Digital Commons Network^™

Mapping Disparities: Spatial And Socioeconomic Analysis Of Medical Apartheid Regions In Spartanburg County, Anthony G. Tarulli

Student Scholarship

Medical Apartheid Regions (MARs) are a widely underesearched topic that are heavily prominent in the southeastern United States, specifically rural areas (Brînzac et al. 2023). Due to the historical implementation of redlining (Egede et al., 2023) and structural racism (Miller & Vasan, 2021) in the development of the southern United States, a reclassification of medical deserts needed to occur to truly assess the implications of a lack of healthcare acces.

Investigating Preservice Elementary Teachers (Psts’) Views Of Nature Of Science (Vnos) And Science Attitudes Following Engagement In An Integrated Physics And Chemistry Content Course, Anna Stahurski

Honors Theses

Students’ classroom experiences affect their views of science, placing importance on teachers’ instructional approaches. Current reform suggests that inquiry-based science instruction supports positive views of science. However, students and teachers have been shown to hold developing views of nature of science (VNOS), or understanding what science is and how it progresses. Compounding matters, every student has their own personal science experiences that shape their science understandings and attitudes. This project investigates the attitudes and VNOS among preservice elementary teachers (PSTs) enrolled in an integrated physics and chemistry content course (SCI142). Two course sections were surveyed throughout one semester (n = …

Childhood Housing Conditions As A Social Determinant Of Health In College Students, Kelsey E. O'Neill

School of Social Work Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study investigates the relationship between childhood housing and current physical and behavioral health in Northwest Arkansas college students. Non-medical factors often determine a person’s health. Social determinants of health, as defined by the World Health Organization, are the conditions in which people are “...born, grow, work, live, and age...”, and they include wider systems such as economic and social policies, social norms, and political structures (World, 2023). A key social determinant of health is housing.

The average age of an undergraduate student at the University of Arkansas during the 2020-2021 school year was twenty-one (Gunderman, 2021). This is a …

Refracting State Development: Alliances In The Virtual World Eve Online, Atticus Friendly

Sociology Honors Projects

Why would states, resource intensive and difficult organizations, develop when they are not necessary? Unlike the voluntaristic model of social organization assumed by liberals starting from a state of nature, the real-world history of state building is a narrative of necessity and competition. By probing the process of state development in a virtual world (EVE Online), this paper explores state building in the absence of social or physical infrastructure that ties people together, what Michael Mann calls “the social cage.” In doing so, it demonstrates support for the idea that violent competition drives state development as states build …

The Law Of The Biggest Pump: Legal Consciousness And The Texas Groundwater Dilemma, Riley Hodin

Political Science Honors Projects

Texas’s localized system of groundwater regulation is complicated by its strong tradition of property rights. This paper examines the legal consciousness of the everyday people subjected to that system. It relies on interviews with local water authorities, as well as an analysis of public comments made by stakeholders. When conflicts emerge, stakeholders tend to attribute negative outcomes to a failure to properly follow legal procedure, or to the improper intrusion of some non-legal entity. Authorities, however, blame the law itself. Both groups feel the law’s presence but struggle to locate its specific source or meaning.

Redefining Ritual: Navigating The Intersection Of Transgender And Jewish Identities, Orly R. Wolf

Department of Sociology

Jewish practices vary widely across denominations and individual communities, reflecting diverse cultural influences and interpretations of Jewish law and tradition. For transgender Jews, navigating the intersection of their gender identity and Jewish identity can be challenging, and individuals may struggle to find a community where all aspects of their identity are fully accepted. Studying their narratives and learning from their experiences is vital for understanding how to create spaces that support these intersectional identities.

The purpose of my research is to learn more about the experiences of transgender Jews and how individuals navigate the intersection of their gender identity and …

Exploration Of Disorienting Dilemmas New Registered Nurses Experience In Clinical Situations, Heidi Ritchie

Dissertations

The transition new graduate registered nurses (RNs) experience is difficult. New graduates feel pressure related to job expectations and high workload responsibilities. As nurses begin working in clinical practice, some experience a disorienting dilemma—a disconnect between what was learned in school and what is experienced in clinical practice. According to Mezirow (1981), this is the first step in a transformative experience. Yet, there is a gap in knowledge regarding disorienting dilemmas new RNs with less than two years of experience encounter.

The purpose of this study was to explore disorienting dilemmas new graduate registered nurses (NGRNs) experience in the clinical …

An Analytical Evaluation Of Economic Geography Within Maine And Its Resource Industries: 1600 To Present, Maureen Mantooth

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Resource peripheries represent a fringe area within economic geography, originating from the core-periphery theory developed by Friedmann and Miller. This concept has evolved to address global and regional contexts, referring to marginalized regions that rely heavily on the extraction and export of natural resources. By studying these regions, we gain a deeper understanding of critical components in global economic systems. This dissertation focuses on Maine as a case study of a resource periphery, using the framework proposed by Hayter et al. (2003) within the broader regional contexts of New England and the United States. Key factors explored include resource exploitation, …

Public Comment: Using Critique-Like Mediating Artifacts To Democratize Discourse At City Council Meetings, Piper Schuerman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Are local governments designed for equitable citizen participation? While civic engagement aims to empower citizens and support representative governance, barriers to participation can hinder those outcomes. City council meetings, key venues for public input, pose specific challenges such as long durations, dense content, and intimidating formalities. These issues disproportionately affect Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012), who frequently report feeling underinformed or having limited time to engage. This thesis explores how city council meetings might use multimodal mediating artifacts, inspired by design critique practices, to make public discourse more accessible for Gen Z adults.

Grounded in activity theory and …

Daily Announcements May 2025, Wofford College. Office Of Marketing And Communications

Communications Office Daily Announcements

No abstract provided.

Clemson Commencement Program, May 2025, Clemson University

Clemson Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Examining How Perceived External Stigma Mediates The Relationship Between Rejection Sensitivity And Depression, Anxiety, And Stress For Neurodivergent Adults, Brianna E. Galloway

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Neurodivergence describes people whose brains and cognitive processes differ from the general population. Neurodivergent disorders include autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, etc. Rejection sensitivity is defined as hypervigilance to being rejected and intense reactions to rejection. Previous research has found that individuals with neurodivergent disorders are often treated more poorly by peers than neurotypical people. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived external stigma, rejection sensitivity, and depression, anxiety, and stress for neurodivergent individuals. The first hypothesis was neurodivergent adults who report higher rejection sensitivity will report 1a) higher perceived external stigma and …

Frontier Healthscapes: Competing Narratives Of Disease, Environment, And Wellbeing In Early Minnesota, Aidan Reynolds

Geography Honors Projects

Across settler societies, health narratives were shaped by evolving tensions between lay and expert knowledge, frameworks of disease causation, and perceptions of the environment as both a source of health and a threat. In the decades following Euro-American settlement (1860-1900), Minnesota became a focal point for these debates, with its landscape fostering complex and competing narratives on health, wellbeing, and disease. This paper explores how public health discourse developed in Minnesota through the perspectives of institutions, the public, and economic interests. Combining environmental history with critical discourse analysis of archival materials, this study examines shifts within the Minnesota State Board …

The Mighty C: A Fractal Model For Modern Creativity, Joe Todaro

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The persistent ambiguity surrounding the definition of creativity has hindered its advancement across academic, educational, and professional settings. In response, this paper proposes an updated framework—The Mighty C—which defines creativity as the intrinsic human activity of generating meaningful, novel, and useful outcomes through deliberate process. This model addresses critical gaps in conventional definitions, particularly the frequent omission of meaningfulness, intentionality, and the uniquely human nature of creativity. It further emphasizes the recursive nature of these aspects across different levels of creative activity, represented through the structure of fractals. Drawing from scholarly models such as Rhodes’ 4Ps and Kaufman and Beghetto’s …

Differentiated Instruction For Students With Special Needs: “How Can We Better Equip Students, School Systems, And Society For Differentiated Instruction For Students With Special Needs In Career And Technical Educational Environments?”, Mikala A. Highsmith

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Career and Technical Education (CTE) plays a vital role in preparing students for the demands of the modern workforce by providing essential knowledge, technical skills, and industry-recognized certifications. As the number of students with disabilities, including neurodivergent learners, continues to rise, CTE programs face increasing pressure to adopt innovative, inclusive educational practices. Integrating creative teaching strategies and leveraging technology are now critical tools in addressing diverse learning needs that promote effective classroom management and enhance student engagement. Moreover, CTE programs emphasize the development of professional competencies, workforce protocols, and transferable skills that strengthen students’ employability across industries. This paper examines …

Orick Rising: Assessing The Tourism Potential Of Orick, California, Mikel Ash, Zac Claus, Matt Cherovsky, Sophie Collins, Lavender Deng, Teddy Goyette, Keegan Henry, Nancy Nazario, Ara Pachmayer, Mike Sanchez

Recreation Tourism

This project explores the current landscape and future potential for recreation and tourism development in Orick, California. It highlights how natural, built, cultural and economic systems shape a community’s identity, functionality and appeal for residents and visitors. Findings reveal that effective integration of natural and built systems, combined with strong governance, cultural stewardship and tourism planning is essential for sustainable growth, enhancing resident well-being and leveraging tourism as a key economic driver while preserving environmental and cultural assets.

The First Amendment And The Commencement Provocateur, Duncan Hosie

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article explores an untheorized area of First Amendment doctrine: students’ graduation speeches at public or private universities that embrace free speech principles, either by state statute, state constitutional law, or internal policy. Responding to recent graduation speech controversies, it develops a two-tier theory that reconciles a multiplicity of values, including students’ expressive interests, universities’ institutional interests in curating commencement ceremonies and preventing reputational damage and political reprisals, and the interests of captive audiences in avoiding speech they deem offensive or profane. The Article challenges the prevailing view that university students’ graduation speeches implicate individual First Amendment rights. It develops …

Revisiting Geography And Sovereignty In The Digital Age, Melvin J. Kelley Iv

Connecticut Law Review

Fair housing advocates have already brought successful lawsuits challenging the use of property technology (“PropTech”) where it has been found to perpetuate or replicate discriminatory practices in a range of contexts including the use of automated screening tools to evaluate prospective tenants. While substantive interventions in unlawful exclusions and differential treatment via PropTech are laudatory, this Article argues that these steps do not go far enough and moreover, that insufficient attention has been paid to the procedural implications of the federal Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) as a source of ex ante enforcement.

The nation’s first fair housing law, the 1866 …

Parenting Under Siege: Reckoning With Coercive Control, Courtney Cross, Gillian Chadwick

Connecticut Law Review

Coercive control is a pervasive form of domestic violence in which one partner engages in a prolonged and multifaceted campaign of abuse in order to gain and maintain dominance over the other partner. While some coercively controlling partners employ physical violence to ensure compliance with their demands, others use exclusively non-violent tactics. In co-parenting relationships, coercive control not only inflicts severe harm on the targeted parent but also affects children as co-victims of both direct and indirect abuse. As a result, co-victim children suffer significant emotional, developmental, and social harm, and adverse health outcomes, even in the absence of physical …

Developing And Validating An Emotion Recognition Test For Policing, Kyle Mclean, Trey Bussey, Justin Nix, Jeff Rojek, Abigail Curran, Vivian Ta-Johnson, Geoffrey P. Alpert

Sociology Publications

Purpose: Police executives and criminologists alike have advocated for the incorporation of emotional intelligence in the hiring and training of police officers. Despite general consensus that emotional intelligence is important for a variety of outcomes in policing, most published studies on the topic have relied on crude measures, such as self-report assessments. While self-report tests are validated for many uses, their applicability as an objective measure of skills is limited.

Design/Methodology: Using three studies, this paper outlines the development and validation of an emotion recognition test specifically intended for policing. The first study outlines the construction of the …

Bard Observer, Vol. 23. No. 6 (May 2025), Bard College

Bard Observer, 2020 - 2029

No abstract provided.

Faculty Senate Meeting Agenda May 1, 2025, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Meeting Agendas

No abstract provided.

Justifying The Law Of Unjust Enrichment: A Confucian Perspective, Siyi Lin

Washington International Law Journal

In a wide range of situations, the law in different jurisdictions requires that a person who has been unjustly enriched at another’s expense make restitution to the other. However, what justifies the liability for unjust enrichment? This fundamental question has perplexed unjust enrichment scholars, especially in the common law world, for decades, with various justificatory ideas being proposed while no consensus has been reached. This article explores the justification of the law of unjust enrichment within the context of China’s historical, legal, and social frameworks for the first time. A historical review reveals that the notion of unjust enrichment has …

“It's Easier To Deal With The Vaccines You Know Than The Ones You Don't Know”: A Qualitative Study On Healthcare Workers' Vaccine Confidence In Nigeria, Ayobami A. Bakare, Elisa Gobbo, Kofoworola O. Akinsola, Carina King, Julius Salako, Damola Bakare, Halima Usman, Claudia Hanson, Adegoke G. Falade, Sibylle Herzig Van Wees

Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health

Vaccination is a cost-effective public health intervention that has saved many lives and improved well-being [1]. Between 2011 and 2020, over 20 million deaths were believed to have been averted due to vaccinations in GAVI supported countries [2]. Moreover, globally, Carter et al. estimated additional 51 million deaths are expected to be prevented from vaccines between 2021 and 2030 [3]. Yet, despite the importance of vaccines, there have been concerns about low uptake of vaccines globally [4,5]. This concern was accentuated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Waning vaccine confidence has been recognized as a leading threat to global health [[6], [4], …

The Beautiful Game On A Muslim Pitch: How Football And Religion Are Shaping Identity And Society, Aaron W. Hughes, Leif Stenberg

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Examines how football and religion act together to shape both identity and society in Muslim contexts.

This book showcases how football and religion are becoming increasingly interlinked in Muslim contexts in order to interact with and influence both identity and society. The first part of the volume is devoted to issues of identity, showing how football aids in its construction, maintenance and subversion. The second part reveals the deep-rooted connections between football and political and religious establishments by demonstrating how these organisations frequently use the game to disseminate or propagate their larger messages.

Altogether, the contributors reveal how football has …

Examining The Relationship Between Legal Frameworks, And Cultural Norms In Domestic Violence Cases In The United States, Ifedolapo Awonuga

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Domestic violence is a pervasive and systemic issue that affects millions of people worldwide and has serious repercussions for families, individuals, and society at large. The research investigates how legal frameworks, societal conventions, and cultural values interact to impact the prevalence and resolution of domestic violence in contemporary society. The study looks at the extent institutional biases, social stigma, and deeply ingrained legal policies hinder efficient victim support, prevention, and intervention. The study combines quantitative analysis of case data, public opinion, and survey results with qualitative analysis of legal frameworks and peer-reviewed literature using a mixed-methods design. The two-pronged approach …

The Role Of Geographic Area On Juvenile Delinquency: Evidence From The 2023 National Survey On Drug Use And Health, Sara G. Remy

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study explores the relationship between geographic area and juvenile delinquency, with particular attention to how this relationship varies across the following settings: large metropolitan areas, small metropolitan areas, and rural areas. Using nationally representative data from the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the analysis focuses on youth under the age of 18 and incorporates additional social factors such as parental involvement, gender, grade level, and race/ethnicity. Results from my negative binomial regression models demonstrate that geographic area did not play significant role in delinquency overall. Income showed notable variation by geographic setting: in rural areas, …

The Rise Of Fitspiration: An Examination Of Social Media Influence, Body Image Concerns, And Online Harassment, Mary Owen

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

The fitspiration movement on social media has raised concerns about potential body image satisfaction issues and body standard internalization. The potential negative effects of body image dissatisfaction include disordered eating, excessive exercise, anxiety, depression, and a risk to online harassment victimization. This dissatisfaction from fitspiration is reinforced by pressures from family and friends. Relying on data from 347 respondents, the present study explores the potential relationship between fitspiration content consumption, body image dissatisfaction, social pressures, and experiences of online harassment. Bivariate correlations and regression analysis were employed to examine the connections between the variables. Results indicated that there was a …

Examining The Lasting Impacts Of Covid-19 On College Students And Professors, Honor S. Luna, Alexia Angton

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health, academic performance, and socialization of college students, as well as college professors’ perceptions of their own mental health, workload, and observed changes in students. University of Arkansas undergraduate students were surveyed online about their pandemic experiences, and faculty members were interviewed on similar topics. Students reported a noticeable decline in mental health, primarily due to isolation, being confined to their homes, and reduced contact with friends. Faculty faced stress from the rapid shift to virtual learning, decreased student engagement, and the challenge of balancing work and family while maintaining …

Prosecuting The Material Support Of Terrorism In The Post-9/11 Era, Kathryn C. Hammonds

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Before the attacks of September 11th, material support of terrorism using the 18 U.S.C § 2339B statute was hardly investigated and prosecuted. In the years following 9/11, however, the government began to charge and prosecute material support offenders at an increasing rate. Structural-contextual theory is used to explain this phenomenon by analyzing how the government utilized tightened coupling to expand what they looked for and charged under 18 U.S.C § 2339B. The current study furthers past literature by analyzing 2339B offender demographics, case outcomes, counts outcomes, conviction rates, and the length of sentences. The findings solve discrepancies in past literature …