Digital Commons Network^™

Impact Of Employment Status And Housing Stability On Tuberculosis Treatment Adherence In Virginia, Samuel Deapeh Worgee

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Tuberculosis (TB) cases have resurged in Virginia, yet the structural determinants shaping treatment completion among socioeconomically marginalized populations remain unquantified locally, leaving public health programs without state-specific predictive evidence. Grounded in the World Health Organization's social determinants of health framework, this quantitative, ex post facto study examined how employment status, housing stability, and social risk factors predicted TB treatment completion. De-identified surveillance records for N = 898 adult TB cases reported from 2020 through 2024 were extracted from the Virginia Electronic Disease Surveillance System and analyzed using a multivariable binary logistic regression, controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, and radiographic severity …

Access And Utilization Of Counseling For People With Sexual Offense Histories, Darrell Antonio Jones Jr.

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is a gap in understanding the low rate of utilization of mental health support services among adult men and women with criminal sex offense histories, which worsened mental health challenges for this population. The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to explore human services professionals’ perceptions and recommendations about access and utilization of mental health counseling for formerly incarcerated adults with sexual offense histories. Grounded in the good lives model of offender rehabilitation, the research question was: How do human services professionals perceive access to and utilization of mental health, holistic, and wellness counseling for formerly incarcerated …

Artificial Sentience: From Computational Functionalism To Behaviourism?, Wanja Wiese

Animal Sentience

I critically examine Jonathan Birch’s account of how brain emulations might create artificial sentience candidates, arguing that his account risks collapsing into a behaviourist account, unless the specific computational processes realised by such emulations are carefully considered. Drawing on examples from computational neuroscience, I show that similar behaviours can arise from vastly different computational processes, thereby undermining the suggestion to focus on behaviourial profiles to determine whether a brain emulation of a sentience candidate is itself a sentience candidate.

Nature Or Nurture? A Study Of Stem Identity In Rural Middle Schools, Elizabeth Earle Browne

College of Education

Underrepresentation of historically marginalized students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) continues to be an issue, particularly in under-resourced, rural communities such as Alabama’s Black Belt. This mixed-methods study examined factors influencing STEM identity among rural middle school students and the relationship between STEM identity and interest in participating in future STEM electives. Grounded in social identity theory, the study explored demographic influences on STEM identity and students’ perceptions of who belongs in STEM. The quantitative phase utilized a modified STEM Identity Survey to collect responses from 145 students across four rural Alabama middle schools. Data were analyzed using …

Strategies To Transform Natural Resource Extension With Inaturalist And Engage The Public In Biodiversity Conservation, Corey T Callaghan, Brittany M Mason

Journal of Extension

Participatory citizen science is an increasingly popular tool that provides nonformal education and learning activities. iNaturalist, a free, open-access, participatory citizen science platform, provides a place to engage the public in natural resource programming. Here, we explore practical applications for integrating iNaturalist into Extension programming. We highlight two approaches: (a) self-guided programming, where participants independently engage in biodiversity documentation and professionals contribute identifications, and (b) facilitated programming, which involves structured events and projects led by Extension professionals. We discuss the unique advantages of using iNaturalist in these contexts and offer recommendations for quantitatively measuring and reporting its impact in Extension …

Exploring The Current Landscape Of After-School Programs In 4-H, Theresa M Ferrari, Travis West

Journal of Extension

After-school programs have attracted considerable attention as a setting for positive youth development programming, and 4-H has been part of the growth of the after-school field. We undertook the current study to describe the extent of after-school programming in 4-H and to learn about the breadth of program offerings and their frequency, duration, and location. The 139 respondents to our 15-question Qualtrics survey were from all regions of the United States and conducted programs in diverse communities. The information gained from this survey provides a snapshot of how 4-H professionals are involved with after-school programs in their communities.

Financial Recovery Capital: Exploring The Role Of Extension Education In Promoting Substance Use Recovery, Alex Elswick, Nichole L Huff, Omolola A. Adedokun, Leslie Workman

Journal of Extension

Substance use is a widespread and complex public health challenge. Financial stress (e.g., unemployment, inadequate housing, transportation access, poor financial literacy) is pervasive among people with substance use disorder (SUD). However, few educational interventions exist to address financial stress for this group. Through the theoretical lens of recovery capital (an asset-based approach that describes the totality of resources that support SUD recovery), we summarize the association between financial stress and substance use, offering implications for Extension educators by highlighting PROFIT, an exemplary program that leverages Extension education as a tool to promote financial recovery capital among people with SUD.

Women Leaders In Higher Education Amidst Crisis: A Narrative Inquiry Exploring Ethical Decision-Making, Jacqueline Hawkins

Doctor of Education Program Dissertations

Women leaders in higher education navigate complex institutional environments in which ethical decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty, urgency, and competing responsibilities (Gigliotti, 2020; Riggio & Newstead, 2023). The problem addressed in this study was to explore how women leaders navigated ethical complexities, balanced competing responsibilities, and made meaning of crisis leadership experiences within higher education contexts. The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to explore how women leaders in higher education describe their experiences with ethical decision-making during crisis situations. Guided by the ethic of care described by Noddings (1984, 2013), the study examined participants’ ethical reasoning, …

Nature And The Fulfillment Of Psychological Needs: A Qualitative Study, Leah Skelton

The Bear Counseling Collective

As mental health disorder rates increase and nature contact decreases in the general population, it is in the interest of public health to understand the impact of nature on mental health and social belonging, particularly in order to utilize these benefits most effectively and efficiently for intervention design. Estimates of mental health disorder prevalence indicate one in five adults is affected annually (CDC, 2023; NIMH, 2023), with rates of anxiety, depression, and psychological distress rising in particular among youth and young adults (CDC, 2023). Similarly, as rates of stress and loneliness increase, researchers and public health organizations alike are calling …

Counselors-In-Training Attitudes Towards Social Justice Oriented Self-Disclosure, Kaitlyn Jones

The Bear Counseling Collective

The purpose of this phenomenological study will be to understand the attitudes towards social justice-oriented self-disclosure in counselors-in-training participating in their first practicum experience. By exploring their lived experiences and perceptions, this study seeks to illuminate how counselors-in-training (CITs) navigate the tension between clinical neutrality and social justice oriented engagement in therapeutic spaces.

Preparing For Effective Supervision: Considerations For First Time Supervisees, Mallory Radcliff, Laura Rivas

The Bear Counseling Collective

Supervision is an essential part of clinical training and serves as an essential support to students who are beginning to see clients for the first time (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014; Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs [CACREP], 2024). To effectively utilize supervision, it is important to establish shared expectations and goals between supervisor and supervisee (Bernard & Goodyear, 2019). Without previous experience in supervision, it may feel challenging for first time supervisees to know what appropriate goals or expectations of supervision are. Current literature focuses primarily on effective supervision from a supervisory perspective and lacks a …

Mitigating Mental Health Disparities: Ethnic Matching As A Moderating Variable On Help Seeking Using The Theory Of Planned Behavior, Max Oishi

The Bear Counseling Collective

There are significant mental health treatment disparities for racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) populations (Lin et al., 2023; McGuire & Miranda, 2008; Thomeer et al., 2023). These disparities include REM populations seeking help for mental health treatment at differing rates compared to European Americans along with significant treatment underutilization for REM populations along with intergroup differences (Choi et al., 2019; Hosseini & Kubavat, 2022; Kim & Lee, 2022; Kwong et al., 2025; Schraufnagel et al., 2006; Sheehan et al., 2018 & 2024). Due to underutilization, research suggests ethnic matching and/or racial matching could mediate mental health disparities for REM populations …

Volume 3 (2026), The Bear Counseling Collective

The Bear Counseling Collective

A journal of student counselors' reflections on culturally attentive mental health care and advocacy.

Hehir, Aidan. Kosovo And The “Internationals”: Hope, Hubris, And The End Of History. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, Sead Zimeri

Journal of Peace, Conflict, and Security Studies

Hope is enjoying a scholarly renaissance. Building on the “standard account” of hope as a desire for an outcome believed to be possible, recent work by Luc Bovens, Victoria McGeer, Adrienne Martin, Darrel Moellendorf, Michael Milona, and Katie Stockdale has refined the concept, distinguishing it from optimism and expectation, and asking when hoping is rational and what it requires. Yet this literature has remained largely within moral psychology; sustained tests against concrete political history are rare. Conversely, the enormous literature on humanitarian intervention and state-building has had much to say about power, legitimacy, and paternalism, and almost nothing about hope. …

Identité Ambiguë, Mémoire Traumatisée, Et Discours Postcolonial Dans Petit Pays De Gaël Faye, Israel Adégòkè Owóṣení

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Les écrits autofictifs et semi-autobiographiques de la littérature postcoloniale francophone sont encore à explorer et à discourir, surtout dans le contexte littéraire du XXIe siècle où apparaissent des motifs récurrents et nouveaux tels que l’ambiguïté culturelle, l’hybridité, l’altérité, l’inclusion, la liminalité, le traumatisme et l’effet négatif souillé du postcolonialisme à la mémoire dans une nouvelle ère. Ainsi, cette étude est conçue pour examiner l’ambiguïté identitaire de Gaby et les legs de la colonisation émanant des conflits intertribaux, de la guerre, du génocide et de la violence, qui ont largement miné la perception psychologique du héros - Gaby.

Cette étude a …

Beyond Words: Semiotic Decoding Of Rẹ́Rẹ́Rún (Catastrophe Au Rendez-Vous) By Ọládẹ̀Jọ Òkédìjí And The Rich Tradition Of Yorùbá Theater, Nafiu O. Oloore Mr

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Many researchers have focused on analysing novels, poems, and drama in the French language while neglecting certain subgenres. Although numerous studies have been conducted on semiotic analysis in French, little effort has been made to analyze Yorùbá drama. Thus, this study aims to provide a semiotic analysis of Rẹ́rẹ́rún (Catastrophe au rendez-vous) by Ọládẹ̀jọ Òkédìjí. This study adopts a qualitative research approach and textual explanation as its methodology. The semiotics theory proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure is employed as the theoretical framework. Following the qualitative method, twenty signs relevant to this study were selected for interpretation. Semiotics is chosen because …

Une Analyse Intersectionnelle De L'Albinisme Dans L'Instinct De Survie D'Éveline Mankou Et Ses Implications Contemporaines, Gracious Ojiebun, Eiloghosa Enogiomwan

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Grâce à l'inclusion numérique, l'éducation devient plus interactive, accessible et inclusive, néanmoins, les enfants atteints d'albinisme en sont souvent exclus en raison de préjugés socio-culturels, de l'écart numérique et des barrières sociales systémiques. L'article explore comment les liens entre la culture, la géographie, la religion, le genre et le statut socio-économique peuvent conduire à une marginalisation violente en se servant d'une évaluation critique de L'instinct de survivre d'Evline Mankou, et en utilisant la théorie de l'intersectionnalité de Crenshaw, 1989.

Le roman dépeint un monde où la superstition et les traditions patriarcales condamnent un enfant atteint d'albinisme, tout en offrant un …

Femo Loquens: Gendered Memory, Afrosofian Thought, And The Speaking Woman In Present-Day Burkina Faso, Diweng Mercy Dafong

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

In order to analyze how female Burkinabè writers and filmmakers contribute to the decolonial endeavor of recovering knowledge, voice, and historical agency following colonial disruption, this paper introduces the idea of femo loquens, a gendered extension of homo loquens as theorized by François Ngoa Kodena. I contend that fiction makers like Apolline Traoré in her movie Sira, Monique Ilboudo in her novel Carrefour des veuves, and Roukiata Ouedraogo in herr novel Le petit mari serve as sofian thinkers whose artistic creations interact with gendered memory and postcolonial realities, drawing on Kodena's Afrosofian philosophy, which emphasizes epistemic plurality, cosmological rootedness, …

Contextualizing Inclusion And Connection In An Absurd World: An Analysis Of Albert Camus’ The Plague, Peter Akongfeh Akongfeh Agwu Ph.D, Peace Onwanua Ph.D., John Ogidi Acha

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Scholars have extensively analyzed Albert Camus’s The Plaque, while interpreting its narrative through existential and absurdist lenses. However, little literature is recorded on how the novel contextualizes themes of inclusion and human connection amidst an absurd world. This study addresses this gap by examining the dynamics of solidarity and shared resistance among the characters within the framework of Camus’s philosophy of the absurd. The aim is to ex-ray how Camus reconciles the tension between the absurd and the human need for meaning through collective action and emotional bonds. A qualitative methodology is employed, involving a close textual analysis of the …

Cultural And Social Inclusion In Sexe Et Mensonges: La Vie Sexuelle Au Maroc By Leïla Slimani: A Critical Perspective, Juliet N. Elikwu Dr.

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Several published studies on Leïla Slimani's Sexe et Mensonges: La Vie sexuelle au Maroc have extensively examined the themes of sexual taboos and the challenges facing women in Moroccan society. But, limited attention has been given to her portrayal of cultural and social inclusion through the testimonies and narratives of marginalized women in academic discourse. This study seeks to analyze the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within the framework of cultural norms and patriarchal structures depicted in the work. The study draws on a qualitative methodology centered on close textual analysis. The theoretical framework integrates Michel Foucault’s concepts of power …

Closing Night, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Closing Night (2026), directed by Cody Fern.

Hollywood And The Nazis On The Eve Of War: The Case Of The Mortal Storm, Rachel Gordan

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Alexis Pogorelskin, Hollywood and the Nazis on the Eve of War: The Case of The Mortal Storm (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024).

A Poetic History: Islamic And Japanese Parallels In Film, Joshua Polanski

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of David Sander, A Poetic History: Islamic and Japanese Parallels in Film (Bloomsbury, 2026).

Cloud: Between Paris And Tehran: Kiarostami/Corbin/Lacan, Heba Arafa Abdelfattah

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Joan Copjec, Cloud: Between Paris and Tehran: Kiarostami/Corbin/Lacan (MIT Press, 2025).

Eternity, Leah R. Sisk

Journal of Religion & Film

This film review of Eternity was developed from an essay on how the film demonstrates the nature of choice, including William James's notion of a leap of faith.  The original essay was submitted for an undergraduate Philosophy and Religion class on American Pragmatism at Western Carolina University.

Nothing Is As It Should Be: Estrangement, Threshold-Crossings, And Cosmic Struggle In David Lynch’S Blue Velvet And Lost Highway, Susanne Wigorts Yngvesson

Journal of Religion & Film

This article examines estrangement as a structuring existential and aesthetic principle in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) and Lost Highway (1997). Through close, plot-attentive readings intended to remain accessible to readers unfamiliar with Lynch, it argues that the films stage three interlocking dynamics: becoming a stranger to oneself, the fracturing of the ‘ground’ of ordinary existence, and life as a cosmic struggle in which human agency is partial and contested. Paul Tillich’s The Courage to Be provides the main theological–philosophical lens, clarifying how anxiety, non-being and courage shape scenes of desire, violence and transformation. Film-theoretical work on thresholds and cinematic …

Misread Before Being Known: Race, Religion, And Institutional Non-Inquiry In Abrogation, Franklin Livingston

Journal of Religion & Film

Institutions often arrive at certainty before they arrive at knowledge. This article names that mechanism institutional non-inquiry — the organizational habit through which visual and cultural assumptions substitute for direct verification, allowing identity classifications to solidify before the subject meaningfully enters the encounter. Unlike prejudice, racialization, or established theories of pre-reflexive social perception, institutional non-inquiry isolates the organizational encounter itself as the specific procedural moment at which collective interpretive habits make inquiry feel unnecessary. Examining Abrogation (2024), a micro-budget American independent feature following Daud Khan, a Brown Pakistani-American infectious disease specialist whose movement through evangelical, civic, and federal institutions repeatedly …

Moving On: Purgatorial Seriality And Unanswered Prayer In Lost’S “Ab Aeterno”, Christian Wilken

Journal of Religion & Film

“Ab Aeterno” (Lost, 6.09) distills the series’ religious logic with unusual explicitness by staging theodicy not as doctrine but as narrative procedure. This article argues that the episode converts Catholic sacramental form (confession, absolution, and penitential address) into a serial ethics of endurance in which closure is structurally deferred. Richard Alpert’s confession establishes a subject who seeks an authorized word that would stabilize suffering, yet the priest’s refusal (“I can’t”) installs a theology of unanswered prayer that becomes the template for Richard’s long durée of waiting. Jacob’s “cork” parable then supplies a katechontic justification of restraint: evil is not abolished …

Between Icon And State: Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan The Terrible, Milja Radovic

Journal of Religion & Film

Remembering the 80th anniversary of Sergei Eisenstein’s film Иван Грозный (Ivan the Terrible, 1944/1945), it is crucial to re-examine Eisenstein’s work, including his last film that became an unintentional ‘testament’ to cinema. Eisenstein’s mastery has been pivotal for understanding cinema and film language, the way this language operates, constructs and deconstructs and communicates historical realities. This paper focuses on a film that was made in two parts, Part I in 1944 and part II in 1945, to investigate Eisenstein’s approach to the subject of history, nation and religion. The research considers how this master of cinema contemplated intricate ideas and …

A Metaphorical Passage To God: Simone Weil And Robert Bresson, V. G. Voigt Hogg Phd

Journal of Religion & Film

VOIGT HOGG_Abstract (REVISED)_Journal of Religion & Film_30 April 2026

This article contrasts the metaphysical and religious philosopher Simone Weil’s concepts of attachment and detachment with auteur director Robert Bresson’s method of subtraction. It argues for a commonality in their philosophy and cinema, that guides the reader or viewer respectively, to perceive a metaphorical passage to God through the lived experience of suffering. The article considers by what means does Weil and Bresson share a mutual commitment to understanding the state of the soul in affliction, while also acknowledging an opposition in the interpretation of detachment in relation to suicide. The …