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Stress And Resilience In Higher Education Administrators: Exploring The Role Of Mindfulness, Michael Baumgardner

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This dissertation explores stressors experienced by higher education administrators (HEAs) and examines the role of mindfulness practices in mitigating stress and fostering resilience and job satisfaction. HEAs manage essential institutional functions yet face intensifying pressures from volatile funding streams, shifting demographics, changing public perceptions, political and cultural challenges, technological disruptions, and pandemic-related change. Despite HEAs central role in sustaining higher education, limited research examines how these professionals experience stress, and even less has considered mindfulness as a potential resource for coping and resilience.

Guided by a qualitative methodological approach, this study draws on semi-structured, thick description interviews with 18 HEAs …

Gen Y More Black Corporate Directors, Chaz Brooks

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Corporate diversity has been in the spotlight for decades. Recent efforts have followed years of legal scholarship, arguments on the business rationale for greater diversity, and more recently, the racial unrest during the summer of 2020. Called by some, a “racial reckoning,” the summer of 2020 catalyzed many corporate declarations on the importance of diversity, and more to the point of this article, the necessity of righting the economic disadvantages of Black Americans. This article looks specifically at one intervention by a corporate player following summer 2020, Nasdaq’s volley to increase corporate diversity through required disclosure. This article reviews the …

Experiential Learning Through Simulations In Fully Online Asynchronous Courses: Exploring The Role Of Self-Debriefing, David De Jong, Sara Dexter

Research & Publications

Online preparation of professionals is increasing in higher education, which in educational leadership prepa ration programs raises the need for a means to provide authentic simulations of leadership experiences and help aspirants learn from them. This study presents a content analysis of 826 responses from 59 different school leadership students who, following each of the 14 simulations they experienced, wrote one response in an asynchronous format as a form of self-debriefing. The five themes identified map to the four phases of the experiential learning cycle (Kolb, 1984), suggesting that virtual opportunities to practice leadership in tions may serve as grounding …

China Vs Democracy: The Strategic Use Of Cyber Influence Campaigns, Alexander Deak

Honors

The People's Republic of China (PRC) has increasingly expanded its cyber influence campaigns against democratic states. Scholars largely agree that these campaigns align with the PRC’s broader goal of regional and global hegemony and that the PRC employs a range of cyber strategies to target democratic rivals. However, little research has examined what drives the PRC to adjust its online influence operations. This paper addresses that gap. Specifically, I compare the PRC’s cyber influence campaigns between two democracies to identify the demographic factors shaping its strategic choices. Using a comparative case-study approach, I analyze the PRC's influence efforts in Canada …

Performance Is In The Eye Of The Beholder: Exploring The Moderating Role Of Psychological Perspective Distancing Within Thought Self-Leadership In An Organizational Context, Christopher Bryton Neck

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Self-leadership, or the process through which individuals perform various cognitive and behavioral strategies to attain the self-direction and self-motivation necessary to perform in desired ways, has consistently been evidenced to enhance individuals’ performance through promoting a variety of positive individual cognitions, such as self-efficacy, positive affect, and engagement and through diminishing key threatening mental states such as stress, negative affect, and dysfunctional thinking (Harari et al., 2021; Knotts et al., 2022). The cognitive component of self-leadership, thought self-leadership (TSL) has been found to be particularly impactful, aiding the individual to modify and adapt their dysfunctional thinking to be more constructive …

Reassessing Hourly Neurological Assessments: A Quality Improvement Initiative, Haley Lynne Johnson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

ABSTRACT

Reassessing Hourly Neurological Assessments: A Quality Improvement Initiative

Haley Lynne Johnson, BSN, RN

Background: Stroke and brain injuries remain among the leading causes of mortality in the United States, accounting for 162,890 deaths in 2021 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2021). Although frequent neurological assessments are essential for monitoring patient status, limited evidence supports the prolonged use of hourly neuro-checks (LaBuzetta et al., 2022). Excessive neuro-check frequency has been linked to sleep deprivation, an increased risk of delirium, and inefficient resource utilization (Kishore et al., 2021).

Purpose: This project aimed to assess the impact of …

Individuals' Trust Of Bank Acquisitions, Christy Mccollum Knight

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Recent transactions within the financial services industry have seen an uptick in credit unions acquiring traditional community banks. Between the years 2020 and 2024, there were 64 announced bank mergers and acquisitions by Credit Unions, and this trend is expected to continue (S&P, 2025). As there are fundamental differences between credit unions and traditional community banks, the question arises, “How will consumer confidence and trust be affected by these mergers and acquisitions?”

This dissertation investigated how consumer trust would be affected by their propensity to trust others (Disposition to Trust), their perception of the financial services industry (Institution-Based Trust), their …

A Review Of Reasoning In Artificial Agents Using Large Language Models, Nagraj Naidu, Omar F. El-Gayar

Research & Publications

The increasing sophistication and the use of large language models (LLMs) in artificial agents highlights the need to investigate their reasoning capabilities and limitations. Understanding these aspects is crucial, given the integral role of reasoning in decision-making processes, which are central to a software or embodied agent. This research paper presents a systematic review of the topic. We review the literature by selecting and analyzing highly cited papers using both PRISMA and snowballing. The gathered literature is categorized using a detailed framework of facets and categories. In the results section, we elaborate on our findings and illustrate the mapping through …

Sexual Racism And Queer Asian American Men’S Depression And Hazardous Drinking, Phúc Q. Phan, Thomas P. Le

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

While research suggests that sexual racism is prevalent within the gay community, studies have neglected to examine how this specific manifestation of racism influences queer Asian American men’s mental health. Queer Asian American men’s health outcomes are often overlooked as racism-related studies tend to homogenize queer Asian American men with queer men of color broadly. Thus, the present study examined the association between sexual racism and queer Asian American men’s depressive symptomatology and hazardous drinking, as well as the moderating role of collective racial self-esteem. The final sample consisted of 151 queer Asian American men who completed a 30-minute cross-sectional …

Drivers Of Job Loss Among Chinese Breast Cancer Survivors: A Qualitative Analysis, Susan Chimonas, Yashasvini Sampathkumar, Xiaoxiao Huang, Christina Tran, Zhenlan Wang, Kuo Ting-Ting, Shoshana M. Rosenberg, Javier González, Francesca Gany, Victoria Blinder

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Purpose: This study aimed to understand the reasons for the high risk of job loss previously identified among foreign-born Chinese breast cancer survivors in the US. Qualitative interviews were conducted to explore challenges leading to job loss during/after treatment and to help identify potential interventions to promote job retention and re-employment.

Patients and Methods: The research team conducted semi-structured interviews with foreign-born Chinese breast cancer survivors in New York City. A total of twelve participants, previously enrolled in the Breast Cancer and the Workforce study, were interviewed between February and November 2018. Purposive sampling was used to identify …

Resistance And Empowerment Against Racism’S Association With Latinx Adults’ Body Appreciation., Julianne Powers, Thomas Le

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Research on body image and racism has largely focused on how Latinx adults’ experiences of racism are associated with negative body image outcomes. However, research has not yet examined how resistance and empowerment against racism shapes body appreciation among Latinx adults. To address these gaps, the present study examined how resistance and empowerment against racism is associated with body appreciation among Latinx adults, as well as the mediating role of ethnic identity search and commitment. An online cross-sectional survey containing the study’s measures of interest were administered to participants. The final sample consisted of 223 Latinx adults. A regression analysis …

Belief And Behavior In Radicalization: Clarifying The Link In Response To Peels, Clark Mccauley, Sophia Moskalenko

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

The relation between belief and behavior in radicalization to terrorism has been a continuing issue in terrorism research. Peels (2025) has advanced several reasons for thinking that the relation may be stronger than suggested by McCauley and Moskalenko (2017). In this response, we engage with his arguments and, in doing so, come to three questions. First, how does the difference between prediction and explanation account for the small observed correlations between extreme belief and extreme action? Second, if the definitions of extreme belief and extreme action are expanded as Peels suggests, how will this resolve the low-baserate problem that arises …

Hostos Community College Academic Bulletin 2025-2026, Hostos Community College

College Bulletins

This is the official college catalog for 2025-2026. It contains course descriptions as well as information on degree programs, college resources and services, financial aid, admissions, and the academic calendar.

Challenge Based Learning For Social Entrepreneurship Education, Koen Depryck, Ilse Wambacq

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Challenge Based Learning (CBL) provides a promising educational framework for teaching social entrepreneurship, addressing the persistent gap between theoretical knowledge and practical implementation. Through a comprehensive analysis of existing literature and theoretical frameworks, this paper demonstrates how CBL’s seven key elements-authentic challenges, stakeholder involvement, interdisciplinary approaches, student agency, work and life skills development, entrepreneurial mindset cultivation, and impact focus-directly align with and support core social entrepreneurship competencies. The integration of Kolb’s experiential learning theory, Santos’ social entrepreneurship framework, and Rogers’ innovation diffusion theory provide a basis for understanding how CBL can enhance social entrepreneurship education. Evidence suggests that CBL particularly …

A Systematic Review Of Reading Comprehension Assessment And Intervention In Minimally And Nonspeaking Autistic Children, Grace T. Clark, Madison Skibicki, Gabriella Pesantes

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Up to 25% of autistic individuals are minimally or nonspeaking and require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). While literacy instruction for this group is increasing, limited research has examined their reading comprehension. This systematic review examined assessment and intervention practices targeting reading comprehension in autistic children who use AAC. A search of five databases yielded 586 articles, of which 6 studies met inclusion criteria. Studies were included if they featured autistic participants under 18 who were minimally or nonspeaking and addressed reading comprehension beyond single-word decoding. Findings varied widely in participant profiles, comprehension targets, and methodological rigor. There is a …

Orthographic Support For Verb Identification In Typically Developing Three-Year-Old Children, Grace T. Clark, Christina Reuterskiold

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Children, as young as four years of age, have demonstrated enhanced noun learning when presented with orthographic representations during word learning tasks. This study sought to determine if three-year-old typically developing children would demonstrate an orthographic facilitation effect during an asynchronous computer-based verb learning task. One-hundred ten children were taught 8 novel verbs by presenting videos of novel actions paired with novel labels in sentence frames. Four novel verbs were taught with orthographic support present and four were taught without orthographic support. Participants were exposed to the words a total of two times and then given a post-test to assess …

Verbs Are Tricky: Does Orthography Support Verb Identification In Typically Developing Children Ages 3–8?, Grace T. Clark, Gabriella Pesantes, Madison Skibicki

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose:
This study examined whether orthographic representations—seeing a printed word while hearing it—facilitate verb identification accuracy in typically developing children and whether developmental or literacy factors modulate this effect.

Method:
One hundred eight English-speaking children ages 3–8 years (M = 5.86) completed a web-based verb learning task through Children Helping Science. Participants were randomly assigned to an orthography-present or orthography-absent condition while learning six novel verbs paired with dynamic action videos. Accuracy during a two-alternative forced-choice test was coded from parent-verified pointing responses. Caregivers completed a literacy interest questionnaire, and children completed a letter–sound correspondence task. Multilevel logistic regression …

Calvin Theological Seminary Academic Catalog 2025-2026, Calvin Theological Seminary

Seminary Academic Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Chatbot Assessment: Best Practices For Artificial Intelligence In The Library, Michelle Ehrenpreis, John P. Delooper

Publications and Research

In November 2019, the Leonard Lief Library implemented Ivy.ai, a proprietary chatbot on its website. This implementation was the first academic library installation of a vendor-supplied chatbot to be discussed in the professional literature. This chatbot functioned as a new tool that assisted users seeking information from the library website. User questions provided insight to the authors about the kinds of topics students searched for via the library website. In April 2023, the chatbot’s vendor began using OpenAI’s ChatGPT Application Programming Interface (API) to improve the chatbot’s functionality. This change, from a rules-based chatbot system to a transformer model, enhanced …

Civic Participation And Meaning In Life: Similarities And Differences Across Diverse Youth, Yue Ni, G. John Geldhof, Richard A. Settersten, Shauna L. Tominey

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Civic engagement is an important component of youth thriving, but prior research—focused primarily on political engagement—has found a “civic engagement gap” between youth with marginalized identities and those with privileged social identities. Research is needed to understand youth involvement in other civic activities, patterns of disparities, and any implications of these differences for youth well-being. In this study, we examined differences in community service activities, political activities, and expressive activities and their relationships with meaning in life 2 years later across 11 groups of 1,088 adolescents defined by intersections of race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and nativity. Findings reveal great diversity in …

Understanding Mobility-Related Challenges For Aapi Older Adults: A Preliminary Study In Southern California, Yongping Zhang, Priscila Salgado Inzunza, Carol Kachadoorian, Wen Cheng, Calvin Wong

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) Nationwide, the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community is projected to constitute 11 percent of people 65 years and older in the United States by 2050 (He et al., 2005). The challenges limiting the transportation and mobility of AAPI older adults include, but are not limited to, language barriers, cultural barriers, anti-Asian hate, accessibility to public transit, traffic safety and public security concerns, and changes to mobility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This project conducted an extensive literature review and a preliminary multi-language survey in Southern California to better …

Equity Leadership In Independent Schools In Seattle, Nimisha Joshi

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

No abstract provided.

Securitization Of African Migrants In Europe And North America, Chick Edmond

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The securitization of African migrants in Europe and North America refers to the framing of immigrants as an existential security threat rather than a socioeconomic or humanitarian concerns. This discourse driven by political rhetoric, media narratives, and policy measures, often depict African migrants as risks to national security, cultural identity, and economic stability. Governments in host countries employ stringent border controls, detention and deportation policies often justified by counterterrorism and crime prevention frameworks. However, critics argue that securitization exacerbates xenophobia, violates human rights, and fails to address root causes of migration, such as conflict, poverty, and climate change. This paper …

Nuclear Disarmament And The Erosion Of Deterrence Effectiveness Case Study: Ukraine, Chick Edmond

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The invasion of Ukraine demonstrates an interesting security paradox between nuclear disarmament norms, territorial integrity and deterrence in a self-help unpredictable international environment. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons under the Budapest Memorandum in order to receive security guarantees resulting in brutal betrayal by nuclear armed Russia. The research investigates how Russia maintains an effective nuclear deterrence capability against other nuclear powers in the region through threats despite challenges on the battlefield. Through the combination of military resistance, strategic partnerships and robust combat methods, Ukraine has established an unmatched ability to deter a nuclear-armed enemy - Russia. This research ponders …

Do Adhd Symptoms Enhance College Students’ Creativity And Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy?, Jorge Sebastian Montesinos

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Despite years of research focused on impairment, it is possible that attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be beneficial in some ways. Past studies have analyzed ADHD’s potential benefits to creativity and entrepreneurship, but the majority have either been underpowered or have had mixed results. In an attempt to add clarity to these potential ADHD-related strengths, the present study explored the relation between symptoms of ADHD, creative achievement, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE). The current study was a survey of emerging adult college students from multiple U.S. universities. The purpose of this study was to explore relations between symptoms of ADHD and …

Every Teacher A Reading Teacher: An Exploration Of Teacher Preparation And Literacy Instruction, Jossette N. Finney

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The number of students lacking literacy proficiency is on the rise, with only 33% of students assessed in Grades 4 and 31% of students assessed in Grade 8 scoring at or above NAEP proficiency in reading (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022). The purpose of this study was to understand more about the attitudes and beliefs of classroom teachers, preservice teachers, and content area literacy instructors surrounding content area literacy instruction, and how those beliefs affected their likelihood to incorporate literacy across the curriculum. The theoretical framework for this study included the critical literacy theory along with Paolo Freire’s pedagogy …

Sex Work Patterns Among Transgender And Gender Diverse People: A Latent Class Analysis, Madeline Stenersen, Anjum Umrani, Irelan Fricke, Jessica L. Zemlak

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Sex work is a diverse profession encompassing a broad range of people, and services. Though overrepresented in sex work communities, transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals are underrepresented in sex work literature. Further, sex work literature continues to underrepresent the heterogeneity evident in the sex work community and the practices that occur within it. The present study utilized data from the 2015 United States Transgender Survey (USTS) to conduct a latent class analysis (LCA) to identify patterns of different types of sex work among TGD adults (N = 2,153) and understand the demographic characteristics associated with engagement in different types …

The "Casserole" Constitution: The South African Constitution And International Law, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Un©Ertainty And Dis©Omfort, Richard H. Chused

Articles & Chapters

This essay explores creative works that produce powerful reactions of discernment, hostility, or deep uncertainty from mysterious forms of "blankness." They all use silence or similarly ineffable qualities to challenge the thoughtfulness and tolerance of audience members. They force us to understand that creativity sometimes manifests itself in strange and bizarre ways that test not only our viewing tolerance, but also our traditional notions of creativity and of intellectual property boundary lines. It is like forcing fully sensory-enabled people to think about creativity in ways that may mimic a small fragment of the daily experience of those with limited sight …

Housing Justice Pipeline: Harnessing Housing Clinics To Transform The Right To Counsel Movement, Erica Braudy, Thomas Honan, Tuhfa Begum

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.