Digital Commons Network^™

Introduction: For Better Or For Worse? Relational Landscapes In The Time Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

As same-sex marriage has become a legal reality in a rapidly growing list of countries, the time has come to assess what this means for families and relationships on the ground. Many scholars have already begun to examine how marriage is helping some same-sex couples, but in this introduction I call for a broader and more critical research agenda. In particular, I argue that same-sex marriage crystallizes a key tension surrounding families and relationships in many contemporary societies. On the one hand, strict family norms are relaxing in many places, allowing more people to form more diverse types of caring …

Investigating The Causes And Cures For Unclear Scholarly Writing, Marlene Ingrid Mahony

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative dissertation investigated possible causes and cures for unclear scholarly writing. For this study, a stipulative definition of unclear scholarly writing, or “academese,” is that the language tends to be vague and verbose. The problem, according to the included literature, is that people who use or accept vague language have less academic, social, professional, and civic power. Academese, some say, can detach readers and that can accordingly diminish collective exchange. Because higher education is meant to share knowledge, promote agency, and prepare students to communicate powerfully within and beyond the university, this study researched the causes and cures of …

School Leaders' And Educators' Perceptions Of Ignatian Identity At Jesuit Cristo Rey Schools, William Bludgus

Doctoral Dissertations

This study utilized a mixed-methods, embedded multiple-case study approach; school leaders and educators were invited to complete the study’s survey, and three in-depth interviews were conducted at each school. The six Jesuit, Cristo Rey schools in the study were those, which are solely sponsored by the Society of Jesus, and which have existed for at least eight years. The study’s survey instrument, the CRIGNIS, is an adaptation of the Jesuit Schools Network’s IGNatian Identity Survey; each item of the CRIGNIS was validated for alignment to one of the ten “distinguishing criteria” from What Makes a Jesuit High School Jesuit? (Jesuit …

Exploring Factors Influencing The Willingness To Communicate Among English-As-A-Second Language University Students, Chi-Fang (Michelle) Chang

Doctoral Dissertations

This present study anchored its inquiry in English oral communication and learning English as a second language. The purpose of the study was to explore the factors that influence the willingness to communicate (WTC) of ESL university students from the perspectives of both the students and their oral communication professor. Since the 1980s, WTC among ESL university students has attracted increasing attention because helping them communicate authentically is essential. WTC is correlated with overall English language proficiency because of its equal weight with the other language skills. Therefore, ESL students have targeted WTC as a vital skill. However, research on …

Taiwan – Community-Building, Civil Society, And Civic Activism: Promises And Predicaments, Anru Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Very Long Engagements: The Persistent Authority Of Bridewealth In A Post-Apartheid South African Community, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

This article examines the persistent authority of the customary practice for forming recognized marriages in many South African communities, centered on bridewealth and called “lobola.” Marriage rates have sharply fallen in South Africa, and many South Africans blame this on the difficulty of completing lobola amid intense economic strife. Using in-depth qualitative research from a village in KwaZulu-Natal, where lobola demands are the country’s highest and marriage rates its lowest, I argue that lobola’s authority survives because lay actors, and especially women, have innovated new repertoires of lobola behavior that allow them to pursue emerging needs and desires for marriage …

The Poor And Marginalized Among Us: Contingent Faculty In Jesuit Universities, Christina Pawls, Richard D. Clark, Carrie Buchanan

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Faculty of institutions of higher learning have an opportunity to discuss, debate,and discern how to create workplaces that are just and inclusive.As members of Jesuit institutions, wehave a moral obligation to do so. How, then, can Jesuit universities justify the poor treatment of contingent faculty, who are now a majority not just in our institutions but in the country as a whole? Tenure-track employment is a fading tradition in universities throughout the United States. The data also show that non-tenure-track faculty, particularly the growing number of part-time adjunct faculty, constitute a population of marginalized, often poor,employees working alongside more privileged …

The Role Of Indicators In Promoting Gender Equality Through The Millennium And Sustainable Development Goals, Sara Rose Taylor

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

With the global rise of evidence-based policy, indicators have become an increasingly important part of governance. Indicators are statistics that represent social experiences, turning complex norms into simplified representations. Although seemingly objective, indicators reflect the values and beliefs of the actors who create them. An indicator’s normative underpinnings have significant consequences for social governance and policy because of an indicator’s power to shape understanding. This multi-manuscript dissertation analyzes the impact of governance by indicators as seen in the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals (MDGs and SDGs), two major United Nations initiatives in the field of global social governance. The focus …

The Pre-History Of Subsidiarity In Leo Xiii, Michael P. Moreland

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Ethnoarchaeological Perspective On Ground Stone Production At The Santiago Quarry In The Casas Grandes Region Of Chihuahua, Mexico, Michael T. Searcy, Todd Pitezel

Faculty Publications

Grinding stones, and more specifically manos and metates, are ubiquitous tools found at archaeological sites throughout the Americas. These tools were important, even to foragers, and grew in importance with the spread of agriculture, especially maize cultivation. Analyses of grinding stones recovered from archaeological sites are a common aspect of site reports, but these tend to generate data that emphasize the middle and end of the use-lives of these tools (Searcy 2011:8). The prehistoric manufacture of ground stone tools has received scant attention, and we suggest this may be due to two primary factors. First, the quarries where much of …

Aerial Imaging Using Uavs (Drones) In Chihuahua And Nayarit, Mexico, To Map And Archive Archaeological Sites, Michael T. Searcy, Scott Ure, Michael Mathiowetz, Haylie Ferguson, Jaclyn Eckersley, Mauricio Garduno Ambriz, Jose Carlos Beltran Medina, Jorge Morales Monroy

Faculty Publications

In 2017, we used UAVs (drones) to record eight archaeological sites from the air. As this type of technology becomes more refined, we have found that it is especially useful in carrying out three specific tasks: contour mapping, archiving site conditions, and identifying architecture. This paper reports our findings resulting from aerial images captured while flying archaeological sites in Nayarit and Chihuahua, Mexico.

Katangale Or Kuba?: Development Assistance And The Experiences And Perceptions Of Local Corruption In Malawi, Sahai Burrowes

There is lively debate concerning the influence of development assistance (‘aid’) on corruption in recipient countries; however, to date, few studies have systematically examined the subject subnationally. This study estimates the association between sub-national aid levels and citizens’ perceptions and experiences of local corruption in Malawi. Overall, we find that individuals in districts receiving high amounts of aid are no more likely to view local leaders as corrupt than those in districts receiving lower amounts of aid. However, higher levels of aid are associated with more experiences of bribe solicitation. We also find evidence that aid channeled through NGOs may …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of The Use Of Graphic Novels To Teach Reluctant Readers, Bret Ginsberg

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of teachers in a suburban private school in Florida serving prekindergarten through Grade 8 regarding the use of graphic novels to increase student motivation to read. The problem was teachers were concerned with students’ inability to complete the required novels, demonstrate comprehension of deep meaning from the text, read silently, and read outside of school. Teachers raised serious concerns about the reading achievement of middle school students. Teachers also noted a frequent mismatch between the preference of the middle school reader and the instructional opportunities provided. The study was …

A Bibliometric Analysis Of The Proceedings Of The Association For Educational Communications And Technology (Aect) For The 1979-2009 Period, Vandy L. Pacetti-Donelson

Theses and Dissertations

Traditional journal analysis for the identification of disciplines is limited in developing areas of study due to the lack of journals specific to that area of study. Identifying knowledge domains worthy of study for the identification of developing disciplines has been difficult.

Conferences are at the forefront of building knowledge in scientific communities, particularly in technology related sectors, but less than 10% of conference proceedings are available in conventional knowledge databases. As a result, conference proceedings as a previously unconsidered knowledge domain, may provide the knowledge domain worthy of analysis to identify developmental and incremental change within developing areas of …

Graduate Survey, 2017-2018, Hart Career Center, Illinois Wesleyan University

First Destination Survey

No abstract provided.

Larry Finch's Memphis: Race, Basketball And The City, 1967-1997, Keith Brian Wood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

At the center of the 1973 Memphis State Tigers run to the national championship game lies Larry Finch, whose basketball career spanned a period of profound change in the city of Memphis. This study seeks to examine how the community, both black and white, used basketball to construct an identity for Memphis. By examining Memphis basketball at the high school, collegiate, and professional level in the 1970s and 1980s, a more nuanced understanding of race relations in the city can be achieved. This study also examines how basketball forged black pride, black manhood, and black community during these years in …

“The Important Fact Is That I Always Felt Danish”: Preserving Ethnic Memory In Virginia Sorensen’S Mormon Novels, Sarah C. Reed

The Bridge

American author Virginia Sorensen (1912–91) grew up a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Manti, Utah, in Sanpete Valley, a place known as “Little Denmark” because it was a major center for the Danish immigrant community in Utah. In 1956 she described her hometown like this: even now if you go to see the fine white Mormon Temple that dominates the landscape night and day you will likely be shown about the grounds by somebody with a Danish name, perhaps even with a Danish accent. he will tell you about the famous spiral staircases in …

Feminism And Fashion Of The Twentieth Century: A Material Culture Study, Miranda Dicenzo

Open Access Master's Theses

While feminist literature clearly states the connection between clothing and feminism, there is a lack of material culture analysis to support the connection. This research utilizes material culture analysis—in this case, artifacts such as photographs, garments, and advertisements—to connect the ideology of feminism to its tangible and visible representation. Many fashion histories describe the period in which a garment was popular but offer little explanation about its corresponding political and social importance. This study includes histories of twentieth-century women’s movements and correlating fashion culminating in an exhibition to bridge the gap between scholarly research from varying fields.

The exhibition, based …

The Old Rhode Island Farm: History, Memory, And Interpretation At Bristol's Coggeshall Farm Museum, Michelle M. Just

Open Access Master's Theses

While larger living history museums have been frequently studied by scholars, smaller museums, like Coggeshall Farm Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island receive far less attention. Utilizing historical and institutional records, historical monographs, and literature from the fields of museum studies and anthropology, this study examines authenticity in the museum setting using Coggeshall Farm Museum as a case study, suggesting that despite the museum’s search for historical accuracy, the institution remains inauthentic to recorded history. It argues that the history and interpretation of Coggeshall Farm Museum was intimately intertwined and influenced by the historical perceptions, biases, and dynamics of the museum’s …

Muskets In Misery Swamp: An Investigation Into A King Philip's War Battle, Laura Damon

Open Access Master's Theses

On August 12, 1676, Benjamin Church, an English colonizer and military leader, led a company of Englishmen and Indian allies in an attack on a group of Wampanoags with the goal of killing the Wampanoag sachem known as Metacomet, Metacom, or King Philip. According to colonial records, the attack took place at Mount Hope in Bristol, Rhode Island during King Philip’s War. This conflict began in southern Massachusetts in June 1675 and eventually engulfed most of New England. The Wampanoags and English fought on opposing sides.

This study will analyze the attack that resulted in Philip’s death, guided by the …

Perspectives From Select Women Working In Alaskan Commercial Fisheries, Berenice Yang Gonzalez

Open Access Master's Theses

Women have a long history of being actively involved in fisheries worldwide. Despite this fact, the popular image of fishers still assumes a male identity. An understudied yet important factor is women’s involvement in the commercial fishing beyond the family unit. This research was exploratory in scope, taking a thematic analysis approach, which allowed for the identification of patterns and themes within the qualitative data. Through eighteen interviews with women who have experience working in various sectors and segments of the Alaskan commercial fisheries, this thesis identifies: some of the women’s roles; the unique challenges that women face to break …

When Malbec Became Argentine: An Analysis Of The Quality Wine Revolution In Mendoza, Dominique Lee

Scripps Senior Theses

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Argentine wine industry experienced a shift from quantity to quality production which occurred while economic policies in Argentina opened economic opportunities for investment in the country. With these new opportunities, the industry began to focus on producing quality wine because of the desire to export and compete in the international market. As foreign investment entered Mendoza, the heart of Argentine wine country, new ideas and knowledge about wine production began to disseminate into the region and everyday practices. The shift from quantity to quality production was a paradigm shift in that it ushered …

Crispr Genetic Editing: Paths For Christian Acceptance And Analysis Of In Vivo And In Vitro Efficiency, Mandeep Sandhu

Scripps Senior Theses

With advancements in CRISPR-cas9 broadening the potential paths for clinical usage of genetic editing, conversations about genetic editing have grown to outside simply scientific communities and into mainstream conversations. This study focuses specifically on Christian discourse of genetic editing and locates four major tensions for many Christians when they think about genetic editing: beginning of life, Creator-human relationship, imago Dei, and stewardship. With these major concerns in mind, I identify epigenetics, somatic cell genetic editing, and in vivo genetic editing research as important research paths to pursue as they can potentially produce techniques that more Christian individuals would feel comfortable …

Snapshots Of Confinement: Memory And Materiality Of Japanese Americans' World War Ii Era Photo Albums, Whitney J. Peterson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The US government's incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II denied over 120,000 people basic rights and civil liberties. Limits on owning cameras inflicted unique hardship as people were unable to photographically document their lives as they had before the war. My research focuses on photographs that people managed to take and acquire in the camps, investigating the role of snapshot photography in remembering and understanding World War II experiences of incarceration. The photo albums I researched are housed in museum collections at two former sites of confinement: Manzanar National Historic Site in the Eastern Sierra of California and …

Orality In Joyce: Food, Famine, Feasts And Public Houses, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

Books/Book Chapters

Some common themes within the history of food and literature include starvation, famine, gluttony, feasting, commensality, hospitality, religion, gender, and class, and indeed food also functions as a complex signifier of national, racial, and cultural identity. Despite the growing international scholarship of food in literature (Bevan 1988; Schofield 1989; Ellmann 1993; Applebaum 2006; Piatti-Farnell 2011; Gilbert and Porter 2015; Boyce and Fitzpatrick 2017; Piatti-Farnell and Lee Brien 2018), until recently, Ireland appeared “as only the smallest of dots on the map of high gastronomy” (Goldstein 2014, xi). Most international collections discuss the canonical Irish writings of James Joyce and of …

Embedded Procurement And Exchange: Obsidian From Wolf Village Utah, Jacob Jepsen, James R. Allison, Jeffrey R. Ferguson

Faculty Publications

XRF analysis of more than 1500 pieces of obsidian from Wolf Village (42UT273) in the Utah Valley, Utah, shows that the obsidian originated from areas as far north as Bear Gulch, Idaho and as far south as the Mineral Mountains in southern Utah. Most of the obsidian, however, came from two Utah sources: Black Rock, which is 130 km southwest of the site, and Topaz Mountain, about 100 km to the west. The presence or absence of cortex, and the shape of pieces with cortex, shows that procurement was different for the two sources. Cortex on Topaz Mountain artifacts is …

The Spark In The Powder: Iroquois Freemen Trappers In The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade, Jay H. Buckley

Faculty Publications

This article challenges Iroquoian stereotypes portrayed in existing fur trade records by contrasting the failure of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) to integrate Iroquois and Métis trappers as successfully as the North West Company (NWC) had. The article also compares that to the successful integration and positive portrayal of Iroquois and Métis (mixed-desent) trappers within the American Rocky Mountain fur trade. Racial and economic discrimination by the HBC toward the Iroquois caused a negative impact on the financial success of the Snake Country expeditions under HBC’s Alexander Ross. Additionally, behaviors resulting from such discrimination received negative portrayals in Peter Skene …

Public Goods And Public Policy: What Is Public Good, And Who And What Decides?, Ellen Hazelkorn, Andrew Gibson

Articles

Higher education is usually seen as serving the public good, especially when funded directly by the state, and because of the ‘social benefit efficiency gains and potential equity effects on opportunity and reduced inequality’ (McMahon, 2009, p. 255). Calhoun (2006, p. 19) argues that public support for higher education is only given and maintained according to its capacity, capability, and willingness, to ‘educate citizens in general, to share knowledge, to distribute it as widely as possible in accord with publically articulated purposes’.

The Heart Of Cities Seen Through The Making Of Objects, P Davis

School of Art, Design and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Auditions And..., De Guevara Vm Ladron, John Matthews

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

No abstract provided.