Liberal Studies Commons^™

Introduction: Finding Meaning In Life And History, Michael T. Desantis

Of Life and History

No abstract provided.

Academic And Social Effects Of Waldorf Education On Elementary School Students, Christian Zepeda

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

As society becomes more critical of public education, alternative education systems are becoming more popular. The Waldorf education system, based on the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, has increased in popularity and commonality each decade. Currently, 23 Waldorf institutions exist in California. With this increase in popularity, it is important to analyze and examine the effectiveness of this education philosophy. An examination of Waldorf education, through research and interviews of Waldorf teachers and administration, will provide parents and teachers with an understanding of its strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, Waldorf education provides a positive environment for students, yielding positive effects but this …

Preparing Multiple-Subject Pre-Service Teachers To Work Effectively With Students Who Have Autism, Makalah Vosmera

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The Commission on Teacher Credentialing of the State of California mandates that teacher preparation programs prepare effective and knowledgeable pre-service teachers to teach all students. Through the use of literature review, interviews and surveys with graduating Liberal Studies students, this senior capstone examines whether Liberal Studies graduating students are being prepared to work effectively with autistic students or not. The findings indicate that they take introductory education courses on autism spectrum disorder along with other forms of disabilities, but they do not receive sufficient breadth and depth coverage on how to work effectively with autistic students in regular classrooms.

The Importance And Challenges Of Self-Reflecting On Identity And Privilege For White Pre-Service Teachers, Carlie Dawson

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Whiteness continues to dominate the field of education; yet, there is sufficient evidence to indicate that White teachers are not critically self-aware of their racial identity and the privilege it grants them. White teachers are not challenged to think about the normalcy of whiteness and privilege in education because they have not been properly exposed to the subject of whiteness. To better understand if and how White teachers conceptualize and self-reflect on their racial identity and racialized privilege, a survey was distributed to pre-service White, female graduating Liberal Studies students who plan on pursuing a career in education. This senior …

Addressing The Lack Of Awareness Regarding The Various Resources To Finance A College Education, Corin Rau

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

While there are many different resources to assist students with paying for college, some may not understand the different types that are available for them to utilize, be unaware of the requirements that are necessary to be eligible for certain types of funding, or may accept loans that they do not actually know much about. This possible lack of knowledge may lead to financial stress during and after college. The goal of this project was to have the participants meet three learning outcomes: 1) indicate the types of funding they will use to pay for college in the future,, 2) …

The Influence Of Slavery On The Black Body: Black Lives Matter’S Intersectional Methodology And New Advancements, Mone Dixon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Racial discrimination has been a significant problem in the United States. For centuries, African Americans have endured and resisted (in multiple ways) a system of bondage, a system where they faced political, economic, institutional, and social oppression. It is a system that condoned the violence that often resulted in the innocent deaths of Black bodies since the beginning of slavery. As property, the Black body was viewed and used as a commodity; thus the dehumanization of Black bodies was justified. The history of slavery demonstrates the different ways Black bodies have been and continue to be hindered by its effects. …

Myths, Risks, And Ignorance: Western Media And Health Experts’ Representations Of Cultures In Ebola-Affected West African Communities, Samson Wonnah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The 2014 Ebola outbreak, mostly affecting Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, is the largest ever recorded. The Ebola response encountered resistance in some affected communities, where some residents accused relief agencies from the Global North of denigrating local cultures. This thesis examines mainstream Western media and health experts’ representation of culture in the Ebola-affected region and employed Foucauldian analysis of discursive power to discuss the impact of such a representation on the concerned communities. Through a content analysis of selected journal and news articles by Western scholars and media and official reports by some relief agencies involved with the Ebola …

Does The Common Core Further Democracy? A Response To "The Common Core And Democratic Education: Examining Potential Costs And Benefits To Public And Private Autonomy", Johann N. Neem

Democracy & Education

The Common Core does not advance democratic education. Far from it, the opening section of the language standards argues that the goal of public K–12 education is “college and career readiness.” Only at the end of their introductory section do the Common Core’s authors suggest that K–12 education has any goals beyond the economic: learning to read and write well has “wide applicability outside the classroom and work place,” including preparing people for “private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a republic.” The democratic purposes of K–12 education are not goals but, in the Common Core’s words, a “natural outgrowth” of …

The Grizzly, April 26, 2018, Valerie Osborne, Kevin Leon, Kim Corona, Ria Rathi, Sophia Dibattista, Emily Jolly, Clara Kiss, Paige Szmodis, Xichang Wu, Julie Krasutsky, David Mendelsohn

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Ursinus Faculty Land $30,000 NEH Grant • UC Students Gather for Hong and Powell Reading • Main Street Nutrition Hosts Healthy Happy Hour for Ursinus Students • Alumna Returns to Campus to Talk About Self-Publishing • Celebration of the Past and Future • Picnic and a One-Act Show • Opinions: Why Queer House Should be a Permanent Part of SPINT; Syria Airstrikes not the Answer to Alleged Chemical Weapons • Alum Kitty Dawson Returns as Assistant Women's Lacrosse Coach • Final Check-in with UC's Spring Teams

Examining Alumni Perceptions Of Social And Cultural Capital Accumulation Through Ursinus’S Summer Fellows Program, Sydney Dickson

Anthropology Honors Papers

A common offering among undergraduate institutions is an intensive summer research program, which allows students to complete a project independently without any other academic obligations. These programs are designed to foster useful skills, valuable relationships, and scholarly work. Ursinus College, a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, has such a program: Summer Fellows. With colleges attempting to appeal to a decreasing number of high-achieving applicants, student desire to pursue intellectual interests, and employers looking for skilled job candidates, it is worthwhile to examine the perceived efficacy of this program. This paper utilizes the perspectives of alumni reflecting on what they …

Volume Cxxxv, Number 19, April 20, 2018, Lawrence University

The Lawrentian

No abstract provided.

The Grizzly, April 19, 2018, Valerie Osborne, Kevin Leon, Julie Krasutsky, Paige Szmodis, Sarah Hojsak, Xichang Wu, Sophia Dibattista, Kim Corona, Robin Gow, David Mendelsohn, Taylor Schaeffer

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

U-Imagine Center Announces Winners of Innovation Competition • Ursinus Receives Grant for IDC • Intersex Activist Pidgeon Pagonis Screens Short Film • Class Offers Alumni and Parents a Taste of the Philadelphia (Theater) Experience • Ursinus LGBTQ Athletes Speak Out • Ursinus College Dance Company Welcomes Spring • Opinions: Ursinus Needs More Diverse Speakers Like Reyna Grande; Male Toplessness Exposes Gender Politics of Body Policing • Golf Squads Dominating Their Spring Schedules • UC Pitching Staff Weighs in on MLB's Pace-of-Play Proposals

A Blend Of Absurdism And Humanism: Defending Kurt Vonnegut’S Place In The Secondary Setting, Krisandra R. Johnson

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This essay argues that Kurt Vonnegut blends a unique humanist stance into his absurdist plots and characters, ultimately urging readers to confront the absurd with a kindness and human decency his protagonists often find rare. As a result of this absurd and humanist synthesis, I defend and promote Vonnegut’s place in the secondary English curriculum, despite his rank on many banned books lists, since his characters’ journeys correlate thematically with the growth and process of postmodern adolescents and encourage moral responsibility without sentimental manipulation.

Focusing on Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Slaughterhouse-Five as primary sources, specifically …

Volume Cxxxv, Number 18, April 13, 2018, Lawrence University

The Lawrentian

No abstract provided.

The Grizzly, April 12, 2018, Valerie Osborne, Emily Shue, Kayla O'Mahoney, Lisa Nghe, Courtney A. Duchene, Sophia Dibattista, Julie Krasutsky, Skyler L. Gailing, Paige Szmodis, Xichang Wu, Taylor Schaeffer, Gabriela Howell

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

"The Distance Between Us": Ursinus Welcomes Mexican-American Author Reyna Grande • Lantern Launch Celebrates All Things Creative About Ursinus • Berman Museum Opens Annual Student Exhibition • International Perspective: Easter Festivities in Prague Recall Student's Childhood Celebrations • Senior Awarded Fulbright Scholarship • Students Present at Celebration of Student Achievement • Summer Looks Bright for Dr. Lori Daggar • Opinions: Ursinus Needs More Science Labs for Humanities Students; Facebook's Data Scandal Reveals Need for Privacy Protection • Men's Lax Maintains Optimism Amid Rocky Season • T&F Impresses in Outdoor Opener

2018 Undergraduate Research Competition Program, Coastal Carolina University

Undergraduate Research Symposium Programs

10th Annual Undergraduate Research Competition, April 11-12, 2018. Document includes abstracts.

Volume Cxxxv, Number 17, April 6, 2018, Lawrence University

The Lawrentian

No abstract provided.

The Grizzly, April 5, 2018, Valerie Osborne

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

This is an April Fool's parody edition of the Ursinus College Grizzly newspaper.

How Women Leaders Can Promote Sustainability Initiatives, Naida Weinert

Senior Projects

This paper discusses what would be the best organizational management model that could help to attain and promote corporate social responsibility. Research has been assessed on the themes of gender differences (men vs women), leadership styles (including men leaders vs. women leaders), sustainability, corporate social responsibility (including the managerial position), the importance of stakeholders (internal and external), and a combination of these subjects. Stereotypical attitudes are discussed on leadership differences between men and women within this paper. Another area of the research emphasized the importance of stakeholders linked with organizations as well as how internal and external stakeholders have significance …

Gettysburg: Our College's Magazine Spring 2018, Communications & Marketing

Gettysburg: Our College’s Magazine

From the President Janet Morgan Riggs '77

Table of Contents

News @ Gettysburg: Majestic Nears 100 (Jean LeGros '73)

Prof Notes: Christopher Fee (Professor Chris Fee)

What to Explore in Computer Science? Jordan Marks '18

The 411 (Troy Datcher '90)

Day to Lead: Conservatory (Professor James Day)

Scholars and Authors

Snapshots

Discovery, Diversity and Excellence in Music Prized Prof. (Avner Dorman)

Media Notes

Gettysburgreat: What will Gettysburgreat look like?

Litigating for Good (Julius Redd '07)

Dichotomies Illustrated (Zoe Yeoh '18)

Conversations

Determined to Travel: Rejection Drove David Zapate '94 Worldwide Kasey Varner '14

Complex Memories: The Vietnam War Era Kasey …

Perceptions Of Advisors Who Work With High-Achieving Students, Melissa Johnson, Cheryl Walther, Kelly J. Medley

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors programs in higher education are designed to optimize highachieving students’ potential by addressing their particular academic and developmental needs and common characteristics. Gerrity, Lawrence, and Sedlacek suggested that high-achieving students can be “best served by course work, living environments, and activities that differ from the usual college offerings” (43). Schuman, in his handbook Beginning in Honors, noted:

"An important point to keep in mind as regards honors advising is that honors students can be expected to have as many, and as complicated, problems as other students. It is sometimes tempting to envision all honors students as especially well …

How To Drink From The Pierian Spring: A Liberal Arts And Humanities Question About The Limits Of Honors Education, Christopher Keller

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors educators frequently engage in conversations about the decline of interest in and funding for the liberal arts and humanities. Larry Andrews’s essay “The Humanities are Dead! Long Live the Humanities!” is one of several that contributes to a metanarrative about the liberal arts and humanities, playing out along the following lines: workforce-minded politicians, short-sighted university administrators, STEM-related programs, and market-driven students no longer understand the true value of the liberal arts and humanities because they cannot be easily measured in dollars and cents; consequently, higher education today typically narrows students’ perspectives, facilitates short-term and uncritical thinking, and fails to …

Linking Academic Excellence And Social Justice Through Community-Based Participatory Research, Lydia Voigt

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Naomi Yavneh Klos poses two questions for the NCHC community in her essay, “Thinking Critically, Acting Justly,” which appears in this issue of JNCHC: (1) how honors pedagogy/curriculum can engage the highestability and most motivated students in questions of social justice; and (2) how the honors curriculum can serve as a place of access, equity, and excellence in higher education. The University Honors Program (UHP) at Loyola University New Orleans has recently implemented several honors social justice seminars that have been experimenting with various approaches to these pedagogical, curricular, and programmatic questions. Violence and Democracy, an honors sociology/criminology seminar, not …

Creating A National Readership For Harper’S Weekly In A Time Of Sectional Crisis, Ashlyn Stewart

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

PORTZ-PRIZE-WINNING ESSAY, 2017

Throughout the 1840s and ’50s, localized and specialized periodicals serving specific regions, religions, pastimes, and vocations inundated the American magazine market (Lupfer 249). The vast majority of these publications were short-lived; Heather A. Haveman, a sociologist who in 2015 conducted a quantitative analysis of historical American magazines, estimates that the average lifespan of a magazine between 1840 and 1860 was a mere 1.9 years (29). As book historian Eric Lupfer says, “most were risky ventures— undercapitalized, poorly advertised, haphazardly managed, and with limited circulation” (249). However, magazines with the stability and capital of a sponsoring publishing house, …

What Makes A Curriculum Significant? Tracing The Taxonomy Of Significant Learning In Jesuit Honors Programs, Robert J. Pampel

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Over the last few years, I have sat in the opening sessions of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) conference and felt equal parts concern and conviction. In 2015 and 2016, opening speakers enumerated the challenges and opportunities that confront honors educators in a rapidly changing higher education landscape. I sympathized with their concerns in an institutional and cultural context marked by what Schwehn called the “Weberian ethos” of education—an instrumental, and less charitable, attitude toward academic inquiry. Yet, even as I acknowledged the veracity of their arguments, I was buoyed by belief in the Jesuit mission that animates my …

Editor's Introduction (Vol. 9, No. 1), Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Even in these perplexing times, most citizens of the United States would agree that social injustices in this country need to be addressed and alleviated. Most would acknowledge the high rates of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, incarceration, economic inequality, racial discrimination, and bias in college admissions, for instance, that undermine the ideals essential to a thriving democracy. The challenge, though, is getting beneath these abstractions to a level of empathy that can bring about change. While the National Collegiate Honors Council has taken on this challenge in years past, the energy and commitment required to meet the challenge has generally waned …

Thinking Critically, Acting Justly, Naomi Yavneh Klos

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In October 2011, just two months after I became Director of the University Honors Program at Loyola New Orleans, my new home town was simultaneously proclaimed both “America’s Best City for Foodies” (Forbes) and the country’s “Worst Food Desert” (Lammers). The city known for beignets and crawfish, Mardi Gras and jazz, was revealed to have only one supermarket for each 16,000 residents (half the national average), with some residents traveling over fifteen miles from their homes to purchase fresh produce.

In the past six years, the situation has been somewhat ameliorated by multiple farmers markets throughout the city that accept …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2018): Forum On Honors And Social Justice, National Collegiate Honors Council

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Call for Papers

Editorial Policy, Deadlines, and Submission Guidelines

Dedication to Jack W. Rhodes

Editor’s Introduction — Ada Long

Forum on “Honors And Social Justice”

Thinking Critically, Acting Justly . — Naomi Yavneh Klos

Making Honors Success Scripts Available to Students from Diverse Backgrounds — Richard Badenhausen

Cultivating Empathy: Lessons from an Interdisciplinary Service-Learning Course — Megan Jacobs and Marygold Walsh-Dilley

Socioeconomic Equity in Honors Education: Increasing Numbers of First-Generation and Low-Income Students — Angela D. Mead

Social Justice Education in Honors: Political but Non-Partisan — Sarita Cargas

Research Essays

What Makes a Curriculum Significant? Tracing the Taxonomy …

Making Honors Success Scripts Available To Students From Diverse Backgrounds, Richard Badenhausen

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In her lead forum essay, Naomi Yavneh Klos thoughtfully encourages us to reexamine our admissions practices in honors. She argues,

"We need a more nuanced reevaluation of standards that recognizes the role of systemic bias in traditional metrics of academic excellence and that holistically evaluates each student’s strengths and challenges in the context of individual and cultural experience. Such practices strengthen honors by identifying a diverse spectrum of students who both benefit from and enrich our honors community. (8)"

I would like to take that call for reevaluation one step further by asking members of the honors community to interrogate …

Social Justice Education In Honors: Political But Non-Partisan, Sarita Cargas

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care?, Neil Gross introduces research that suggests fifty to sixty percent of college professors are leftist or liberal, a much higher proportion than the seventeen percent of Americans in general (7). He posits the conservative fear that “bias” in higher education is a “very serious” problem (Gross 5). April Kelly-Woessner and Matthew Woessner examine studies that also show that college students are more ideologically diverse than the professoriate (498) and, further, that students tend to discredit information presented by biased professors and consider them untrustworthy sources (499). If the majority …