fish are naturally aggressive for reproduction purposes and have easily observable aggressive responses to other male fish. These characteristics make them a good model for studying Fluoxetine’s impact on reproduction, motivation, and movement. Males in this study were primed with either a female or empty chamber prior …

The Space Between Points And Their Navigational Reference, Darla Pienciak

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

“The path of self-fulfillment means “pushing oneself beyond oneself”, in a relationship with the community where generosity, giving and the search for the common good are included and cultivated in everyday life.” (Menditto, 2014)

The Space Between Points and Their Navigational Reference represents specific points in time as well as all the moments that take place between those points. Each point is a person or a specific moment in time; they are individual people or noteworthy memories which, for one reason or another, have left a significant imprint in the memory of the individual or of society. The space between …

Public Satisfaction With Forest Management In Western Montana: An Evaluation Of Trust And Public Engagement, Haley R. Hodge

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Trust is an integral component of the public engagement process involving land management agencies and local stakeholders. Traditional methods of public engagement, such as public meetings and comment periods, often result in low public satisfaction with the participation process and management outcomes. Two components of public engagement, process control and decision control, are critical for successful engagement processes and satisfaction with management decisions. Process control requires providing opportunities for public input, whereas decision control involves the public perceiving influence over management decisions. While recent studies have examined the relationships among process control, decision control, and public satisfaction, trust in a …

Muscle Soreness And Damage During Wildland Firefighter Critical Training, Katherine Sue Christison

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Introduction: Wildland firefighters (WLFF) undergo a critical training (CT) period immediately before the firefighting season. The intensity of CT exercise could lead to muscle damage, as previously reported cases of rhabdomyolysis in WLFFs have been documented. This study established the effects of activities performed during a two-week CT period on acute markers of muscle damage in WLFFs.

Methods: 18 male and 3 female Type I Interagency Hotshot WLFFs were studied during a 14-day critical training period. Upper- (US) and lower-body (LS) muscle soreness and daily body weight (BW) scales were collected. Venous blood was collected on Days 1, 4, 8, …

College Athletes And Alcohol Use: The Need For Effective Prevention/Intervention Programs, Paige M. Craig

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The literature review investigates the relationship between alcohol and college athletes. College athletes are a high-risk drinking group; alcohol use amongst collegiate athletes is a major concern due to the consequences associated with use. It is important to review student-athlete behavior and influences that contribute to alcohol use in order to design a program that effectively prevents use and intervenes use when it occurs. Results from original articles were used to support the need for effective prevention/intervention programs for this population based on the severity and frequency of use, negative effects of alcohol, and lack of effective prevention/intervention programs. Coaches, …