Digital Commons Network^™

Desert Ghost, Jessica Downs

All Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between landscape, memory, and the body through handmade paper installations inspired by the deserts of southwestern Utah. Drawing from personal experience of place and the loss of a childhood home, the work considers how environments are internalized and persist as shifting, sensory impressions rather than fixed geographies. The desert becomes a generative site for examining presence, transformation, and the passage of time, both geologic and personal.

I use handmade paper and installation to translate my experience of place into physical form. Paper serves as both material and metaphor; its fibers, textures, and muted tones emulate …

On The Paleontology Of Belize, Alson Ovando

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Paleontology can be considered an underrepresented and emerging area of science in Belize. A primary aim of this thesis is to provide a background of paleontology in Belize and present the first comprehensive study of Quaternary vertebrate fossils known from the country. Quaternary fossil sites across Belize include caves, rivers, and sinkholes. In addition to reviewing and assessing material from known sites, this thesis presents new information and discoveries that were made while investigating Belize’s Quaternary fossil record. This thesis also includes a geospatial model depicting ecoregions in Belize during the last glacial maximum. Overall, the results presented here demonstrate …

Leaving College In Rural Central Appalachia: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study Of Lived Experience And Meaning-Making, Amanda Sawyers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This hermeneutic phenomenological study explored how individuals raised primarily in rural Central Appalachian communities interpret and make meaning of their decision to engage in college departure prior to degree completion. The study examined college departure as a lived experience shaped by family obligations, cultural identity, and rural structural conditions. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants from West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee, and Western North Carolina who had enrolled in higher education but did not complete a degree. The main research question was: How do rural Central Appalachian residents interpret their college departure? Hermeneutic phenomenological thematic analysis …

Machine-Learning Landslide Susceptibility And Runout Modeling In The Nolichucky River Gorge After Hurricane Helene, Grace Braver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Extreme rainfall from Hurricane Helene (September 2024) triggered widespread landslides across the southern Appalachian region, highlighting the need for rapid landslide susceptibility assessments that capture both landslide initiation and downstream runout. Traditional susceptibility models often focus solely on initiation zones, limiting their ability to identify which slopes will generate destructive landslides or where material will travel. This study addresses that gap by (1) integrating Geographic Information System (GIS)-based machine learning susceptibility modeling using ArcGIS Pro: Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) and Random Forest-Based and Boosted Classification and Regression (FBBC) and (2) the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Grfin (Growth, Flow, and Inundation) runout …

Research On The Spatial Diffusion Process And Influencing Factors Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Brands: Evidence From Beijing Tong Ren Tang, Yuehua Shen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Against the backdrop of the dual drivers of the revitalization and development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and the rising demand for health-related consumption, the nationwide expansion of TCM chain brands has become a prominent issue of shared concern for both industry and policy circles. However, existing research largely treats cities as mutually independent units and overlooks the spatial externalities arising from geographic proximity. It also implicitly assumes that the driving factors remain stable over a brand's expansion life cycle. This makes it difficult to capture the dynamic evolution of the logic governing store expansion across different stages. Accordingly, this …

Uncertainty, Information, And Major Choice: Evidence From Chinese Gaokao, Sikun Dou

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

An unresolved background risk makes people more averse to other, independent  risks—most of all when a high-stakes, irreversible choice must be made under that risk. College major choice is such a setting. In China, students are admitted directly into a major they cannot easily change, and in the early 2000s they had to commit before learning their exam scores, bearing a field’s academic risk on top of an unresolved admission risk. Because STEM fields carry more academic risk and women are on average more risk-averse, this burden falls hardest on women’s entry into STEM. Exploiting a reform that moved application …

Increasing Accuracy Of Mapping Local Climatic Zones Using Building Height And Spectral Unmixing, Ian Douglas Stauffer

Masters Theses

Local climatic zone (LCZ) classifications are traditionally done using reflectance, population data, and often climatic data. The goal of this research is to utilize Google’s new “Open Buildings Temporal v1” building data set as well as “spectral unmixing”. With the objective of testing, assessing, and implementing this data set into the workflow of LCZ mapping. After testing the quality of the data against a validated LiDAR data set from the same year as a given “Open Buildings Temporal v1” band, I implemented it into the Random Forest machine learning process. Secondly, I justified the use of spectral unmixing as a …

Modeling The Effects Of Low-Pressure Atmospheric Fronts On Sediment Transport Through Mississippi Sound Barrier Island Inlets, Nicholas J. Gagliano

Master's Theses

Coastal sediment dynamics in the Mississippi Sound are strongly influenced by tropical cyclones and the more frequent passage of low-pressure atmospheric fronts. While hurricanes are well recognized for reshaping barrier islands and altering sediment budgets, the cumulative role of recurrent fronts remains poorly quantified. This thesis investigates the impacts of six low-pressure atmospheric fronts (2015–2017) on sediment flux through six barrier island inlets in the Mississippi Sound.

A high-resolution application of the Regional Ocean Modeling System with the Community Sediment Transport Modeling System was developed to simulate tidal circulation, wind-driven currents, and sediment dynamics. Waves were excluded from the simulations. …

Redeveloping Mississippi: A Case Study On Brownfields In Central & Southern Mississippi, Sahrah R. Yeroozedek

Master's Theses

Brownfields, or properties that are or possibly are contaminated with dangerous materials, represent a common obstacle for communities in Mississippi. The real or potential presence of contaminants at these sites often deters investors due to costly cleanup requirements (EPA, n.d. -b). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through its Brownfield Revitalization Program, implemented guidelines for covering the costs and labor associated with the remediation of these properties. The EPA is not, however, responsible for redevelopment that supports long-term environmental and economic sustainability. Although the EPA maintains inventories of all Brownfields, there is also no comprehensive database of Brownfields and their current …

The Impact Of Place-Based Education Professional Development On Faculty Identity And Perceptions Of Nature-Culture Dichotomies, Reyt Middleton

Master's Theses

This qualitative study analyzes how implementing place-based education (PBE) in undergraduate coursework shapes faculty identity narratives and nature–culture positionalities across conceptual lenses of past, present, and future. Three faculty members at a regional Mississippi university engaged in a PBE professional development program; narratively driven pre- and post-implementation interviews were given to participants, then examined via thematic analysis. Framed primarily through lenses of constructivism, with support from critical pedagogy of place, relational and ecological epistemologies, and scholarship on faculty identity, this study posits two research questions—1: How does teaching PBE influence faculty identity narratives across past, present, and future temporalities? 2: …

Mazique (22ad502): Late Woodland Village Or Vacant Ceremonial Center?, Lonnie A. Burch Jr

Master's Theses

Overlooking the bank of Second Creek near Natchez, Mississippi, the Mazique (22AD502) site is a Coles Creek period (AD 750-1000) mound and plaza center that once featured three mounds surrounding an open central plaza. Mounds A and B still sit prominently along the southern and eastern edges of Mazique’s plaza. The location of  Mound C remains unclear. Historic agricultural and construction activities have left no visible trace of the monument. The 2021 University of Southern Mississippi archaeological field school set out to investigate potential locations for Mound C and to explore the site's functionality.

Did the Mazique site support a …

Evaluating Long-Term Seasonal Variability Of Aerosol Optical Properties In Colorado, Erin K. Boedicker, Andre Bergeron, Gerardo Carrillo-Cardenas, Dominik Kulakowski, John Rogan, Elizabeth Andrews, Gannet A. Hallar

Geography

Aerosol particles resulting from both wildfires and dust events introduce considerable uncertainty into both climate research and public health assessments. These challenges are becoming particularly evident in the western US. To gain a deeper understanding of western US aerosol properties, we analyzed 13 years (2011–2024) of surface in-situ aerosol optical data from Storm Peak Laboratory (SPL) in northwestern Colorado, and 6 years (2019–2024) of surface in-situ aerosol optical data from Table Mountain (BOS) in central Colorado. The aerosol optical properties at both sites demonstrate a strong summer wildfire smoke signal (peaking in August) and evidence of springtime dust events. BOS …

The Southwest Black Artists Collective: Afro-Modern Ecology, Kinship, And Collectivity In The Desert Southwest, Bradley L. Petty

Art History Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the Southwest Black Artists Collective (SBAC) as a site of

Afro-diasporic kinship, artistic production, and spatial intervention within the Desert

Southwest. Operating within a region where Black populations are comparatively small

and institutional support is diffuse, SBAC emerges as both a response to and a

reconfiguration of the regional artistic landscape. The Collective constructs an affirming

community through shared artistic practice, exhibitions, and the maintenance of The

Projects/Space in Tucson, Arizona, where public engagement and private creative

exchange coexist.

Drawing on theories of human ecology, this study expands existing frameworks

by introducing the concept of Afro-modern ecology, …

The Making Of Shi'a Resistance In Afghanistan: Historical Roots, Communist Rule, And Soviet Occupation, 1978–1989, Sayed Sajjad Hojet

Theses

This thesis examines Shi'a political mobilization in Afghanistan from the 1978 Saur Revolution through the Soviet occupation, ending in 1989. It argues that Shi'a resistance was not simply a religious reaction to Marxist rule but a complex movement shaped by long-term marginalization, influenced by rival political ideas, and connected to cross-border networks in Iran. It traces how persecution under Amir Abdurrahman Khan created a system of political exclusion that shaped Shi'a collective identity before the communist takeover, and how ideologies such Marxism and Political Islam further politicized Shi'a youth in the mid-twentieth century. The PDPA's coercive policies after 1978 helped …

Avoiding White Elephants: An Empirical Assessment On The Failure Of Airport Capacity To Drive Tourism Receipts, Somanithel Kheang

Theses

This study investigates the relationship between airport infrastructure capacity and international tourism receipts across 12 major Asian and European economies from 2000 to 2019. Using a Panel Fixed Effects framework, the analysis tests the "Supply-Led Growth" hypothesis to determine if physical infrastructure expansion independently drives tourism revenue. To address potential endogeneity and reverse causality, the study employs specification where all independent variables are lagged by one year.The empirical results yield a robust null finding: airport capacity does not exhibit a statistically significant impact on tourism receipts. Conversely, government consumption is identified as a potent driver of tourism performance, with a …

Desert Deep: The Great Salt Lake's Evanesce And The Gravity Of Recovery, Avery Truman

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Great Salt Lake has been shrinking since the mid-19th century for several reasons, primarily due to a higher evaporation rate caused by climate change and water diversion from the Bear, Weber, and Jordan rivers. This problem will cause mass ecosystem destruction, release toxic chemicals into the air, and strand migrating birds. As an environmental studies and geography major, I’ve spent a lot of time learning about the Great Salt Lake in my courses. I decided to write Desert Deep, a series of essays, after I took my first creative nonfiction writing class. The goal was to tell the …

Reimagining Access: Gentrification, Race And Youth Engagement In Outdoor Recreation, Cameron Smith

All Dissertations

Outdoor recreation has proven beneficial for youth, providing mental, social, and physical health benefits that last a lifetime. However, there is a gap in Black and Brown youth's participation in structured outdoor activities due to a multitude of structural factors. An overarching systemic factor that has affected these youths' participation in outdoor recreation is Gentrification, and its derivative, Green Gentrification, which specifically refers to how green amenities and infrastructure drive displacement of long-term communities. As a result of the displacement, Black and Brown youth are placed in a society where they are forced to navigate spaces that were intentionally designed …

Passive Microwave Remote Sensing Of Flash Drought Impacts On Vegetation, Quinton R. Deppert

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In 2002, Dr. Mark Svoboda characterized a new form of drought known as flash drought. Flash drought was defined as a rapid decline in vegetation health caused by severe heat and drought. In recent years, attempts to quantify the impacts of flash drought via precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and temperature indicators have proliferated. What has rarely been quantified is what the rapid decline in vegetation health amid flash drought looks like through remote sensing. This is because vegetation health indices like the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) are derived from the visible and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum and …

Advertising The Noble Savage: Blackfeet Exploitation And Erasure Through Glacier National Park, The Great Northern Railway, And The Bureau Of Indian Affairs From 1900-1920, Edward D'Angelo

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Blackfeet Native Americans have lived in and around Glacier National Park and their current reservation boundaries for thousands of years. They previously lived a nomadic lifestyle, but were forced onto a reservation by the American government in the nineteenth century. At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the Blackfeet sold more land to the federal government at the same time the Great Northern Railway was building its railroad through the Rocky Mountains. In order to increase travel demands on its railway in the area, the Great Northern Railway lobbied the federal government …

Two Genres, One Narrative? A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Gendered Relationships In Top Hip-Hop/R&B And Country Songs (2015-2025), Alyssa A. Yarbro

Honors Theses

For this research, I examined how gendered relationships are depicted in the lyrics of 55 top-charting Hip-Hop/R&B and Country songs from the past decade (2015-2025). I employed Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis to examine how song lyrics use language to reproduce or challenge dominant ideas of gendered relationships. My analysis identified three prominent themes within the lyrics: Respect, Commodification, and Regret. Songs within the Respect category were characterized by these of romance, affection, and non-sexual intimacy. The commodification category included songs that had dominant themes of objectification, sexualization, and depicting individuals as disposable or interchangeable goods. The songs in the …

Changing U.S. Military Force Structure: Rebuilding Confidence In Public Institutions By Bridging The Civil-Military Gap, Corri Zoli, Linda Euto

The Lender Center for Social Justice

This research brief assesses a changing U.S. military force structure in an era of waning trust in public institutions and new security pressures, both domestic and global. While many U.S. public institutions are facing declining trust, one key aspect in the case of the military is lack of understanding between U.S. veterans and nonveterans—often termed the civil-military gap. Understanding this gap is necessary to forge connections across military-connected communities and those without service experience. Bridging this gap is a timely model to restore baseline confidence in many institutions that serve all members of the public.

Trump Opportunity Zones In Louisville, Kentucky: A Look At The Results So Far., Thomas E. Lambert

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In 2017 the US Congress passes and President Donald J. Trump signs the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Part of the legislation allows states to create opportunity zones (OZs), census tracts which will be targeted for business investment and economic development through federal tax incentives. In Louisville, Kentucky, as in other jurisdictions throughout the US over the last several decades, special district “zones” have been used by local, state, and/or the federal government(s) to try to revive low-income, deteriorated, and blighted areas. These have been typically urban areas but sometimes have included semi-rural and rural areas. Whether named enterprise …

Against Despair: Hope As Rhetorical Practice In Chicana Theatre, Esperanza Arreola

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis argues that Chicana theatre functions as survival pedagogy—a rhetorical practice that teaches communities to name structural violence, transform bodily trauma into collective power, and rehearse liberation as a precondition for enacting it. Drawing on Kenneth Burke’s concept of literature as “equipment for living,” Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, and Cynthia M. Sheard’s reconceptualization of epideictic rhetoric as community formation, I analyze three plays that exemplify this pedagogy: Cherríe Moraga’s Heroes and Saints (1992) and The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea (2001), and Josefina López’s Real Women Have Curves (1990).

These works address distinct but interlocking forms of …

Building Bridges: Evaluating Teacher Preparation And Program Activation Of Ethnic Studies In California’S K-12 High Schools Through An Autoethnography, Jose Aguilera-Lopez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study examines the lived experiences of secondary Social Science educators teaching Ethnic Studies in the early stages of program activation, with particular attention to the challenges that are often invisible to policymakers, institutions of higher education, and K-12 school districts. Using an autoethnographic approach, the research examines key elements of Ethnic Studies Program Activation, including infrastructure support, capacity building, professional development led by experienced Ethnic Studies practitioners, and teaching with fidelity. The findings aim to provide actionable guidance for educators and district leaders to support new Ethnic Studies teachers at the secondary level and to inform leadership teams at …

Halo Effect Of Prescribing Guidelines For Opioid Naive Patients Translates To Opioid Non-Naive Patients Undergoing Lumbar Decompression: A Michigan Spine Surgery Improvement Collaborative (Mssic) Study, Anisse Chaker, Geoff Kahn, Michael Melhem, Jian-Hui Hu, Kari Jarabek, Heegook Yeo, Jawad Saad, Abdullah Al-Tekreeti, Kenneth Easton, Jad Khalil, Richard Easton, Doirs Tong, Miguelangelo Perez-Cruet, Noojan Kazemi, Ilyas Aleem, Muwaffak Abulhak, David Nerenz, Victor Chang

Conference Presentation Abstracts

Introduction: Chronic opioid dependency in spine surgery is an ongoing concern given the ongoing opioid epidemic. We have previously reported on our cohort of opioid-naıve patients, however the literature has shown that patients with opioid use at baseline are at higher risk of less favorable outcomes. Starting in 2022, MSSIC instituted state-wide prescribing guidelines for opioid naıve patients undergoing one- or two-level lumbar decompression surgery (laminectomy, laminotomy, foraminotomy, microdiscectomy) with performance goals of 80% compliance. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether there would be a form of a “halo” effect on prescribing patterns for patients with baseline …

The Bridge To Becoming An Educator: An Analysis Of Educator Preparation Programs And Their Effects On Stakeholders, Myltazaire Kynshasha Crayton

All Dissertations

This qualitative study examined how national, state, and institutional policies impact teacher certification processes and influence the experiences of stakeholders in educator preparation programs (EPPs), including administrators, professors, and teacher candidates. Guided by Astin’s Input-Environment-Output (I-E-O) model, this research examined how inputs such as policy mandates, institutional culture, and candidate demographics interact with educational environments to produce diverse outcomes in teacher preparation, certification, and retention. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, questionnaires, document analysis, and policy review across two university EPPs, one in Texas and one in Arkansas. Findings revealed that inconsistencies in policy interpretation, financial and academic barriers, and …

Open Space Management Planning: A Framework And Case Study From Eagle Mountain City, Utah, Nathan K. Shumway

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Open Space Management Plans (OSMPs) are increasingly used by municipalities to guide the long-term stewardship of natural lands; however, little formal guidance exists regarding how these plans are structured, developed, or organized in practice. While numerous OSMPs are publicly available, their compositional logic, procedural workflows, and thematic priorities remain largely undocumented within academic literature. This study addresses that gap through a qualitative document analysis of fifteen publicly accessible OSMPs from the western United States, published between 2015 and 2024.

Using manual matrix-based coding in Microsoft Excel, each plan was analyzed through three lenses: structural composition, procedural development, and thematic content. …

Uncanniness In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Seth L. Callor

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This thesis explores how Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel The Bluest Eye has a feature called the uncanny. Uncanniness, as originally explained by Sigmund Freud, is when something that was familiar becomes unsettlingly unfamiliar in a way that was likely once repressed. Other thinkers have since talked about how the uncanny is used in stories to question how their demographics are oppressed. Following their example, this thesis explains how The Bluest Eye is an example of using the uncanny to question harmful ways of seeing. Through demonstrating how The Bluest Eye uses obviously uncanny things like dolls and moves to more …

Change In Public Perception Of Nuclear Energy Between 1950 And 2025, Kelly Plewe

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes how public opinion toward nuclear energy in the United States has shifted from the early postwar period through 2025, using a mixed-methods design that combines longitudinal survey data with historical and policy scholarship. Drawing on more than seventy years of national polling from NORC, the Roper Center, Gallup, Pew Research Center, Bisconti Research, ecoAmerica, and academic surveys, the author traces changes in support, opposition, and perceived risk across key political eras.¹ The study asks three main questions: (1) What social, political, and technological factors have driven major shifts in attitudes toward nuclear power since the 1950s? …

Inter-Government Communication– Transportation Options For Utahns, Andrew Nicholas Barber

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

As a growing Western state, Utah has ambitions for building more infrastructure, especially public transportation. The way it organizes its communication strategy for public transportation, however, represents a microcosm in a larger debate between political scientists and economists. Professionals have backed one of two models for inter-government communication: the decentralized or “fiscal federalism” model and the centralized model, and pros and cons have been theorized for both. Decentralization, on paper, is more democratic, can better represent the needs of its constituents, and can better navigate pesky bureaucratic red tape, but is less efficient. Centralization, on the other hand, is more …