Digital Commons Network^™

Making Bad Decisions With Toxic Emissions: Exploring The Prosecution Of Companies For Superfund Crimes, Dr. Melissa Jarrell Ozymy, Dr. Joshua Ozymy

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

Marginalized communities in the United States bear the brunt of toxic pollution from Superfund sites. Criminal provisions in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as Superfund, allow prosecutors to seek penalties for environmental crimes involving significant harm and/or culpable conduct, but we know little about how companies have been prosecuted for Superfund crimes. We utilize content analysis of 2,728 environmental crime prosecutions stemming from U.S. EPA criminal investigations from 1983-2021, and select cases of companies prosecuted for Superfund crimes. We found that across 41 prosecutions, 126 defendants were prosecuted, resulting in 68 years of probation …

Front Matter, Washington Journal Of Social & Environmental Justice

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

Rights That Are Not Guaranteed: Failures Of Government Policy On Homelessness, Jeffrey Kaspraw

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Since the 1980s, the rising number of homeless people has caused the problem to become a significant political issue. Politicians have made promises in their campaigns to solve the emergency every election cycle. Most of these campaign promises never come to fruition, and we see a continuing rise in homelessness. This paper examines the political context of housing insecurity to argue that housing is a human right, and that homelessness is a failed policy decision. Homelessness comes in four different forms that all require individual attention. The current policies aimed to address homelessness cannot be one size fits all. While …

Resitance Art And Urban Space: A Strategic Comparison Of Artistic Urban Space Usage In Buenos Aires And San Francisco, Adeline Rose Schmitz

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the early Twentieth century the Mexican Muralism movement reached two important port cities: San Francisco and Buenos Aires. The artists in these cities quickly adopted the usage of public art as means to insert political dialogue into the everyday life of their citizens. Throughout the years the resistance art in these cities has evolved in parallel, shaped by their dynamic histories of social and political change. This paper critically compares the evolutions of resistance art in Buenos Aires and San Francisco over the past twenty years. It does so by analyzing the public art archives of local collectives in …

178th University Of Notre Dame Commencement, University Of Notre Dame

Commencement Programs

The Commencement Program includes:

• SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 3
• GRADUATE SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY 8
• DOCTORAL DEGREES 10
• MASTER DEGREES 23
• MENDOZA COLLEGE OF BUSINESS GRADUATE BUSINESS 38
• GRADUATE ARCHITECTURE 44
• LAW SCHOOL 45
• UNIVERSITY COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY 49
• COLLEGE OF ARTS AND LETTERS 52
• COLLEGE OF SCIENCE 61
• COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 66
• MENDOZA COLLEGE OF BUSINESS 71
• SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE 77
• VALEDICTORIAN CANDIDATES 78
• EMERITI FACULTY 78
• HONOR SOCIETIES 78
• AWARDS AND PRIZES 85
• TASSELS 104

Composite Climate Risk Exposure In High-Emitting California Industries, Nicholas M. Graves

Master's Projects and Capstones

The correlation of anthropogenic carbon emissions and changes in the global climate system is unequivocal. Governments are enacting policy from the local, state, federal, and international levels that present major transition risks for businesses. In parallel, legacy emissions are already causing discernible changes in the climate system via increased frequencies of drought, wildfire, flooding, and extreme heat; these changes present material physical risks to existing business infrastructure. Taken together, these risks form the foundation of proposed regulations for climate risk disclosure by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Existing literature has not provided an at-scale screening methodology for climate …

Community Microgrids As An Equitable Climate Resilience And Adaptation Strategy In California, Savanna Olivia Smith

Master's Projects and Capstones

Climate change summons more extreme and frequent weather events that threaten communities’ access to power. Without power, businesses lose revenue, essential services are limited, people are exposed to extreme temperatures, and lives are lost. California has adopted microgrids as a solution to costly power outages, electrification needs, and renewable energy goals. This work evaluates the adoption of microgrids as an equitable climate resilience and adaptation strategy through a geospatial analysis of California’s resilience investment needs, a case study analysis of 9 existing tribal and rural microgrids, and a gap analysis of California and federal policies and incentive programs. Programs like …

Assessing Equity Of Green Infrastructure Strategies To Address Heat Vulnerability In Los Angeles Sustainable City Planning, Sophia N. La Herran

Master's Projects and Capstones

Urbanization has brought about many undesirable environmental changes, with extreme heat and urban heat island (UHI) effect being some of the most significant. In addition to the challenge of UHI effect and increase of extreme heat events, heat also disproportionately affects different types of urban populations with higher populations of minority and low-income residents, who are more exposed and have limited capacity to adapt to extreme. The increased vulnerability to heat faced by socially vulnerable communities can be linked to the inequalities in neighborhood level exposure to extreme heat events, underlying health conditions, workplace conditions, housing quality, and other lasting …

Sustainability Analysis: Large-Scale Desalination Implications For Coastal California, Elizabeth H. Whitford

Master's Projects and Capstones

In response to prolonged drought, desalination is gaining popularity as an alternative water production method for fresh water. However, water desalting technology poses concerns; the process is energy intensive, creates brine waste, and has the potential to damage sensitive coastal ecosystems. Significant research is available on the technological, economic, and energy efficiency aspects of desalination, while only a small percentage of the current literature focuses on environmental impacts. This research analyzes the desalination literature holistically in terms of both energy consumption and environmental impacts by conducting 1) a historical and current state review of the sector, 2) a technology analysis …

Abolition Ecologies And The Making Of Freedom As A Place In Bayview-Hunters Point, Spencer Daniel O'Hara

Master's Theses

In this paper, I critically explore the subjectivities of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard (HPNS), part of the largest redevelopment project in San Francisco since 1906. Applying an abolition ecologies framework, I ask what explains the duplicity of the Shipyard as a site of radioactive contamination and capital accumulation, and in the same time-space one that creates the conditions for radical place-making. Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is a former commercial and military shipyard located on a peninsula in southeastern San Francisco. Motivated by its desire for a major shipbuilding and repair facility to project maritime power in the Pacific, the Navy …

Global Drivers Of Local Water Stresses And Global Responses To Local Water Policies In The United States, Iman Haqiqi, Laura Bowling, Sadia Jame, Uris Baldos, Jing Liu, Thomas Hertel

Department of Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

The rapid depletion of US groundwater resources and rising number of dying wells in the Western USbrings attention to the significance of groundwater governance and sustainability restrictions. However, such restrictions on groundwater withdrawals are likely to generate spillover effects causing further environmental stresses in other locations and adding to the complexity of sustainability challenges. The goal of this paper is to improve our understanding of the implications of growing global food demand for local sustainability stresses and the implications of local sustainability policies for local, regional, and global food production, land use, and prices. We employ SIMPLE-G-US (Simplified International Model …

Vol.50 N.43 May 18th 2023, Voice Media Ventures

Black Voice News

No abstract provided.

Author Demographics Of Outdoor Books: Exploring Diversity On The Shelves At Oregon Outdoor Retailers, Nell Stamper

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

In 2023, the book publishing industry faced a documented lack of social diversity (racial, ethnic and gender expressive). The outdoor recreation industry is also predominantly White and male, and there is a rising presence of Instagram influencers working to increase diverse representation in the outdoors. This paper used a literature review, digital ethnography, and field research to examine the gaps in the hypothetical experience of a White heterosexual cisgender male vs. that of any other demographic when browsing and buying books at outdoor retailers in Oregon. Field research showed that out of 300 authors represented on the shelves of outdoor …

Lessons Learned From Incorporating Climate Considerations In The Three Rivers Watershed-Based Plan, Gregory Carbone, Jory Fleming, Kathryn Ellis, Guillermo J. Espinosa

Journal of South Carolina Water Resources

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control has recently incentivized planners to incorporate climate change projections into watershed-based plans. Methods for doing so vary by geography, specific basin-level conditions, and available resources. This short communication documents an early example developed by a collaborative team including a council of governments, private contractor, and university researchers. We outline steps taken to construct climate change scenarios, incorporate them into a basin-level model, and develop a holistic approach to climate adaptation and resilience for the Three Rivers Watershed-Based Plan in the Columbia, South Carolina, metropolitan area. We present lessons learned about integrating …

Incorporating Job Competition And Matching To An Indicator-Based Transportation Equity Analysis For Auto And Transit In Dallas-Fort Worth Area, Seyedsoheil Sharifiasl, Subham Kharel, Qisheng Pan

SAGE Open Access Agreement Publications-Archive

Transportation equity is a vital but vague issue for planners and engineers in the United States, where mobility-based transportation planning has triggered the disproportionate distribution of benefits and burdens in the transportation system. Previously, transportation equity studies have evaluated equity using different transportation service metrics and socio-demographic factors. Job accessibility is one principal metric for transportation quality as it directly relates to a community's economic prosperity. While most equity studies analyze aggregate accessibility for a single mode, our study measures blue-collar and white-collar job accessibilities for automobile and transit by incorporating job proximity, competition, and matching, using the Dallas-Fort Worth …

Contributors, David Law, Nora Domínguez

Making Connections

List of contributors for Making Connections: A Handbook for Effective Formal Mentoring Programs in Academia.

The Reactivation Of Desolate Architecture, Logan Dolezal

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

A guiding concept for my thesis is the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi. Wabi-Sabi, as defined by Valentina Marin, “refers to an aesthetic philosophy and vision applied to objects, which alludes to beauty in imperfections and the value of the passage of time, and openly accepts the deterioration and transience of existence, both human and material.”

I believe that this concept can be applied to architecture and that we can utilize disregarded and desolate structures by creating insertions that promote interaction with decaying architecture. This notion eventually led to my discovery of my thesis statement, “The reactivation of desolate architecture through …

Beyond Response: Reimagining The Legal Academy's Role In Disaster Recovery And Preparedness, Latisha Nixon-Jones

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article proposes expanding the legal academy’s role in responding to disasters and emergencies, specifically through creating disaster clinics that take a community-based lawyering approach. The Article is one of the first to identify the need for community-based disaster legal clinical education that goes beyond the immediate response phase. It also proposes creating a disaster legal pipeline from the clinic through post-graduation employment. The Article furthers the literature’s discussion of the need for sustained disaster legal education. As the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 coronavirus continues to impact vulnerable populations and the frequency of natural disasters continues to increase, this …

A Call For The Legalization Of Two Sustainable Means Of Final Disposition In Ohio, Aimee Sheetz

Cleveland State Law Review

Several states currently have laws that allow for alkaline hydrolysis as an alternative to burial or cremation. A few states also allow for the composting of human remains. People are choosing these means of disposition for themselves and their loved ones due to environmental, financial, and societal reasons. Ohio currently does not allow either of these methods to be performed within the state. There have been attempts to legalize alkaline hydrolysis in Ohio. This Note calls for the legalization of both methods of disposition by including them in the Ohio Revised Code. This would provide clarity to the Ohio Board …

Macroproblems Require Microsolutions: The Case For Microgrids In The U.S. Energy Infrastructure, David Howie

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper explores the shortcomings of the modern United States Power Grid in the face of climate change and worsening climate conditions, and seeks to explore how alternative styles of power grids could be viable replacements for current designs. The power grid is one of the most fundamental aspects of modern life, without it there would be no reliable energy supply to power devices and machinery. Oftentimes when energy generation is discussed in the United States, it only focuses on the source of generation for the energy, not the transmission of the energy. The lack of complete discussion around this …

Equity In Transportation: Data Driven Analysis Of Transportation Services And Infrastructures, Javad Jomehpour Chahar Aman

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Achieving equity in transportation is an ongoing challenge, as transportation options still vary tremendously when it comes to marginalized populations. This dissertation addresses this challenge by conducting a comprehensive review of existing transportation equity literature and identifying two critical gaps: the lack of data-driven approaches to studying spatial mismatch between transportation supply and demand, and limited information on women's perceptions and expectations towards emerging transportation services.

Chapter two introduces the concept of transportation "deserts," specifically transit deserts and walking deserts, and develops data-driven frameworks to identify and investigate neighborhoods with limited transportation service supply but high demand. The frameworks compare …

Knowing I Don't Know, Leo Justin Keiser

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

From Spirit Toward Liberation: Msw Professional Portfolio, Claire Cw Compton

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

Portfolio of work accomplished in Master of Social Work program. Includes the Five Elements of Advanced Integrated Practice (Finn & Molloy, 2021), 10 social work competencies, and four dimensions of practice.

Utilizing Interprofessional Collaboration To Assist Clients And Communities With Disaster Relief, Baylen D. Bellamy

Social Work Masters Capstone Projects

Hello and thank you for reading my capstone project, which focuses on utilizing interprofessional collaboration to assist clients and communities with disaster relief. My practicum placement was at a crisis center in the next town over. I shadowed and assisted staff with working with clients and the community. A natural disaster had occurred while I was at my practicum placement. Near the end of July in 2022 a massively, devastating flood had hit South Eastern KY and several surrounding counties. The flood happen so sudden people hardly had any warning. People’s homes, vehicles, animals, and personal belongings were washed away. …

Utilizing An Evidence-Based Treatment Program For Offenders With Mental Health Disorders To Demonstrate Interprofessional Social Work Practice, Erica Kessinger, Ann Callahan

Social Work Masters Capstone Projects

Sixty-four percent of jail offenders, 54% of state prisoners, and 45% of federal prisoners have a mental illness (Taylor, 2022). Mental illness increases the risk of recidivism. Individuals with mental illness have limited access to appropriate treatment. They are more likely to respond negatively to the prison environment. This can lead to infractions and solitary confinement. In addition, 51% of incarcerated individuals, whether they received mental health treatment or not, are likely to experience recidivism (Pflueger et al., 2015). The practice of interprofessional social work inside the American prison system is desperately needed. The following paper proposes an evidence-based treatment …

Stitching The Pieces Together, Julie C. Nissi

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Us Energy Policy Within A Shifting Geopolitical Landscape, Rodney Ford

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

Through numerous policy initiatives and a catalogue of antagonistic rhetoric, the Biden administration has made it clear since January of 2021 that America will be last when it comes to energy policy. As the rest of the world pursues far-fetched goals to eliminate fossil fuels and usher in the era of green energy, the administration has actively sought to conform to these goals at the expense of the American taxpayer. The issue of climate change, undeniably an issue indeed, will prove itself to be a hallmark of the Biden White House as everything from the tightening of ESG policies to …

Identity Vs Institution: Political Violence Against Environmental Activists In Colombia, Sophie Genolio

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper addresses the political violence against environmental activists in Colombia and analyzes the roles colonization, political history, and identity play in this violence. It discusses the causes environmental activists have put their lives on the line for and the response of the state, which is often to murder, displace, silence, or brutalize these individuals. I argue that from the first instances of European colonization in the Americas to the modern extractive economies of globalization, the hegemony of foreign interests in Colombia has been maintained through the violence against Colombians resisting environmental degradation and the theft of wealth and resources …

Message And Meaning: Media Literacy And Racial Literacy Among Secondary-School Students, Warren Hynes

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This qualitative study explored the ways in which student use of media literacy tools and different media source materials can influence the conclusions students draw about race in the United States. The author visited eighth-grade social studies students in two different schools (one more economically advantaged; one more economically disadvantaged) for six visits apiece. During these visits, students engaged with several media sources (controlling for bias) covering two issues related to race (housing and immigration). The goal was to determine how the overall use of media literacy tools and the different types of source materials can influence the ways in …

Sick Of Zoning In Metropolitan Chicago: Healing Environmental Racism And Investing In A Segregated City, Caroline M. Sandoval

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper addresses the issue of the historical and present-day built environment in the Chicago metropolitan area, its roots in environmental racism, and impacts on community health. Chapter 1 utilizes mapping of Chicago to analyze U.S. Census and public health data, drawing conclusions based on community area residential patterns and demographics. Chapter 2 explores the origins of zoning practices in the United States and environmental history of Chicago, tracing the immediate impacts of the built environment and today’s community impacts. Chapter 3 dives into the political background of the built environment and city zoning in Chicago, with particular attention to …