Digital Commons Network^™

Dominican Joins Coursera For Learning Hubs Project, Sarah Gardner, Dave Albee

Press Releases

Dominican’s decision to participate as a Learning Hub grew from work initiated as part of a planning grant from the New York-based Teagle Foundation. Dominican is leading a consortium of West Coast liberal arts colleges on a project examining how best to integrate innovative technology in education with high-impact educational practices commonly used in small liberal arts colleges and universities.

The Statesman, V. 58, I. 01, Stony Brook University

Stony Brook Statesman-Sucolian

v. 58, i. 01

"Nigger": A Critical Race Realist Analysis Of The N-Word Within Hate Crimes Law, Shayne E. Jones, Gregory S. Parks

Criminology Faculty Publications

On a 2005 summer morning, Nicholas “Fat Nick” Minucci (White) beat Glenn Moore (Black) with a baseball bat and robbed him. During the assault, Minucci repeatedly screamed the N-word. At trial, Minucci’s attorney argued that he had not committed a hate crime. The essence of the defense’s argument was that Minucci’s use of the N-word while assaulting and robbing Moore was not indicative of any bias or prejudice. The defense went on to indicate that Minucci had Black friends, was immersed in Black culture, and employed the N-word as part of his everyday vocabulary. Two Black men—Gary Jenkins (hip hop …

Law School Training For Licensed 'Legal Technicians'? Implications For The Consumer Market, Elizabeth Chambliss

Faculty Publications

In January 2014, the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education released its report calling, among other things, for limited licensing and the expansion of independent paraprofessional training by law schools. In Washington State, all three law schools are collaborating with community college paralegal programs to design and deliver specialized training for “Limited License Legal Technicians” (LLLTs), who will be licensed to deliver limited family law services beginning in 2015. At least three other states, including California and New York — which together contain nearly twenty-six percent of U.S. lawyers and seventy-six law schools — are actively seeking …

"Me Getting Plastered And Her Provoking My Eyes": Young People’S Attribution Of Blame For Sexual Aggression In Public Drinking Spaces, Sarah Becker, Justine Tinkler

Faculty Publications

Barroom sexual aggression—especially unwanted groping, kissing, and touching—is ubiquitous and largely unregulated. While research explicates how alcohol interacts with other precipitating factors to cause incidents like fistfights, the causes of less serious forms of sexual aggression remain understudied. Normalization of non-consensual sexual contact in bars means much of it goes unnoticed and is difficult to quantify or predict using conventional statistical methods. We use 126 young people’s narratives about experiences with barroom aggression to explore how/when it is tolerated or socially sanctioned. We find that alcohol, context, and gender shape attributions for sexual aggression in public drinking settings.

Evidence-Based Practice In Juvenile Justice: Nebraska White Paper, Richard L. Wiener, Anne M. Hobbs, Ryan E. Spohn

Reports

This White Paper is the product of the collaborative effort of the University of Nebraska/Lincoln (UNL) Law and Psychology Program, the University of Nebraska/Omaha (UNO) Consortium for Crime and Justice Research and the UNO Juvenile Justice Institute. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview for understanding, testing, and developing Evidence Based Practice (EBP) interventions that make rehabilitative services available to children in the juvenile justice system. The paper begins with a summary of a proposal for a classification system of EBP programs in the Juvenile Justice System in Nebraska and then goes on to explain the logic …

The Adaptation Of The Horn Of Africa Immigrant Students In Higher Education, Tekleab Elos Hailu, Heng-Yu Ku

The Qualitative Report

The purpose of this study was to explore the challenges first generation immigrant students from the Horn of Africa encountered in their college learning in the United States and the strategies they used to succeed. The participants in the study were ten first generation immigrant students from the countries in the Horn of Africa. A case study was used as a qualitative methodological approach and three data sources namely questionnaire, intensive interviews, and observations were used to collect and analyze data. The results revealed that language difficulties, financial problems, lack of culture awareness, time constraints, and inadequate guidance are challenges …

Recruitment And Retention Of Vulnerable Populations: Lessons Learned From A Longitudinal Qualitative Study, Evalina Van Wijk

The Qualitative Report

The main focus of the researcher’s study was to examine the lived experiences of intimate partners of female rape victims within the first six months post rape. Yet, many publications describing longitudinal qualitative studies of sexual assault fail to provide a detailed report on the processes followed, the difficulties experienced, as well as the reasons for such difficulties. To fill theses gaps, in this paper, the researcher describes the strategies applied to recruit and retain the participants for the entire six-month period post rape. The lessons learned during recruitment and data collection are also described. The research question that guided …

Ethics In Fieldwork: Reflections On The Unexpected, Jane Palmer, Dena Fam, Tanzi Smith, Sarina Kilham

The Qualitative Report

Research involving fieldwork can present the researcher with ethical dilemmas not anticipated in institutional ethics approval processes, and which offer profound personal and methodological challenges. The authors' experiences of conducting qualitative fieldwork in four distinctly different contexts are used to illustrate some of these unexpected consequences and ethical dilemmas. Issues encountered included: compromised relationships with informants which develop in unforeseen ways; engagement with traumatized informants which lead to unexpected roles for the researcher such as confidante, dealing with new information that is critical to informants' futures but could undermine the research project, and the implications of ethical decisions for research …

Democratizing The Food System- The Food Policy Council Movement, Garrett Spear

Kaleidoscope

The increasing complexity of our modern food system has changed the landscape of American agriculture and diet, and has increasingly consolidated decision-making abilities in a concentrated group of organizations. Local food movements are re-appropriating their food supply chains through a variety of methods, including the democratic-minded food policy council organization. Food policy councils organize community stakeholders into a network of organizations which can collectively grapple with food issues affecting and on behalf of the local community. This study consisted of research on the history and methods of the food policy council movement, directed ultimately at the council-less context in Lexington …

Amphibian Contributions To Ecosystem Services, Daniel J. Hocking, Kimberly J. Babbitt

New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station Publications

Ecosystems provide essential services for human society, which include provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. Amphibians provide provisioning services by serving as a food source for some human societies, especially in Southeast Asia. They also serve as models in medical research and provide potential for new pharmaceuticals such as analgesics and anti-viral drugs derived from skin secretions. Amphibians contribute to regulating services by reducing mosquito recruitment from ephemeral wetlands, potentially controlling other pest species, and indirectly through predation of insect pollinators. Often neglected, ecosystems also provide cultural services to human societies that increase the quality of human life through recreation, …

Creative Economies: Using Arts To Revitalize Post-Industrial Cities And Towns In Massachusetts, Anna Price

Honors College Theses

During my senior year in the Honors College at UMass Boston, I became involved in the yearlong Creative and Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship program. During this program, I interned alongside other UMass Boston students at a local creative non-profit organization, providing the staff with assistance as they worked towards achieving their goals. This internship was funded by the Creative Economy Fund (CE Fund) from the University of Massachusetts President’s Office. My involvement in this program sparked an interest in pursuing an Honors thesis investigating the CE Fund and how the awarded projects are benefitted by that fund.

After looking through all …

Implications Of Vertebral Degenative Disease And Vertebral Ligamentous Ossification In Native Populations Of The Lower Tennessee River Valley, Sarah Ann Boncal

Theses and Dissertations

Cervical vertebrae are an effective biomechanical proxy for understanding physical activities of a populace due to the osteological reactivity of nuchal muscle use to extensive weight and pressure. Differentiation in the distribution of osteophytosis (OPL), osteoarthritis (OA), and ossification of the ligamentum flavum (OLF) along the cervical vertebrae may indicate particular biomechanical stresses and/or burden-bearing differences between subsistence strategies.

A collection of 287 pre-Columbian Native American individuals (N = 854 vertebrae) was analyzed for presence and severity of OPL, OA and OLF. The sample consists of remains from six archaeological sites located in the lower Tennessee River Valley: three sites …

The State-Level Risk And Protective Factors Of Suicide For American Indians And Alaska Natives, Carmela Roybal

Sociology ETDs

Objective. To identify the risk and protective factors of suicide among American Indians and Alaska Natives. Methods. Using a negative binomial regression analysis and state-level data, pooled data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2005-2010), and the 2000 U.S. Census to examine the state-level predictors of suicide among American Indians and Alaska Natives. Results. An increase in the states urban population is associated with increased suicide rates among American Indians and Alaska Natives. An increase in the young male population is associated with decreased suicide risk for the population. No association was found related to religious adherence, or …

The Role Of Disability In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Amanda H. Heggen

Special Education ETDs

The social construction of disability posits that media play an important role in the construction of disability. Few studies have systematically examined the role of disability in film or television. Engaging in a multiple perspective analysis, this dissertation examined the role of disability in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Data were analyzed with a content analysis, a thematic analysis, and an ideological rhetorical criticism. Disability was found to be used as a tool of character, plot, and atmosphere development. The data also suggested that negative assumptions of disability, often reinforcing of stereotypes, were readily apparent in the series …

Case Not Closed: Whiteness And The Rhetorical Genres Of Freedom Summer, Lindsey Ives

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation examines the role of whiteness and its relationship to identification in rhetorical representations of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. Texts examined at length include recruitment materials, media coverage, pamphlets, and letters produced during the project, as well as retrospective representations of Freedom Summer in popular films and literature. Drawing upon Walter Beales pragmatic theory of rhetoric and Krista Ratcliffe's concept of rhetorical listening, it analyzes five perspectives on the hundreds of volunteers, most of whom were white college students, who traveled to black communities across Mississippi that summer in order to register voters, teach in Freedom Schools, …

Impacts Of Diurnally Exposed Slime Layer Hydrogen Sulfide Concentrations In Sewer Atmosphere, Mark Holstad

Civil Engineering ETDs

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a major issue in wastewater collection systems. H2S can cause rapid damage to wastewater infrastructure, affects the publics quality of life through odor issues and is a safety concern for sewer workers. Relatively recent development and introduction of H2S data loggers has shown that H2S concentrations in the sewer headspace demonstrate a diurnal pattern that is not explained by current models. Odor complaints and toxicity are primarily a result of the peak concentration levels and may be more accurately predicted through a better understanding of the diurnal H2S concentration patterns. Biological slime layer grows in the …

Funny Girls: A Study Of The Graciosa In Four Early Modern Plays, Dolores Ruiz-Fabrega

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This study centers on the graciosa, the female stock comic figure of early modern Spanish theater. It focuses on the comical discourse of this character in order to underscore five basic reasons that prove that she is a figure of this theater that requires more scholarly focus. The graciosas that are analyzed are: Celia and Clara from Lope de Vegas La dama boba (1613), Isabel from Calderón de la Barca's La dama duende (1629), Flora from Francisco Rojas Zorrilla's Primero es la honra que el gusto (prior to 1648) and Irene from Agustín Moreto's La fuerza de la ley (1651). …

Cul-De-Sac: Social Conversation Through Research And Performance, Peter J. Bennett

Theatre & Dance ETDs

Cul-De-Sac: Social Conversation Through the Lens of Jazz Dance, discusses the rise of the suburbs following the Second World War, the homophobic society of the 1950s forcing homosexual men to hide in the closet, and the role of women within the suburban community, and how the research into these social issues evolved into an evenings length piece of dance theatre told through the language of jazz dance. Jazz dance is a distinctly American art form, often overlooked on the concert stage. In this dissertation, I endeavor to prove that jazz is a style of dance capable of carrying social messages …

Out Of Time: Temporal Colonization And The Writing Of Mexican American Subjectivity, Erin Murrah-Mandril

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation studies the ways that Mexican Americans experienced time as a colonizing force in the US Southwest between 1848 and 1940. I argue that Mexican American writing of this period exposes oppressive iterations of time within US modernity and often points toward possibilities of decolonizing time. The project focuses on political and economic constructions of US progress, which denied Mexican Americans presence within US temporal imaginings. My analysis moves from material to ideological temporal constructions as I analyze forms of time concerning wage labor, railroad operations, investment capitalism, judicial processes, congressional proceedings, Manifest Destiny, commodity fetishism, intellectual production, historical …

Initial Development Of A Medical Information Literacy Questionnaire, Sarah Knox Morley

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

Originating from the field of library science, information literacy (IL) is defined as a broad set of skills and abilities necessary to locate, evaluate and use information ethically and legally. This important skill set is incorporated into general competency requirements for postgraduate residency programs, however no standardized instrument currently exists to measure resident physician IL knowledge and skills. This study addresses that gap by developing and pilot testing an instrument aimed at measuring information literacy competence in resident physicians. The author constructed a questionnaire of sixty-nine multiple-choice items to assess skills covering five IL domains. Utilizing the Content Validity Ratio …

Alumni At Large

Colby Magazine

Class Notes

Profiles
An Old Cowhand: Charles Card '40
High Seas Health Care: Sarah Hudson '69
Fiddling with Mussels: Carter Newell '77
A Political Party: Helen Milby '87

Obituaries

From The Hill

Colby Magazine

A New Threat to the Press: Bill Kovach warns that corporate priorities are a threat to journalism

Rebecca Littleton Corbett '74 Joins Lovejoy Selection Committee

It's Not Only a Movie

wit & wisdom

Adams to Students: Take Time to Give Back

Love of Country: Ana Prokic '04 feels Serbia's pain, from afar

A Read on The Colby Reader

A Long Day at the Office

Scrapbook
Take advantage of "the variety" On The Social Side
Dorm Living

Both Sides Now: Elizabeth DeSombre shows her students it's not easy being "green"

The Hague on Mayflower Hill

Pundits

Colby's Discovery Channel

Q&A: historian …

Full Issue

Colby Magazine

Colby Magazine vol. 89, no. 1 (Winter 2000): Full Issue

From The Hill, Gerry Boyle

Colby Magazine

Still Life with Broun: Director of National Museum of American Art helps dedicate Lunder Wing

Raspberry Advocates Less Negativism in News

A Collaboration Not Without Precedent

The Deeds of Didier: For Oak Human Rights Fellow, a glimmer of hope warrants total commitment

Committee on Race Prompts Debate

wit & wisdom

Uping the Ante to 128

Books & Authors, Sally Baker

Colby Magazine

Speaking of Girls: Lyn Mikel Brown articulates girls' anger in Raising Their Voices

Fresh Prints
Eastern State Penitentiary, written and directed by Christine Bowditch (sociology)

Bound to Please

Research Brief: "Preferences For Gender-Targeted Health Information: A Study Of Male Veterans Who Have Experienced Military Sexual Trauma", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about male veterans' preferences for health information provided to them after experiencing military sexual trauma and the effect of that information on use of mental health services. In policy and practice, veterans who have experienced military sexual trauma should seek military sexual trauma care from the VA, health practitioners should learn more about military sexual assault to better help servicemembers, and gender-targeted literature should be distributed to servicemembers who have experienced military sexual trauma; the VHA should include gender-specific resources for male veterans who experienced military sexual trauma. Suggestions for future research include the addition of a …

Charlotte's Society For Human Resource Management Awards Four Winthrop Students Scholarships, Winthrop University

Winthrop News 2014

• The student winners are Rachel Farr, Marissa Nichols, Anthony Jablonecki '14 and Shelby Webb '14.

Travel Preferences Of Recreational Motorcyclists’, Melissa Weddell

Journal of Tourism Insights

The Blue Ridge Parkway, located in the mountain region of North Carolina, attracts over 20 million visitors each year with an estimated 500,000 touring on motorcycles, who often consider the region the best motorcycle venue in the United States. While many studies have examined both recreation preferences and a wide array of recreation activities in the Blue Ridge Mountain area, empirical research is lacking on motorcycle recreationists’ preferences and economic impacts. Therefore, this research project aims to understand these aspects of the recreational experience within a specific travel group. A total of 189 people completed the online survey administered to …

Resorts, Resilience And Retention Ater The Bp Oil Spill Disaster Of 2010, Kate Price-Howard, Patrick J. Holladay

Journal of Tourism Insights

This study attempted to quantify intention to return to a vacation rental along the Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast. Compounding this was the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. We examined the intention to return to a vacation rental (nontraditional whole-ownership condominium resorts), as well as investigated marketing/retention efforts following the oil spill disaster and data on tourists’ trends over the summers of 2010 – 2013 via bed tax data. Data on tourists' trends since the oil spill provided inference on the resilience of resort tourism in the area. Qualitative interviews with key informants of property management companies allowed analysis of customer …