Digital Commons Network^™

Obscuring Vivian Maier, Caroline Yuratich

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Vivian Maier, despite being unknown during her lifetime, has undoubtedly become one of the most impactful photographers of the twentieth century. Her vast oeuvre has been shown worldwide, her bold and unconventional photographs rapidly capturing the attention of millions. Maier primarily photographed the streets of Chicago in the 1950s to 70s, snapping people and storefronts on her iconic Rolleiflex camera. Her most well-known works are perhaps her self-portraits, and her foreboding upward-shot street portraits have also taken the stage as some of her best work. However, people who knew her during her lifetime state that they knew almost nothing about …

Front Matter

Tenor of Our Times

Front Matter

Full Issue

Tenor of Our Times

Full Issue

The Emigration Equation: A Study On Why Individuals Emigrate, Anielka S. Perez Brenes

Tenor of Our Times

Literature about migration often focuses on “refugee crises” or “immigration crises,” but the causes of these crises are those which take place in the origin country. The reasons, or push factors, of why individuals are emigrating from their home countries is the central question of this study. This cross-sectional research study focuses on seven of these potential causes in the year 2024 and spans one hundred and sixty five countries. These seven causes, or the independent variables, are: conflict, human rights, political rights, gross domestic product (GDP), civil liberties, unemployment, and education. This research study as a whole is statistically …

Advancing Health Equity In Women With Sci Through Ob/Gyn Provider Education, Nethra S. Ankam, Md, Amanda Parezo, Otd, Otr/L, Beth I. Schwartz, Md, Trisha Hicks, Lsw, Med

Department of Rehabilitation Medicine Training Videos and Materials

Background

Individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) experience persistent disparities in reproductive healthcare access. OB-GYN providers often report limited training and discomfort in addressing these needs. These gaps contribute to inequitable care, reduced patient satisfaction, and missed opportunities for patient-centered care.

Purpose

To develop, implement, and disseminate an evidence-informed educational module aimed at improving OB-GYN provider knowledge, confidence, and clinical competence in delivering accessible, inclusive, and patient-centered reproductive healthcare for individuals with SCI.

Methods

• Community Advisory Board (CAB) engagement 
• Needs assessment survey (SCI population)
• Iterative module development
• Articulate Rise module creation
• Implementation across interdisciplinary providers

Results/Outcomes

Reach & Implementation

• 18 …

Analyzing The Survey Of Consumer Finances With `Scf`: Methodology, User Guide, And Package Validation, Joseph N. Cohen

Publications and Research

The R package `scf` streamlines analysis of the Survey of Consumer Finances' (SCF) public-use microdata. The package encodes best practices for handling the Survey's complex sampling scheme and imputed missing data, such that analysts can produce valid population estimates with simple function calls. This article reviews the SCF structure, details the design and logic of the `scf` package, and demonstrates these functions' ability to replicate official statistics.

Flos Gari: Experiments With The Flower Of The Ancient Romans In A Modern Kitchen, Austin M. Pritchett

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This paper examines a condiment popular among the ancient Romans which might seem off-putting to modern people: the fermented fish sauce garum. A brief history of the garum as well as an analysis of its chemical composition are given, before the author describes his experiments with the sauce in his own kitchen, conducted in an attempt to determine its suitability for the modern palate.

Reimagining Productive Struggle In Secondary Mathematics: Introducing The Instructional Feedback For Inclusive Struggle Framework, Totrina L. Mosley

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Abstract

This conceptual study introduces the Instructional Feedback for Inclusive Struggle (IFIS) framework, a model designed to address inequities experienced by learners with disabilities in compressed-pacing mathematics classes (CPMC). Although accelerated formats such as the 4x4 instructional block schedule are intended to deepen engagement, research shows that opportunities for sense-making, reflection, and productive struggle are often limited due to time constraints (Allen Queen et al., 1997; Cooke, 2023; Young et al., 2024). IFIS responds to these challenges by integrating three foundational theories: Vygotsky’s (1978) Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which emphasizes cognitive support; Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which foregrounds …

United States Response To Questionnaire: Alai Congress 2026 - Copyright And Free Expression In The Age Of Algorithms, Philippa Loengard

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

ALAI-USA is the U.S. branch of ALAI (Association Littèraire et Artistique Internationale). ALAI-USA was started in the 1980's by the late Professor Melville B. Nimmer, and was later expanded by Professor John M. Kernochan.

The Third-Party Privacy Problem, David Sella-Villa

North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Online Course Content Design And Student Satisfaction In Asynchronous University Courses, Scott Dillingham

Education Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation draws on five years of research examining course design and student satisfaction in asynchronous online courses. The study investigated the relationship between course content and student satisfaction in asynchronous online courses at The University of Texas at Tyler. A mixed-methods design combined qualitative inductive coding of online course content with quantitative analysis of student evaluation data across 20 asynchronous online courses taught by nine faculty experienced in online instruction. Results indicated measurable relationships between instructional content variables and student evaluation scores. Dialogue and Ordinary Conversation, content categories identified through emergent coding of course materials, demonstrated positive predictive relationships …

A Labor Market Unleashed: College Football Labor Substitution In The Transfer Portal Era, Adrian M. Simion, Jeremy M. Losak, Catalina Bush

Sport Management - All Scholarship

College football's labor market has been transformed by litigation-driven regulatory change eliminating long-standing mobility restrictions. Central to this transformation is a new roster construction dilemma — whether to acquire experienced collegiate talent through the transfer portal or invest in traditional high school recruiting. Using a fixed effects panel of 127 Football Bowl Subdivision programs across six recruiting cycles (2019–2024), we examine whether schools substitute transfers for high school recruits. Three findings emerge. First, portal activity is associated with reduced three-star recruiting but no relationship with four-star or five-star prospects, with substitution driven by quantity rather than quality. Second, substitution is …

The Trust Transfer Problem, David Horton, Reid Kress Weisbord, Christopher J. Ryan Jr.

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Occasional Originalism: How The Supreme Court Of North Carolina Discarded Centuries-Old Constitutional Law In State V. Singleton, William J. Etringer

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Edu 30 Introduction To Special Needs, School & Society Syllabus, Propa Akter

Open Educational Resources

The syllabus for EDU 30 contains a course description, course objectives, course readings divided by week and a link to OER textbooks and ZTC readings.

Postmarketing Safety Of Bimekizumab For Hidradenitis Suppurativa: An Early Pharmacovigilance Analysis Using The United States Food And Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System, Simona A. Alomary, Nicole J. Baker, Temitayo Ogunleye, Susan C. Taylor

Student Papers, Posters & Projects

No abstract provided.

Inexcuseable? Building An Artificial Intelligence Microexpert On Contract Excuse Doctrine, Mark Edwin Burge

Faculty Scholarship

This article details and advocates for a general methodology for creating a "microexpert" grounded in a user-defined set of legal sources and widelyaccessible tools for integrating generative artificial intelligence (AI) into legal analysis. The study focuses particularly on background contract excuse doctrines of impossibility, impracticability, and frustration of purpose, which are collectively a methodologically challenging area of law to rationalize due to factintensive variables that undermine their predictability. Particular challenges include assessing the foreseeability of the event that led to the contract's nonperformance, the extent of the hardship or burden on the party seeking excuse, and the purpose of the …

Tokenized Real Estate: The Law And Tech Of Digital Deeds, Christopher K. Odinet, Andrea Tosato

Faculty Scholarship

The advent of blockchain technology has generated bold claims that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can fundamentally transform real estate. Proponents assert that digital assets can tokenize real property interests: the concept of using digital tokens to represent ownership rights in physical property. Their goal is to allow buyers and sellers to transfer real estate through simple blockchain transactions, thereby eliminating traditional intermediaries, reducing costs, and accelerating deal velocity. This Essay provides the first comprehensive legal analysis examining whether American law actually supports such a direct tokenization of real estate rights.

Our investigation reveals a stark disconnect between technological capability and legal …

Be Responsible In Your Answers! Monitoring Out-Of-Domain Behaviors In Domain-Specific Llms, Boquan Li, Chenzhe Lou, Zhe Ren, Peixin Zhang, Zirui Fu, Jun Sun, Yaowen Zheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Large Language Models (LLMs) have accelerated the rapid development of chatbot web applications in various domains, such as coding, biomedicine and psychology. Compared to general LLMs like ChatGPT, domain-specific LLMs require a greater sense of responsibility. For instance, if a programming LLM casually answers medical or psychological questions, it not only misleads the public but also poses legal risks. This highlights new demands for monitoring and preventing such irresponsible behaviors. Existing efforts attempt to monitor LLMs from multiple aspects, such as lying, jailbreaks, and toxic content, while overlooking out-of-domain behaviors. In this work, we propose an innovative LLM domain monitoring …

If Life Were Only As Our First Encounter, Yixiao Zhang

MFA in Visual Art

This thesis examines how contemporary portrait painting extends beyond the representation of physical appearance toward the construction of collective memory, history, cultural identity, and mechanisms of seeing. Using staged, photo-based portraits as a point of departure, my work engages both Eastern and Western traditions to produce new autoethnographic narratives. Rethinking the significance of portraiture today, this paper considers what persists and what has shifted over time. It argues that portrait painting is no longer merely a representation of an individual; rather, like a literary text, it functions as a signifier shaped by both the moment of its production and the …

(Un)Imagining India: Anti-Rape Protests As Diagnostic Of Indian State Power, Sonal Churiwal

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Senior Honors Papers

Since the 2012 brutal gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh brought India’s pervasive rape culture to international attention, media, politicians, and the broader Indian public demanded justice for “India’s daughter.” Protestors called on the Indian government to expand the police state, execute perpetrators, and create fast-track legal courts to avenge her death. Collectively, they cast the state in the role of a protector, even of a patriarchal authority. The nature of these demands stands in contrast to Kashmir and Manipur, geographies differentially controlled by the Indian state, where protests call for the withdrawal of the Indian army, a primary …

Navigating Displacement: Queer And Crip Of Color Reframings Of Eating Disorder Discourse, Emilio Parra-Garcia

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Senior Honors Papers

Scholarship on eating disorders has long been dominated by quantitative social science research that shapes clinical understandings of these illnesses, despite growing humanistic interventions. My thesis places eating disorders, through an “archive” of psychological studies, in conversation with queer and crip of color theory to uncover the co-constitutive relationship between queerness, disability, and race/ethnicity that centers on queer people of color with eating disorders as a necessary site of theoretical inquiry. Drawing on Sabrina Strings’ analysis of racialized body ideals, I trace how genealogies of bodily legibility (driven by discourses on whiteness, weight, and citizenship) created systems of “categorical oppression,” …

Choice, Power, & Care: Crisis Pregnancy Centers And Reproductive Justice In Missouri, Sylvie Richards

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Senior Honors Papers

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are religious organizations with the purpose to dissuade people from obtaining abortions. They often present themselves as authentic reproductive healthcare clinics through medicalized language, services such as ultrasounds and pregnancy tests, promises of information on all pregnancy options, staff dressed as medical professionals, and placement near family planning clinics. In reality, CPCs are medically unlicensed and often spread medical misinformation.

No study has yet focused on CPCs in Missouri, despite providing a critical case study. The state has minimal access to abortion and other components of comprehensive reproductive healthcare and one of the worst maternal mortality …

Dietary Influence And Neurodegenerative Disease Risk: Insight From Alzheimer’S And Parkinson’S Disease, Madison Wirt

Honors Projects

As populations age, neurodegenerative diseases (NDD) become significantly more prevalent and impactful on patients and families. Clinical research has suggested a correlation between diet, gut health, neuroinflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction to the onset and development of specific and severe NDDs, especially Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). This research focuses on the relationship behind the gut-brain axis, micronutrient status and how diet influences the development of both AD and PD. Ten randomized, controlled trials were analyzed from the literature to investigate the impact of these factors on the inflammatory, metabolic and antioxidant processes. The studies focused on the use …

Back To Basics: The Benefits Of Children’S Literature In Higher Education, Max A. Bufkin

Honors Projects

The historic undervaluing of children’s literature has resulted in little research or application of the genre in higher education. However, what research is available has shown that engaging with children’s literature as an adult can have many benefits, including better mental well-being, understanding of multicultural perspectives, and enhanced critical thinking skills. Due to patriarchal ideologies over who can and cannot engage with literature, as well as the work of children’s literature critics, the genre has been marginalized from much debate and discussion. Through student-centered learning and group reading sessions, college students from nearly every discipline can learn to utilize and …

Secondary Dual Language And Immersion Content Teachers And Their Instructional Materials, Curtis Larsen

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Secondary dual language and immersion (DLI) teachers who teach content courses, such as social studies or science, balance two central responsibilities: meeting content-area standards and supporting students’ language development (Cammarata & Tedick, 2012). Managing these responsibilities presents challenges when preparing and using instructional materials in languages other than English (Moate, 2014; Morton, 2013; Skinnari, 2020; Sun, 2017). While existing research shows that DLI teachers expend enormous energy seeking and preparing instructional materials for their content-area classes (Mathieu, 2022), little is known about the factors that guide this work or how well existing materials meet teachers’ needs. This dissertation sought to …

Multilingual Learner Parent Involvement: Perspectives From Parents, Stella Sandager

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined multilingual learner (ML) parent perspectives on family engagement. The purpose of this study was to determine the opportunities and barriers for parents in order to increase family engagement at a suburban school in Minnesota. The ML population is growing, and understanding how to effectively engage with parents has become increasingly critical. Despite research demonstrating that parent and family engagement impacts student success, parent voices are missing in the research. This study adds to the literature by offering perspectives from parents. Qualitative interviews and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis were used to answer the research questions. Findings concluded that …

Bilingual Achievement, Identity, And Aspiration: Multilingual High School Students’ Lived Experiences Through The Bilingual Seal, Kristy O'Brien

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

O’Brien, K. (2026). Bilingual Achievement, Identity, and Aspiration: Multilingual High School Students’ Lived Experiences through the Bilingual Seal

In an educational landscape shaped by deficit-based perspectives on multilingual learners, asset-based policies such as the Minnesota Bilingual Seal offer an alternative approach for affirming students’ linguistic and cultural identities. This study examined this policy through the experiences of Latiné multilingual high school students. It amplified the voices of the students themselves through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, addressing a gap in multilingual learning and Bilingual Seal research, framed by the conceptual lens of critical consciousness and Latino Crit theory. The research questions are: …

Multilingual Learner Parent Involvement: Perspectives From Parents, Stella Sandager

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined multilingual learner (ML) parent perspectives on family engagement. The purpose of this study was to determine the opportunities and barriers for parents in order to increase family engagement at a suburban school in Minnesota. The ML population is growing, and understanding how to effectively engage with parents has become increasingly critical. Despite research demonstrating that parent and family engagement impacts student success, parent voices are missing in the research. This study adds to the literature by offering perspectives from parents. Qualitative interviews and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis were used to answer the research questions. Findings concluded that …

Development And Acceptability Of A Patient Decision Aid For People With Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy: An International Mixed-Methods Study, Andrew R. Gamble, David B. Anderson, Marnee J. Mckay, Benjamin M. Davies, Sophie Macpherson, James Van Gelder, Tammy Hoffmann, Kirsten Mccaffery, Samuel X. Stevens, Carlo Ammendolia, Rohil V. Chauhan, Carl M. Zipser, Timothy F. Boerger, Lindsay A. Tetreault, Michael G. Fehlings, Elanor Dustan, Carolyn Nugent, Helen Holmgren, Andreas K. Demetriades, Justin M. Lantz, Rana Dhillon, Chris G. Maher, Joshua R. Zadro

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Objectives To develop and user-test a patient decision aid for people diagnosed with degenerative cervical myelopathy and who are considering surgery.

Design Mixed-methods study describing the development of a patient decision aid.

Setting A draft decision aid was developed by a multidisciplinary steering group (including study authors with degenerative cervical myelopathy, health professionals and researchers) informed by the best available evidence, authorship consensus and existing patient decision aids.

Participants Patient-participants and health professional-participants who manage people with degenerative cervical myelopathy were recruited through social media and the steering group’s research and practice network. Quantitative questionnaires were used to gather baseline …