Digital Commons Network^™

Spoken Melodies: A Black Languaging Ela Curriculum, Taylor Gray , '26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Drought And Socio-Economic Factors On Attitudes Toward Immigrants In South Africa, Pamela Antwi-Nimarko

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Estimates of the global migrant population have steadily increased, with current data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reporting approximately 281 million migrants worldwide. Alongside this growth, anti-immigrant sentiments have risen in many host countries. This study seeks to contribute to the research on attitudes toward immigrants by exploring climate-related factors, particularly drought, as a key influence.

Leveraging a unique dataset combining the World Values Survey (WVS) and Afrobarometer, the study examines how drought, along with individual and contextual factors, affects attitudes toward immigrants. This dataset allows for an in-depth analysis of the direct impact of drought on public …

The Development Of Year One Students’ Reading Ability In A Curriculum Using Monster Phonics Scheme In The Uae, Sara Berrandjia

Theses

This study explores the impact of the Monster Phonics program on the reading development of Year 1 students in Al Ain, UAE. Reading proficiency is a fundamental skill in early education, and phonics instruction plays a crucial role in literacy acquisition. Monster Phonics, a color-coded synthetic phonics program, has been increasingly adopted in classrooms, yet its effectiveness in multilingual settings remains underexplored. This research aims to investigate how students' reading ability develops in the context of a curriculum using the Monster Phonics scheme. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining quantitative assessments pre- and post-tests on grapheme-phoneme correspondence, word reading, and …

Community Viability And Attitudes Toward Mental Illness: Rural Insights For Community-Based Care, Carrie N. Baker, Sarah A. Bush

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Access to mental healthcare varies greatly in rural, suburban, and urban communities. The community viability indicator (CVI) and the community attitudes to mental illness (CAMI) scale are tools for understanding a community’s health and viability and their receptiveness toward people with mental illness. This study of US adults (n = 1,028) in rural, urban, and suburban communities aimed to describe the relationship between community viability and community attitudes toward mental illness and determine the effect of community type on CAMI scores. Results revealed positive associations between community attitudes toward mental illness and community viability for rural and suburban community members. …

Columns Spring 2025, Southern Adventist University

Alumni Newsletter

Features articles on gamification to increase learning and classroom engagement, summer camp connections, and embracing service.

Student Inclusion In Least Restrictive Environment, Kelley Colling

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

When writing Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), the least restrictive environment (LRE) is typically defined as the general education classroom. However, this may not be held for all students. This research explores how LRE placement impacts academic performance and social engagement among students with disabilities. Through quantitative data collection and a descriptive research design, the study questions the assumption that inclusive practices are always the best approach. The findings indicate a statistical correlation between the amount of time spent in general education and the frequency of behavioral issues among students with disabilities. Specifically, data show that students exhibited more behavioral problems …

Seed 1001 Critical Issues In Us Education, Roberto Martinez

Open Educational Resources

All levels of public education in the United States today have become the focus for often competing political, economic, social, and cultural visions of how and why we should educate the nation’s youth. This course offers students the opportunity to become knowledgeable about critical issues in American education and the controversies surrounding them, while considering the historical, political, sociological, and economic dimensions of each. Among the issues the course will address are a) the purpose of public education in a democracy; b) the private/public split in education, with a focus on home schooling, charters, parochial, and private K-20 schools; c) …

Can Advanced Chatbots Help Us Navigate Educational Advocacy? Understanding The Potential Of Large Language Models As Assistants And Guides Within An Iep (Individualized Education Program) Meeting Context, Nava Bahrampour

IPHS 300: AI for Humanity

Hundreds of thousands of parents and students in New York City’s school district alone (Fancsali and Farley 2018) go through the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process every year, attending meetings and evaluations in order to determine adequate services and students with disabilities’ educational trajectories. However, most parents, especially those new to public education policy, report difficulty navigating the system or acquiring the resources necessary to successfully advocate for their children at IEP meetings (Advocates for Children 2025, Kurth et al. 2020). The rise of generative artificial intelligence and increased linguistic capabilities of interactional chatbots provokes questions about such technologies’ ability …

Dipl 2101 Ab Ethnopolitical Landscapes, Assefaw Bariagaber Phd

Diplomacy Syllabi

This course surveys the politics of cultural and ethnic/national pluralism, understood mainly in terms of the cultural, linguistic, religious diversity that shape the contemporary world, and their impact on the international system and the practice of international relations. It focuses on the salient issues that have taken center stage after the end of the Cold War, and deals with issues related to the rise of politicized ethnicity and other cultural cleavages around the world. The course includes examination of the possible factors that contributed to the rise of ethnic, religious, linguistic and other parochial attachments, and the accompanying political meanings …

Dipl 2101 Aa Ethnopolitical Landscapes, Assefaw Bariagaber Phd

Diplomacy Syllabi

This course surveys the politics of cultural and ethnic/national pluralism, understood mainly in terms of the cultural, linguistic, religious diversity that shape the contemporary world, and their impact on the international system and the practice of international relations. It focuses on the salient issues that have taken center stage after the end of the Cold War, and deals with issues related to the rise of politicized ethnicity and other cultural cleavages around the world. The course includes examination of the possible factors that contributed to the rise of ethnic, religious, linguistic and other parochial attachments, and the accompanying political meanings …

Program Review Report 4-1-25, Angela Brock

Program Review Committee

No abstract provided.

Turnitin To Improve Your Written English, Valerie Hascoet

Case studies: Digital Education

Irish Cultural Studies is a 5 credits module offered by Language Studies to all Erasmus and exchange students in TU Dublin. One assessment consists of a portfolio of reviews that students write about places they have visited and about activities that they have elected to do during their stay in Ireland. This work includes background research and short readings of their choice. Most students are not native speakers of English, but not all want to follow a traditional English class. Irish Cultural Studies allows them to practise their English skills without specific language-focused evaluation.

Deadtime In The Vale Of Soul-Making: Hermeneutics, Humanization, And Higher Education In Prison, Dale Michael Brown

Dissertations

This body of work examines higher education with and for justice-involved people from a descriptive, theoretical, and empirical perspective—pulling together multiple disciplines and employing different methodologies from the humanities and social sciences. The investigation is written from a philosophical perspective via educational foundations and a social science perspective via qualitative research, including an examination of carceral higher education’s connections to teaching and experiential learning. This approach reflects the interdisciplinary nature of both the author’s degree program and the topic itself, which (as a field of academic inquiry) is part theoretical and part empirical (both qualitative and quantitative). The papers in …

Meeting The Needs Of Children With Communication Disorders: A Collaborative Approach Between Classroom Teachers And Speech-Language Pathologists, Edwilda Henry

Theses & Dissertations

Approximately 912,000 students are enrolled in New York City public schools, with approximately 157,300 receiving special education services. According to the NYC Department of Education (2024), 96.9% of students with communication disorders spend at least 80% of their day in general education classrooms. This qualitative interpretive phenomenological study aimed to explore the lived experiences of classroom teachers (CTs) and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) regarding their collaborative practices. The study intended to look at the effectiveness and perspective of CTs and SLPs regarding their collaborative practices in public school settings, from elementary through high school, intending to improve educational outcomes for students …

Theshrahk Thwath Phonological Inventory, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains all of the phonemes present in Theshalshe with their corresponding glyphs.

Theshrahk Thwath Legend, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains the origin myth of Theshrahk Thwath’s vegetarianism and relationship with nature. It is presented line-by-line in Theshalshe, the orthography, the romanized form, a transliteration, and an English translation.

Muzibogun The Bells Of St. Mary’S, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This is a portion of our school song translated to Muzibogun

Muzibogun Semantics, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This shows the different fields of words and valued concepts in our language that give it meaning.

Muzibogun Poetry And The Engaged Citizen Poem, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This is a poem written in Muzibogun about our sun goddess, Zeerotamo.

Muzibogun Syntax And Grammar, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This shows how our sentence order, case system, conjugations, and different morphemes make sense of our language in a sentence.

Muzibogun Morphology, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This shows how we turned our phonemes into morphemes and into words.

Muzibogun Legend, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This is a story about how the Muzibogun are processing what we know as climate change.

Muzibogun Phonological Inventory, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

IPA charts with the consonant and vowel phonemes available in our language.

Lost In Translation, Jayden Mendez

Posters - 2025

Reader Response Theory (Brizee et al.2014) asserts that “readers' reactions to literature [are] vital to interpreting the meaning of the text” (10). Reader Response (Fish 1981) approaches literary studies as way to explore how readers react to a piece of prose or a poem from a perspective developed within their interpretive communities. Interpretive communities hold a set of assumptions or strategies in common that shape the meaning of a text for a reader synchronically, at the moment of reading. Because the assumptions or strategies of these communities change over time, the meaning of a text for a reader can also …

The Language Of Theshrahk Thwath, Mary Arnolds, Nicholas Denmark, Sophia C. Farias, Alexandra Renteria

Posters - 2025

J.R.R. Tolkien, British linguist and creator of fictional Elvish languages, coined the term glossopoiea to describe the act of inventing languages. In EN5361A Inventing Languages, our group engaged in glossopoiea to develop a constructed language, Theshalshe, based on the fictional culture and environment of Theshrahk Thwath, the Crane Forest.

Theshrahk Thwath is a deciduous forest. The climate is temperate, with four seasons and mild winters. The people observe a monotheistic religion centered around the goddess Kemajthwa, incarnate in an ancient willow tree. They are an egalitarian society arranged with age hierarchy. They are a scientifically advanced and literate people, specializing …

Los Muxes De Juchitán: Resistance, Identity, And Expressions Of Gender In The Zapotec Culture, Leah Mack

Audre Lorde Prize

This work is a cultural analysis of the Indigenous Zapotec third-gender community in Juchitán, México called the muxes. It examines the historical context that explains how the muxes have survived the process of Spanish colonization: a history of resistance and pride in their Indigenous identities. This essay also explains the European norms of the gender binary and how the norms in Juchitán are different and unique. Then, it analyzes a few cultural spaces that are important to the Zapotec Indigenous identity and the gender identity of the muxes, such as the market and the festive celebrations known as Las Velas. …

Rise Kids: A Disabilities Ministry At Markle Church Of Christ, Sydnee Follett

Christian Ministries Senior Capstone

Churches are called to be a place of belonging and welcoming to all people who walk through their doors. However, it is common that individuals and families impacted by disability are left feeling marginalized and unwelcome in the church. This paper presents a philosophy for RISE Kids, a ministry at Markle Church of Christ in Markle, Indiana that exists to provide advocacy and support for these families to promote a true sense of belonging. The goal of this paper is to provide local churches with a ministry framework to intentionally minister to individuals and families with disabilities. This paper describes …

Melville And The Market: Literature And The Language Of Capitalism In Nineteenth-Century America, Emma Williams

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

No abstract provided.

Candidates Be Posting, Josephine Lukito, Maggie Macdonald, Bin Chen, Megan A. Brown, Stephen Prochaska, Yunkang Yang, Jason Greenfield, Jiyoun Suk, Wei Zhong, Ross Dahlke, Porismita Borah

Political Science Faculty Publications

In this multi-platform, comparative study, we analyze social media messages from political candidates (N = 1,517) running for Congress during the 2022 U.S. Midterm election. We collect data from seven social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Truth Social, Gettr, Instagram, YouTube, and Rumble over the 4 weeks before and after election day. With this unique dataset of posts, we apply computational methods to identify messages that sought to mobilize individuals (online and offline) to donate money, vote, attend events, engage with the campaign online, and visit the campaign’s content on other platforms. We find that Democrats were not on alt-tech platforms …

Engagement In Generalist Social Work Practice: Exploring Conceptual Theory And Textbook Pedagogy, Alice C. Fischer

Social Work Doctoral Dissertations

Social work has a distinctive orientation to engagement that sets it apart from other helping professions. Engagement occurs both at the beginning and throughout every stage of social work practice with client systems. Despite its inherent and almost synonymous nature with social work practice, the profession has found it challenging to establish a theoretical conceptualization of engagement in social work or a definition of engagement in social work.

This study explored existing literature to establish a construct of engagement and a description of its underlying concepts, variables, and attributes. The construct informed the development of a methodology for comparing how …