Digital Commons Network^™

Agents Of Change: African American Contributions To Writing Centers, Sue Mendelsohn, Clarissa Walker

The Writing Center Journal

African Americans and their contributions to our field’s first pedagogical models and operational structures are absent from writing center histories. This archival research invokes their presence by recounting the stories of five African American innovators—Bess Bolden “B. B.” Walcott, Coragreene Johnstone, Anne Cooke, Hugh Gloster, and Percival Bertrand “Bert” Phillips—spanning four decades at three historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Their stories invite an expansive understanding of writing center work, moving beyond a focus on traditional tutoring and strictly alphabetic literacies and into “strategic literacies”—the survival skills needed to stand up for oneself and one’s community in the face of …

Building Networks Of Enterprise: Sustained Learning In The Writing Center, Steve Sherwood

The Writing Center Journal

This essay examines the learning processes of writing center professionals through the lens of “networks of enterprise” (Wallace & Gruber, 1989), which reflects on the dynamic processes through which creative people, like writing center professionals (WCPs), bring together the diverse and complex tasks undertaken in their everyday work into a cohesive and satisfying career. While there is substantial turnover in the profession, some WCPs stay in writing center positions for decades. Drawing on information gathered through surveys and interviews with ten long-term WCPs (with an average of 28 years of experience), as well as reflecting on his own career, the …

Exploring That Fulbright Magic: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study Of Fulbright-Mescyt Alumni Who Return To The Dominican Republic, Joshabel De La Cruz

Dissertations

International higher education graduates may experience challenges related to reentry to their home countries as their expectations upon returning home may not match their reality (Alandejani, 2013; Butcher, 2002, Gaw, 2000). This study utilizes a transcendental phenomenological approach to understand the lived experiences of seven Fulbright-MESCYT alumni who completed U.S. graduate degree programs and returned home to the Dominican Republic (DR) between 2015 and 2018. The Fulbright-MESCYT Program in the DR is a joint initiative of the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo and the Dominican Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (MESCYT) and adds funding for up to 10 …

Introduction: From Solidão, To Isolation, To Solidão-Rity, Luciane Ramos Silva, Tanya Saunders, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

Solidão is a concept from Black Brazilian Gender Studies that does not have a US Black feminist or queer of color equivalent, nor does it translate into a single word in the English language. It describes shared isolation as an affective relational phenomenon with meanings as multiple as there are Black women. Solidão is inherent to the experiences of Black women considering the historical, social, and racial vectors that traverse individual experiences.

But how do you frame intersectional theory with Afro-Atlantic and African knowledge production outside of the United States? This is an introduction to the 2021 special issue of …

Beyond Counting Words: A Paradigm Shift For The Study Of Language Acquisition, Lillian R. Masek, Alexus G. Ramirez, Brianna T.M. Mcmillan, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The 30-million-word gap, the quantified difference in the amount of speech that children growing up in low-resourced homes hear compared to their peers from high-resourced homes, is a phrase that has entered the collective consciousness. In the discussion of quantity, the complex and nuanced environments in which children learn language were distilled into a singular metric—number of words. In this article, we propose examining children’s language environments by focusing on what caregivers communicate to children and how they communicate it. Focusing on the features of the language environment promotes a more inclusive approach to understanding how children learn and the …

Corticothalamic Projections Deliver Enhanced Responses To Medial Geniculate Body As A Function Of The Temporal Reliability Of The Stimulus, Srinivasa P Kommajosyula, Edward L Bartlett, Rui Cai, Lynne Ling, Donald M Caspary

Articles

Ageing and challenging signal-in-noise conditions are known to engage the use of cortical resources to help maintain speech understanding. Extensive corticothalamic projections are thought to provide attentional, mnemonic and cognitive-related inputs in support of sensory inferior colliculus (IC) inputs to the medial geniculate body (MGB). Here we show that a decrease in modulation depth, a temporally less distinct periodic acoustic signal, leads to a jittered ascending temporal code, changing MGB unit responses from adapting responses to responses showing repetition enhancement, posited to aid identification of important communication and environmental sounds. Young-adult male Fischer Brown Norway rats, injected with the inhibitory …

Indigenous Movements In Colombia: Redefining Their Notion Of Citizenship Through Social Demonstrations, Representative Groups, And Constitutional And Legal Reforms, Catalina Betancur Velez

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Indigenous groups in Colombia have been victims of forced displacement and dispossession of territory. As they become more present in current social and political conversations, there have been partial improvements and advancements of promises made by the government. However, the Colombian government and ethnic majorities still fall short of the guarantees and the assurance of indigenous citizenship. This essay proposes that through the means of resilient social demonstrations, the establishment of representative groups, and the push for Constitutional and legal reforms, Indigenous people in Colombia have established a multi- dimensional definition of citizenship that explicitly identifies the social and political …

The Assemblage Of The Dead : Speech, Subjectivity, And Being Human, Nazia Manzoor

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT“The Assemblage of the Dead: Speech, Subjectivity, and Being Human” reimagines the construct of the human as a political subject of the state through a bio(necro)political lens. The project re-envisions the conceptual framework of biopolitics through an engagement with the figure of the living dead, centralized in Giorgio Agamben’s work through his casting of the figure of the Muselmann as the cipher that reveals the limits of humanity and being human. With a bid to counter-narrate the twinning of death and resistance and death and subjectivity as foundational markers of humanity in current critical scholarship of the field, this project …

Are There Individual Differences In The Foreign Language Effect?, Rita Gross

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

AbstractA foreign language effect (FLE) occurs when the language a problem is presented in influences its outcome (Keysar et al., 2012). So far, it has been unclear under which conditions the FLE appears (Driver, 2020; Dylman & Champoux-Larsson, 2020). One hundred and sixty-eight Arabic-English bilinguals from Prince Sultan University were presented with the Trolley Dilemma (a low-conflict, impersonal moral dilemma) and the Footbridge Dilemma (a high-conflict, personal moral dilemma) and responses to these dilemmas were measured on a slider indicating likeliness to take a suggested action. Participants saw Dilemmas either in a gain-frame or a loss-frame condition, and in either …

Trauma Before The Name : Impersonal Violence In Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Carolin Alice Hofmann

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The dissertation studies the pre-history of trauma in US American fiction, examining how experiences of large-scale adversity are represented before the concept of psychological trauma emerges in the late nineteenth century. Distinctly modern forms of violence—diffuse, systemic, lacking direction and intent—bring forth less individual and personal experiences of grief and suffering than those imagined by twentieth-century trauma theory. Studying forms of feeling and of genre that make trauma legible historicizes the way a Western idea of modern subjectivity, as white, self-possessed, agential, and split, has shaped out understanding of how a person processes crisis. The dissertation visits three spaces that …

The Gaze Of The Consumed : A Lacanian Approach To The Italian Cannibal Films, David Kelly

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

“The Gaze of the Consumed: A Lacanian Approach to the Italian Cannibal Films” not only acts as a brief chronicle of the subgenre of Italian exploitation films centered around cannibals, but as an exploration of the constructs that hold such a subgenre together. With a foundation in Lacanian psychoanalysis, this essay discusses the ramifications of assigning terms such as “savage” and “civilized,” as well as the issue with entering into such a discourse with presupposed Western notions of civility. The Italian cannibal films exemplify the circular nature of the mere anthropophagous act, putting forth the conceptualization of the “Gaze of …

The Acquisition Of Variation In Future Time Expression By High School Student Learners Of Spanish In Upstate New York, Erika E. Clarkin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The present dissertation sets out to investigate the acquisition of variation in future-time expression by English speakers L2 learners of Spanish in a high school setting. I explore the variable use of the morphological future, the periphrastic future, and the present indicative to express the future time in Spanish by the participants. A total of 2,282 tokens were collected at three different times during the school year. The participants were attending year six of Spanish instruction. The study takes into consideration previously published research on the use of future markers by native speakers and by non-native speakers. The present study …

A Fundamental Part Of Learning: Employing Play-Based Learning In Marin County, Ca Kindergartens, Spencer Gapinski

Literary and Intercultural Studies | Senior Theses

Play occupies a fundamental part of learning as a human being yet is often not used in an educational setting. Public Schools across California have increased the academic demand of students as early as Kindergarten with the intent to increase learning. While academic learning has seen moderate increases in past decades, the result has seen a decrease in play in the classroom. This essay assesses the benefits of using a Play-Based Learning method as well as describes the next steps needed to incorporate Play-Based Learning into Marin County Kindergarten classrooms.

Speech Regulation By Algorithm, Enrique Armijo

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The rapid convergence of speech and technology on social media platforms means it is likely the case that, either now or soon, more expressive activity will be regulated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) than by any legislature, regulator, or other government entity. Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly told Congress and other audiences that AI is the key to resolving Facebook's content moderation challenges, envisioning a moderation regime where algorithms detect and take down speech infringing Facebook's Community Standards ex ante, that is, prior to its public posting and before it reaches other users. According to Zuckerberg, this would eventually replace its initial …

Crisis Of Hegemony: China’S Rise To Power And The South China Sea, Vanessa Gonzalez

Undergraduate Research Projects

“Let China sleep. For when she wakes, the world will tremble.” This quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte has foreshadowed the international political climate of the twenty-first century. Throughout history, great empires and nations that were sure of their power could not fathom their eventual decline until it came knocking at their door. In many ways, the U.S is facing one of these wake-up calls. Its likely successor? The People’s Republic of China. From trade and technology wars all the way to what many consider the “New Cold War” in the South China Sea: the U.S has met its economic match. …

“You’Re Not Listening, Or I’M Not Saying It Right”: Reflecting On Borderland As Methodology, Marlene Galván, Randall W. Monty

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Valuing Personality Type Differences And Maximizing The Artistic Potential Of Early-Career-Stage Singers, Jennifer Nicole Donnell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Personality type differences color the ways in which voice students learn, practice, interpret music, relate to their teachers and coaches, and choose careers within the field of music. The Singing in Color Research Study is a qualitative study that examines the impact of personality type on the education, leadership, and career decisions of early-career vocal students. The study is built on the premise that individual differences “color” the way in which we as individuals see the world, behave, learn, and thus affect the creativity and artistry of the singer. It is proposed that music educators can leverage personality type theory …

The Perceptions Of High School Choral Students Regarding Sight-Singing Using Solfege Syllables And Hand Signs, Kimberly Moak Costanza

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Despite the theorized benefits of sight-singing in the choral classroom, little research has focused on the changing perceptions of high school choral students regarding sight-singing. The goal of this qualitative study with a historical approach and a grounded theory design is to assess the changing perceptions of high school choral students concerning the task of sight-singing using solfege syllables and Curwen hand signs. The study used a qualitative research approach with a pre-study and post-study questionnaire on sight-singing skills. The students received 1 twenty-minute lesson for four consecutive weeks. The goal of the questionnaire was to assess high school choral …

Why So Negative? Street Literature And Its Negative Effects On The African American Psyche, Lilly Lamia Simone

Theses (2016-Present)

Urban literature, more widely known as street lit is a genre of literature that glorifies and exaggerates drugs, violence, and sex in the lives of its African American characters. Through Street lit readers are introduced to the black man as a figure of power through illegal activity in his community, and black women as either overly aggressive or figures in need of protection. These novels choose loyalty over family, drugs, and athleticism over education, and money and power over morality. These novels and their glorifications cause African American people to see dream lives in goals that are not only unattainable …

The Role Of Embodied Metaphor In The Relationship Between Vestibular Dysfunction, Anxiety And The Self, Kaitlyn Abrams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is considerable evidence that vestibular dysfunction and anxiety are correlated. Clinical and philosophical arguments suggest that a loss of sense of self, experienced through symptoms like derealization and depersonalization, might contribute to this relationship. The present study used a mixed methods approach, including Systematic Metaphor Analysis, to analyze written short answer and quantitative survey data from one hundred and thirteen participants with vestibular disorders. The Systematic Metaphor Analysis revealed several primary metaphor concepts which elucidated the connections between concrete experience and abstract concepts in vestibular dysfunction. These included metaphors of Agency, Stability, Orientation, Self-Object, and Figure-Ground. Primary metaphors for …

Textq—A User Friendly Tool For Exploratory Text Analysis, April Edwards, Marylyn Sullivan, Ezrah Itkowsky, Dana B. Weinberg

Publications and Research

As the amount of textual data available on the Internet grows substantially each year, there is a need for tools to assist with exploratory data analysis. Furthermore, to democratize the process of text analytics, tools must be usable for those with a non-technical background and those who do not have the financial resources to outsource their data analysis needs. To that end, we developed TextQ, which provides a simple, intuitive interface for exploratory analysis of textual data. We also tested the efficacy of TextQ using two case studies performed by subject matter experts—one related to a project on the detection …

Theological Practices For Sustaining Community Renewal At Speedway Church Of Christ, Kent A. Ellett

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project assembled a group of potential small-group facilitators for the purpose of drafting a small-group discussion guide to be used at the Speedway (Indiana) Church of Christ. The guide was intended to aid the discernment of missional practices which sustain the renewal of the wider community. Focusing on the Gospel of John, the intervention attempted to recover a temple Christology, construing the incarnation, ministry, death, and the lifting up of Jesus within the larger story of the temple’s ongoing re-creation of the world. In bestowing his glory upon the church, Jesus sends the church into all the world, as …

“As A Father You Shall Be To Me”: Examining The Anglo-Saxon Oath In J.R.R. Tolkien’S Lord Of The Rings, Brady Kruse

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Pocketbook Next Time: From Civil Rights To Market Power In The Latinx Community, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

The United States is undergoing a demographic transformation. Nearly one in five Americans already is Latinx, and the United States Census Bureau projects that by 2060, nearly one in three will be. Latinx will substantially outnumber every other historically underrepresented racial and ethnic minority group, and non-Hispanic whites no longer will be a majority. Those changes have unsettled traditional approaches to full inclusion.

Civil rights activists have suffered numerous setbacks, and the burgeoning Latinx population is searching for other paths to belonging. Some leaders have turned to growing Latinx market power to demand recognition and equal opportunity. These efforts rely …

Noise Types Adaptation For Speech Enhancement With Recurrent Neural Network, Xiang Lan

All Theses

Speech enhancement is a critical part in automatic speech recognition systems. Recently with the development of deep learning based techniques, those speech enhancement systems trained with neural networks can significantly improve performance. While many of the latest speech enhancement systems show advantages in maximizing the perceptual quality of the noisy signals, they expose drawbacks when the test noisy signals have noise types that never exist during the system training process. The systems have relatively poor performance when handling noisy signals with unseen noise in contrast to noisy signals with seen noise. The dissimilarity between the training and testing circumstances can …

The Public Meaning Thesis: An Originalist Theory Of Constitutional Meaning, Lawrence B. Solum

Faculty Scholarship

Public Meaning Originalism is the predominant form of constitutional originalism. What makes Public Meaning Originalism distinctive is the Public Meaning Thesis—the claim that the best understanding of constitutional meaning focuses on the meaning communicated by the constitutional text to the public at the time each constitutional provision was framed and ratified. This Article provides a precise formulation of the Public Meaning Thesis, supplies reasons for affirming the thesis, and answers objections. The constitutional record strongly supports the claim that the constitutional text was intended to communicate to the public. The Constitution begins with “We the People” and the ratification process …

Correlates Of Social Isolation Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Omolola E. Adepoju, Minji Chae, Lechauncy Woodard, Kendra L. Smith, Luz E. Herrera, Daikwon Han, Daniel L. Howard, Jessica Dobbins, Marcia Ory

Faculty Scholarship

The past year has severely curtailed social interactions among older adults given their high rates of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. This study examined social, behavioral, and medical correlates of social isolation among community-dwelling older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and stratified findings to explore unique differences in two typically neglected populations, African American and Hispanic older adults.

Systematic Review Of The Association Between Cultural Competence And The Quality Of Care Provided By Health Personnel, Amanda Skipworth

Honors Projects

The purpose of this research project is to determine if a relationship exists between cultural competence and the quality of care administered by health care professionals. Challenges with providing care begin to arise when cultural barriers limit the provider’s ability to provide adequate care. In the past, many professionals have struggled with how to approach patients from diverse backgrounds and this discomfort continues to grow. With minority populations in the United States rapidly growing, it is largely beneficial for these professionals to understand and be aware of the varying cultures seeking medical care. To address the research question, a systematic …

The Lived Experiences Of Latinx Parents And Their Perception Of Bilingual Programs: A Phenomenological Reflection, Manuel O. Adrianzen

Dissertations

The aim of this study is two-fold. First, to better understand and capture the lived experiences of Latinx parents as they navigate the registration/enrollment process at the school and select a language program for their Pre-kindergarten child. Second, to understand what lived experiences influence their perception about bilingual education programs. Using Van Manen’s (2016) concept of human sciences and phenomenology, data was collected through the use of conversational interviews. The responses provided by the parents and school clerk revealed five themes, fear & anxiousness, hope for things to come & for a brighter future, use of social networks to understand …

Persuading With A Collocutor’S Values, Robert D. Costigan, Kyle Brink

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

The purpose of this study is to propose online pedagogical exercises instructing MBA students (MBAs) on the use of a persuasion technique. This technique calls for the framing of oral arguments with a collocutor’s values. MBAs experience this framing technique in a role play. Then, they identify opportunities to employ this technique in their workplace. Free-form surveys and ratings completed by MBAs and collocutors (i.e., role-play partners) suggest preliminary support for basing one’s conversational arguments on the values of a collocutor. Such a persuasion strategy may be an effective way of moderating the other person’s opinion.