Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Diversity In The Workplace, Benjamin Olewiler

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

From its inception, the United States has been a country of immigrants. However, the recent trends of both legal and illegal immigration when combined with longevity have created a uniquely diverse population. This population diversity has introduced a dynamic human behavior challenge for supervisors and managers at workplaces across the nation. As larger percentages of minorities and women are entering the labor force and older generations stay at work longer, it is vital to be inclusive to all cultural backgrounds and generations within an organization. With the growth of women and minorities in the work force there is evidence that …

English Eng 4060 Program Revision, English

Program Revisions/Additions

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of Teacher Perceptions Of The Presence Of Cultural Reproduction In Two Middle Schools, Kaitlyn Montcrieff

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Contemporary challenges to education pose threats that our current educational system remains unable to meet. With the prevalence of school shootings, rapid technological development, threats to mental health, superficial curriculum content, increased testing standards, and continued inequality in classrooms, now more than ever it is imperative to define, explore, and quantify the ways in which the system of education reproduces or replicates norms, values, behaviors, and practices and the effects these possibly have on students and teachers. The purpose of this research is to redefine 'cultural reproduction' into reproduction and replication in order to explore how the education system in …

Too Many American Icons: Conflicting Ideologies Of Wild Horse Management In The American West, Curtis J. Sullivan

Communication

Wild free-roaming horses in the American West continue to exist in tension with the land they inhabit, the government that “manages” them, and the people that are impacted by them. The problem, argued here, is the result of the ideological construction of mustangs in American culture, and it calls forth questions about human-nature relationships as well as contemporary understandings of Environmentalism. This research follows in the theoretical foundations of Raymond Geuss and Tommie Shelby to unpack the epistemic properties (empirical evidence of the contexts from which ideologies are formed), functional properties (consequences of suffering and benefits as a result of …

Examination Of Potential Factors To Predict Fieldwork Performance: A Program Evaluation Project, Sandra M. Whisner, Matthew Geddie, Dawndra Sechrist, Eugene Wang

Journal of Occupational Therapy Education

This program evaluation project evaluated the validity of a hypothesized model for predicting fieldwork performance using data of 121 occupational therapy students from a single university. The first aim was to evaluate the hypothesized relationships between observed measures (e.g., admission GPAs) and proposed latent factors (e.g., academic achievement) for predictor and outcome variables. Factor analysis of the outcome variable revealed a three-factor structure, measured by 13 items from the Fieldwork Performance Evaluation for the Occupational Therapy Student. However, factor analyses of the predictor variables did not support the proposed latent factors: Academic Achievement and Professional Potential. The second aim was …

The Short Assist Scales: Measurement Properties In A Sample Of Occupational Therapy Students In The Usa, Tore Bonsaksen, Adele Breen-Franklin

Journal of Occupational Therapy Education

Shortening measurement scales can improve the scales’ feasibility, but at the same time, their measurement properties can be affected. This study investigated psychometric properties of the short Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) among occupational therapy students in the United States. The students (n = 120) completed the ASSIST and provided basic socio-demographic and education-related information. Scale structure was examined with Principal Components Analysis (PCA), while consistency between scale items was assessed with Cronbach’s α and inter-item correlations. Three factors were confirmed, but three items showed poor or ambiguous fit with the proposed scales. These items were …

Depression Across Cultures, Carlota Garcia

Student Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Shame And Guilt: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Raika Sadeghein

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the past few decades, we have witnessed a growing body of literature on emotions in the consumer behavior domain. Emotions are defined as “mental states of readiness that arise from appraisals of events or one’s own thoughts” (Bagozzi, Gopinath, & Nyer, 1999, p. 184). Marketers have examined the role of emotions as stimuli, mediators, moderators, and responses to the environment. The broad topic of emotions includes subtopics such as impact of emotions on consumption, attitudes, and behavioral intentions, emotional responses to market stimuli, and the impact of emotions on cognition. However, although the study of emotions is pivotal to …

Musical And Cultural Perspectives Of Héctor Campos Parsi: An Examination Of His Influences And Analysis Of Selected Vocal Works, Cynthia Ortiz-Bartley

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This paper examines the historical and cultural atmosphere in Puerto Rico and how it affected one of Puerto Rico’s most celebrated composers, Héctor Campos Parsi, and two selected works in two different times of his life. The discussion includes events that affected the island with respect to art music from 1898, the birth of Héctor Campos Parsi in 1922, and up to 1986, which marks the date of the second selected work. This document considers three questions about cultural and structural influences about the life and experiences of Héctor Campos Parsi: Does a composer’s life experience and environment and culture …

Using The Enrichment Triad Model To Explore Place And Support Curriculum In One Rural Gifted Program, Myriah Mae Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Using narrative inquiry, this case study explored how one teacher, who had deep connections to place, learned and utilized the place-based Enrichment Triad in her rural Appalachian elementary gifted program. Data collected included teacher, student, and parent interviews and classroom observations. Data were analyzed using a socio-cultural narrative analysis and narrative thematic analysis. Results from analysis created thick descriptions of the teacher’s journey to teaching, her existing practices, her experiences learning and implementing the framework, and her future curricular intentions. Developments in the teacher’s practice included establishment of scope and sequence, a sharing of power, and embracing students’ identities through …

Bridging The Gap: Utilizing Socratic Inquiry Facilitation In Cross-Cultural Communication And Conflict Exploration, Mikaela G. Zimmerman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The objective of this research is to explore the possibilities for improving governmental relations (local, national, and international) using microcosms of cross-cultural dialogues facilitated with Socratic Inquiry methodology and their potential to project situational similarities into more formal political conversation. Using twenty-five recorded dialogues from The Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Public Diplomacy (World in Conversation), I have broadly observed the role of Socratic Inquiry facilitation in cross-cultural dialogues whose content varies across a span of contentious social topics. By generally accounting for a range of relevant social factors such as gender, body language, conversational tools, and proxies for empathy, …

Toward A More Visually Literate Writing Classroom: An Analysis Of Visual Communication Pedagogy And Practices, Darren Allan Zufelt

English

“Toward a More Visually Literate Writing Classroom: An Analysis of Visual Communication Pedagogy and Practices” examines the teaching of visual communication in undergraduate professional and technical communication courses. Through an analysis of scholarship, textbooks, I argue that a situated visual communication pedagogy that integrates both analysis and reflection throughout the visual production and design process can better allow students to understand the ways in which the visual participates within larger social and cultural contexts. This understanding helps students develop abilities to potentially transform visual discourses emphasizing that all visual documents and texts, including the ones they produce, participate in shaping …

Biochemical Approaches For The Diagnosis And Treatment Of Lafora Disease, Mary Kathryn Brewer

Theses and Dissertations--Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

Glycogen is the sole carbohydrate storage molecule found in mammalian cells and plays an important role in cellular metabolism in nearly all tissues, including the brain. Defects in glycogen metabolism underlie the glycogen storage diseases (GSDs), genetic disorders with variable clinical phenotypes depending on the mutation type and affected gene(s). Lafora disease (LD) is a fatal form of progressive myoclonus epilepsy and a non-classical GSD. LD typically manifests in adolescence with tonic-clonic seizures, myoclonus, and a rapid, insidious progression. Patients experience increasingly severe and frequent epileptic episodes, loss of speech and muscular control, disinhibited dementia, and severe cognitive decline; death …

Ethics Of Care, Emotional Work, And Collective Action Of Solidarity: The Patronas In Mexico, Verónica Montes, María Dolores Paris Pombo

Sociology Faculty Research and Scholarship

In this paper, we examine the mobilization of the Patronas, a group of Mexican women who have fed thousands of Central American migrants over the past two decades. We argue that the Patronas’ work of feeding and caring for migrants goes beyond essentializing these women’s work as just housewives, mothers, and caregivers. Furthermore, we assert that through these care activities, the Patronas exert a feminist ethic of care that is understood as a set of practices based on trust, reciprocity, and solidarity. The Patronas’ praxis of caring for the migrants resonates with people and attracts hundreds of volunteers to join …

Discrete And Looking (To Profit): Homoconnectivity On Grindr, Chase Aunspach

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The queer dating and hookup app Grindr evidences a technological and economic intensification in queer spaces online. The dominant modality of capitalist power is no longer consumerist norms but the collection and analysis of data. Grindr’s participation in datafication distributes increased risks upon its queer users and necessitates a renewed politics of queer privacy beyond homonormativity. I name this arrangement of power homoconnectivity and detail four techniques that capitalism deploys to capture and monetize queer social production. Ultimately, this article unpacks how Grindr designs experiences that move users to log into the app while hiding its engagement with multi-sided markets. …

Infertility Patient-Provider Communication And (Dis)Continuity Of Care: An Exploration Of Illness Identity Transitions, Angela L. Palmer-Wackerly, Heather L Voorhees, Sarah D’Souza, Edward Weeks

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective: To identify how and why infertility patients’ communication with health care providers relates to their continuity of care within infertility treatment.

Method: A grounded theory analysis was conducted for 25 in-depth interviews across three coding phases, where we remained open to all themes present in the data, narrowed to most prominent themes, and found the connections between the themes.

Results: Based on our identified themes, we created a conceptual model that explains why infertility patients (dis)continued care with one or more clinician. Through this model, we describe two infertility identity transitions for patients: Transition 1: “Infertility as Temporary” to …

Embodied Transitions In Michel De Montaigne, Nora Martin Peterson, Peter Martin

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications

Sixteenth-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne was one of the first writers to reflect on embodiment. “I am myself the matter of my book,” he proclaims in the introduction to his Essays. Montaigne writes about various moments of embodied transitions: a near-death experience, reflections on aging and cognitive decline, and a lengthy discussion of how to cope in the face of devastating loss. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective by analyzing the relationship between embodiment, health representations, and geropsychological themes, this chapter analyzes Montaigne’s in-between moments, arguing that Montaigne’s essays—innovative in their own time—remain important in discussing embodied transitions today.

American Prisons And Jails: An Encyclopedia Of Controversies And Trends, Rob Tench

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

College Of Psychology Graduate Student Catalog 2019-2020, Nova Southeastern University

College of Psychological Services / College of Psychology Postgraduate Student and Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Framework For The National Culture And User Engagement In Social Media, Ilia Gugenishvili

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Even though social media engagement provides numerous benefits, companies’ efforts to engage users are often unsuccessful. Despite the growing interest of scholars and practitioners, studies on engagement have been predominantly exploratory in nature. Addressing this identified literature gap this conceptual article proposes a framework, which connects the national culture to social media engagement. It synthesizes the theory of culture; reception, motivation-opportunity-ability (MOA); social identity; self-concept; and social impact theory. User attitudes act as a mediator, while individual, group and motivational variables might work as cultural amplifiers or attenuators. Situational characteristics can cause a change in the relevance of the variables …

Do It For The Culture, Priyanka Iyer

Dean James E. McLeod Freshman Writing Prize

This researched argument essay grapples with one of the most difficult questions in the field of foodways: what does ethnic authenticity (in a culinary context) truly mean? In it, the author argues that the term is widely misunderstood and usually comes from a Euro-American, coded white, racialized point of view that colors how consumers see other cultures. Ultimately, the author contends that "limiting restaurants to what is often a subjective definition of 'ethnic authenticity' damages cultural understanding and bolsters stereotypes." In other words, globalization and culinary fusion have had a profound effect on how we define and understand other cultural …

Remaking Friendship In Unlikely Places: Queer-Decolonial Educators And Connections Across Experience, Politics, And Pedagogy, Maureen Nicole Osborne

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past decade, queer and trans advocacy has garnered increased attention in political, popular, and educational debates. The current prevailing models to explain and justify gender and sexual difference rely on understandings of selfhood that were developed in colonial, clinical, U.S., white, and middle-class cultural contexts. The cultural particularity of these most-accessible models has produced marginalization of queer and trans students and educators who have different understandings of gender and sexual difference. Queer-decolonial educators are individuals who are critical of colonial, Western understandings of gender, sexuality, and difference more broadly. These educators often work within contexts that do not …

Cultivating A Democratic Community In The Elementary Art Classroom, Kelly Fergus

Theses and Dissertations

Cultivating a more socially just, democratic classroom community is a best pedagogical practices qualitative case study. This study is designed to explore how three Virginia elementary art teachers define and create a democratic classroom community, inside their art rooms, through the implementation of various instructional strategies within the physical, social-cultural, and pedagogical spaces of their classrooms. Such instructional strategies may include a shift in power dynamics, student-centered art, choice-based art, and a big idea/real-world issue-orientated curriculum (ex: visual culture, social justice, democratic pedagogies). Each of the three selected participants were interviewed and asked to describe their classroom practices as well …

The Journey To Missionary Ceo: An Ex Post Facto Review & Reflection Of Service & Decision Making, William F. Colwell Jr

Doctor of Leadership Projects

As a capstone “deliverable”, this document’s purpose is to assist the reader in understanding cross-cultural decision making. I am doing this through a retrospective (“post facto”) review of my service in Cameroon. Every project has boundaries. First the identification of time boundaries. Dates for the project are December 2, 2009 (my arrival) to June 30, 2014 (the end of my service). This is the period during which I was the Chief of Centre of the Seventh-day Adventist Health Centre in Buea, Cameroon. For purposes of context, data from before and after the project time frame is included. The key purpose …

Investigating Thrombocyte Mediated Immune Suppression In The Tumor Microenvironment As A Means To Improve Immunotherapy, Brian P. Riesenberg

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Monoclonal antibodies targeting the Programmed Death Receptor 1/Ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) pathway have been approved in over 15 types cancer. However, as clinical data continues to be accumulated surrounding the use of these drugs, it has become increasingly clear that monotherapy, irrespective of tumor type, does not result in uniform, long lasting benefit. As such, the most pressing question surrounding the use of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade for the treatment of cancer is how to improve response rates in order to benefit more people. One avenue for improving patient outcomes is a combination-based intervention strategy where a PD-1/PD-L1 blocking antibody is combined with …

Contesting Slavery In The Global Market: John Brown’S Slave Life In Georgia, Michael Drexler, Stephanie Scherer

Faculty Journal Articles

John Brown, author of Slave Life in Georgia, published in London in 1854, proffered a radical approach to ending slavery in the USA in step with Marxian economics. In this paper, we will explain how Brown’s representation of subjectivity may have caused critics to neglect it. Brown treats freedom as something foreign and external. He has to learn what freedom means, first through exposure to a model of liberal citizenship and then through the experience of several modulations of fugitive liberty. Brown’s social world is wholly determined by external forces. Whether slave or freeman, he faces ambiguous situations. Is …

"Beyond Consolation": Or Strangeness, Estrangement, And Strange-Ing In The Elegy For The Black Body, 1955-Present, Naomie Jean-Pierre

Dissertations and Theses

The Elegy for the Black Body examines the mid-twentieth to early-twenty-first-century poetic justice crafted by African American poets to eulogize individual African Americans whose deaths were the result of racial and political violence. In the age of lynching, mass shooting, and police brutality, I argue that an African American poetic tradition persists that, while not entirely beholden to the ancient elegy, is its distant relative, along with the English and American Elegy. I argue further that while the contemporary American elegy has undergone for the last six decades intensive study, from the notable studies done by Peter Sack’s in The …

Out Of The Margins: Evolving Narrative Representation Of Women In Video Games, Rowan Lucas

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines narrative representation of female characters in video games and how game narratives and representations contribute to socio-cultural discourse. First, this thesis explores and defines the cultural background for female representation in video games. It then defines video games as a type of text and describes the features that are unique to games, such as the use of avatars, and what impacts these features have on game narratives. The thesis attempts to establish evidence of an evolutionary arc of comprehensive female representation in video games by first exploring historical female narrative tropes, and then comparing them to narrative …

Graphic Intimacies: Identity, Humor, And Trauma In Autobiographical Comics By Women Of Color, Francesca Lyn

Theses and Dissertations

Graphic Intimacies: Identity, Humor, and Trauma in Autobiographical Comics by Women of Color examines works of comics art about the lived experience of the comics’ creator. These graphic narratives address racialized difference and the construction of identity while also using humor to negotiate their narrations of traumatic events. I argue that these creators employ the structure of comics to replicate the fragmentary nature of memory. Comics allow for the representation of trauma as being intimately linked to corporeality. The comics medium allows creators to make visible and present fractured versions of the self, a product of traumatic fragmentation. Drawing traumatic …

Toward Liveness: The Polytemporality Of Performance Objects, Tracy Stonestreet

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine the temporal and material connections between component parts of hybrid artworks, specifically between live events / acts of performance and the long-lasting sculptural elements that those events / performances produce. I propose a re-orientation of the temporal gaze of performance art history, from one oriented to the past to one focused on the continually unfolding present. Such a re-orientation requires a nonlinear approach to art making that complicates set boundaries of past and present, liveness and record, and presence and absence, and disrupts in potentially corrective ways our historically normative systems of looking, categorizing, and …