Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Legislative Branch Revolves Around The White House: A Copernican Understanding Of The Evolving Relationship Between The President And Congress, Lukas K. Alexander

Honors Theses

Executive-centered partisanship is a new scholarly idea that focuses on the growing centrality of the president in party and governmental affairs. Scholars have looked at the president’s growing electoral, administrative, and organizational responsibilities to support the theory. While the evidence is compelling, there is a key aspect of our Federal government that is omitted in their theory - the president’s role in Congress. In this thesis, I look at the effect that the president has on legislative voting behavior between the 107th and 116th Congresses. To analyze the data, I examine the effect of the president on Senator voting behavior …

The Role Of Socioeconomic Status In Cognition And Brain Health Across The Lifespan, Erica Chung

Honors Theses

Disparities in cognition are inevitable throughout the lifespan due to socioeconomic gaps. Individuals of lower socioeconomic status (SES) may have fewer access to environmental resources, especially with regard to education, than individuals of higher socioeconomic status. Differences in available resources from a young age may affect brain development, leading to detriments in cognition and behavior, further impacting socioeconomic success in adulthood. In the present study, we modeled the development of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and changes in cognitive function throughout the life trajectory in the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research Rockland Sample. The DLPFC volume was predicted to …

The Perceptions And Practices Of Japanese Identity In Contemporary France, Sara Gardner

Honors Theses

France is well known for promoting dominant white ideals of “Frenchness” over all others, stemming from the French republican ideal of culture-blind and colorblind universalism.. This universalism, however, is often criticized for glossing over individual heritage and struggles, and studies surrounding this issue often focus on ethnic groups that have made headlines, such as Muslim and North African populations in France. But what about less studied communities, such as the Japanese in France? These less studied populations are worth investigating as we can look at their experiences to further understand the impact of French nationalism. Through a primarily interview-based ethnographic …

Discrimination Among College Football Head Coaches, Yusuke Fukuda

Honors Theses

Several major sports organizations have come under scrutiny in recent years for alleged discriminatory practices towards minority coaches. In this paper, I analyze whether minority college football head coaches are more likely to be fired and to earn a lower salary. I observe a sample of 300 head coaches from 132 Division-I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools between the years 2006 to 2021. After controlling for performance and experience variables and holding the time and school or conference variables fixed in a Cox hazard regression model, I find statistically significant evidence that minority coaches face a higher likelihood of being …

Is France Having A Populist Moment?, Emma Gilmore

Honors Theses

The word populism is often thrown around in news media and academic scholarship, but there is a lack of understanding of what it actually means as a political theory. In France, the two presidential candidates that made it to the second round in 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine le Pen, were both called populist, despite having vastly different campaign strategies and messages. This study used a computer-based method to analyze Campaign books from 24 candidates beginning in 1981 that determined that Populist language is on the rise, but not as aggressively as news media suggests.

The Power Of One: Majority Leadership Power In The United States Senate, Andrew Taylor Ordentlich

Honors Theses

The United States Senate has long been heralded as an institution known for its strong reliance upon procedural rules and the leadership that is able to use those rules to their advantage. Recent leaders including Senators Reid, McConnell, and Schumer have attempted to reform the rules of the Senate to its advantage. But why are we seeing this influx in reform now? This thesis utilizes the theory of Conditional Party Government (CPG) to explain the prevalence and lack of reform between 1900 and today. Using roll-call vote data and primary sources such as historical newspapers and the Congressional Record, this …

Understanding The Role Of Race In American Medicine, Fariel C. A. Lamountain

Honors Theses

Long running inequity in health care and outcomes in the United States stem from failure to acknowledge the underlying role of the Transatlantic slave trade as it manifests in all facets of American society and commerce. This paper focuses specifically on the American medical system and its foundations to understand the precursors to generational trends in lack of access to healthcare and poor health for Black communities. This paper uses a three-pronged approach to understand the racist cycle of inequity, highlighting the history and origins of racism in American medicine, personal accounts and statistical evidence of inequity, and community and …

Community Interventions To The Food Insecurity Crisis Inuit Currently Face In Nunangat, Alyssia R. Getschow

Honors Theses

Inuit living in Nunangat, a northern territory in Canada, are facing unprecedented rates of food insecurity. The increasing impacts of anthropogenic climate change are rapidly changing the Arctic landscape in Nunangat, posing challenges to Inuit hunters who hunt and live completely self-sufficient off of the land. This lack of access to country foods and the impacts these conditions are having on Inuit communities are forcing Inuit to consider aid propositions from the Canadian government. Due to a long history of conflict with white settlers during the colonization of Canada, there is a feeling of distrust and cultural distaste between Canada …

‘The Making Of Mountains:' The Development Of Chair-Lift Technology In The American Skiing Industry, George M. Eisenhauer

Honors Theses

Skiing is a sport that is entirely reliant on its setting and the elements that occur around it. This paper takes a science, technology, and society approach to one of the few human controls in the sport, chair lifts. By examining the skiing and chair lift industries, lift technology and their role on a mountain, this paper aims to build a foundational understanding of the overall value of a chair lift in the American skiing scene. With knowledge collected from critical analysis, interviews, maps, and firsthand experiences, the dialogue is rooted in a strong understanding of the role that the …

The Effects Of Personality And Risk Preferences On Effort-Based Behavior: A Game Theoretic Approach, Hannah M. Davidsen

Honors Theses

Our personality and preferences play a major role in the decisions we make in our everyday lives. Drawing from literature exploring how people innovate under different scenarios (Dubina, 2013), the present study expanded this topic to include any scenario where there is incentive to free-ride off of another’s effort. I designed a study in which participants (N=73) were asked to complete the Big 5 personality questionnaire, a cognitive reflection task, an altruism elicitation task, and a risk elicitation task, then were randomly paired with another participant to complete four different rounds of a public goods game. Each round of the …

Is Monetary Policy Neutral? The Effectiveness Of Monetary Policy Transmission Across The Income Distribution, Cameron Dyer

Honors Theses

This paper analyzes the role of the interest rate channel of monetary policy on household consumption sensitivities across the income distribution. To study this, I build a heterogenous agent model where households experience interest rate shocks as a proxy for monetary policy in addition to income shocks. I find that the poorest quintile increases consumption by about 4.5% in response to a recessionary interest rate cut, with this effect weakening for each additional quintile. When interest rate shocks differ by income group, the poorest lose about 3.6% of consumption and monetary policy’s effect on aggregate consumption weakens. When the income …

Infill Development: A Contested Solution To California’S Crises, Conrad Hampson

Honors Theses

Infill development has become a contested term regarding California’s ‌perpetual housing crisis, the state’s fight against the ever-important climate emergency, and its efforts toward improving large social injustices. To define the contested term, infill development is the development or redevelopment of land that has been underutilized, in terms of being overlooked, abandoned, or left vacant, compared to the parcels surrounding the property, both directly abutting and within the more general locality. Regarding this concept and its trending nature, state and local governmental agencies, residential real estate developers, researchers, activist groups, and residents have each created their own narratives, taking up …

“Green” Marketing In The Apparel Industry: The Spectrum Of Veracity, Stephanie R. Keane

Honors Theses

Apparel companies’ propensity for manipulation in their marketing of environmental initiatives contributes to immense environmental pollution from petrochemical textile material production. Public scrutiny pressures these businesses to adopt “green” initiatives to avoid losing devoted consumers. In some cases, these initiatives disguise the real operations of a company or claim benignity for the company when this is not the reality. Previous business ethics research analyzed the emergence of “greenwashing” in corporations and thus concluded that corporations market themselves as eco-friendly to portray commodification as sustainable. In the form of case studies, this paper scrutinizes four companies: Zara, Patagonia, Lululemon, and Pact. …

"It’S Just Another Thing”: Perceptions Of Well Water Quality And Barriers In An Arsenic Hot Spot, Linzy Rosen

Honors Theses

Privately owned water is the primary source of drinking water for 43 million Americans. Although residential or private wells are susceptible to a variety of contaminants, the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 positions individuals as responsible for the testing, remediation, and management of this water. Despite the elevated presence of arsenic in Maine, which is linked to various cancers, cardiovascular disease, and neurological damage, little is known about how private well owners perceive the safety and quality of their own water.

This study takes a qualitative approach to understanding concerns and opinions by conducting semi - structured interviews with …

Goodworks, Claire Sykes

Colby Magazine

No abstract provided.

Women At The Helm: Pulling The Chariot Of The Living Goddess Kumari In Kathmandu, Jui Shrestha

Colby Magazine

Only very recently were women were allowed to pull the Kumari procession chariots. ... But still, challenges for female chariot pullers remain."

When An Economist Is A Mentor: For Yang Fan, Colby’S Teaching Philosophy Was The Right Fit, Kardelen Koldas

Colby Magazine

They say follow your passion to wherever it takes you. Yang Fan, the new Todger Anderson Assistant Professor of Investing and Behavioral Economics, did just that. He followed his passion for teaching and changed coasts, from West to the East. Now, he’s helping his students find and pursue their passions as well.

Paddling The Green River, Stephen Collins

Colby Magazine

If you’ve followed the career of outdoor writer Heather Hansman ’05, you’ll recognize her gasping for air after dumping her raft-load of customers into a Class V rapid on the Gauley River, avoiding avalanches in deep backcountry powder in the Rockies and Cascades, or dodging toxic algae and scary big koi swimming in an urban lake in Seattle.

Ready, Willing, And Able, Gerry Boyle

Colby Magazine

So what gives? How, after four years on Mayflower Hill, do these Colby alumni have an outsized impact in a fintech company that is focused on, for example, changing the way municipal bonds are traded? What makes them able to dive in and figure it out? “That’s part of the liberal arts education,” said Associate Professor of History John Turner, who taught Tagg Martin ’13, history major turned MarketAxess go-to analyst. “You’re always learning. … You are always going to be mastering something, as opposed to having mastered.”

Crash Course: Student Team Uses Statistical Modeling And Bigelow Partnership To Map Moose-Car "Hot Zones", Gerry Boyle, Max Slomiak

Colby Magazine

The project began in 2004 when Alex Jospe ’06, a Nordic skier who traveled Maine roads to meets, decided to use skills learned in a GIS class taught by Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Philip Nyhus. Jospe used data supplied by state transportation officials to map moose-collision hot zones. On a trip to Vermont, the map came in handy. “She came back all excited and said, ‘I saw a moose right where my map said I would,’” Nyhus recalled.

Q&A Tanya Sheehan: On Photography, Human Migration, And What Their Intersection Does And Doesn't Tell Us, Colby College

Colby Magazine

William R. Kenan Jr. Associate Professor of Art Tanya Sheehan is the editor of Photography and Migration, a timely collection of essays about photography and its role in portraying this ongoing humanitarian crisis (See P. 38). At Colby she launched the Photography and Migration Project, which draws connections between global migration and Waterville’s history as a destination for immigrants. She spoke to Colby Magazine Managing Editor Gerry Boyle ’78 about the ways photographs shape our perception of migration.

Waste Not: Josephine Liang Gives Day-Old Food New Value--And Helps Fund Nutritious Meals For London's School Children, Emily Westbrooks

Colby Magazine

On Josephine Liang’s first day at UWC Mahindra College in India, she opened the school handbook to find a statistic on the first page that would stick with her for more than a decade. The cost of one semester at UWC, the handbook explained, could fund the education of 40 school children in the local area.

Past And Future: Climate Experts Consider Where Our Planet Has Been And Where It Is Going, Colby College

Colby Magazine

In this, the second installment of the Colby Climate Project series, we explore the work of members of the Colby community who working to address this monumental environmental challenge.

No Going Back: Ground-Breaking Lab Sends Students To Balkan Route To Learn About Refugees--And Themselves, Arne Norris

Colby Magazine

A double major in global studies and anthropology with a minor in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, Powers was in Istanbul networking, scouring the city, making contacts with LGBTI refugees and activists, finding people to share their stories as part of a project at Colby, the Insurgent Mobilities Lab. The lab, involving more than a dozen students, is researching the dynamics of migration along the Balkan Route that hundreds of thousands of refugees have traveled in a grave effort to seek a better life in Northern Europe.

"Nice, Quiet Hand": The Creation And Navigation Of Feeling Rules In A Second Grade Classroom, Avery Munns

Honors Theses

Emotions are largely viewed as individual and internal, but in reality, emotions are socially situated. This project aims to use a sociology of emotions framework in order to explore how emotional expectations are created, maintained, and navigated within a classroom environment. Through a series of observations over the course of a month, I set out to answer questions surrounding which emotions were encouraged, which emotions were discouraged, and how both teachers and students created and navigated these feeling rules. Overall, I found that emotions were largely discouraged, especially through the overarching feeling rules of “be quiet” and “control your body.” …

Sailors’ Perceptions Of Offshore Wind Energy In The Northeastern United States, Henry Harris

Honors Theses

Offshore wind is an expanding form of renewable energy in the United States that will continue to grow through state and federal mandates. Offshore wind has often been met with criticism from a variety of ocean user groups and the academic literature has attempted to include the opinions of all user groups in order to improve policy making decisions. One of the biggest ocean user groups has been left out of the research, sailors. We investigated sailors’ perceptions of offshore wind in the Northeastern United States through a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews to provide context, hoping to answer the …

College Application Fee Effects On Applicant Volume, Diversity, And Academic Quality, Benjamin J. Smith

Honors Theses

I use U.S. News data spanning 2002-2019 on 200 U.S. liberal arts colleges to examine the effect of the application fee on four outcome variables: applications, nonwhite undergraduates, mean undergraduate SAT scores, and number of first- years from the top ten percent of their high school class. I find strong evidence that schools enroll more nonwhite students and have lower mean SAT scores in years when they do not charge an application fee, although there is no effect of the fee on first-years from the top ten percent of their high school class. Notably, I find that removing the application …

Social Capital Unmasced: The Role Of Social Capital In State-Level Economic Growth, Meredith H. Allen

Honors Theses

While the examination of social capital in social science research has expanded since the 1990s, little is known about its development over time or contributions to economic growth, particularly at the community level. I create a state-level index of social capital from 2008 to 2019 to analyze its evolution across the United States since the Great Recession. After analyzing the different rates of social capital improvement across the country, I then integrate the index in the production function and a growth accounting framework alongside capital and labor. I find that social capital is not only significant as a factor of …

‘The Robinhood Effect’ - Digital Technology In Global Financial Markets And Its Effects On Investor Decision Making, Ben Steib

Honors Theses

We are currently experiencing a revolution that is larger, arguably, than the industrial revolution, it’s the Internet, also known as the World Wide Web. The Internet has transformed how we live — how we talk, how we work, how we go about our daily business, and how we manage our finances on a global and individual level. In the late 1990s, an investor would search the World Wide Web and, within seconds, find 3,372 websites with the term "investment,” today, the same search for “investment” yields 1,860,000,000 results. Today, as proven with GameStop and other popular ‘meme stocks,’ social media, …

Gold Mining Districts And Path Dependence, Jason T. Dunn

Honors Theses

This paper applies quantitative spatial analysis to the long-term impact of Western gold rushes, studying the effect of 19th century US mineral districts on modern (2010) population density, as a proxy for long-term economic growth. OLS regression estimates show positive effects for areas adjacent to historic mining districts. Census tracts within 15 miles of a mineral district but not containing one are 29.8% more dense than other tracts. Additionally, capital-intensive/large-scale mining was more persistent than labor-intensive/small-scale methods, and path dependence is achieved mainly through agglomeration. This research corroborates historical arguments focusing on the development of Western infrastructure for long term …