Digital Commons Network^™

"I'Ve Just Re-Read The Aeneid Again": Virgil's Thematic Influence As Depicted In Katabatic Journeys In The Fiction Of C. S. Lewis, Henry Young

Theses and Dissertations

Inspired by his studies in Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance literature, C. S. Lewis incorporated echoes of Virgil in his fiction, especially in katabatic journeys. In his scholarship, he identified Virgil's Aeneid as "secondary epic" which contains the Christian-like theme of vocation in the face of transition. Traces of this theme are evident in Lewis's fiction, expressed through mythical katabatic imagery. Katabasis, for Lewis, appears as a Pagan pattern fulfilled in Christ and experienced by His disciples through conversion. Lewis's characters, though ordinary people, must learn to accept divinely given vocations which then propel them into katabatic sequences that inspire belief …

Some Results In Maximal Pattern Complexity, Casey Schlortt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For a finite alphabet 𝒜 and a sequence 𝑥 ∈ 𝒜^ℕ_⊬ , Kamae and Zamboni combined the ideas of block complexity and topological sequence entropy to define the maximal pattern complexity, 𝑝^∗_𝑛 (𝑥). They defined an aperiodic sequence 𝑥 over two letters as pattern Sturmian if it had the lowest possible maximal pattern complexity, 2𝑛. Later, Kamae and Rao extended their definition of pattern Sturmian sequences to be sequences over ℓ ≥ 2 letters which are not periodic by projection and have maximal pattern complexity ℓ𝑛.

This dissertation answers a question posed by Kamae and Zamboni …

Induction Programming For Novice Special Education Directors: The Significance Of Informal Supports In The Absence Of Formal Structures, Julie E. Rottier-Lukens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The role and responsibilities of a special education director are unique and highly complex when compared to other district-level leadership roles. Since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) passed in 1975, states gradually increased requirements for certification of these administrative roles, more clearly defining the criteria and standards to incorporate within preparation programs. Despite improvements in preparation programs for special education directors, there continues to be variation in preparation and certification requirements across states and persistent challenges with shortages of special education directors. After completing a preparation program, what support exists for novice special education directors to help them …

Disproportionality And Possibilities: State-Level Policy Recommendations For Special Education Oversight In A Shifting Federal Landscape, Amanda B. Roberts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study employed a convergent parallel mixed-methods design to explore how U.S. states identify and respond to disproportionality in special education within a shifting federal policy landscape. As uncertainty surrounds the future role of the U.S. Department of Education, questions have emerged about states’ capacity to safeguard educational equity. Without federal oversight, states would assume responsibility for maintaining protections for students with special needs, making it critical to strengthen safeguards for marginalized and underresourced populations.

This study analyzed the current special education governance structures nationwide to inform equity-oriented policy and practice recommendations. Quantitative data were collected from Individuals with Disabilities …

Ka Here Tāngata:1 Mātauranga And Te Ao Māori In Biocultural Kākāpō (Strigops Habroptilus) Conservation Approaches, Sophie Perfetto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This master's thesis examines conservation as a form of living cultural heritage practice through the co-management of kākāpō (Strigops habroptilus), a critically endangered parrot and taonga species in Aotearoa New Zealand. Situated within ongoing histories of colonial dispossession and Western frameworks of land and species management, contemporary kākāpō conservation is shaped through the partnership between the Department of Conservation’s Kākāpō Recovery Programme and Ngāi Tahu. Drawing on semi-structured interviews collected during fieldwork from July to August 2025, this study examines how institutional partnerships structure decision-making, authority, and responsibility in contemporary conservation governance. Findings demonstrate that Māori knowledge systems …

Otherness And The Trinity: Toward A Critical Reimagining Of Christian Divinity From A Postcolonial Ethos, Taylor Muma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I address the Trinity’s potential as an emancipatory relational archetype in the philosophy of religion, while at the same time recognizing the complicity of Christian doctrine in colonial conquest. My dissertation will be a reimagining of trinitarian theology as an ecotonal paradigm of multiplicity and alterity that provides a generative means of moving beyond the enmeshment of divinity with constructs of mastery.

The post-structuralist and postcolonial methodologies in this project emerge from the work of such scholars as Homi Bhabha, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas and Gloria Anzaldúa. They foreground critical ideations of otherness and multiplicity in ways …

The Permanent Emergency: The Anti-Fascist And Anti-Colonial Intersections Of James Joyce’S Ulysses And Roberto Bolaño’S 2666, Lily V. Mcmanamy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is going to explore the (Irish) Anti-Colonial and (Spanish) Anti-Fascist parallels between James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 (2004). Using the major epic novels of two exiled authors, I hope to explore the intersections of poetic fiction and political resistance. I read these texts as bookends spanning the pre- and post-war periods, highlighting the continuities of colonialism, totalitarianism, and fascism, and the way these authors develop a post/modernist narrative that nods towards these themes. I plan to draw on Alberto Toscano’s LateFascism (2023) as a means of situating these authors’ novels with our own political moment …

Perceptions Of Giftedness: A Mixed Methods Study Of General Education Classroom Teachers And Gifted And Talented Specialists, Rachel J. Martino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This convergent mixed methods study examined similarities and differences in perceptions of giftedness held by general education teachers and gifted specialists in two suburban elementary school districts. Grounded in social constructivism and labeling theory, the study explored how educator role shapes understandings of giftedness and gifted education. Survey data from 70 educators and interviews with eight participants were analyzed and integrated. Findings revealed alignment regarding the multidimensional and social–emotional nature of giftedness, but statistically significant differences in perceptions were found related to instructional practices and differentiation, identification, autonomy, and service models. Findings also revealed a gap between belief and practice, …

Tracing The Flow Of Value In Ecotourism: A Case Study Of Lekki Conservation Center, Lagos, Nigeria, Queen Oluwatobi Olafadehan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the flow of value in ecotourism at Lekki Conservation Center (LCC) in Lagos, Nigeria, using a political ecology framework to analyze how economic benefits, participation opportunities, and environmental impacts are distributed among different community groups. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 16 community members, participant observation, and photographic documentation, the study investigates how surrounding communities perceive and experience ecotourism, how revenue is understood to be distributed, and in what ways communities are included in or excluded from conservation decision-making. The findings reveal that ecotourism at LCC generates benefits that are unevenly distributed, that community participation in governance remains …

Design Principle For Staple-Mediated Stabilization Of Peptides And Proteins, Samantha C. Hatfield

Theses and Dissertations

Macrocyclization, or stapling, has emerged as a powerful strategy to enhance the stability and function of peptides and proteins by constraining their conformational ensembles. Stapling can improve thermodynamic stability, increase resistance to proteolytic degradation, and enhance biomolecular recognition, making it particularly valuable for the development of peptide-based therapeutics. Despite these advantages, staple design remains largely empirical, relying on iterative screening of linker chemistries, lengths, and attachment sites. This trial-and-error approach limits scalability and hinders the rational design of stabilized peptide systems. In this work, we address this challenge by integrating large-scale experimental datasets with molecular dynamic simulations to develop predictive …

Aid As Leverage: How Humanitarian Assistance Shapes The Health Power Dynamics In Eastern Democratic Republic Of Congo, Emmanuella K. Mbuyu

University Honors Theses

This paper examines humanitarian aid in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where it serves as both relief and a force reshaping local power dynamics within ongoing conflict. Humanitarian organizations provide essential services in contexts of state collapse, but aid delivery is deeply embedded in systems of coercion, negotiation, and external influence. Drawing on critical humanitarianism and the aid economy, this study analyzes how humanitarian access is negotiated, how donor priorities shape definitions of need, and how temporary interventions create dependency and instability. The paper explores how humanitarian action can reinforce alternative structures of authority, particularly in weak or absent …

Staging Reception / Perception: Transhistorical Bi-Directional Dialogues Between Etruscan Visual Cultural Objects And Giuseppe Penone's Contemporary Sculptures, Shelby Morgan

University Honors Theses

I use the occasion of the March 2024 exhibit,"Vulci. Goods for Mankind. Goods for Gods." at Milan's Luigi Rovati Foundation to consider how the museum's staging of Etruscan visual material cultural objects and contemporary sculptures by Italian artist Giuseppe Penone prompts viewers to perceive transhistorical bi-directional dialogues between the viewer and material culture as well as between the ancient and contemporary objects themselves.

Via a close reading of the exhibition while leveraging the three frameworks of aura, imprint and classical reception I analyze how the staging of the hypogeum creates a place of atmosphere. I argue this is done through …

Improving Cluster Expansion Efficiency And Generalizability, Samuel D. Bills

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The cluster expansion (CE) method is a powerful framework for modeling alloy systems by linking atomic configurations to thermophysical properties. However, constructing accurate and robust CE models requires careful selection of both training structures and cluster bases. In this work, we investigate how structure enumeration and cluster selection strategies influence CE performance in binary face-centered cubic alloys using a Julia-based implementation. Model performance is evaluated using empirical risk and the generalized aliasing decomposition (GAD), which provides insight into the relationship between model complexity and generalization error. We find that physically motivated selection strategies that prioritize small clusters consistently outperform approaches …

Evaluation And Distillation Of Source Code Generation Tasks By Large Language Models, Danny Brahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Large Language Models (LLMs) are predominantly assessed based on their common sense reasoning, language comprehension, and logical reasoning abilities. While models trained in specialized domains like mathematics or coding have demonstrated remarkable advancements in logical reasoning, there remains a significant gap in evaluating their code generation capabilities. Existing benchmark datasets fall short in pinpointing specific strengths and weaknesses, impeding targeted enhancements in models’ reasoning abilities to synthesize code.

To bridge this gap, this thesis introduces two novel contributions: CodeEval and CodeQual. CodeEval is an innovative, pedagogical benchmarking method that mirrors the evaluation processes encountered in academic programming courses. It comprises …

The Organizational Experience Of Next Gen Learning Through Portrait Of A Graduate, Kathleen J. Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative single-case study investigates the organizational journey of navigating the complexities of systemic transformation. In 2021, Silver Peak School District (SPSD; a pseudonym), a rural educational organization in the western United States, implemented a graduate competency framework known as Portrait of a Graduate. This study analyzed the experiences of teachers, instructional coaches, and principals with the explicit Portrait policies, practices, and resource flows of five learning structures—graduate competencies (in SPSD, this is analogous to Portrait), deeper learning, agency, performance assessment, and teaching culture—in a district in the messy middle of Portrait adoption. By focusing on a district situated in …

She Believed She Could, So She Did: A Lifecycle Approach To Understanding Leadership And Self-Efficacy Development In Women Astronauts, Savanah Faith Sellars Bray

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how women leaders develop and sustain self-efficacy, and develop as leaders, throughout their lives. Although decades of research document the barriers women face navigating leadership journeys, including the challenges described in the Women’s Leadership Labyrinth of prejudice, discrimination, and childcare issues, existing literature offers limited insight into how women actively build belief in their capacity to lead and accomplish their goals. Further, research consistently shows that women report lower leadership self-efficacy than men, even with comparable experience, yet the developmental processes that shape this gap, beginning in childhood, remain underexplored. Guided by self-efficacy research and its four …

Reseeding Relations: Comparing Museum And Indigenous Seed Sharing & Rematriation Protocols In The Midwestern United States, Madeline G. Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) paved the way for the repatriation of ancestors and certain cultural objects to Indigenous communities, museums still struggle to address other forms of cultural returns. Heritage seeds, those which hold cultural significance to Indigenous peoples, held within museum collections perpetuates the colonization of Indigenous lifeways. This research examines rematriation as an Indigenous form of cultural return better suited to address these needs than limited repatriation models. I analyze how museums are working to create rematriation processes for their collections which reflect diverse Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies through a three-tiered approach: …

Nurses’ Knowledge Regarding Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia Prevention Bundle In Adult Cardiac Care Units, Marwa Abdo

Nursing

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is among the most common ICU infections for ventilated patients, associated with increased mortality (20-50%), morbidity, and health care costs. Nurses' knowledge of VAP prevention bundles is vital to reducing its incidence in critical care areas. Aim: To assess Nurses’ knowledge regarding the ventilator-associated pneumonia prevention bundle in Adult Cardiac Care Units. Study design: A cross-sectional study design was used. Setting: This study was conducted in both the adult cardiac intensive care unit and the cardiac care unit at Aswan Heart Centre–Magdy Yacoub Foundation, Egypt. Subject: A convenience sample of 67 nurses was selected. Data collection tool: …

Improving Patient Experience And Cms Reimbursement Stability In Non-Profit Women’S Health Centers, Jacaia Ellis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

More Than "Programs For Women": Centering Incarcerated Women's Voices In The Evaluation Of Prison Programming, Winter Ohara-Frantz

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines whether correctional programming in women's prisons reflects the self-identified goals and aspirations of incarcerated women. Existing research demonstrates that prison programming can provide meaningful benefits, including skill development, emotional growth, and preparation for reentry. However, much of this scholarship evaluates women based on institutional outcomes rather than asking whether available programs align with women's own educational, vocational, and personal goals. Drawing on survey responses from 23 formerly incarcerated women across the United States, this mixed-methods study explores participants' experiences with vocational, post-secondary, parenting, and other correctional programs. Quantitative findings indicate that while most respondents viewed programming as …

Projected Climate Change Impacts On Soil Greenhouse Gas Emissions From A Restored Freshwater Marsh, Annika Hendrickson

University Honors Theses

Wetlands provide valuable ecosystem services, one of which is a wetlands ability to sequester carbon. Climate change and human land use threaten a wetlands ability to do so. Globally, 21% of wetlands have been lost since the 1700s. As a result, restoration of wetlands has been increasing. However, wetlands in the process of restoration emit more methane than degraded ones, and as the climate continues to change, these fluxes could respond. Projected sea level rise is expected to cause salt water to infiltrate coastal freshwater systems, increasing the salinity. Past research has found that increased salinity has led to suppressed …

Testing Potential Correlations Between Childhood Lead Exposure And Authoritarianism In Adulthood, Kragen Anderson

University Honors Theses

A significant body of research links lead exposure during childhood to negative effects ranging from increased impulsivity to societal level effects such as an increased likelihood of committing violent crime in adulthood. Due to exposure vectors such as lead water pipes, lead solder, lead based paints, and leaded gasoline there was significant lead exposure during childhood for large portions of the American population. This paper tested and found a statistically significant association between average population level lead exposure in childhood and likelihood of voting for candidate Trump later in life.

Healthcare Access Challenges Among Asian Americans, Phyo Theingi

University Honors Theses

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial ethnic group in the U.S. According to the 2023 U.S. Census Bureau population estimate, Asian Americans account for 25.2 million (or 7.4%) of the nation's population. Asian Americans are not a monolith and represent a diversity of rich histories, cultures, languages and ethnicities. According to research conducted by the Pew Research Center, most Asian Americans face discrimination of some kind, including being treated as a foreigner in the U.S and being stereotyped as a model minority. They also experience health care access barriers. Research found that Asian Americans face barriers related to language …

A Case Study Of Principal Preparation In A Social Justice-Informed Principal Preparation Program, Katie Golieb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study examined how a social justice-informed principal preparation program fostered the development of socially just school leaders and how graduates perceived their capacity for resilience as educational leaders in the contemporary PK–12 context. The Mountain Range Principal Preparation Program (MRP3), a university–district partnership designed to prepare educational leaders to be transformative leaders equipped to improve student achievement and address challenges in low-performing schools, served as the site of inquiry. The study explored how principals made meaning of their preparation experiences and how those experiences shaped their enactment of equity-focused leadership and their ability to sustain such work. …

A Theoretical And Empirical Framework To Estimate The Impact Of Conflict On The Economic Resilience Of Clustered Firms In Ukraine, Alexander D. Ginn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I develop a theoretical and empirical framework to estimate whether participation in industrial clusters contributes to firm-level economic resilience to conflict-based shocks. Focusing on Ukraine following the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, the study situates industrial organization and firms’ resilience to conflict within a dynamic environment characterized by spatially heterogeneous exposure to conflict events and persistent institutional constraints. I document how Ukraine’s contemporary economic geography reflects the interaction of Soviet-era industrial path dependence, uneven post-transition institutional development, and conflict-induced reconfiguration, evaluating how these dynamics generate systematic variation in both firms’ baseline vulnerability and their exposure to …

A Computational Micropatterning Approach To Study Caveolae And Protein Localization In Vascular Biology, Andrew B. Grespin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Caveolae are specialized, flask-shaped membrane invaginations highly expressed in endothelium and dysregulated in atherosclerosis. Caveolae play a central role in buffering membrane tension, yet the principles governing their spatial organization remain elusive. Thus, we sought to generate the most comprehensive and systematic analysis of blood vessel caveolar spatial organization. However, cell culturing, the backbone of human-focused biological research, does not standardly do well to model physiologically relevant cell behaviors such as migration or polarity-based tissue formation, particularly for punctate proteins and structures like caveolae. Micropatterns are cell-adhesive shapes that biophysically confine cell(s) to a user defined geometry which stereotype organelle …

Dodosolsollalasol: Theme And Variations, Myrna J. Layton

Faculty Publications

The 2020 Korean Drama DoDoSolSolLaLaSol takes its name from, and makes substantial use of, the tune otherwise known as “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman,” the French Folk Song whose tune Mozart used in his twelve variations, and in English as “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

The text of “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman,” focuses on the relationship between parent and child, which is one of the thematic applications of the music in the Korean drama. However, the French children’s song’s tune is taken from an earlier French song intended for adults, “La Confidence Naïve,” which is about a romantic relationship. This is another …

Who Tells Our Stories?: An Analysis Of Lgbtqia2s+ Community-Museum Collaboration In Northeastern Wisconsin, Frances Kerkhof

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, histories of LGBTQIA2S+ individuals have been excluded from mainstream conversations and censored from public records. This exclusion was evident in how LGBTQIA2S+ history is retold in museum spaces. Over the past few decades, public institutions have shifted how LGBTQIA2S+ histories are communicated, with efforts to include more diverse histories and perspectives. During the summer of 2025, I conducted a museum ethnography of the Neville Public Museum’s Telling Our Stories: LGBTQ+ Voices of Northeastern Wisconsin to answer the research question: How does community engagement enhance the representation of the LGBTQIA2S+ community in a local museum in Northeastern Wisconsin? Through this …

Becoming The Phoenix: Black Women’S Experiences And Leadership Growth Through Humanized Black Feminist Action Learning, Jovan Keith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the workplace learning experiences of Black women professionals in corporate leadership contexts. Leadership development programs often rely on standardized models that overlook the lived realities shaping Black women’s professional experiences. In response, this study introduced Humanized Black Feminist Action Learning, a leadership development intervention that integrates Black feminist scholarship, humanizing pedagogy, and critical action learning.

Using a qualitative case study design, the research examined a cohort of midcareer Black women professionals who participated in four facilitated learning sessions structured around workplace dilemmas. During these sessions, participants engaged in reflection, dialogue, and action as they examined workplace dynamics …

Educator Perceptions Of Human-Ai Co-Creativity: A Mixed Methods Study, Wendy L. Jensen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Educators play a critical role in navigating the intersection of creativity and artificial intelligence in the work of teaching and learning. As frontline implementers of daily instruction and decision-makers around the use of technology tools, teachers determine, in practice, how creativity and artificial intelligence converge in learning environments. Because teachers play this central role, examining their perceptions is critical for fostering the effective use of AI in educational contexts in ways that preserve and advance creative teaching and learning. In this convergent mixed methods study, I investigated educators’ perceptions of human-AI co-creativity, with particular attention to how these perceptions inform …