Digital Commons Network^™

Collection Development Policy, English, John Venecek

Libraries' Documents

No abstract provided.

Asian American: A Personal Exploration Of My Identities And Some Possible Implications For Teachers, Seung Youn (Danielle) Kim

Graduate Student Independent Studies

As the population of Asian Americans in the United States grows fast, so does the incidence of racist attacks on Asian Americans. The urgency for anti-racist educators to commit to learning how to best serve Asian American children, their families, and their communities in accordance with antiracist, counter hegemonic linguistic practices, and culturally sustaining principles grows exponentially. Through a deep reflection on my personal and often painful experience as a Korean immigrant in the United States, I use an interdisciplinary approach including Socio- and Racio-linguistics, Social Psychology, Anthropology, and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, to analyze some of the challenges that I …

Resisting Obsolescence: A Comprehensive Study Of Canada's Conflict Of Interest And Ethics Commissioner And The Office's Efforts To Innovate While Strategically Asserting Greater Independence, Ian Norris Kellner Stedman

PhD Dissertations

In 2017, Justin Trudeau become the first Prime Minister to be found in violation of Canadas parliamentary ethics laws. This incident alone demonstrated the need for a comprehensive study of the Canadian parliamentary ethics regime. The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner (COIEC) who administers this regime is broadly recognized as belonging in a category of parliamentary institutions called agents of parliament. The COIEC is the only one of nine such agents who denies that it should be categorized as an agent. Instead, the COIEC argues it is an Officer of the House of Commons a category that is heretofore …

Lowering Disciplinary Rates: Looking At Social And Emotional Learning At Blackstone Academy Charter School, Ariel C. Davey

Public & Community Service Studies Student Scholarship

Social and emotional learning is a method that may benefit school culture and the environment for a student’s learning. Including social and emotional learning to school curriculums, specifically schools that have large numbers of students of color enrolled, allows students to learn how to manage their behavior and emotions and in turn benefiting themselves and others in present and future relationships. With more social and emotional learning is happening in the classroom, discipline towards students may be reflected on and seen as more harmful than helpful to students. As the days pass by, discipline rates for students of color in …

The Contradictory Interpretations Of Genesis 4:7—Ellen G. White Versus The Theology Of Ordination Study Committee Position 1, Michael F. Younker

Andrews University Seminary Student Journal

Reflecting a widespread tension throughout the world of biblical interpretation, Ellen G. White and the Theology of Ordination Study Committee Position 1 (TOSC1) propose contradictory interpretations of Genesis 4:7. Given the content of Genesis 4:7, which addresses issues relating to psychology and authority, which are often connected with Genesis 3:16 and gender, and its use by the TOSC1, the promotion of the TOSC1 interpretation of Genesis 4:7 within Seventh-day Adventist circles as well as broader Christianity will encourage further unpleasant confrontations concerning the issues related to the psychology of gender and authority in Scripture.

Deaf Research Dissensus: Conflicts Of Theory And Practice., Michael E. Skyer

Presentations and other scholarship

Dissensus is described and used as a heuristic to understand longstanding, structural conflicts in deaf education, its research methodologies and methods of teaching. Conflicts and opportunities are analyzed and a deaf-centric, future-focused model for deaf visual pedagogy is described. Invited Talk at the behest of Dr. Matthew Dye – SPaCE Center & deaf x Lab National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY (Via Zoom) Monday, May 11th , 2020.

The Poetry Of History: Irish National Imagination Through Mythology And Materiality, Ryan Fay

English Honors Theses

The thesis culminates in the twentieth century and yet it begins with the Ulster Cycle, a period of Irish mythological history that occurred around the first century common era. Indeed, since the time frame was before the arrival of the Gaels, Normans, or Christianity, the extent of this mythology’s relevance today is whatever extent it is conceptualized as “Irish.” As such, the first chapter locks onto an aspect that could feasibly transcend time and resonate with modern Irish society: gender. Of course, the epistemological dynamics of gender^[1] in the first-century common era are vastly different than the twentieth century …

I Saw The Signs: The Role Of American Sign Language In Preventing Violence Against Deaf Youth, Tolu Ojuola

Senior Honors Theses

The American Deaf community, comprised of approximately 500,000 people, has developed into a sociolinguistic, cultural community with American Sign Language (ASL) at its center. ASL is the autonomous language of Deaf individuals in America complete with its own grammar, orthography, syntax, and morphology. ASL is capable of conveying complex emotions and abstract ideas. However, most deaf children remain unable to express their innermost feelings because they live in homes with hearing parents who do not speak their language. For many deaf children, this is their first experience with isolation, but it is one they will grow familiar with as they …

Minority Vetoes In Consociational Legislatures: Ultimately Weaponized?, Devin Haymond

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

In societies emerging from or at risk for conflict, dividing power among rival groups—called power-sharing—can be an appropriate arrangement to maintaining peace. But how can groups, who are often emerging from violent conflict, trust sharing a government with rival groups that were just recently shooting at them?

A potential solution is the minority veto, which is allows minority groups to block the government from harming those groups’ vital interests. But what sorts of change blocking mechanisms constitute a minority veto? Who gets the veto power, and when can they be used? Do minority vetoes function as effective incentives for ensuring …

Real Possibility: Modality And Responsibility, Julia Gaul

Honors Scholar Theses

Imagine: someone is backing out of a parking space and does not look in their rear view mirror. They subsequently hit a car that was passing by. One could argue that they simply could have avoided the accident had they looked in their mirror. This non-actual possibility, that they could have looked in the mirror, seems legally and morally relevant. One could also argue that they could have avoided the accident had they stuck their feet out of their window and sung La Marseillaise.

My leading questions is: how do we distinguish possibilities that are legally and morally relevant from …

Remote Monitoring Technologies In Dementia Care: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Family Caregivers’ Experiences, Martha Snyder, Laurie Dringus, Manon Maitland Schladen, Ronald Chenail, Elizabeth Oviawe

The Qualitative Report

The desire to maintain an independent lifestyle is one shared by an increasing number of older adults. Adult children, spouses, siblings, and other relatives, also known as family caregivers, play an integral role in helping their loved ones maintain independence. Remote monitoring technologies (RMTs) such as wearable sensors, mobile emergency devices, smartphone apps, and webcams can be used to monitor, sense, record, and communicate a person’s daily activities. However, understanding is limited of the family caregiver’s needs and perceptions of RMTs used in a home-based setting. The purpose was to explore how family caregivers perceive RMTs and their use for …

English Wordnet Taxonomic Random Walk Pseudo-Corpora, Filip Klubicka, Alfredo Maldonado, Abhijit Mahalunkar, John D. Kelleher

Conference papers

This is a resource description paper that describes the creation and properties of a set of pseudo-corpora generated artificially from a random walk over the English WordNet taxonomy. Our WordNet taxonomic random walk implementation allows the exploration of different random walk hyperparameters and the generation of a variety of different pseudo-corpora. We find that different combinations of the walk’s hyperparameters result in varying statistical properties of the generated pseudo-corpora. We have published a total of 81 pseudo-corpora that we have used in our previous research, but have not exhausted all possible combinations of hyperparameters, which is why we have also …

Recognizing Resiliency In The Experiences Of Current And Former Foster Youth In Higher Education, Laura Rivera

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

This study explored current and former foster programming from local San Diego community colleges and a San Diego four-year institution to provide insight and recommendations to increase enrollment and retention of foster youth at the University of San Diego for their program Torero Renaissance Scholars. My participants included current and former foster youth who either had attended a local San Diego community college or a San Diego four-year institution. Through my focus group, one-on-one interviews, and my surveys, participants recommended a high need for four-year institutions to begin college outreach in K-12 education and inclusion of holistic resources (leadership workshops, …

Ketchikan High School At-Home Activity Resources, Ketchikan Gateway Borough School Districr

Covid-19 Archive: Documents

A document created by the Ketchikan, AK Gateway Borough School District offering resources for high school students to continue learning amidst school closures. Many of the activities rely on online resources, but they also emphasize outdoor activities, exploration of local flora and fauna, and activities such as cooking and gardening that are both tactile and family-oriented.

Lost In Translation: Unpacking Monolithic Narratives Of Girls Affected By Female Genital Cutting, Courtney Carr

Theses - ALL

Narratives about female genital cutting (FGC) have socio-historically been told in the realm of nongovernmental organization (NGO) discourse. NGO discourse reproduces monolithic understandings about girls impacted by FGC. Previous research reveals how NGOs replicate the tune of neoliberal agendas due to the contributions of donors in the Global North prompted by narrative formulations concocted in the Global South. Interviews were conducted with girls aged 15-21 seeking safe shelter from child marriage and female genital cutting and a translator, at the Network Against Female Genital Mutilation (NAFGEM), an NGO in Moshi, Tanzania. Case study excerpts from NAFGEM’s website, field notes, and …

Speaking Under Stress: Effects On Language Production, Perceived Anxiety, Physiological Arousal, And Cognitive Attention, Monica Mascellino

Theses - ALL

Communicating under stress can have many effects on our bodies and minds, as well as the way that we produce language. The current study employed a pseudorandomized group design to compare individuals’ perceived anxiety, physiological arousal, physiological cognitive attention, and language production during stressful communication and non-stressful communication. Results indicated that the stressful communication protocol did not seem to affect individuals’ self-reported anxiety, as there were no differences between the high stress and low stress groups. No between-group differences were found in physiological arousal; however, results demonstrated that the high stress group experienced an increase in physiological arousal while speaking. …

Cross-Linguistic Transfer In The L2 Learning Of Spatial Concepts, Azusa Tojo

Theses - ALL

Previous research has demonstrated persistent difficulties in learning spatial expressions in a second language (L2) (Ahlberg et al., 2018; Ijaz, 1986; Jarvis & Odlin, 2000; Mukattash, 1984; Munnich & Landau, 2010; Park & Ziegler, 2014). Recent studies have suggested that these difficulties may come from the learners' native language (L1) spatial conceptual systems, which remain persistent and influence conceptualization in second language acquisition (Ahlberg et al., 2018; Coventry & Garrod, 2004; Jarvis, 2016). Through a combination of triad picture matching and description tasks, the present study examined whether conceptual transfer is involved in L2 learning of Japanese spatial expressions among …

Voices Of The (In)Visible: A Gendered Study On Higglers In Downtown Kingston, Jamaica, Reneé Brown

Theses - ALL

This project examines the lived experiences of higglers in Downtown, Kingston, and how they survive Jamaica’s misogynistic capitalist patriarchal society as marginalized Black working-class women. Data were gathered through a series of semi-structured and unstructured interviews, and participant observation and journal entries. My theoretical frame employed historical materialism and Black Feminist epistemological standpoints which include Caribbean, African, and ‘Third World’ feminism, through a gendered lens to deconstruct neoliberal global capitalism in neocolonial Jamaica. My project also assumes that the impact of neoliberal global capitalism that thrives on patriarchy has forced Black working-class women in Jamaican to reproduce a political consciousness …

The Classroom As Inquiry Learning Community: A Practitioner Study Of Adolescents’ Developing Critical Literacies, Sarah M. Fleming

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation presents findings from 10 months of practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993, 2009) using qualitative data collection and analysis. Informed by communities of practice theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and critical literacy theory (Luke, 2000; Janks, 2010; Comber, 2016), the study asked the following research questions: 1) What characterizes a classroom learning community designed to support adolescents' experiences with inquiry learning? 2) In what ways do adolescents practice critical literacies when engaged with inquiry learning? and, 3) What roles do teachers navigate when working with adolescents developing critical literacies through inquiry learning? The study took place in an …

Rural Political Agency And Local Politics In Globalized Market, Ranitya Kusumadewi

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation seeks to demonstrate civic activism among rural communities in Indonesia and how they can obtain their policy of interest – two main features that build rural political agency. It emphasizes on rural participation in Rural Producer Organizations (RPOs), popular community-based farmer organizations, which have proliferated over the last decade. Two research questions guide this project: (1) What are the conditions that explain rural participation in RPOs in Indonesia? and (2) What are the effects of this participation on the political agency of rural communities?. Using a mixed-method approach that consists of original survey analysis, interviews, and quantitative analysis, …

Early Childhood Literacy Training For Library Assistants In Public Libraries: An Exploratory Case Study, Alvina Mardhani-Bayne

Dissertations - ALL

Early literacy programs in public libraries are well positioned to support a variety of children in developing literacy skills, as libraries are geographically dispersed, free to use, and oriented to families. Indeed, such programs are frequently offered in North American public libraries, and are not always conducted by librarians. Instead, other library employees are tasked with planning and conducting early literacy programs, who have varying conceptions of how literacy learning proceeds. As such, the training they receive at their libraries likely informs their understandings and subsequent programming practices.

This qualitative, exploratory case study describes the content and instructional strategies of …

The Development And Initial Validation Of The Cultural Humility And Enactment Scale In Counseling, Peitao Zhu

Dissertations - ALL

Cultural humility (CH) involves a stance of curiosity, a never-ending learning attitude, and a life-long process of self-reflection when encountering cultural diversity. Study of CH in the context of counseling is at a preliminary stage, primarily due to the dearth of conceptually and psychometrically sound measures. The study is intended to develop a client-report measure of counselors’ cultural humility, entitled the Cultural Humility and Enactment Scale (CHES). The researcher examined the factor structure, internal consistency reliability, construct validity, and predictive validity of the CHES in this study.

This study was correlational in nature and adopted a cross-sectional survey design. The …

Educators’ Understanding Of Scientific Sensemaking And Literacy: A Cultural-Historical Activity Theory Analysis, Heather Elizabeth Waymouth

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe a community of middle school science educators’ understandings of scientific sensemaking and literacy during their participation in professional development. Six teachers from Marksboro Middle School initiated and participated in a semester-long book study of Ambitious Science Teaching (Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2018). Three of these science teachers also participated in an interdisciplinary workshop series on sensemaking and literacy across the curriculum with three additional school colleagues from other disciplines conducted by a regional science professional developer and the author, a literacy education scholar. Two professional developers also participated in this study. …

Musical Ability And Accent Imitation, Maria Murljacic

Honors Scholar Theses

This study investigates the intersection of musical ability and accent imitation, more specifically defining what factors cause a relationship between the two. The study was run on 50 participants, who each completed an accent imitation ability assessment, a musical ability assessment, and an articulation ability assessment. The scores for the accent imitation portion were rated by anonymous online raters. Each participant filled out a questionnaire on prior musical experience and were either classified as a musician or non-musician. The analysis found that those in the musician group performed better on the musical ability, articulation, and accent ability assessment than non-musicians. …

The Alchemy Of An Indeterminate Visual Matrix: Perception Within Light And Shadows, Brandy S. Boden

Theses - ALL

The primary objective of this thesis paper is to articulate the concepts, context, methodology, and materials within my artistic practice. As a document this paper offers an overview of my past work as it progressed through to the work as developed for my thesis exhibition. My artistic practice has its roots in themes relating to the phenomenological aspects of photography, specifically emphasizing the psychological experience of light and shadows within visual perception.

While the foundation of my work is rooted in traditional lens-based photography, my materials and processes of producing work have expanded to incorporate camera-less alternative processes such as …

Cortical Auditory Processing Of Informational Masking Effects By Target-Masker Similarity And Stimulus Uncertainty, Christopher Edward Niemczak

Dissertations - ALL

Purpose: Understanding speech in a background of other people talking is one of the most difficult listening challenges for hearing-impaired individuals, and even for those with normal hearing. Speech-on-speech masking, is known to contribute to increased perceptual difficulty over non-speech background noise because of informational masking provided over and above the energetic masking effect. While informational masking research has identified factors of similarity and uncertainty between target and masker that contribute to reduced behavioral performance in speech background noise, critical gaps in knowledge including the underlying neural-perceptual processes remain. By systematically manipulating aspects of similarity and uncertainty in the same …

The Efficacy Of Intensive Application Of Schuell’S Stimulation Approach For Chronic Wernicke’S Aphasia: An Analysis And Comparison, Callie Ann Marsalisi

Master's Theses

Background: Roughly one million people in the United States are living with aphasia, and Wernicke’s aphasia is the most common fluent type. Few treatment options have been thoroughly research for Wernicke’s aphasia; a major obstacle with these patients is lack of awareness of errors. For persons with aphasia in general, it has been found that more intensive treatments are more effective, as long as the treatment is not overly fatiguing and does not lead to drop-out. One intensive treatment is Schuell’s stimulation approach, which focuses on bombardment of the auditory modality in order to effect improvement across all modalities.

Aims: …

Household Food Security Status, Dietary Patterns And Diabetes Risk (Hemoglobin A1c) Among Cambodian Refugees With Depression, Shanjida Jui

Master's Theses

Background

Cambodian refugees who experienced famine and trauma from the Khmer Rouge genocide are disproportionately at high risk of type 2 diabetes. This risk is exacerbated when this vulnerable population experiences a high prevalence of food insecurity upon resettlement in the U.S. As a result, refugee dietary intake and nutrition uniquely contribute to the rise of often long-term health consequences and pose an unexpected burden on the U.S. healthcare system.

Objectives

(1) To describe household food security status of Cambodians refugees (2) To examine the association between food security status and socioeconomic status (SES) of Cambodian refugees; (3) To describe …

State Of Community Health Needs Assessments In Connecticut, Miryam Hannah Wilson Reardon

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Linguistics Of Medical Terminology As Applied To Students Of The Medical Field, Megan O'Connell

Honors Projects

In modern times, global connectivity is prioritized especially in the medical field and related professions. A common understanding between professionals in the field is based on a shared language and terminology. As it follows that students of health sciences should be well-versed in the language of their field of study, it is beneficial for them to have an education in Latin and Greek, ancient languages which are the foundation of medical terminology. This research provides an analysis of the relevance of an education in ancient languages to students in healthcare majors. It ultimately illustrates the importance of an education blended …