Digital Commons Network^™

When Grade Schools Stage Musicals, It’S Broadway Or Bust ..., Erin Degregorio

Capstones

St. Ephrem School, located in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, just introduced its drama program in Fall 2016. After much success with last year’s first-ever production of Disney’s “Aladdin JR.," the St. Ephrem students put on “Elf the Musical JR.” in time for the winter holiday season in December 2017. But it’s not your mediocre school drama club, putting on simple pageants. It’s more like Broadway Lite – and it’s part of a cross-country wave of professionalization hitting grade-school plays.

Project can be found at http://erindegregorio.com/grade-school-productions.html

“It’S A Kind Of Killing:” Afghan Refugees In Shadow Of The Eu Fear They’Re Forgotten, Kyle Mackie

Capstones

For Karimi Wahab, an Afghan refugee currently accommodated at a center for asylum seekers in Sjenica, Serbia, watching refugees from other war-torn countries get moved along into the European Union has become routine. Afghans make up nearly two thirds of Serbia’s stranded migrants and refugees. In Sjenica, it’s been more than a year since any Afghan got onto the list maintained by Hungarian immigration authorities that allows 10 migrants to enter the country from Serbia each business day. Compared to Syrians and Iraqis, Afghans have also been granted asylum less frequently across the EU, on average, every year since 2014. …

Too Little Too Late For City Spending On Workers Cooperatives, Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech

Capstones

New York City spent $606.7 million in 2016 on Career Pathways, a national workforce development strategy designed to increase education, training, and learning opportunities for the current and emerging workforce. A small portion of that money has gone to worker cooperatives, a business entity that is worker-owned and worker-controlled. Female immigrant entrepreneurs have taken to the model. But the model's strength might prove to be its weakness.

http://alejandraoconnell.com/2017/12/27/too-little-too-l…ers-cooperatives/ ‎

Hair Is The Root Of A Revolution: How Black Women Are Embracing Their Identity With Hair, Shanel Dawson

Capstones

For years, black women have been demeaned for their features; their noses, complexions and hair. Straight hair and wavy hair have been considered “good hair.” And for centuries these ideas have been perpetuated by images in the media, cultural messages and even policies in schools and professional settings.

Today black women, nationwide, are rejecting straightening chemicals and embracing their natural hair as a point of pride. I spoke with several black women who are attempting to distance themselves from these negative narratives by honoring their roots.

For black women in America, hair has been the easiest way to connect on …

Utah's Black Hole Of Tax Incentives, William Mathis, Claire Molloy, Kevin Breuninger

Capstones

In Utah, a state job-creation program gives out millions of dollars a year to private companies. Over the course of a semester, our team looked through hundreds of pages of court documents, EPA violations and workplace safety violations to uncover what kinds of companies the Utah state government pays to expand there. We also analyzed employment data to show, for the first time, which companies create the jobs they are supposed to and which do not.

http://mcgillmathis.com/projects/capstone/index.html

Two-Way Contracts: The Solution For The Nba, Stefan Anderson

Capstones

This project takes a look into the NBA's first season introducing it two-way contracts. These contracts allow players to be in both the NBA and its developmental/minor league, the Gatorade League–widely known as The G-League at the same time. With the two-way being established it opens the door for many other things. This project goes more in depth on it.

https://sportswithstef.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/two-way-contracts-the-solution-for-the-nba/

Poisoned By My Government: How The Military Let Families Drink Contaminated Water For Decades And Didn’T Learn From It, Alana Pipe, Lori Freshwater

Capstones

This story is about a quest to find classmates from Camp Lejeune and put together a record of a school, where in the early 1980s the children drank and breathed heavily contaminated water and air. Not only were the children involved in what is widely accepted as the worst water contamination case in U.S history, they were there during the years when the levels of chemical contaminants peaked. The United States Marine Corps knew this at the time and did nothing to protect the children in its custody. While looking into the past contamination on Camp Lejeune, it was discovered …

Displaced Once More: Armenians Flee Syria To Montreal, Sean A. Shoemaker

Capstones

Since 2012, the Armenian community in Syria has sought refuge in Montreal, less than one hundred years since they left their homes and relocated to Syria as a result of the Armenian genocide that took place in 1915.

https://seanshoemaker.exposure.co/displaced-once-more

The Unspoken Truth, Cherese Butler

Capstones

This documentary aspires to inform the public about the discrimination dark-skinned black women face within the entertainment and beauty industry. The census has predicted the United States of America will get more brown, but dark-skinned black women still feel underrepresented in the media. I decided to show my journey to confidence in the documentary in addition, to the process of figuring out how dark-skinned women can gain more exposure in these industries. Over the course of 10 months, I interviewed dark-skinned women in the beauty and entertainment industry, as well as women in other professions to find out how years …

Palm Papers, Nicole Rothwell

Capstones

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) came into possession of a secret dataset of property owners of the Palm Islands, the elite high-end artificial islands on the coast of Dubai.

With over 250 neighborhoods on Dubai’s waterfront, a group of journalists around the world has been investigating who these individuals are that can afford the posh and pricey real estate. While most fall into the uber-rich category, some also have corrupt to criminal backgrounds leading to questions such as if the Palm Islands are truly a real-estate paradise, or instead a refuge for the corrupt.

The task for …

Food Plight, Pauliina Siniauer, Rahimon Nasa, Lizeth Beltran, Jeremy Ibarra

Capstones

At Public School 398 in East Flatbush, elementary school children on March 20 were offered a lunch of beef patties, zucchini and pears.

A city health inspector found conditions were not appetizing: in the cafeteria and kitchen, the inspector spotted live roaches and close to 600 fresh mice droppings, ample evidence of rodent infestation – all conditions primed to cause illness.

http://foodplight.nycitynewsservice.com/home/

Examining The Role Of Arts Education Partnerships In Sustaining Arts Programs In California Elementary Schools, Marie-Helene Bauguil

Dissertations

This study investigated three arts education partnerships in California elementary schools. The research questions that guided the inquiry were exploratory in nature and intended to reveal the day-to-day functioning of these partnerships, the challenges they faced, and the factors that contributed to their success, through the recounted experiences of the various institutional actors involved. The participants (n=21) comprised school principals and teachers, arts organizations administrative staff, and teaching artists. Qualitative inquiry methods (in-person interviews, classroom observations, and review of relevant documents) were used to analyze the data. The findings showed that the schools’ administrators and faculty appreciated the arts residencies, …

Reducing Turnover Time To Improve Efficiency In The Operating Room, Myrna Jafari

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to improve efficiency by reducing turnover time in the operating room (OR) that can consequently enhance patients’ and physicians’ satisfaction, promote teamwork, and decrease the cost of operating room delays. The increasing trend of turnover time (TOT) requires attention for microsystem improvement in the OR of Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. The intervention to improve efficiency is to educate the OR team members on roles and responsibilities to establish a standard workflow which can promote accountability and teamwork during the turnover process. Havelock’s theory of change is used as a framework for the action …

A Roadmap For The Journey Home - A Supplemental Tool Guiding Patients From Hospital To Home, Michelle Basco

Master's Projects and Capstones

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) have recognized readmission rates as a public health problem. CMS incentivizes hospitals to reduce readmission rates and reduce payments for hospitals with high readmission rates (Berry et al., 2013). Patient education and discharge planning are associated with decreased readmission rates. I gained fieldwork experience at Children’s Health System of Texas in Dallas. Children’s Health, a pediatric non-profit, is the 8th largest pediatric health care provider in the U.S. Prior to discharge patient education occurs on topics related to their diagnosis, plus patients are provided discharge instructions including their diagnosis, medications, and simple instructions for …

Improving Early Sepsis Identification On Inpatient Units, Hannah Pari

Master's Projects and Capstones

Sepsis is a life threatening medical emergency that if left untreated could ultimately lead to death. It is defined as the body’s extreme response to infection which can rapidly worsen if not identified and managed quickly. As sepsis worsens, it leads to extended hospital stays, poor patient prognoses and increased hospital costs. In an effort to combat these negative outcomes, efficient protocols must be implemented hospital wide. A 5 P’s microsystem assessment was preformed to assess the purpose, patients, professionals, processes and patterns. Additionally, assessments were conducted to collect baseline nursing knowledge regarding sepsis criteria, treatment, and hospital protocol. A …

A New Dimension Of Scottishness? Iain Banks, The Algebraist (2004), Martin Procházka

Studies in Scottish Literature

Argues that Iain Banks's experimental science fiction, often disguised as the pop-culture genre of “space opera,” changes the frame of reference for Scottishness, linking it with a plurality of fictitious worlds, presenting the gradual erosion, subversion and deconstruction of the anthropomorphic perspective, to reveal the limitations of humanist ideologies.

Regaining Control: Jenni Fagan, The Panopticon (2012), Marie-Odile Pittin-Hedon

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses Fagan's groundbreaking novel about an Edinburgh teenager as "an important landmark of contemporary literature," "a performative act of resistance ... over the forces of oppression," and "an invitation to reconsider the ethics of our contemporary world."

Jackie Kay, Trumpet (1998), Marie Hologa

Studies in Scottish Literature

Argues that Kay's acclaimed novel about a celebrated black jazz trumpeter, who is transgender, presents "an alternative construction of masculinity to the stereotypical Scottish 'hard man' of tartan noir, " dealing with "questions of identity that go beyond Scottishness," and unmasking "the emptiness of normative categories like gender, sexuality, ‘race’ and ethnic origins in a postmodern ... society."

Tom Scott As Religious Poet: 'The Paschal Candill' In Context, Richie Mccaffery

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the religious beliefs and writings of the Scottish poet Tom Scott (1918-1995), both as a continuing concern and during a period of explicitly Catholic belief in the 1950, examining in detail his Catholic poem 'The Paschal Candill' in relation to his much more widely-recognized political comments.

Assessment Literacy In A Mathematics Classroom, Virginia M. Doran

All Student Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of using assessment literacy in a math classroom. This was accomplished by analyzing the test results of students in two different high school Geometry B classes. Both classes were taught the same curriculum, with the same textbook and tests, and by the same teacher. However, assessment literacy techniques were only implemented in one of the two classes. Both classes completed a pre and post-test. The researcher compared the growth of both classes. Results of the study showed that incorporating assessment literacy techniques such as student friendly learning targets, reflection, self-assessment, …

A Comparison Of Two Treatment Approaches For Agrammatic Broca's Aphasia: Script Therapy Vs. Verb Network Strengthening Treatment, Maureen Costello-Yacono

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Background/Introduction: Individuals with agrammatic Broca’s aphasia frequently are treated at single word level, verb priming, or simple sentence structure treatments. In this study, an impairment specific treatment such as Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) was explored as well as a social functional approach such as Script Therapy. These two approaches were assessed by the outcome measures of rate of speech, subject-verb-object production, and error rates during probe tasks.

Objective: To examine the impact of two treatment approaches: Script Therapy and Verb Network Strengthening Treatment for two individuals with chronic agrammatic Broca’s aphasia.

Method: A single subject multiple baseline …

The Murder Of Innocence, Milana Vinn

Capstones

New York statute of limitations gives victims of child sexual abuse until 23 to seek legal action against the perpetrator -- one of the shortest statutes of limitations in the country. The majority of survivors come forward years later, on average at the age of 42. They say they never get justice and their offenders live freely. Child advocates and survivors have not been successful trying to raise the New York's statute of limitations. Party because the Catholic Church spent $2.2 million in the past ten years lobbying to keep the deadline in place.

https://readymag.com/u12921503/nychildabuse/

When Stigma Kills: Why Abortion In India Is Lethal Even Though It’S Legal, Mallory Moench

Capstones

Tanvi and Meera both went to get abortions this year, but only one survived. Even though abortions before 20 weeks have been legal since 1971, as many as three women die every day from unsafe abortions, government data shows. Half of all pregnancies in India are unwanted, resulting in more than 15 million abortions a year. Many go unreported, taking place in the shadows because of stigma. Although a new generation in India is growing more open about sexuality, getting pregnant outside of marriage can still ruin a woman’s reputation, shame her family and damage her future prospects. Even if …

Tropes Trump Politics, Aaron Berkowitz

Capstones

This critical essay examines the use of tropes and themes in modern comic books and how they are used to protest President Donald Trump’s policies, actions and supporters. It begins with a detailed history of tropes used in comic books and how some of the first superhero comic book writers created these tropes in order to protest the social injustices of their times. It shifts to the first trope, the “compromised hero” where a hero is turned evil. It is used in “Secret Empire,” a book where Captain America turns evil and takes over the presidency. His rise to power …

The New Threat To Journalists: Robots, Annie Nova

Capstones

NEWSPAPERS, television studios and news websites across the world have swapped out human reporters for robots. In just a few weeks, I’ll be in a cap and gown at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism. I have dedicated the last 18 months of my life to learning how to report and write. Here is where people are transformed into the so-called East Coast elite members of the media. No small amount of money, energy and time went to this effort. Had I learned to do anything a robot couldn’t?

https://medium.com/@annie.nova/the-new-threat-to-journalists-robots-f0f8865e09af

Half A Mile To Hope, Ryan Kelley

Capstones

When you first see the football team from Frederick Douglass Academy in East Harlem, you can tell they have an edge. A certain swagger that says this team has something to prove. Their athleticism is scrappy, their personalities are animated, and their motivation is a dirt field, half a mile from the school.

That’s where they walk every day in the fall to practice. Instead of a football field, it’s a city park with a softball infield in each corner. The outfield grass in the middle is torn up from the team’s cleats. A cloud of dust is kicked up …

Is The Free Tibet Movement A Lost Cause?, Tsering D. Gurung

Capstones

China's growing economic influence, internecine rivalries, and over-reliance on the West have hurt the decades-old Tibetan independence movement.

tseringgurung.atavist.com/freetibetmovement

¿Se Habla Español?, Carlos A. Serrano, Gerardo Del Valle, Estefanía Hernández, Alma Sacasa, Lidia Hernández

Capstones

The murder of Deisy Garcia and her children in 2014 caused an uproar in the community and leaving many demanding for a change in the language problem between police officers and non-English residents. However, the City’s many attempts have left many unsatisfied with the results. Through research in New York City documents, precincts, court cases and riding along with the police in Staten Island we were able to showcase that although some police officers are using interpreting services to better help the community, others are choosing to not use them. With cases like Brenda Martinez, a transgender woman who is …

In Brownsville, A Struggle For Revitalization Without Displacement, Katherine Warren

Capstones

As many parts of Brooklyn buzz with a startling rate of economic resurgence, Brownsville seems like a neighborhood left behind.

Struggling with poverty, poor health statistics, unemployment and high crime rates, and with the highest concentration of public housing in the city, it has not seen the same commercial and real estate revival as Williamsburg, Bushwick, Crown Heights and other areas of Brooklyn.

“In Brownsville, which has had challenges battling negative perceptions of this community, most of the residents are lower income and investors in the past have deemed this community as not being as good as an investment as …

Without A Caveat: How An Ethiopian Immigrant Deconstructs Race In America, Priscilla Alabi

Capstones

The story is about how an Ethiopian immigrant, Mariya Abdulkaf is dealing with the effects of the racism she experienced while growing up in Texas. However, she is one of many women of color who continue to educate and awaken the communities to which they belong. In a social climate where, according to a study done by the Pew Research Center, 60 percent of Americans believe race relations have worsened a year into the Trump Administration; and groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and others assert that women of color are “bearing the brunt of a mass of …