Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Biblical Women Reimagined A Devotional Where Women's Voices Are Heard, Natalie Karlson

Doctor of Ministry

The vocational context of this project portfolio is a small spiritual direction practice found in central Massachusetts. The directees are women who attend or have left the evangelical church for distinct reasons. One of the key issues that these women face is the dismissal or minimization of their voices. Leaders stopped these women from using their voices. The women could not ask questions, share their experiences, or make decisions about their spiritual journeys. Considering the context and stakeholder feedback, the NPO: the dismissal of women’s voices denies the evangelical church the complete revelation of God’s work among humans.

Four key …

The Soul Journey: A Response To The Evangelical Exodus, Jerome T. Daley Jr.

Doctor of Ministry

NPO Statement

Many leaving the white American Evangelical Church still long for spiritual connection but lack a “container” for pursuing formation and community.

Key Insights

Most of those caught in the Evangelical Exodus still love Jesus but have been injured by one or more of these particular malformations in the organized church: 1) political entanglement, 2) power mismanagement, 3) flawed theological narratives, 4) cultural exclusion, 5) and social justice neglect. They find themselves spiritually homeless and invisible, retaining vague yearnings for deeper connection yet emotionally exhausted by the trauma of leaving Church. My most compelling insight was that the organized …

Seven Portals Of Feminine Formation: Reclaiming The Wisdom Of The Gnostics, Kellie Wilder Daley

Doctor of Ministry

NPO Statement

Women with spiritual hunger have lost connection with their feminine goodness, their voice, and their embodied presence due to cultural and religious patriarchy.

Key Insights

The resilience of women is evident in the fact that we have endured so long within the Fundamentalist Evangelical Church—a space that is often hostile, if not outright misogynistic. Women have been conditioned to remain silent, accepting the idea, as John Piper put it, that “masculine Christianity” is God’s original design. However, normalizing Christianity as exclusively masculine creates deep harm and imbalance across spiritual, social, and psychological spheres. This dynamic establishes a rigid …

Exploring Creative Arts Therapists' Experiences With Online Therapy In South Korea During Covid-19, Changho Song

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This study explored the experiences of creative arts therapists (CATs) in South Korea who conducted online therapy sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The global crisis forced a rapid shift to virtual platforms, raising concerns about the effectiveness of online creative arts therapy (OCAT) and its impact on therapeutic relationships. Grounded in phenomenological and arts-based research (ABR), this study examined the challenges, adaptations, and effectiveness of OCAT. The research addressed the following questions: (1) How did CATs experience the transition to online therapy? (2) What challenges did they encounter, and how did they adapt? (3) How did online therapy affect therapeutic …

Classroom Teachers' Approaches To Values Education: Exploring Explicit And Implicit Strategies For Teaching And Modeling Values, Maria Ukamaka Clare Okeke

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Abstract This study explores the approaches Nigerian secondary school teachers in Anambra State use to teach values through explicit and implicit methods. Recognizing the need to understand how values are effectively communicated in the classroom, this research delves into the dual strategies employed by educators and their impacts on student moral development. The research used a qualitative interview study approach, which included semi-structured interviews with ten experienced secondary school teachers and a document analysis of teaching resources. This method allows one to investigate the explicit instruction and implicit modeling strategies applied in values education in depth. Findings reveal that teachers …

The Son Becomes, Katherine Zhang

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

The Son Becomes is an interactive Twine game that explores generational trauma through a time loop of narrative across three generations of inherited pain. Trapped in a recurrence of pain, players will take the roles of different family members of a father, his son, and grandson and navigate through a relentless cycle of choices, mirroring the suffocation that can happen within a family that may be going through generational trauma. Through the interactive dialogue, players confront the recurring patterns, often making them feel powerless as the choices keep repeating, making it seem like there isn’t a light at the end …

Gender Dynamics In Newsroom Leadership: The Influence Of Gender Norms On The Career Trajectories Of Women Journalists, Isabella L. Hackett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Within the field of journalism, women journalists face obstacles impeding their career progression and autonomy. This qualitative study uses field theory, which explores how social spaces are structured and how actors access resources; a key avenue for exploring the power relationships within a field. This theory is put in conversation with interviews with women leaders in journalism from across the United States (n=13). The study examines how women in leadership navigate their career trajectories amid structural barriers, such as gender expectations for leadership, the struggle to balance work and family, and unequal access to mentorship and resources. Despite these challenges, …

Dancin’ In The Dark: Exploring The Possibilities For Queer Joy And Belonging In Sotu Nights, Trinidad And Tobago, Emily Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When I talk about “dancin’ in the dark,” I mean three things: 1) the moments that are written off as ordinary, the ephemeral yet joy-filled moments that seem hardly worthy of further reflection; 2) the act of dancing and experiencing joy against the backdrop of state-sanctioned homophobia in a dominant heteropatriarchal regime; and 3) queer people existing locally in the Caribbean region, a region in the metaphorical dark, typically mystified or diminished by western framings of the Caribbean as simply a vacation destination or an underdeveloped graveyard of colonization. Yet, queer people not only exist in this region, but we …

Personal Perspectives Of Political Action: A Case Study Of How Women Discuss The Black Panther Party’S Free Breakfast For Schoolchildren Program, Megs Peterson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project is to investigate the impact ideology has on social movement actors. I do this by conducting a case study on the influence of Marxist feminist ideologies on the Black Panther Party’s (BPP) Free Breakfast for Schoolchildren Program (FBP). Within this case study, I narrow my focus to Marxist feminism, rather than Marxism more broadly, to choose a theoretical framework that aligns with my subject while ensuring gender is considered as a critical axis for examination. This research is situated at the intersection of feminisms and social movements, drawing from both social movement scholarship and Women’s, …

Imperial Crosshairs: Grand Marronage At Negro Fort Along The Apalachicola River, Colby J. Williams Ii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Grand marronage describes the process whereby Africans sought to liberate themselves from enslavement through means of escape to establish permanent communities and create a truly free society. The Southeastern region of the modern United States was once a geopolitical arena where European and Euro-American empires sought to spread their power and influence over both the Indigenous and African inhabitants. Following the American Revolution was the War of 1812, fought between the former colonial master and the recently formed United States. Commonly referred to as the Second War of American Independence, and infamously known for the burning of the White House. …

Floodfriend, Lauren Watson

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

Floodfriend is a two-dimensional puzzle-platformer game with two main characters that are trying to navigate their way out of a cave system. The player controls both the human and the monster of the duo: the hiker responds to direct arrow key input, while the monster can only be persuaded by using the hiker’s flashlight to swim and climb to otherwise inaccessible areas. The game is equal parts a simulation and a toy, encouraging the player to try different methods of interaction to garner the results they want to see. From a design perspective, the game is centered on the push …

El Vicio De Ser Visto: Deconstruyendo Las Dualidades En El Entenado Mediante El Pensamiento Ecológico Y El Poshumanismo, Alejandra Cancel Hernández

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Este estudio propone explorar la teoría crítica del pensamiento ecológico, del poshumanismo y del eco-posmodernismo en El entenado (2016) para exponer cómo Juan José Saer exterioriza la problemática de la existencia humana. En una historia escrita cuyas páginas no alcanzan a englobar la totalidad de su experiencia, un viejo intenta darle sentido a su secuestro en el Nuevo Mundo luego de que una tribu indígena asesinara al resto de su expedición sesenta años antes, durante el siglo XVI. La novela advierte implícitamente cómo la realidad humana reside bajo un palimpsesto de dicotomías, fundamentalmente, la de ser visto/no visto por el …

Breaking Binaries: Gender Non-Conforming Lesbians And The Undercurrent Of Biopower On Dating Apps, Lily M. Connolly

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how gender nonconforming lesbians experience and navigate algorithmic constraints, commodification, and self-expression on dating apps. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of biopower, this study analyzes focus group discussions to argue that dating apps encode and enforce traditional gender norms. However, rather than acting solely as sites of constraint, dating apps also provide spaces where gender nonconforming lesbians creatively resist these limitations and subvert platform design to assert their politicized queer identities. This research highlights how biopower operates within digital dating platforms while also illuminating the subversive strategies users employ to reclaim agency. By situating gender nonconforming lesbian …

Hidden In Plain Sight: Chinos, Casta, And La Florida, Kylie A. Culver

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

"Hidden in Plain Sight: Chinos, Casta, and La Florida" looks at the origin and use of the term chino/a within the Spanish casta system, focusing on its role in the St. Augustine Parish Archives from 1693 to 1754. In the St. Augustine parish registers, there were thirty-two separate entries that consisted of chinos/as. The presence of multiple individuals identified as chinos in Spanish Florida highlights the diversity of colonial Spain and demonstrates crucial understandings of the legal effects of casta. A careful analysis of these individuals reveals that the term chino/a did not necessarily refer to people of Asian origin …

In The Light, Z Sarkissian

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

In The Light, a first-person adventure mystery video game, seeks to explore the process of grief and its effect on memory through experimental level design and game mechanics. Through atmospheric, experiential storytelling and a soundscape derived from my own home videos, I aim to guide the player through my own personal experience of learning to grieve the truth behind traumatic memories with the goal of supporting those who have been through similar struggles in life. Additionally, I aim to experiment with the idea of games as a space for memorialization; my project attempts to utilize the video game artifact as …

From Russia With Love: The Transposal Of Hunger Strikes From Russia To Britain In The Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Centuries, Rachel Yvonne Stanton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The British suffragettes’ utilization of the hunger strike as a political tool in the early twentieth century has roots tracing back to Russian political prisons of the late nineteenth century. The unique adoption and adaptation of the Russian method of hunger strike in England cannot be fully understood without examining the origins of the revolutionary hunger strikes through a gendered lens. Using case studies of various Russian women and their experiences as both university students and political prisoners, this research aims to unearth the reasons why women in both Russia and England had a particular affinity for the use of …

Biblical Theodicy The Evolution Of Satan As A Solution To The Problem Of Evil, Madison Estrada

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis attempts to serve two functions. The first is to discuss how the problem of evilin Christianity has been a problem not only in modernity, but also with premodern authors and editors of biblical canon. The second is to explain how the literary character of Satan has developed alongside the narrative in a way that seeks to answer to the problem of evil in the form of a literary theodicy. While it may be demonstrated in the textual evidence that this character can take away some of the ethical implications imposed on God by taking on evil himself, it …

“We Will Tend To It”: The Reconstruction Of The Wimauma, Florida’S Bethune Area Through Archival Research And Oral Histories, Alanah Cooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on heritage preservation efforts led by Wimauma community members interested in preserving the history and heritage of Wimauma’s Bethune Area—a historically African American community. This study aims to challenge the dominant narratives of Wimauma that erase/silence the tangible and intangible legacy of the Bethune Area. By collecting and drawing upon oral histories from community residents; engaging in participant observations; conducting archival research, my thesis will strive to construct an expanded narrative of Wimauma to include the history and heritage of the Bethune Area and the everyday lives of underrepresented people and families who helped shape Wimauma. This …

A Case For The Original Setting Of Rachmaninoff’S Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 36, Alexias L. Ferrer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This document aims to examine both the original 1913 and revised 1931 settings of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Sonata No. 2 Op. 36, and to present a case in favor of the lesser-known 1913 rendition of the piece as the more definitive setting of the work. The study begins with historical background information on the work and shows how the piece originated from a mature composer at the most productive period in his life and contrasts this to the historical background of the work’s revision. In a deeper analysis of form and content, the positives and negative qualities of each version …

Unmoored: Answering Social Upheaval And Historical Forgetfulness, Carl Creasman

Doctor of Ministry

There is a societal upheaval evidenced by a rise of Christian nationalism, deconstruction from the Christian faith, and a general lack of flourishing engulfing the nation, like an unmanned boat adrift at sea, unmoored from safe harbor. Both Christians and non-Christians can sense the danger of rough seas, perhaps even rugged shoals that could irreparably ruin the craft, our nation. As a College Professor, I have both seen and heard the concern about future, both one’s own personal future and that of the larger civic national structure. We have arrived here as a nation because the historical concepts and principles …

Inspire Leadership Transitions: Helping Non-Denominational Churches Navigate Senior Leadership Transitions, Andrew Heard

Doctor of Ministry

Inspire Leadership Transitions is a digital platform designed to assist senior pastors, church leaders, and churches in navigating the complexities of senior leadership transitions, particularly within non-denominational churches. At its core is a free online transition course that blends biblical wisdom with research-driven insights, offering a strategic, accessible, and spiritually grounded approach to leadership transitions. This project responds to the critical need for effective transition planning as senior pastors age, and churches face a growing leadership crisis. Research shows that most transitions occur without a strategic plan, leading to challenges that could otherwise be avoided. While denominational churches often have …

Equip Life On Purpose, Michael T. Morgan

Doctor of Ministry

The Big Top of Bel Air Church is a breathtaking space where God’s grand story unfolds, yet it has struggled to provide a unified biblical framework for discipleship. The problem, as outlined in my NPO statement, is that the Church lacks an agreed-upon common biblical framework needed to constructively engage the work God has entrusted the Church to do, resulting in silence, spiritual immaturity, and disunity. Political partisanship, fear, and a lack of relational and spiritual maturity have further strained the ability of believers to grow together in Christ.

A key insight emerged through extensive research: the Church’s struggle is …

M3: Intensive Seminars For Advancing Microchurch Methodology And Ministry, Rick Delatorre

Doctor of Ministry

NPO: The Microchurch ministry model has the capacity to enhance discipleship and cultural engagement for the Western Church in the 21st century.

The status of the Christian Church in the United States is in crisis. The traditional church in the West has declined. Church attendance is dropping, membership is shrinking, and younger generations are leaving. The data from multiple sources only confirmed my observations from decades of pastoral ministry.

My research into this phenomenon began as an exploration of the Western Church’s endeavors to fulfill the commission of Christ in discipleship. This exploration resulted in a research journey that led …

Whole Broken People Wholeness Of Life At All Ages, Brenda K. Lewis

Doctor of Ministry

NPO Statement

Experiences of lost independence or control overwhelm or block the spiritual coping mechanisms of some Independent Living residents at Givens Estates.

Key Research Insights

Deep cultural bias, denial, and a lack of realistic role models form blocks between us and healthy coping with the realities of aging. When we lose independence and control, we often lose our expected storyline, our sense of our identity, and our understanding of the role of our spiritual traditions. The Christian tradition offers rich resources for redefining our story and ourselves in ways that deepen our faith and our connection with the people …

The Hospitality Challenge: Recovering A Biblical Method For Discipling Busy People, Kristopher Clifford

Doctor of Ministry

How can the church effectively disciple career-driven, community-involved, and weekend-traveling individuals? This question shaped the focus of my doctoral project, which explores Christian hospitality as an experiential and flexible approach to discipleship. Traditional, program-based models of discipleship often fail to engage busy individuals because they rely on attendance and intellectual learning rather than practices integrated into everyday life. In contrast, hospitality, modeled by Jesus and the early church, emerges as a transformative and scripturally-rooted method of discipleship that is flexible for busy people, practical in nature, and effective in fostering life transformation.

In my ministry context at Columbia Baptist Church, …

Reimagining The Role Of Women In The Church Of Tomorrow, Adam Harbaugh

Doctor of Ministry

The need for "Reimagining the Role of Women in the Church of Tomorrow" has come from my experience serving as a Pastor in two non-denominational churches in Mid-Michigan over the last seventeen years (approximately 15 years in Saginaw, 2 years in Frankenmuth). In Saginaw, it became clear the advancement of the Kingdom was limited when women were not eligible to act on their spiritual gifts within the leadership hierarchy of the church. Practically, this meant women were not allowed to serve as Pastors, Elders, or preachers/teachers to the congregation at-large. Attempts from myself and others to illuminate the ways this …

Digital Multimodal Composing In An L2 Italian Classroom: The Effects Of Digital Video Projects On Students’ Development And Investment, Francesca Marino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the calls for integrating digital multimodal composing (DMC) into second language (L2) pedagogy, learners’ gains in terms of L2 development beyond writing remain largely unexplored. Additionally, while research points to the potential of DMC to promote students’ engagement and motivation in the L2 classroom (e.g., Hava, 2021; Hull & Nelson, 2005; Shin & Cimasko, 2008), learners’ investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015, 2023; Norton, 1995) in L2 learning through DMC has been underrepresented in previous literature. In addition, DMC research on investment until now has almost exclusively focused on the learning of English as a foreign or second language (e.g., …

Following The Mission Leader: The Value Of Imitational Learning In The Training Of Apostolic Church Planting Teams At Memorial Lutheran Church In Katy, Texas, John F. Davis Jr

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

Davis, Jr., John F. “Following the Mission Leader: The Value of Imitational Learning in the Training of Apostolic Church Planting Teams at Memorial Lutheran Church in Katy, TX.” Doctor of Ministry. Major Applied Project, Concordia Seminary, 2025. pp. 272

Reaching the unchurched and unbaptized in our communities with the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a huge challenge for most of our churches. In The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the number of adults being baptized in the churches (a measure of our effectiveness in carrying out the Missio Dei) is less than one per year. To reach people who have no …

Anarcho-Syndicalism In The Negaunee Branch Of The Finnish Socialist Association, Michael P. Selwa

HS 390 Primary Research Papers

Socialism reached a prominence as a movement in the United States during the early 20th century. Fueled by the machinations of industrial capitalism and labor reform, many workers, immigrants, and other individuals would arrive to the precepts of socialism, a political movement avowing to shirk the constraints of capitalism on the proletariat. Specifically, the question of why and how labor unions should function in a socialist society was a central tenet of debate within the faction of the American Socialist Party. The central question of this article is to examine why anarcho-syndicalists argued against traditional socialist reformist arguments in the …

Women’S Voting Registrations In Marquette County, Lauren E. Mccollor

HS 390 Primary Research Papers

Following the Michigan state amendment of 1918, which granted women the right to vote, the women of Marquette County began registering. This paper looks into the Ishpeming women’s voting records from 1919 and 1920, as well as news paper articles that document early voting registration turnouts in Marquette and Negaunee. The research focused on the patterns of registration in the context of amendments, elections, and political movements at the local, state, and national levels. While there has been extensive research and analysis of early women voters across the United States, no previous studies have analyzed the Ishpeming voting records. Women …