Arts and Humanities Commons^™

¡Sí Se Puede!: Understanding The Experiences Of Latina Students During Their Doctoral Journey At A Hispanic-Serving Institution, Flor Del Rocio Acevedo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The existing body of literature on Latinas has mostly been focused on the undergraduate student experience (Hernandez, 2002; Hurtado et al., 1996; Kena et al., 2016; Tinto & Goodsell, 1994; Torres, 2004). Additionally, despite the increasing participation of women in graduate education since the 1980s (Walker et al., 2008), Latinas have been and continue to be underrepresented in doctoral programs and the professorate (Myers, 2016). In spite of recent increases in enrollment, Latinas attained just 8.8 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded from 2018-2019 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020). As Latinas are projected to account for a third of …

The Latinx Community, Anti-Black Racism And Forward- Looking Collective Moral Responsibility, Julisa Jazsmine Fernandez-Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the literature on collective responsibility, theorists have utilized different methods in order to argue collective responsibility can be attributed to collectives. Some theorists have referred to Strawsonâ??s account of participant reactive attitudes in order to support their claims that certain collectives can be the appropriate targets of reactive attitudes (2008). According to Strawson (2008), attributing reactive attitudes, such as guilt, praise, hurt feelings, obligation, etc. towards others and ourselves is what constitutes moral responsibility. Though Strawsonâ??s account only focuses on individual responsibility, theorists, such as Deborah Tollefsen and Kay Mathiesen, have extended his account to support their claims about …

Leading In Gendered Spaces: Women Presidents' Perceptions Of Their Experiences In Community Colleges, Keri Moe

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Gender inequality in leadership is an ongoing challenge found in higher education, including community colleges. Since women remain underrepresented in leadership positions at community colleges, specifically as college presidents, the purpose of this study was to document and better understand the experiences of women in these roles by focusing on three research questions:

• RQ 1: How do women presidents describe their experience in male-dominated community colleges?
• RQ 2: How do gender identity and gender expectations of women impact the behavior of women community college presidents?
• RQ 3: How do women presidents navigate their role within male-dominated community colleges?

Through the …

The Rhetorical Relationship Between 911 Call Takers And 911 Callers In Police Emergency Response Operations, Nadia Hamilton Morales

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this project, I interrogated the rhetorical relationship between 911 Call Takers and 911 callers in Garland, Texas in order to evalulate the quality of 911 emergency information transfer and its impact on 911 event final outcomes. I compiled a three-part data set that included transcriptions of 27 911 call audio recordings, 27 Computer Aided Dispatch Event Chronology Reports, and 27 Police/Incident Reports. My data set was specific to the following 911 event classifications: Disturbance/Weapon in Progress, Disturbance/Weapon Involved, Shooting, and Stabbing. My data sample came from 911 calls under these classifications made during the month of August 2020. Through …

Train Sounds: A Novel, Nancy E. Polin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Grad School has indicated that this isn't a necessity at the Graduate Level.

Angelo, Angelo, Angelo, Diego Adrian Rico

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A 25 year-old political consultant falls in love with his boss, a woman 16 years older than him. At the end of the pandemic, he decides to propose to her while he ignores calls from his brother to come back home. Having ignored his brother's call which were a warning about an impending car bomb in New York, Angelo suffers a concussion that impairs his long-term memory. He wakes up in the hands of his brother who helps him to recovery, putting back the pieces of who he thought he was.

Collige Et Impera: The United States Reengagement In Libya, Marco Schinella

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

President Biden's "America is back" pledge holds the potential to be put to the test with the ongoing crisis in Libya. The internationalization of the post-Ghaddafi Libyan breakdown, strained by great-power competition (GPC) dynamics, poses nonnegligible threats to the United States (US) national security that extends beyond Libya per se. Reframing the conflict from yet another Middle East and North Africa (MENA) conflict to an urgent multilateral Mediterranean security challenge will help elevate the country's profile on the global stage. This thesis outlines a qualitative, within-case study analysis of the ongoing Libyan crisis from the perspective of US national security …

God Damn, Robi Mahan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

God Damn is a poetic collection that delves into the complex relationship between a daughter and her father, who has recently suffered from a stroke. As her father grapples with Aphasia, a neurological disorder which has rendered him with a uniquely limited vocabulary, the author must confront her beliefs about life, death, and the great beyond. The collection recounts the authors childhood with her father, an outspoken atheist from a small town, and how the ideals he has taught her influence the way she navigates life with a man who has lost his ability to speak.

The Posthuman Paradox: Acknowledging What Matters Through Affective Rhetoricity, Alison Wells Zepeda

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation advances a theory of affective rhetoricity through personal narrative and an integrative literature review as a methodological approach. The project draws on a theoretical framework constructed from intra- and extra-disciplinary theories of posthumanism, affect, language, material feminism, object-oriented ontology, new materialism, and rhetoric through which collisions between objects and language are examined as arguments for affective rhetoricity as a revised way of understanding rhetoric’s force. The study culminates with ethical and pedagogical implications for the rhetoric and writing classroom, what it means to enact an ontological disposition toward writing, and an exploration of our human capacity to write …

Calving, Alicia Clavell

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this preface, I will highlight other readings and poems that further illustrate this basket weaving technique in which I imagine the river reeds, or the materials that encompass the works of the poems herein, to include: 1) em dashes, 2) forms of narrative point of view, in conversation with narrative self, and in dialogue with others, 3) fill-in-the-blank styles, 4) enjambments that can break the line, and the sentence, towards sexuality, 5) mixing of mediums, and 6) poetic images of the female body in separation, and in unifying collision, with other bodies. It is my hope that these materials, …

Rewriting The Graduate Experience: A Study Of The Writing Experiences Of University Of Texas At El Paso Graduate Students Across Disciplines, Jennifer L. Wilhite

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Graduate writing can manifest as a barrier to successful and timely degree completion as writing is the primary modality in which graduate programs use to evaluate depth of learning and quality of knowledge created. Native language status, inexperience with advanced academic genres, time away from the academy, and socialization struggles are factors that can aggravate writing challenges. The purpose of this qualitative study is to better understand the graduate writing experiences of twelve women returning to the academy. The study asks if writing manifests as a barrier to completing their graduate programs, ascertains what kinds of graduate-level writing supports they …

The Cursed Child And The Trickster Fox (A Novel), Leah Elizabeth Robinson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Cursed Child and the Trickster Fox (A Novel) is a fictional representation of the stigma of mental illness in the black community. The story focuses on Frankie Marchand, a woman child with bipolar disorder with psychotic features. Frankie has lost her mother, father, and twin brother in a tragic accident, which she is the sole survivor of, and is still coming to grips with what is now her new reality. Unfortunately, this new reality is without immediate familial support or mental stability because family and the black community view mental illness exclusively as a "white people" issue.

Transboundary Air Quality Governance: A Case Study Of The Paso Del Norte Air Basin 1940-2000, Laura Margarita Uribarri

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

For thousands of years, the Paso del Norte region which today includes Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, El Paso, Texas, and Sunland Park, New Mexico, has been a strategic location by virtue of its geographic positioning at the lowest and easiest passage across the continental divide. During the 19th and 20th centuries as railroad networks connected the region to the far reaches of the U.S. and the interior of Mexico, it became a nexus for natural resource and labor extraction. Mining and smelting industries were later joined by agriculture and manufacturing to benefit from the transportation network and the abundance of labor. …

Lesson Presentation For The Law Code Of Hammurabi, Gabriela A. Azcarate

Student Created

Students will learn how to read, contextualize, interpret, and evaluate historical documents to interpret human behavior and culture and to make connections between past and present.

In this lesson, students will use Hammurabi’s Code to analyze and examine the religious, economic, political, and social facets of life in Mesopotamian society.

A Philosophy Of Bilingualism: How History And Science Inform Its Ethicality And Future, Matthew James Rethorn

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis explains the significance that bilingualism has played and should play in life. It consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 examines bilingual perspectives from different communities inside the United States; Chapter 2 presents a critical assessment of research from linguistics and psychology; and Chapter 3 explores the popular support for English-Spanish bilingualism sweeping through urban America. My first chapter highlights the interconnection of bilingualism with identity, exemplified in the Amish, Navajo, and Gullah communities. This analysis of ethnic groups represents more broadly the negative and positive experiences of bilingualism. My second chapter reflects on the validity and assumptions behind …

Writing Inside And Outside The Rhetoric Of Containment: An Analysis Of Writing Strategies In First Semester Students Transitioning To The First Year College Composition Classroom, Brenda R. Gallardo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Based on Bowden’s (1993) notion of containment, this study analyzes how containment—as well as other pedagogical restrictions and limitations—was manifested in the high-school-to-college transition of first year student writers. This study addresses the following questions of inquiry: How do participants’ experiences in high school affect them as writers in college?; What practices and strategies do students in the first year composition classroom apply to overcome containment in the college writing classroom?; and, How can instructors use pedagogy to overcome containment? This dissertation applies a qualitative design to gather data via interviews, questionnaires, and classroom observations. Via grounded theory, data gathered …

A Mixed Methods Study Of Impostor Phenomenon In A Hispanic Serving Institution, Olympia Caudillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Impostor phenomenon is a psychological experience where a highly talented individual doubts innate skills and accomplishments. Instead, success is attributed to factors other than intellectual ability, so the individual fears exposure as a fraud. Experiences of impostor phenomenon among students enrolled in Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) remains under-researched. This mixed-methods study aims to explore impostor phenomenon between doctoral students enrolled in a Hispanic Serving Institution based on existing research on impostor phenomenon, conducted in predominantly White institutions. The first phase of the study focuses on exploring impostor phenomenon in relation to doctoral studentsâ?? gender, type of program and generational status; …

Motivation And The Young Writer: Reimagining John Dewey's Theory Of Experience, Billy Cryer

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Issues of motivation remain a perennial topic among teachers of English Language Arts and first-year college composition courses. While modern evidence-based research in educational psychology has yielded fruitful avenues for harnessing motivation in writing instruction, in recent decades, industrious composition scholars have also turned to history for insights on composition pedagogy. In this study, I also embark on a historical excavation to glean from our composition forebears regarding motivation in writing instruction. In particular, I examine how the educational writings of John Dewey were translated into the English classroom during the Progressive Era. More specifically, I seek to recover how …

Island Girl Can't Swim, Laura Vazquez Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Island Girl Can't Swim is an exploration of romantic love by and about someone who seemingly does not understand it. Through different frameworks, those of Puerto Rico's colonialism, pop culture and personal experience, understanding is attempted within a society with rigid definitions of love. This rigidity extends beyond those of heteronormativity, nationality, and culture to include, and center, experience and what qualifies as love. Through a narrative constructed through poems with characters, such as Island Girl and her main love interest Border Boy, Island Girl Can't Swim blurs the lines of expectations among a variety of structures that are considered …

The Role Of Translation In Multilingual User Experience, Tetyana Zhyvotovska

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Examining the intersections of technical communication, user experience, and translation, this study focused on the contexts of a user experience (UX) research center as a site where these intersections occurred and on practices of multilingual users while encountering translated information. In order to explore translation practices in relation to UX and cover the gap in understanding multilingual UX, the study examined how multilingual users worked with translated content, how they acted and reacted to it, and what they experienced during this process. Based on the existing scholarship in translation and usability studies in technical communication, this Dissertation undertook empirical research …

Refugio En Familia, Edgar Aguilar Araoz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Novela fragmentada, construida a partir de crónicas cortas y 31 imágenes, de manera no ficcional cuenta el contagio de COVID-19 de una familia en Tijuana. Algo en los recuerdos del narrador lo llevan a conectar la muerte de su suegro con los de su abuelo que ocurrió hace 35 años. Cómo conectan cada pieza de este rompecabezas es lo que pareciera estar en la cabeza del narrador, ordenar quizá. Además la manía de acumular compulsivamente frases, imágenes, relatos, momentos que parecieran innecesarios e intrascendentes.

Josue, Eraldo Enrico Chiecchi

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A 14-year-old El Paso boy is in the prime of his life by all appearances. He is surrounded by a close group of friends, a family that loves him and had aspirations of joining the military once he graduated from high school.

But to everyone's shock, he walked up an Interstate 10 overpass and leaped to his death.

We tell his story and his family's as they deal with his unexpected death.

Being-In-Capital: A Study In The Existential And Sociological Conditions Of Post-Industrial Capitalism, Edgar Mauricio Llamas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is threefold: firstly, to argue for the possibility of a Heideggerian Marxism through demonstration; secondly, to attempt to establish the foundation for a future phenomenology of capitalism; and thirdly, to attempt to redress Karl Marx’s weak theory of alienated subjectivity. I do this through the gradual development of a new concept that I have come to call being-in-capital. The first chapter is thus generally dedicated to preparation, concretized through a familiarization with Martin Heidegger’s system of thought, as embodied in four of his works: Being and Time, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” the …

Como Lobos, David Andrew Place

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In a world of conflict, Storm Crow, a Comanche warrior, leads a war party making its way through Mexico and Texas, stealing horses, abducting children, and wreaking chaos as he seeks spiritual and magical power, increasing his notoriety and prowess as a warrior. During one raid, Storm Crow abducts a white child, six-year-old Wade Vance. When Wade tries to escape, Storm Crow attempts to shoot him. When Storm Crow's gun fails twice, he realizes that the boy is not meant to die and adopts him, renaming Wade, "Broken Gun," in praise of the perceived magical intervention, the gun misfiring twice, …

Greater El Paso Jewish Demographic Study, Karla Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Although the history of the Jewish community in Greater El Paso has been documented, there is a lack of understanding of the basic demographic structure of the Jewish population in this region. This study aims to develop a demographic portrait of the local Jewish community through an online survey (n=448). The results show that the Jewish community in Greater El Paso (El Paso TX, and Las Cruces, NM) is experiencing population aging, and many community members have resided in the region for over twenty years. More than half of respondents self-identify as Reform. The Jewish community in Greater El Paso …

The Candlemaker: Records From The Personal Archives Of Morris St. Martins, Emily Jordan Parsley

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Candlemaker is a hybrid novel that explores the intersection of queerness, archives, and history in the rural South.

Modern Ancient: A Thesis Of Poetry, Timothy Brian Dodd

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This collection of poetry examines the ontological dialectic outlined in the scholarship of Mircea Eliade. Three sections of poetry (Dissolution, Navigation, and Hierophany) explore the connections and disconnections between modern and ancient ontology and experience.

The Rhetorical Mediator: Understanding Agency In Indigenous Translation And Interpretation Through Indigenous Approaches To Ux, Nora Karina Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In 2018, I became involved in a collaborative community-based project to co-organize an event with the purpose of collecting resources to help in the professionalization efforts of Indigenous translators and interpreters. Drawing on Indigenous and decolonial theories, this interdisciplinary study examines the work done during this event through a user experience (UX) research lens that analyzes the various ways in which Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) and Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) can better support Indigenous language practices. The colonization of the Americas brought a layer of issues that continue to affect the way in which Indigenous communities conduct their …

Crystal Flowers, Sunny L. Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this project is to illuminate the struggles of having a child addict and how it effects not only the addict but the entire family. Addiction in adolescence is on the rise across the United States. This project investigates the relationships between family members dealing with an addict. The research conducted consisted of finding other familial stories that were similar which had different outcomes. My analysis shows a strong correlation between family members who struggle with having a child addict and the overall results. There are some limitations that appeared with the project and that was not enough …

Collateral Damage (A Novel), Kimberlee Bethany Bonura

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Collateral Damage (A Novel)