Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Flood Of Consequences In Louisville, Kentucky: Using Hgis To Track Refugees Impacted By The 1937 Ohio River Flood, Trevor Harry

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Ohio River flood of 1937 was the most devastating flood in the recorded history of the Ohio River Valley and is commonly referred to as the “Great Flood of 1937”. In January 1937, after nearly two months of continuous precipitation, over 60% of the city of Louisville, Kentucky, was flooded and at least 23,000 residents were displaced. The purpose of this research was to document, map, and compare the pre-flood residential locations, evacuation destinations, and post-flood residential locations of African American and White Louisville refugees from the 1937 Ohio River flood. Socioeconomic information from the manuscript versions of the …

“Not Like Your Abuelos”: A (Fe)Minist/Autoethnographic Approach To Vernacular Religious Belief And Traditionalization, Ciara Bernal

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this thesis I explore how vernacular Mexican Catholicism is practiced, explained, and passed down within my family. I look at vernacular religious belief and traditionalization as an integrated process that impacts the practices, beliefs, and stories of my family. I include myself as a subject of this research, conducting autoethnography within each chapter. I utilize reflexive and vulnerable writing practices to accomplish this.

My overarching research questions for this thesis are: How has Mexican-Catholicism shaped the relationships, stories, and beliefs of my family members? What can Chicana feminist perspectives add to the study of vernacular religious belief and family …

Investigating The Leaky Pipeline: Gendered Effects Of Caregiving Policies On Academics, Molly Simmons

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Despite implementation of caregiving policies in universities, women remain underrepresented in high faculty ranks in academia, particularly in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields. This study investigates the gendered effects of caregiving policies at regional comprehensive universities by integrating the Work-Home Resources (W-HR) Model and feminist economics. Using survey data and interviews, the research examines how caregiving responsibilities relate to work-life conflict and academic responsibilities, revealing nuanced influences on career trajectories. Hypotheses tested include the negative relationship between caregiving demands and research, the moderating effect of institutional support, the association of work-family guilt with research, and variations across faculty …

A Review Of Terms Related To Race In School Psychology Journals, Malyra Bendson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Black Lives Matter movement has been an increasing movement since the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. Over the next decade there has been an increase in the movement due to Black lives continuing to be lost at the hands of police. School psychologists play a key role in supporting the mental health of students within schools. It is essential that research discuss how to best support students who have been affected by this movement as children have witnessed, so much on television and social media over the years. The current review explores whether these sociopolitical issues have also …

"A Consummation Devoutly To Be Wished": Finding A Place For Jefferson Davis In Kentucky's Historical Memory, Lori Latham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Situated near the original location of the birthplace and childhood home of Jefferson Davis, the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site in Fairview, Kentucky, houses a 351-foot tall obelisk, completed in 1924, along with a modest museum, gift shop, playground, and picnic area. At the site’s museum, visitors receive an innocuous and seemingly uncontroversial lesson about Davis, the statesman, since most of the interpretive panels focus on Davis’s role as a public servant before becoming the only president of the Confederate States of America. Thus, the museum misses a critical opportunity to engage visitors in a dialogue about the monument’s meaning …

The Role Of Leaders In Implementing Effective Leadership Strategies Towards The Educational Barriers Of Us-Based Refugee Students: A Qualitative Case Study Of Congolese Refugee Students, Faustin Busane

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This qualitative research study explored the experiences of three families of refugee school students, two school officials (a Superintendent and a Principal), three teachers, and one humanitarian agent all living in a Southeastern U.S. city. The results of the study revealed that the language barrier is the main academic challenge that refugee students encounter when they enroll in U.S. schools. The study also found that educators conceptualize their responsibilities toward refugee children by emphasizing the importance of high-quality teaching, and establishing through establishing strong relationships between parents, school officials, and exercising patience in the process. This study poses important implications …

Giftedness In Dance: Equitable Audition Procedures & Program Development, Lauren Case

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study explored the perspectives of dance specialists and gifted and talented resource teachers in a large school district in the southeastern region of the United States. Six educators who teach dance, work in auditioning and identification of gifted and talented dancers, and provide service options for gifted and talented identified dance students were interviewed in this qualitative study which focused on best practices in gifted and talented dance identification. Dance specialists’ perspectives of audition structures and characteristics of dance giftedness were examined. Three themes emerged from interviewees in this field of education: audition structures, opportunities and access of dance …

How Gender Roles Impact The Social Perceptions Of Sexual Assault, Autumn Zwakenberg

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study set out to examine how different factors such as the gender of the victim, the gender of the perpetrator, and the scenario of sexual assault, can influence an outsider’s opinion of the sexual assault. There were two main hypotheses: the first is male and female participants would perceive the push-away scenario as sexual assault at equal rates, but significantly more female participants would perceive the victim allowing the perpetrator to unbuckle their pants scenario as sexual assault. The second is male and female participants would view the male perpetrator scenarios as sexual assault equally, but significantly more female …

A United, Not A Divider: Community, Identity, Performance & The Tomato Krewe Parading Group Of East Nashville's Tomato Art Festival, Allison Cate

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the “Tomato Krewe,” a social group that participates in the parade of East Nashville’s annual Tomato Art Festival. Drawing on participant-observation, interviews, and my own experiences as a member of the krewe and resident of East Nashville, I examine krewe members’ narratives about the festival, the material culture that they create for the parade, and the levels of performance that they engage in while parading. Central to my analysis is how krewe members understand the Tomato Art Festival as an expression of East Nashville identity.

Leaders' Virtual & In-Person Communication: The Impact Of Employee Preference On Job Satisfaction, Adalin Mcdaniel

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Communication between supervisors and subordinates has consistently been viewed as a primary element of leadership, and a factor that is important in the leader-subordinate relationship via Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory. Recently, with the massive shift to virtual working, leadership communication has gained greater prominence in research and practical settings. Therefore, examining the role that virtual leadership communication plays in employee job satisfaction is an important first step in beginning to understand the shift to predominant work settings from home. I examined the influence of employee perceptions and preferences of leadership communication on job satisfaction via a panel design in which …

When Russia Gets Tired Of Them, They Sell Them To Us: The Russian Five, Us Russophobia, & Cold War Rhetoric After 1991, John Elam

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Through a case study of the Russian Five, the five Soviet-born hockey players who joined the Detroit Red Wings in the 1990s, this thesis offers insights into Russophobic beliefs and sentiment based upon historical memory of the Cold War. Through a loose chronological framework, this thesis considers the background of the Soviet hockey system for contextualization, and looks at the experiences of former Soviet hockey players from their arrival in north America in 1989 through the end of the twentieth century. An analysis of television broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, documentaries, and interviews, demonstrates that American citizens continued to promote Russophobic sentiment …

Sexism's Effect On Female Suicide Ideation & Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Through Body Surveillance & Self-Esteem, Caitlin Gregory

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Research has shown that women face an average of three sexist events per week (Fischer & Holz, 2010). These sexist experiences can present within domains of daily living, social media usage, workplace discrimination, psychological distress, and sexual objectification (Baires & Koch, 2020; Duggan, 2014; Oswald, et al. 2019; Perez, 2019; Rollero, 2013). Additionally, the literature has shown that types of sexist experiences can determine the severity of the impact on mental health outcomes, as benevolent sexism has showcased significant consequences on females’ self-esteem and body objectification and hostile sexism has been shown to impact selfevaluation and self-worth (Calogero & Jost, …

Poverty, Flooding & Grassroots Organizing: An Analysis Of The War On Poverty & The 1977 Flood In Central Appalachia, Brooklyn Lile

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

There is a long history of environmental exploitation and disastrous flooding in Central Appalachia. The region has long been plagued by exploitative practices such as strip mining and mountaintop removal which have stripped vegetation from land, leading to more disastrous floods and more frequent floods. With repeated floods comes a vicious cycle of substantial damage and destruction, as well as inadequate time and resources for full recovery before the next flood strikes. Consequently, floods and poverty have been cyclical, interlinked, and inseparable. Thus, this paper explores the relationship between poverty, flooding, and relief by analyzing the connections between the War …

The 1985 Move Bombing: A Study In Perspectives, Kaci Delisle

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a military grade bomb on 6221 Osage Avenue, a row house in a Black neighborhood in West Philadelphia. This home was occupied by a revolutionary group called MOVE. The bomb started a fire that the police and firefighters decided to “contain” rather than put out, resulting in the deaths of eleven people and the destruction of sixty-one homes. Only two MOVE members survived the fire. Using court records, documents from the investigation conducted by the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (PSIC), and other interviews regarding MOVE and the bombing, this paper reconstructs different perspectives …

Autherine Lucy & The University Of Alabama Integration At U Of A 1952-1956, Tamera Lott

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the University of Alabama was chartered in 1820 and is Alabama’s oldest public university. Prior to 1956, the University was segregated; admission was limited to white men and women. On February 3, 1965, Miss Autherine Lucy stepped foot on campus for the first time to attend classes at the University; history was made as she was the first African American present. Lucy’s attendance stirred conflict throughout campus and the state of Alabama. Unbeknownst to many, Lucy’s attendance garnered both national and international attention. The central argument here is that Lucy’s experiences at the University of Alabama …

Shifting Identities: Professorial Identification During Covid-19, Anthony Survance

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Building on existing studies of identification, this paper melds crisis research with studies of identity to understand how crises influence workplace identities. To accomplish this, the study addresses two research questions: (a) How are professors’ identities enacted during the COVID-19 crisis? And, how, if at all, does university rhetoric shape the enactment of identity during the COVID-19 crisis? This paper uses qualitative methods to get rich descriptions of professorial identities allowing research to get at the heart of how changes during the pandemic affected professors’ organizational, personal, professional, and workgroup identities. Overall, this study shows the pandemic encouraged professors to …

Semantic Completeness Of Intuitionistic Predicate Logic In A Fully Constructive Meta-Theory, Ian Ray

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A constructive proof of the semantic completeness of intuitionistic predicate logic is explored using set-generated complete Heyting Algebra. We work in a constructive set theory that avoids impredicative axioms; for this reason the result is not only intuitionistic but fully constructive. We provide background that makes the thesis accessible to the uninitiated.

"They Will Change The Situation Immediately": Perpetrator Subgroups And Germany's Genocidal Practices In Southwest Africa, James Michael Thaxton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The genocide of the Herero tribe in German Southwest Africa illuminates the horrors of colonialism broadly and of German settler colonialism more specifically. I contend that the perpetrators of this event can be separated into two broad subgroups, the Old Africans and the Metropole Soldiers, distinguished by their intentions, exploitative and exterminatory respectively, concerning the indigenous tribes. Those intentions were formed over varying lengths of time but are the result of either firsthand experience with the racial hierarchy in the colony or relying on information and misinformation relayed to the metropole. Utilizing primarily letters, diaries, journals, and postcards, I argue …

Shame, Perceived Social Support, And Ptsd: Bridging The Gap Between Female And Male Survivors Of Sexual Assault, Kelsey Camille Woodward

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Sexual assault (SA) is prevalent in both females and males, with approximately 25% of females and 10% to 20% of males experiencing SA at some point of their lives. Social support and shame are important factors that are related to PTSD for SA survivors. However, little research has compared female and male SA survivors on these factors. Consequently, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of social support on PTSD in female and male SA survivors. Sex of the SA survivor was also examined as a moderator of the relationship between PTSD and social support and …

Passing Savage: Poems, Bradley Murff

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This creative thesis is a collection of poetry. Many of the poems are personal in nature, but several deal with important social issues. The style of the poems varies from free verse to formal. Many of the formal pieces are sonnets, but there are other formal arrangements as well, such as “Mammoth Cave,” “Dawn Chorus,” and “A Staircase in Jamacia, Queens.” All of the poems were completed while I was a student here at Western Kentucky University.

Discovering Caroline, Jon Meyers

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

DISCOVERING CAROLINE is the script for an ensemble, a feature-length supernatural drama, set in 1899. Caroline, presumed dead at birth, returns forty years later to the scene of that tragedy, a university nursing school training hospital, where her birth mother still works as a lunch lady. Surrounded by a dozen other characters (thirteen if you count the pig), played against a backdrop of a handful of supernatural events, this script explores familiar love, romantic love, inappropriate love, truth, deceit, death, and the consequences on others when these life events intertwine throughout seventy-seven scenes. Included here is an introduction as well …

Countering Online Misinformation In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Samantha Sparrow Williams

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis encourages the intentional and explicit integration of the best practices in media literacy education within the first-year composition classroom. The nature of FYC, which incorporates such content as research skills and source evaluation, provides an ideal opportunity to address the online misinformation and disinformation that have resulted in growing political polarization and cynicism. Recent findings suggest that these trends can be countered with the teaching of practices like lateral reading to verify a source’s veracity. After first demonstrating the challenges that university freshmen may bring with them to campus, this project makes suggestions for simple, consistent practices that …

To Romp The Sky, Katherine Elizabeth Curlee Hamblen

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This is a creative thesis consisting of a collection of poetry divided into three sections. The poems explore themes of womanhood, motherhood, mental health, loneliness, and healing. The first section deals with childhood and family of origin, the second section is about the move into adulthood, individuality, and loneliness. The third follows the narrator into having her own children, creating her own family, and finding healing.

Using Theatre To Teach Social Skills To Students On The Autism Spectrum, Meaghan Nicole Ritchie

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Theatre-based interventions are an emerging field to improve social skills in individuals with autism. This study analyzed 10 different articles using theatre-based interventions, combined with evidence-based practices, to increase social skills deficits in students, ages 8-17, diagnosed with autism. Results indicate improvement in social skills for individuals with autism after participating in theatre-based interventions.

La Llorona, Picante Pero Sabroso: The Mexican Horror Legend As A Story Of Survival And A Reclamation Of The Monster, Camille Maria Acosta

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

For centuries, the relationship between Mexico and its infatuation with scary stories has been profoundly complex, but why? Perhaps it is the easiest way to communicate a Mexican culture, although proud and resilient, riddled with haunting narratives. For myself personally, the Mexican horror narrative La Llorona has served as a lens for conversation and communication that is unique and important.

In this thesis, I explore how Mexicans and Mexican Americans alike use the legend of La Llorona as a unique form of communication through personifying what truly haunts us. From using the narrative as a tool for entertainment, cautionary tales, …

Revisiting Hudson County Water Co. V. Mccarter: Realism, The Public Trust Doctrine, And Environmental Conservation In The Lochner Era, Steven Huffman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Legal histories of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era tend to focus inordinately on economic regulation within a doctrinal framework in which private rights, equal protection, and “substantive” due process guided judicial decision-making. Consequently, the overarching economic context in prevailing legal historiography obscures an important yet oft-overlooked development in the linkage between public rights, natural resource trusteeship, and the early-twentieth-century environmental conservation movement. This development is inextricably tied to the evolution of water law in the late nineteenth century and the expansion of the American commercial republic. A normative understanding of public water rights during this period is confined to …

Ethnography Of Reading Comic Books, Azadeh Najafian

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis explores why adults read comic books. This research used the ethnographic method and interviewing eleven people, four women, seven male, as its primary source. Based on information and common themes gathered from interviews, I built this thesis into one introduction, three body chapters, and a conclusion.

In the first chapter, I argued that comics could function the same as myths and explained this function and related examples under the “mythic effect” name. In the second chapter, I discussed how my informants use reading comics as a means to escape their everyday lives and how sometimes this escapism carries …

Reimagining The Duck Stamp, Hunting Licensure And Public Land Preservation, Alec Wayne Boyd-Devine

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The American Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, or Duck Stamp, is a form of licensure issued by the Federal Government for waterfowl hunters. Why do physical stamps act as licensure to hunt waterfowl on both public and private land in the United States? How did the stamp become the key that grants access to resources that supposedly should be owned by the public? The duck stamp has been well-documented in conservation communities as a resource which has made significant positive impacts on the environment. The increase of anti-hunting sentiments in our society combined with fewer hunters per capita may …

The Language Of Breathing, Brian Wallace Baker

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Language of Breathing is an eclectic collection of 18 creative nonfiction essays that capture moments from the author’s life and attempt to give them meaning through narrative and metaphor. They deal with relationships, nature, faith, and often rely on background research to pair art, mythology, current events, and science with personal experience.

I Love You, Go Away (A Novel), John Matthew Steinhafel

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

I Love You, Go Away, a novel set in Milwaukee, tells the story of a twenty-two year-old nobody, Gabriel Driscoll, who meets and befriends a middle-aged, drug addicted, recluse actor, Beau Brooks. But less than six months into their friendship Beau commits suicide. At the funeral Gabriel meets a twenty-nine-year-old corporate executive, Michelle, the daughter of Beau’s long-time girlfriend. Gabriel and Michelle bond over their mutual grief and quickly strike up a romance. At the same time, Gabriel’s semi-estranged mother, Sadie, a recovering heroin addict, reaches out to him in an effort to rebuild their relationship. What follows for Gabriel …