Arts and Humanities Commons^™

What Do We Owe A Drowning Coast? Examining Louisiana's Coastal Crisis Through The Lens Of Environmental Justice, Owen M. Plaisance

Honors Theses

This thesis argues that human contributions to Louisiana’s coastal land loss constitute a form of environmental injustice that cannot be adequately addressed through frameworks focused solely on aggregate welfare or distributive fairness. While utilitarian and Rawlsian approaches offer important insights, both are limited in capturing the full scope of harm caused by environmental degradation. In coastal Louisiana, land loss undermines not only economic resources and physical security but also the substantive freedoms required for individuals and communities to live meaningful and culturally rooted lives, while disrupting ecological systems and non-human flourishing. To address these limitations, the thesis develops the Capabilities …

Spring Dance Concert

Dance Programs

No abstract provided.

Taxidermy And Technology: A History Of Climate Change Exhibitions At American Museums Of Natural History, Laura Haushalter, Amy Woodson-Boulton

Honors Thesis

My research is on the history of temporary and permanent climate change exhibitions at natural history museums in the United States. My primary research question is: How have natural history museums responded to human-caused environmental destruction through their exhibitions, and what, if anything, are natural history museums doing now to address our current environmental crisis? My research begins with a historiography of natural museums and examines how early 20th-century museums responded to a sense of environmental crisis and widespread threats of species extinction. In the early 20th century, museums shifted from Victorian-era glass cases to modern and artistic dioramas that …

Through The Lens Of “Kigo”: Understanding Japanese American Wwii Poetry, Grace C. Shields

Honors College Theses

In 1957, nearly ten years after the closing of Tule Lake Segregation Center in Newell, California, the last of the ten War Relocation Authority (WRA) concentration camps to close, author Keiho Soga writes on a piece of paper:

“Untitled”

By: Keiho Soga

Beyond the forbidding fence 

Of doubled barbed wire 

The mountain, 

Aglow with purple,

Sends us its greetings.

In this brief moment of reflection, Soga recounts his time in Sand Island Internment Camp, another of the Japanese American internment camps established during World War II by the United States government after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. …

The Missing Half: Gender-Based Gaps In Holocaust Remembrance, Lyndsey Gilbert

Honors Theses

This study examines the multi-modal methods of memorialization of female Holocaust victims as well as women's absences in Holocaust memorialization. It identifies patterns of representation and omission, examines which histories are preserved, and evaluates gaps in gender-based Holocaust memorials. For this study, memorialization encompasses not only honoring victims but also shaping historical narratives through data and artistic expression. Because the Holocaust targeted men, women, and children within certain categories of Nazi-identified enemies, its memorialization presents a complex dynamic; however, existing narratives and memory practices often prioritize male experiences.

This study examines key methods of memorializing female victims that play a …

The Machinery Of Division, Ethan D. Ernst

Honors Capstones

This single chapter of a future fictional work follows the protagonist, Grace Scott, as her twenty-first birthday approaches, yet things are not as they seem. In this world, alien creatures known as the Marauders have forced humanity to hide within fortified cities, while all children are at risk of mutating into these monsters and eventually losing their minds. This risk is guaranteed to disappear after reaching the age of twenty-one, making it the most celebrated birthday for every society on Earth. As this grand day arrives for Grace, however, strange events occur that indicate that the world may be about …

A Study Of The Relationship Between Atlas Assessment Levels And Asboa Instrumental Ensemble Concert Assessment Ratings, Daniel Cooper

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

This study investigated the relationship between two key forms of school accountability that relate to secondary instrumental music programs. A thorough review of relevant literature was conducted to establish a framework for analyzing how ATLAS achievement levels may predict ASBOA concert assessment ratings of bands and orchestras in Arkansas. A quantitative approach was used via a binary logistic regression to interpret the impact of ATLAS achievement levels and SES, as defined by free and reduced lunch percentages, on an ensemble's likelihood of earning a superior or non-superior rating at region concert assessment. Results found statistically significant relationships for the predictive …

Teacher Shortages In Arkansas Rural School Districts: Employed Teacher’S Perceptions Of The Impact On Their Effectiveness, Carloss Guess

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

ABSTRACT

TEACHER SHORTAGES IN ARKANSAS RURAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS: EMPLOYED TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE IMPACT

ON THEIR EFFECTIVENESS

Carloss Guess

Teacher shortages in rural school districts remain a persistent challenge that affects instructional quality, teacher workload, and professional sustainability. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore how teachers in rural Arkansas perceive the impact of staffing shortages on their instructional roles, workload, and professional well-being. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 10 K–12 teachers representing elementary, middle, and high schools and across varying career stages. Interview transcripts were analyzed using an inductive qualitative approach and the constant …

In The Presence Of A Legend: Mary Palchak Remembers Henri Temianka, Mary Palchak, Charlotte Yoder

Chapman University Temianka Music Research Scholar Program

This interview captures flutist and Chapman University instructor Mary Palchak’s memories of working with Henri Temianka in the California Chamber Virtuosi series and his Los Angeles children’s concerts, highlighting his humor, kindness, audience rapport, and deep commitment to music education.

"En Papel,” Not In Practice: Indigenous Autonomy And The Structural Barriers To Land And Resource Control In Bolivia, Andrew F. Purcell

Honors Theses

This thesis examines why Bolivia’s 2009 plurinational constitution—despite its strong recognition of Indigenous autonomy, collective territory, and prior consultation—often produces rights that remain “en papel” rather than in practice. Based on one month of fieldwork in Tumupasa, Chojasivi, La Paz, El Alto, and Santa Cruz, the study draws on interviews, participant observation, and NGO documents to analyze the structural barriers that prevent constitutional guarantees from becoming enforceable governance tools. This gap between recognition and implementation structures the central research question: why do Bolivia’s constitutional and legal protections for indigenous land and resource rights function as symbolic guarantees rather than enforceable …

Analyzing Best Practices In Large-Scale Digital Archaeological Databases, Chloe M. Vizier

Honors Theses

Archaeological databases, the foundation of archaeological analyses, have changed drastically alongside the rise of new digital tools in the twenty-first century. Digital databases, alongside other digital tools, must therefore be evaluated for their efficiency and effectiveness within the field. This thesis seeks to determine a set of best practices within large-scale digital archaeological databases through analyzing an existing example: The Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA). PIDBA is composed of multiple state-level datasets, a trait that both invited collaboration and creates discrepancies in data entry. Though examining both PIDBA's user-facing website and one of its most robust state-level datasets, the …

"For Their Effectual Exclusion": Oregon, Racial Exclusion, And Citizenship In The Mid-Nineteenth Century, Riley M. Littleton

Honors Theses

In light of Oregon’s admission to the Union as the only state to receive congressional approval with a racial exclusion clause in its constitution, this project seeks to examine the constitutional and cultural thought that ultimately led to the stamp of approval on the thirty-third state. In the past, Missouri had attempted a similar maneuver, seeking to bar free Black Americans from entry; Congress had not allowed it, believing that the provision violated the U.S. Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause. This project investigates what changed congressional opinion between Missouri and Oregon’s respective times.

In researching contemporary literature to understand local …

Just War Theory And Coercive Non-Proliferation: Ethically Evaluating Nuclear Prevention Efforts, P. Walker Jacklin

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the ethics of coercively addressing non-nuclear states who are attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons pose a serious danger on a global scale, so ethical analysis should balance these consequences with the coerciveness of state intervention. Just War Theory provides a useful framework that balances these considerations.  Using the criteria of Just War Theory, this thesis examines two 21st century non-proliferation operations: Operation Orchard and Operation Midnight Hammer. I find that Operation Orchard fails the criteria of Just War Theory, while Operation Midnight Hammer satisfies the criteria. Making this determination is ethically risky, however, because our …

First-Generation Student Success: An Analysis Of Institutional And Student-Led Support In Select Private Four-Year Liberal Arts Colleges, Jasmine D. Rodriguez

Whittier Scholars Program

Today, about one third of college students are characterized as first-generation (Bloomberg 2024, 3). Despite this rise in first-generation students seeking higher education, academic institutions continue to fall short of supporting this specific group of students. This project investigates the experiences of first-generation students at selected private, four-year, liberal arts colleges in the United States to better understand these students’ experiences as well as discuss the challenges academic institutions face as they aim to support their first-generation student population. Using Whittier College and some comparison schools as a case study, my project will investigate the resources currently offered to first-generation …

Akan Proverbs And Social Media Commentary: The Representation Of Women In Ghanaian Society, Richard Ayertey Lawer

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examines how gender ideologies embedded in Akan proverbs are reproduced, negotiated, and contested within contemporary Ghanaian digital discourse. Drawing on feminist rhetorical analysis and digital discourse studies, the research analyzes a purposive sample of 25 Akan proverbs and 36 social media posts and comments from Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (2022–2025) focusing on women in public roles. The study demonstrates that Akan proverbs function as enduring ideological resources that construct women’s agency as conditional, subordinate, and morally regulated. These ideological patterns are recontextualized in digital spaces through both explicit citation and implicit proverbial reasoning, where users mobilize cultural logics …

The Illocutionary Constitution Of Second Nature: An Interpretive Reconstruction Of Hegel’S Philosophy Of Language, Roland William Carspecken

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers an interpretive reconstruction of Hegel’s philosophy of language. Rich reflections on the nature of language and its significance to human life can be found across Hegel’s works. Many of these reflections strongly suggest that language plays a vital role in Hegel’s philosophical project. Yet surprisingly, Hegel never set down a comprehensive account of his view of language. To this day, it remains a matter of dispute whether Hegel’s writings on language are consistent enough to amount to a single ‘philosophy of language’ and, if they are, what sort of philosophy of language they might offer. In the …

“The Right Of Black Folk To Love And Enjoy”: Black Romanticism, Pleasure, And Poetics, 1900-1920, John D. Hadlock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores poetry written at the turn of the twentieth century in order to closely examine what I call the “Black Romantic” impulse of the Harlem and New Negro Renaissances. I argue that Black American poets turned to a Romantic notion of the poet as cultural representative and of poetry as a radical celebration of beauty that disavowed and disputed social ills, namely racist ideologies in America, while simultaneously demanding the right of Black pleasure-taking. However, I also contend that Black American poets of various backgrounds and identities used different poetic, rhetorical, and artistic strategies to elevate the status …

St. John Henry Cardinal Newman’S Mariology: A Distinctively Patristic And English Understanding Of Marian Doctrine And Devotion, Erin Meikle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

St. John Henry Newman’s understanding and reception of the dogma of divine motherhood grew during his pre-Catholic years. This study employs a form of reception theory to argue that Newman exercised reserve and compromise in his discourse on Mary’s identity as the Mother of God during both his evangelical and high church Anglican periods. The first three chapters conduct a historical investigation of Marian devotion and reception of the dogma of divine motherhood in England from the period of the apparition at Walsingham (1061) up until the nineteenth century. The analyses indicate that England had an intense Marian devotion and …

Ireland Since 1690, Stephen F. Haller Phd

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Narrating Injustice: Race, Law, And American Literature, Taylor A. Levine

Honors Scholar Theses

This project examines the relationship between race and law as it is portrayed by works of American literature. It argues that the gap between the legal system’s claims of neutrality and the lived experiences of Black individuals exposes systemic injustice that may be concealed in traditional legal discourse. Texts examined include Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Additionally, Prison Noir, an anthology of narratives written by incarcerated individuals edited by Joyce Carol Oates, is examined to emphasize how modern mass incarceration works to …

Developing Spanish-Language Campus Tours To Enhance Accessibility And Competitive Recruitment At The University Of Mississippi, Caitlyn E. Culpepper

Honors Theses

This thesis proposes and outlines an initiative that would bring Spanish-language campus tours and visit resources to the University of Mississippi, increasing accessibility to the campus visit experience while also providing institutional benefits within a competitive recruitment landscape. Through a review of current literature on Hispanic/Latino students in higher education, institutional enrollment and recruitment data, comparative research on peer institutions, and conversations with university professionals, this project explores the role that language accessibility, family engagement, and campus visits play in the college decision-making process.

Findings suggest that Hispanic/Latino students remain an underrepresented yet rapidly growing population in higher education and …

Expanding Expanded Access: A Case Of Onc201 And The Ethical Limitations Of Compassionate Use, Ava C. Hutchings

Honors Theses

This study examines the ethical and structural limitations of the Expanded Access program in the United States, with particular focus on its application to terminal pediatric illness. Although the program is intended to provide patients with life-threatening conditions access to investigational therapies outside of clinical trials, its effectiveness in serving critically ill children remains uncertain. This program is analyzed through careful consideration of regulatory review and ethical theory. Key policies governing Expanded Access are examined alongside scholarly discussions of pediatric autonomy and parental authority.

A case study of ONC201, a now-approved investigational drug, is used to illustrate how Expanded Access …

Orthographic Representations In American Sign Language Fingerspelling, Zed Sehyr, Lauren Fillet, Kiana Billot-Vasquez, Emily Saunders, Karen Emmorey

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

This study examined fingerspelling accuracy and error patterns in deaf American Sign Language (ASL) signers and written spelling in hearing English speakers to investigate how orthographic representations are shaped by phonological, visual, and motor encoding strategies. Deaf participants (n = 39) completed a fingerspelling repetition task, while hearing participants (n = 35) completed a written dictation task using the same word and pseudoword stimuli. While overall accuracy did not differ significantly between groups, deaf participants exhibited qualitatively distinct error patterns, including higher rates of deletions and transpositions, compared to hearing participants who made more substitution errors. Deaf participants also produced …

How To Fail At Faith, Olivia R. Bacon

Honors Theses

How to Fail at Faith tells the story of Ruth, a girl in middle school who begins to doubt her faith in the Christian God. With these doubts come existential questions, fear, and, most strangely, a voice that narrates Ruth’s everyday activities inside her head. Ruth is scared this voice means she is only a character inside a story, but is even more scared to tell her parents about her internal struggles. As Ruth grapples with her faith, this “narrator” becomes a tangible support amid uncertainties. Ruth surrenders to trusting God after fighting her doubts, and discovers that her mysterious …

Sir Gawain, The Travelling Sun Of Medieval Literature, Leah H. Dascoli

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper examines Sir Gawain’s roles in Medieval Arthurian literature from various geolinguistical regions in Europe. Starting in the twelfth century and extending to the late fifteenth century, there is a shift in literary legends that can be glimpsed through understanding what roles the authors of the Arthurian genre use for Sir Gawain.

By incorporating evidence within the text and supplementary evidence of historical context during which the stories were written and translated, this study seeks to create a discussion between the more obscure sources and more circulating sources in which Sir Gawain is a common factor. It argues that …

Values-Based Clinical Ethics: A New Model Of Health And Ethics Consultation For Patients Suffering In Extremis, Adam Trainer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that contemporary clinical ethics is inadequately equipped to support patients suffering in extremis because it relies on an insufficiently discriminating account of health and a constrained model of moral reasoning. Drawing on Bernard Lonergan, it reconceives health as an emergent, multi-layered, heuristic notion shaped by biological, psychological, social, and existential goods. On that basis, it critiques principlism’s global applicability thesis and the undergirding claim that its principles form part of the common morality, arguing that this justificatory structure is philosophically insufficient and practically limited for clinical ethics in cases marked by profound suffering, moral plurality, and normative …

2025-2026 Performance Forum - May 8, 2026, Isabella Swalm, Elizaveta Goryunova, Elena Swalm, Peter Pao, Meixi Zhou, Peicen Qin, Lillian Platte, Anttuan Rios Pelaez, Karen Trujillo, Nicholas Weathers, Jacob Lomboy, Joseph Muhl

Performance Forum

No abstract provided.

Cacophony Before The World Goes White, Cheryl Hunter

The Cicadian

No abstract provided.

Drumming In Spring, Mary Moroney-Fernandez

The Cicadian

No abstract provided.

In The Garden's Grasp, Lacey Anderson

The Cicadian

This piece pairs a close-up photograph with reflective creative writing to explore a fleeting moment in a backyard garden ecosystem. Among vivid dahlias and winding vines, a grasshopper emerges, captured both in image and in story. Together, the photograph and prose invite readers to witness how tending, noticing, and lingering can transform an ordinary patio into a world alive with quiet, electric life.