Digital Commons Network^™

Music Direction For The Stage: Training For Success In Christian-Based Performing Arts, David Keith Schubert

Masters Theses

The stage production music director is a position requiring highly advanced musical, managerial, and administrative skills. Many churches, Christian schools, and community groups have an interest in mounting a show or launching a performing arts ministry; however, most worship pastors, choral/instrumental conductors, and music teachers have not been adequately prepared for this specialized assignment. Of the available training resources on production and theatrical work, few address the role of the music director. Additionally, most of the literature is written for the mainstream theatrical environment. Still missing is a treatment that blends standard industry practices with the pastoral leadership and spiritual …

Biblical Archaeology As An Effective Apologetic, Cooper Wyatt

Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to demonstrate the relationship between biblical archaeology and Christian apologetics, where archaeology can be used as way to show that the Bible has accurately preserved the history it reports.

Thermal Quality Explains Shift In Habitat Association From Forest To Clearings For Terrestrial-Breeding Frogs Along An Elevation Gradient In Colombia, Zachary Lange

Masters Theses

Tropical ectotherms are considered particularly sensitive to changes in the thermal environment from climate change and habitat alteration. Understanding how such species’ thermal physiology relates to their habitat associations in thermally heterogeneous landscapes may help us predict responses and develop sound conservation strategies for the future. We conducted a mark-recapture study of three terrestrial breeding anuran species (Pristimantis medemi, P. savagei, P. frater) in adjacent forest and anthropogenic clearings at field sites spread across seven elevations (415-1350 m asl) in the Colombian Andes. We also performed thermal preference and critical thermal maximum assays in the lab to investigate the relationship …

Music History- Laugh And Learn, Jessica Ellen Fagan

Masters Theses

The project I have chosen aligns with my curriculum project and research. Data will be gathered on the effects of laughter in the classroom. This research will show that humor can motivate students as well as aide memory. Overall, the project should conclude that laughter aids in the learning process. This project has great importance in the field of education, especially music education. Students have come to memorize for the tests, soon forgetting what they have learned. Adding a fun twist on a class that will aide students in their first year of college may increase enrollment. This may also …

Stories Told Through Music: Soprano Aria "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" From Messiah And Peter And The Wolf Op. 67, Everett Scott Godwin

Masters Theses

From the beginning of creation, people have told stories and passed them down from generation to generation. Stories come to life through all forms of communication: watching a play, listening to a podcast, or looking at a picture are just a few examples. The best stories have been written down in manuscripts, books, novels, and then sometimes eventually written into a script for a movie. But something about music makes it one of the most compelling and exciting ways to portray a story. It is one of the earliest and long-lasting forms of storytelling. Every musical work tells a story …

Where Is God In Symbolic Exchange? A Theo-Semiological Analysis Of The Sons Of Anarchy, Alex Justin Holguin

Masters Theses

This thesis attempts to uncover the religious nature of communication by re-visioning and situating French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s theory of communication within a Christian theological context. By critically engaging Lacan’s theoretical concepts of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real within this context, the thesis is able to access the intersection of rhetorical semiotics, psychoanalysis, and Christian theology to have a more fruitful understanding of how meaning is exchanged between subjects. Lacan’s inter-disciplinary affirmation of rhetoric and psychoanalysis has been able to produce incredible explanatory potential for how meaning, as the bedrock of speech and communication, operates through the psyche …

Spatial Variation Of Low Birth Weight And Its Association With Socioeconomic Status, Housing Types, And Accessibility In Kalamazoo County, Eugene Kojo Opare Ahwireng

Masters Theses

Infants with low birth weight due to early delivery or fetal growth restriction face an increased risk of health conditions and deaths. These risk factors and the cost associated with healthcare for infants makes low birth weight a major public health problem. Understanding early precursor challenges expectant mothers face before delivery would help in planning interventions to reduce low birth weight among infants.

This study investigated and evaluated the spatial variation of low birth weight incidence with respect to socioeconomic status, housing types and accessibility in Kalamazoo County. In a broader scope, this research study examined the geographic patterns of …

Curtis Otto Bismarck Curtis-Smith, Hollis Claire Wittman

Masters Theses

Curtis Otto Bismarck Curtis-Smith, composer and pianist, spent the majority of his career serving the community at Western Michigan University. His development of the bowed piano technique contributed significantly to the course of music in the late twentieth century; his prolific compositions stand on their own artistic merit. This document attempts to provide a summation of the composer’s life, particularly in regard to his compositional activity. The first section, a biography, discusses Curtis-Smith’s life and the changes to his compositional style over his lifetime. Next, a catalog of works details the available information about the many pieces written by the …

Planning For A Sustainable Future: Rethinking The Role Of Bicycle Parking At Western Michigan University, Gregory J. Carlton

Masters Theses

Sustainable transportation planning focuses on addressing the needs of current users, without jeopardizing the needs of future users (Black 1997, Richardson 1999, Balsas 2003). A popular mode of sustainable transportation is the bicycle, which is frequently used by college students. One aspect of bicycle transportation that remains underexplored within the United States and on university campuses, is bicycle parking. By using rack conditioning assessments, bicycle theft density analysis, bicycle parking counts and a formative stakeholder survey of the bicycle parking at Western Michigan University’s campus, recommendations were able to be created for campus officials for use in their planning efforts. …

In-Between Places, Jonah Fleeger

Masters Theses

I am an emerging artist originally from Northwest Indiana. I attended a small boarding school called Verde Valley School, in Sedona, Arizona, which is where my love for pottery first started. I received my BFA in ceramics from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After college I was fortunate enough to find studio space and work at the Lillstreet Art Center, where I was a teacher, teaching assistant and glaze maker. Since then I have completed post-baccalaureate programs at The University of Colorado Boulder and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. This book is a presentation of myself …

Tell Me About A Class At Risd : Classroom Experiences Of Multilingual, International Graduate Students At The Rhode Island School Of Design, Madeline Conley

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the experiences of multilingual, international graduate students at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Through interviews with eight international and multilingual graduate students from different RISD departments, the researcher asks students to identify what helps and hinders their learning. The author situates interviewee responses in the context of scholarly literature that examines the experiences and predicted challenges faced by multilingual international students enrolled in art and design schools and more broadly in higher education. Further, this thesis’ research questions are examined within the complexities of and ongoing conversations about creating a more equitable and inclusive RISD …

Personal Trauma, Community Healing : Reimagining Sanctuary For Survivors Of Gun Violence, Eva Mccarthy

Masters Theses

of communities who suffer through high levels of gun violence experience post-traumatic stress disorder at rates equal to military veterans. At the same time, religious participation in the US has plummeted, and churches, once the center of many of these communities, have lost their value as support systems. These structures must become a new type of sanctuary for those dealing with pervasive, gun-related trauma. The reimagined typology will prioritize progressive, sustained benefit over revelatory moments of transcendence, by opening sightlines through a space of safety and support to the outside.

The decaying Bethel Holy Temple Church in North Philadelphia is …

Film For Landscape Architecture : Learning From Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, Ramon Solis

Masters Theses

Introduction:

How can film inform landscape architectural thinking? In narrative film, we are spectators of unfolding space. In landscapes, our bodies enable us to author its unfolding.

In many ways, film is a well-suited and under-theorized territory for landscape. Its intersections are not without precedent, and in the following pages, I hope to describe the experiments, failures and potential scenarios I have uncovered for future practitioners of landscape architecture. A secondary intention of this thesis is as an articulation of my own practice, walking toward disciplinary edges, but always looking back to landscape architecture.

Site:

Roma (2018), directed by Alfonso …

Field In Adaptive Reuse : Discussion Of The Existence Of The Field And Its Influence, Yilun Shao

Masters Theses

In a building like a pavilion, the walls are abstracted into pillars, and this hollowed -out design aesthetically reflects the concept of negative space in Asian aesthetics. The creation of the field is not by the enclosure of wall, but through the radiation of the pavilion’s spirit to create a negative space with fuzzy boundaries. If the spirits which dwell in the pavilion cannot radiate outward but must be contained within, visitors will not see this buildings, but sculptures form.

What is fascinating about architecture is that it can divide the space so that people enter and feel the effects …

Playfulness : Exploring Experience Through A Trajectory, Yingjing Qu

Masters Theses

People of all ages feel from time to time a lack of freedom because of spiritual, physical and material constraints. The young are anxious about the future, while the old are bound by the body and both feel the pressure of the social and economic context. The desire to escape the social order makes public space
a window to catharsis. People’s behavior in public spaces like streets, surrounded by strangers, tends to be more uninhibited.

Playing games embodies several benefits such as the increasing of one’s imaginative ability, mind-hand coordination, enhancing of creativity, passing time and ‘play’ characteristics of seeing …

Among : A Series Of Enactments, Joel F. Kern

Masters Theses

AMONG captures the practice of a constructionist designer, one who oscillates between the characteristics of typography, multi-materiality, and spatiality yet does not attach solely to the physical or digital. The fundamental principles of this practice include open platforms that foster generative collaboration through modular systems. AMONG straddles the borders of graphic design, environmental design and social sculpture. At its core, this practice encourages new ways of connecting communities.

The Person-Less Portrait, Katelyn Ledford

Masters Theses

In an age of digital technologies, contemporary portraits look different than their predecessors did. Portraiture does not have to continue to rely only on the idea of physical likeness, even though that is generally how portraiture is conceived. Through our virtual lives, we build new versions of ourselves, gain an abundance of information, and consume technological visuals. These newfound engagements and understandings shape the portraits we build of ourselves and of other groups at large. In my painting practice, portraiture is a way to explore the contemporary landscape around me as a woman and a painter who engages in digital …

Let's Meet Over There / Eury Kim., Eury Kim

Masters Theses

Small communities that were once reliant on the land for basic sustenance progressively grew into large urban states. Our current cities manufacture items that are exchanged for other goods, by building factories that exploit resources from the ground. These commodities are providing much more than just food and shelter. Industry makes sustenance a secondary need to production by objectifying nature.

Italian writer Italo Calvino compares the weight of two Industrial Revolutions, depicting the first with “rolling mills” and “molten steel,” the second “with bits of information that flow” also noting that everything we “value for lightness quickly reveals … unbearable …

Re-Creation : A Package Design For Daily Life, Wei-Hao Wang

Masters Theses

This thesis grows out of my observations of and inquiries into daily scenes,+ which are wrapped within what I am calling a package. The human mind often puts daily encounters into manageable packages to facilitate interaction with them. This process, however, makes us dull or neglectful. Looking into daily scenes allows me to unpack these packages and reflect on ubiquitous objects, notions and actions so that I am able to see them anew. To me, it offers a break from the habitual responses in life.

Re-creation: A Package Design for Daily Life intends to create a similar occasion for my …

Spontaneous Laughter, Laughter Without Reason, Evan Gilbert

Masters Theses

What is the function of humor in today's society? What is the role of the comedian in increasingly clownish times? How does humor challenge power structures in contemporary life and art? How can painting deploy these methods in an effective manner?

The archetype of the trickster has appeared in myth and literature around the world for many centuries. In all instances it represents the disruptive side of the human imagination, a being that lives outside the rules of conventional behavior who seems to have hidden knowledge or secret understanding of how society truly functions. The archetype of the trickster can …

Game / Landscape / Us, Dongqi Zhang

Masters Theses

Assumption: Today’s game companies often try to hire landscape architects to do virtual environment design. With the prompt expansion of technology, gaming has already become a unique and huge industry worth billions of dollars. More and more people have become immersed in video and computer games. If we acknowledge this is true, what are the reasons?

Rationale: People lose focus on the physical landscape when they participate in it. In contrast, “A game, of course, is a constructed world with a narrative already baked in.” (King, 2015) Some people love virtual games because the real world lacks what they long …

When We Are Old : A Mutualism System For The Canal Network And Its Aging Community, Jiali Li

Masters Theses

Population aging is a severe problem. The whole world is aging and especially in China. As of the 2010 census, the number of people in China over 60 has reached 178 million, which is 23.6% of world’s aging population. It means 1/4 of the aging population live in China. This thesis will focus on the third-tier cities which have more urgent aging issues and more vulnerable commercial and political statuses, which leads us to Yangzhou, a typical third-tier city in Jiangsu Province. In the context of aging society, the government of Yangzhou keeps moving the elderly from the livable canal …

The Social Life Of Working Waterfronts : Strategies For Renewing The Social Value Of Productive Harbors, Evan Davenport

Masters Theses

The Social Life of Working Waterfronts is an independent thesis project that envisions the expanded role of an urban waterfront as a landscape for both industry and everyday life. The project calls for new synergies between public and private stakeholders to challenge the cultural perception of industrial landscapes and renew social and ecological value of productive harbors. By integrating industrial processes with civic life, working waterfronts can begin to operate mutually for industrial and societal needs. This proposal aims to establish spatial and systemic commons between a declining city and its thriving commercial fishing port by engaging and celebrating the …

Salt Pans Matter : A System Of Ecology And Culture Cohabitation For Cabo De Gata, Andalusia, Spain, Chenglin Zhu

Masters Theses

This thesis book seeks new meanings for the concept of “cohabitation”, it is important to understand “cohabitation” as the link to connect cultural inheritance and natural restoration. We need to find a way to coexist with nature and create something beyond - the new relationship for “economy, nature, and culture.”

The salt pans in Cabo de gata of Andalucia, Spain is not just a potential habitat for the migrating birds, especially for flamingos, but also for the cultural heritage of the traditional craft of salt production. Unfortunately, it is the only salt pan still under operation in the region today. …

Landscape Succession : Oil Field Transformed Through Landscape Process, Yuanbin Wang

Masters Theses

The Inglewood Oil Field is located in Los Angeles, California. It is a fully functioning and one of the largest urban oil field in the United States. Facing the increasingly tense relationship between neighboring communities and the expansion of oil fields, the site has attracted a lot of public attention over the years.How to integrate the landscape process as part of the evolution of the industry is critical to this project. This project examines landscape architecture as a remediating agent within a fully functioning oil field. It proposes a process to heal the site through a simultaneous evolution. By using …

Architecture As Magnet : Extension To Fort Adams, Mingyi Hu

Masters Theses

According to a study from KADK (The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture), social interaction mainly depends on whether people have common interests, such as the economy, politics or ideology.¹ However, it is difficult for some who feel they have different experiences or beliefs to interact within a group, which will affect their psychological state. These people need a physical environment designed to create conditions for more extensive and effective communication opportunities.

Architecture can provide a platform to help people gather together, share ideas, and create a sense of community. Architecture that holds visitors in an enclosure …

Hab Mitigation : Wetland Restoration In Farmlands, Jae Won Wang

Masters Theses

How could landscape strategically contribute to the collection and filtration of the nutrients that get transported in the river and introduce a new wetland system in the farmlands that utilize existing underdrainage systems and introduce a new paradigm of agricultural practice that could be applied in the future and eventually mitigate the Harmful Algae Bloom issue?

Slowness In The Fray : Architecture That Orients To Nature, Colin Christensen

Masters Theses

We currently live in a digital age that is marked by the rise of virtual reality and instant access to information and entertainment through smartphones. These technological developments are not inherently bad, but they have reduced our attention span and ability to focus on the world around us. This phenomenon is best stated by social scientist Herbert Simon,“In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a …

No Long Urban, Can't Be Rural, Definitely Not Suburban : The Experience Of Detroit, Karin Jane Hostettler

Masters Theses

Detroit is a city of makers, dreamers and doers. When pushed to the brink the city does not step down, but instead continues to fight through grassroots movements, community advocates and neighborhood innovators. In this way Detroit has regained notoriety, not through corporate industry, banking or sports, but through those residents who have put their own difficulties aside for the betterment of their communities. However, the current economic and social developments in the city are centered around the downtown core of posterity, ignoring the work done by those individuals within the greater community context. In these neighborhoods, where autoworkers once …

Awe-Struck, Emily Robertson

Masters Theses

Awe-struck is an exploration at the intersection of embodied and situated cognition, sight, sense-making and nature with an additional layer of artistic interpretation and emotional response. Adapting elements of Terrapin Bright Green’s biophilic design principles, this work pushes past the well researched benefits of incorporating nature into a designed space, to uncover an individual’s personal connection to an environment. The connection is multi-faceted—layered with observations of space, color and location, filtered through a lense of physical, philosophical and psychological reactions and then translated into an individual personal history. With a specific focus on wild spaces, where humans have designed and …