Digital Commons Network^™

Integrating Western Science And Indigenous Knowledge For Just Practices In Conservation, Cierra Lea Keith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Ending The Doom Cycle: Redefining Historic Preservation And Reclaiming Total Heritage Through Community And Social Justice Advocacy, Nikki Marie Manning

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the wake of a global pandemic and escalating societal challenges, yet another attempt to examine familiar debates about what we preserve and why and the typical arguments for and against historic preservation, seem inconsequential and disconnected from addressing more urgent societal needs such as systemic racism, inequality, police brutality, LGBTQ+ rights, economic and healthy disparities, and environmental justice. The field of historic preservation has the potential, and even obligation, to emphasize and create meaningful impact on larger issues. It should be highlighting and celebrating the diverse stories of people and places that define our community, and the history embodied …

Culture & Contamination On The Fort Hall Indian Reservation, Sidney Upsis Fellows

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The land-based culture of our Shoshone-Bannock Tribes reflects our ability to live a healthy and good life by connecting to the land physically and spiritually in ways of respect, accountability, and other traditions that uphold land-human relations. In consideration of the settler colonialism that has spread across Turtle Island (a.k.a., North America) over the past 500 years, appropriation and contamination of land puts land-based cultures at stake. For the Shoshone-Bannock, two Superfund sites, a result and ongoing issue of settler colonialism, present an issue of environmental justice for the Tribes. This thesis seeks to provide a holistic understanding of our …

Assessing Sustainability: Knowledge, Behaviors, And Attitudes Before And After College, Seth Blair Comella Bradley

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Cal Poly Humboldt has been assessing the sustainability literacy and culture among its new and graduating students for over five years using a custom survey with a longitudinal design. Using data from Fall 2018 to Spring 2023, this project is both an exploration into changes in student sustainability attitudes, behaviors, and knowledge from when they start as new students to when they graduate as well as an in-progress assessment of the survey. Results indicate the majority of undergraduates value sustainability, although behaviors and knowledge did not always align with those beliefs. While no statistically significant changes were detected in longitudinal …

Putting Lipstick On A Pig: Biogas, Methane Digesters, And The Greenwashing Playbook, Randall S. Abate

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Industrial animal agriculture pitches biogas and methane digesters as solutions to the outsized methane footprint of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), yet these efforts merely seek to convey to the public that CAFOs’ operations are environmentally responsible. In reality, quite the opposite is true because biogas and methane digesters more deeply entrench these facilities into the status quo of unsustainable production and disposal methods at CAFOs. This article first describes industrial animal agriculture’s impacts on climate change, with a focus on methane emissions. It then addresses biogas and methane digesters as ineffective solutions to the methane emissions from CAFOs. Next, …

Coastal Migration With Dignity: Safeguards For Vulnerable Communities, Randall S. Abate, Aashini Choksi

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Comment proposes to apply social justice-oriented safeguards to vulnerable communities in the climate migration context, focusing on recommendations to diminish the vulnerability of communities in two climate migration case studies in the United States. Part I describes the troubling realities of climate gentrification in Florida as well as forced displacement from coastal areas for native communities in Alaska. Part II addresses the existing federal and state legal frameworks in these contexts, and how gaps in each framework exacerbate the vulnerability of these overburdened communities. Part III proposes law reforms to address these concerns. It first recommends adjustments to the …

Grappling With Dei Issues Through An Environmental Negotiation Case Study, Robin L. Juni

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article will describe a teaching module that grapples with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues in the context of an environmental negotiation case study, seeking to provide guidance useful to professors in both doctrinal and skills courses. The teaching tools offered could readily be adapted to case studies other than the hazardous waste permitting scenario described here, and could be applied in an environmental law or administrative law course, as well as in a negotiation or other skills course.

This teaching module is structured in four parts: first, assigning advance readings and handouts; second, utilizing case studies that require …

Microplastic Contamination In Table Salt: A Study Of Consumer Behavior In Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Sk Abid Md Saad, Faijunnesa Rashid, Maisha Miskat, Mukul Chandra Sarker, Arman Khan, Mustafizur Rahman

Applied Environmental Research

Plastic particles resulting from the breakdown of bigger plastics may be introduced directly as micro- and nano-sized particles polluting the marine ecosystem, including ocean-extracted table salt. This study investigated the presence of microplastic (MP)-like particles in table salt from Bangladesh, focusing on both locally refined and commercially branded varieties. Local salt samples from Sadar and Moheshkhali Sub-district of Cox’s Bazar contained an average of 23.4 and 12 particles kg-1, respectively. In contrast, no particles were detected in commercial brands, likely due to their complex refining processes. The study also explored factors influencing local salt consumption, finding it influenced by the …

Intersectionality Matters In Food And Drug Law, Colleen Campbell

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Feminist scholars critique food and drug law as a site of gender bias and regulatory neglect. The historical exclusion of women from clinical trials by the FDA prioritized male bodies as the object of clinical research and therapies. Likewise, the FDA’s prior restriction on access to contraceptive birth control illustrates how patriarchal and paternalistic attitudes within the Agency can harm women’s reproductive health. However, there is little analysis of how race and gender intersect in this domain.

This Article uses the regulation of skin-lightening cosmetics products to illustrate why and how intersectionality matters in food and drug law. While the …

Are Race-Based Environmental Justice Policies Safe?, Oday Salim

Other Publications

In recent years, we have seen a signiicant volume of federal and state environmental justice policy with attorneys general developing enforcement plans focused on environmental justice. Environmental and conservation agencies have adopted limited English proiciency (LEP) plans to ensure that LEP individuals are not let out of decision-making processes. And, in some states, there are environmental justice laws on the books that impact public hearings, siting, and permitting. Many of these recent policies require the government to consider race directly or indirectly when making decisions. In light of recent jurisprudence on the legality of race-conscious state action—particularly the U.S. Supreme …

A Holistic Approach To Animal Farming: Integrating Bioregionalism And Socialist Ecofeminism Within The Context Of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, Sarah R. Spears

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This paper addresses the harmful effects of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) within animal farming systems, including poor animal welfare, environmental damage, and environmental injustice. I argue that bioregionalism and socialist ecofeminism can help inform a holistic approach to mitigating these harms and evoke ethical and sustainable animal farming systems. Bioregionalism emphasizes local resource use, community engagement, and ecological knowledge within a specific region, while socialist ecofeminism critiques oppressive systems and seeks to uplift the viewpoints of all beings, including animals, nature, and humans of various identities. Through a scaffolded hypothetical case study informed by the CAFOs-practicing hog farms in …

Assessment Of Recycled And Manufactured Adsorptive Materials For Phosphate Removal From Municipal Wastewater, Deja Drummond, Shannon Brink, Natasha Bell

Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education

Elevated concentrations of phosphorus (P) and other nutrients common in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent have been shown to contribute to the proliferation of harmful algal blooms, which may lead to fish kills related to aquatic hypoxia. Increased understanding of the negative effects associated with elevated P concentrations have prompted more strict regulation of WWTP effluent in recent years. The use of low-cost and potentially regenerative adsorptive phosphate filters has the potential to decrease P concentrations in WWTP effluent released to natural waters. This research focuses on assessing the capacities of recycled concrete aggregate (RCA), expanded slate, and expanded clay …

Critically Interrogating Wolf Eradication And Management Policy Through A Settler Colonial Lens: Toward A Compassionate Future, Karen M. Winter

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This largely conceptual multi-article dissertation centers settler colonial theory in a critical interrogation of Wolf eradication and management policy (WEMP) toward the ultimate goal of dismantling injurious structures and systems that brutalize Wolf and other Indigenous animals. Wildlife policy and practice are contemporary manifestations of the long-standing historical project of settler colonialism and its quest for acquisition and ultimate control of Land. Thus, the ongoing hegemonic control of systems of wildlife management and the propensity toward lethal control are also inextricably linked to the oppression of Indigenous worldview about human relationship with the natural world. Settler colonialism, as the nexus …

My World's On Fire, How 'Bout Yours? An Investigation Of How Privilege Fosters And Maintains Climate Denial, Morgan A. Chester

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The present study investigates the phenomenon of climate denial through a new theoretical framework of privilege. The analysis utilizes a feminist orientation that builds on a historical interpretation through the lens of colonialism. Through the dissection of current multidisciplinary understandings of climate denial and new concepts discovered in the review of academic literature and popular media, a compilation of theory, relationship, and connection is made. Systems of power and privilege are examined and connected to the mechanisms and maintenance of climate denial. The resulting analysis illuminates that settler colonialism, supported by connected ideologies of White supremacy, ableism, and patriarchy inform …

Feminized Servanthood, Gendered Scapegoating, And The Disappearance Of Gen-X/Millennial Protestant Clergy Women, Lynn Horan

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In today’s mainline Protestant churches, young women clergy navigate a precarious leadership space. While women’s ordination is well-established in American Protestantism (Burnett, 2017), Gen-X/Millennial clergy women find themselves at the crosshairs of conflicting gender narratives and unsustainable expectations of what it means to be both a woman and an ordained pastoral leader. Through the use of feminist constructivist grounded theory methodology, this study explored the lived experiences of Gen-X/Millennial clergy women who have left active ministry or a specific pastoral position due to concerns over their own interpersonal boundaries and psychological safety. Through dimensional analysis of in-depth interviews with 20 …

The Value Addition Of National Civil Aviation Policy Implementation To Airport Development In Nigeria: A Qualitative Assessment, Salisu Ojonemi Paul Phd, Prof. Chikelue Ofuebe Phd

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Through “Top Down theory of Implementation,” the study assessed the extent to which the implementation of NCAP 2013 has enhanced infrastructural transformation of airports in Nigeria. The paper discussed how the sector witnessed an accelerated infrastructural development, which situated the industry. With case study design and qualitative approach method, we found that the implementation of the policy was not discontinued. That facilitated ICAO certification of airports in Nigeria. The paper recommended the creation of Civil Airports Infrastructural Maintenance Standing Committee whose membership should be drawn from all the critical stakeholders in the industry with the responsibility of periodic turnaround maintenance.

Considerations And Challenges In Support Of Science And Communication Of Fish Consumption Advisories For Per- And Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, Jonathan Michael Petali, Erin L. Pulster, Christopher Mccarthy, Heidi M. Pickard, Elsie M. Sunderland, Jacqueline Bangma, Courtney C. Carignan, Anna Robuck, Kathryn A. Crawford, Megan E. Romano, Rainer Lohmann, Katherine Von Stackelburg

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Federal, state, tribal, or local entities in the United States issue fish consumption advisories (FCAs) as guidance for safer consumption of locally caught fish containing contaminants. Fish consumption advisories have been developed for commonly detected compounds such as mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls. The existing national guidance does not specifically address the unique challenges associated with bioaccumulation and consumption risk related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). As a result, several states have derived their own PFAS-related consumption guidelines, many of which focus on one frequently detected PFAS, known as perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS). However, there can be significant variation between …

Women's Role In Sustainable Development Project In Rural Indonesia: A Case Study Of Access Project, United Nations Development Programme, Elizabeth Gabriela

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This research focuses on the role of women participants in sustainable development projects in rural Indonesia, analyzing intricacies through Ecofeminism and intersectionality. More specifically, it examines the ACCESS Project implemented by UNDP in four provinces, aiming to address women’s engagement in the energy sector. ACCESS is a case study exploring empowerment within an institutionally gendered landscape—bounded by state quotas—for employment. Employing qualitative methods such as document analysis and semi-structured interviews with eight participants, the study draws from Ecofeminism and intersectionality to understand its central arguments. The findings depict progress toward gender inclusion in technical management for leadership roles, allowing women …

Lighting Pathways To Success In Stem: A Virtual Laboratory Meeting Programme (Lamp) Mutually Benefits Mentees And Host Laboratories, Katie E. Lotterhos, Moisés A. Bernal, Megan Phifer-Rixey, Torrie Hanley

Biology Faculty Publications

Developing robust professional networks can help shape the trajectories of early career scientists. Yet, historical inequities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields make access to these networks highly variable across academic programmes, and senior academics often have little time for mentoring. Here, we illustrate the success of a virtual Laboratory Meeting Programme (LaMP). In this programme, we matched students (mentees) with a more experienced scientist (mentors) from a research group. The mentees then attended the mentors’ laboratory meetings during the academic year with two laboratory meetings specifically dedicated to the mentee’s professional development. Survey results indicate that mentees …

Incorporating Equity Into Sea-Level Rise Planning: Perspectives From Practitioners Across California, Nayré Herrera

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Scholars along with national and state governments have increasingly made calls to incorporate an equity lens into climate adaptation processes and into sea-level rise planning specifically. However, the language used in these high-level policies remains vague. There remains a need to learn from practitioners on the ground about the challenges and opportunities for effectively incorporating an equity lens into sea-level rise adaptation and planning efforts. I conducted interviews with 17 individuals who are working within their agencies or organizations to advance equity across the California coast along with a review of 17 California coastal policy documents to gain insights into …

A Resilient Decarbonization Package For The Hoopa Shopping Center, Esther Obikoya

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The Hoopa Shopping Center, located within the Hoopa Valley Tribe Reservation, faces significant energy cost fluctuations and reliability issues. Given the susceptibility of remote communities to power disruptions, the Tribe's move toward achieving a sustainable and resilient power infrastructure is essential. This study investigates the technical and economic decarbonization strategies for the Hoopa Shopping Center, focusing on reducing energy bills, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions through electrification and energy efficiency improvements, as well as the integration of renewable energy sources.

This decarbonization could be done in a way consistent with the development of a microgrid to energize the community …

Analyzing Stakeholder Perceptions On Biogas Production Incentives Under California’S Low Carbon Fuel Standard, Emily Read

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Accounting for more than half of California’s methane emissions, the dairy and livestock sector has become a central focus for the state’s emission reduction efforts. As a leader in climate policy, California’s approach to addressing agricultural methane emissions has the potential to shape the future of livestock agriculture on a national and global scale. The state has prioritized anaerobic digesters as the primary strategy for addressing livestock methane, a decision that has been both widely contested and strongly supported by stakeholders. This thesis investigates stakeholder perceptions on livestock biogas under California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) using interview and survey …

App-Based Data Collection To Characterize Latent Transportation Demand Within Marginalized And Underserved Populations, Noelle L. Fields, Courtney Cronley, Stephen Mattingly, Nicole Iroz-Elardo, David Levine, Nithisha Gudipati, Cristine Highfill, Mary Kris Stringfelllow, Anna O'Dell, Rebecca Cole, Melody Huslage

TREC Final Reports

Our interdisciplinary team refined an app prototype, MyAmble, to gather data related to quantity of transportation disadvantage and latent demand, and to identify psycho-social-economic corollaries. MyAmble utilizes a traditional travel diary format but expands the type of trips measured to include 1) completed trips, 2) missed trips, and 3) latent travel demand. The app also measures the real-time perceived impact of transportation behaviors (realized and latent) on participants’ physical health, mental health, social engagement, and employment/academics. Finally, the app has a text-messaging feature, Travel Buddy, that is used to increase participant engagement and retention over longitudinal data collection. The project …

The Next Generation, Jeremiah Chin

Articles

What would the law look like if we let children remake it? Laws govern, classify, and circumscribe children who inherit the law and its consequences. Discourses of power invoke children as rhetorical strategies to gain political favor or obviate a position—yet children are uncritically excluded from participating in the systems that control them. Children are subjected to the laws and objects of legislation, but denied the rights, autonomy, or authority to participate in the making of law and policy. Even the conceptualization of the constitutional rights of children is treated as an assumption, ill-defined and under theorized by traditional legal …

Educators Remedying Linguicism Through Critical Language Awareness And Critical Trans/Multilingualism: Towards Planetary Justice, Kate Alice Garnett

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate how a critical understanding of language use, language ideologies, and linguicism can influence educators’ praxis and identities. Specifically, the research explores how Critical Language Awareness (CLA) impacts educators’ praxis, their lingua-cultural identities, and their relationships with language and linguicism towards planetary justice. These inquiries were examined through participants’ involvement in a 6-week teacher educator course designed by this researcher entitled Humane Language Education. The course aimed to enable participants to analyze and address language injustices individually, communally, and globally. Unexamined language biases erode linguistic and cultural diversity, disseminate violence and discrimination, and …

Empowering Communities And The Self: Applying Trauma Informed Care To Program Development In A National Nonprofit, Carly Collins

Student Research – Stevenson Center

The Community Opportunity Alliance is a national nonprofit organization that serves as a field builder for the wider community development field. They are laser-focused on building strong communities through shared resources, collaboration, and a network of stakeholders working together to improve the lives of people and the communities where they live. This capstone project intends to demonstrate how program development that incorporates a trauma-informed approach using anthropological methodology leads to improved outcomes for individuals served by nonprofits at the state and local levels. The work outlined reflects the experiences of an intern in the Stevenson Center’s Applied Community and Economic …

Centering Veg*Ns Of Color: An Intersectional Imperative To Anti-Veg*N Stigma, Caitlin M. Mercier

Faculty Publications – Psychology

Veg*ns of color continue to be underrepresented with their health less understood in veg*n scholarship. As intersectionality and health outcomes remain an understudied focus in anti-veg*n scholarship, the concealable stigmatized identity (CSI) framework offers a way to identify the link between stigmatization and health outcomes for VOC. Using the CSI framework, the paper provides a review of multilevel manifestations of anti-veg*n stigmatization in previous and current veg*n scholarship. The paper offers future directions for researchers to examine stigmatization and its impact on VOC. Recommendations are provided to generate knowledge about the experiences and health of VOC.

My Ethic Of Care: A Grounded Theory Study Of Professional Staff Experiences In Small Private Universities, Karen E. Crist

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Beginning at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education experienced a sea of change in reduced enrollment, altered course delivery models, and increased need for student support. While observing staff’s actual impact on the student experience during this time, this study will address the question, “How do professional staff in small private universities (a) perceive their contributions to the retention of students and (b) perceive their overall value to the institutions they serve?” Owing to gaps in research on professional staff experiences, the literature review synthesizes current trends related to enrollment, retention, and persistence, focusing on small, private, non-profit …

Youth And Community Work For Climate Justice: Towards An Ecocentric Ethics For Practice, J. Gorman, A. Baker, T. Corney, Trudi Cooper

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper traces an expanded ethical perspective for youth and community work (YCW) practice in response to the climate and biodiversity crises. Discussing ecological ethics, we problematise the liberal humanist emphasis on utilitarianism and reject it as inappropriate for YCW in these times. Instead, we argue for an ecocentric practice ethic which intrinsically values the non-human world. To advance an ecocentric ethical perspective for YCW we draw on decolonial and posthuman theory. Inspired by a Freirean dialogical approach, we apply these theoretical domains as lenses to problematise YCW practice, seeking a generative dialogue between perspectives. Through this, we identify three …

Educating For Shalom In Engineering, Julie Wildschut

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Created in the image of God, humans have a unique purpose within creation. We are given the task of worshipping God (Isa 43:21), sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ (Mat 28:18-20), discovering and developing the potentials of creation (Gen 2:15), struggling and praying for shalom (Isa 1:17), and celebrating instances of God’s coming kingdom (Isa 9:1-7, Col 1:19-20). As Christian engineering educators, we have the additional task of preparing students to become capable engineers and to use those skills in response to God’s call in their lives. We have the blessing of not only teaching the technical aspects of engineering, …