Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

St. Cloud Area Quarterly Business Report, Vol. 23, No. 4, King Banaian, Richard A. Macdonald

St. Cloud Area Quarterly Business Report

The economic recovery from the unrelenting COVID shock continues in the St. Cloud area as firms report an optimistic future outlook and employment grows. However, underlying this optimism are increases in wages, prices, capital expenditures, and worker shortages that may prove unsustainable in a post-COVID economy. Strong future optimism by surveyed firms is restrained by the reality that monetary and fiscal stimulus is abating perhaps faster than the pandemic.

Data released by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) indicate St. Cloud area employment increased 2% over the twelve months ending October 2021, but still 4,493 (4%) below …

Primed To Fire: An Archaeological Study Of The Percussion Caps At Historic Fort Snelling (21he99), Spencer Fehr

Culminating Projects in Cultural Resource Management

The goal in undertaking this thesis project was to examine percussion caps recovered from Historic Fort Snelling to try and better understand weapon utilization, their association with structures and activity areas at the fort, and potential availability. Located at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers near St. Paul, Minnesota the fort was built in the early 1800s to assert the United States’ political and economic objectives in the region. Over its tenure the fort has had a long history of service, with mission objectives constantly changing over the years. The fort was key to the foundation of Minnesota …

St. Cloud Area Quarterly Business Report, Vol. 23, No. 3, King Banaian, Richard A. Macdonald

St. Cloud Area Quarterly Business Report

St. Cloud area economic recovery has begun as year-over-year regional employment has grown and surveyed local firms project strong business activity. While the pandemic appears to have created scars in the local economy that plague some of our local service sectors, many area firms continue to report challenges that are typically associated with rapid expansion—labor shortages, price increases, accelerating wage growth, etc. Data released by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) indicate St. Cloud area employment increased 4.3 percent over the twelve months ending July 2021. However, employment in the Stearns-Benton Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is still …

Analysis Of Yellow Brick Recovered At Manlick Farm Site, Olivia Schomer

SCSU Journal of Student Scholarship

Bricks have served as the foundation for structures like homes and farmsteads for thousands of years. Discovering brick at a potential archaeological site can help indicate the past presence of a structure. There are several different types of brick, which can help archaeologists determine the context surrounding the buildings and structures from which they were built. Most brick that is found at archaeological sites is red brick, which is the type of brick most people think of when discussing brick buildings and foundations. Yellow brick, however, was discovered at the Manlick site in Belle Prairie, Minnesota, possibly indicating a past …

When The Good Times Gave Out: The Community Impacts Of The 1980s Farm Crisis In Central Minnesota, Michelle R. Skroch

SCSU Journal of Student Scholarship

The farms and rural communities of Stearns County Minnesota were not spared from the 1980s farm crisis. People in this region experienced the strain of financial stress and reacted to it in distinct ways. This affected the long-term sentiments and societal functioning of these communities long after the economic numbers improved.

These collective and individual experiences of the farm crisis have been inadequately studied therefore scholars have incorrectly assumed that the effects of the crisis ended in 1986 when the economic market showed an upturn. Instead, the effects continued to cause stagnation and a diminishing of rural communities and people …

St. Cloud Area Quarterly Business Report, Vol. 23, No. 2, King Banaian, Richard Macdonald

St. Cloud Area Quarterly Business Report

The St. Cloud area economy is poised to exit recession as a variety of indicators suggest a broad-based recovery is on the horizon. While year-over-year data comparisons are now complicated by the historic decline in economic activity that occurred twelve months ago, there are signs that the pace of local economic activity continues to improve for many area firms. The pandemic has created scars in the local economy that will likely persist for months and years to come, but many area firms now seem to be experiencing challenges that are typically associated with rapid expansion—labor shortages, price increases, accelerating wage …

Book Announcement: Relevant Acoustic Phonetics Of L2 English Focus On Intelligibility, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Acoustic Phonetic Evidence Of Masking Between [Ʌ] And [Ɔ] In Central Minnesota English, Ettien Koffi, Connor Hanzsek-Brill

Linguistic Portfolios

Since the Great Vowel Shift began in the 1400s, English vowels have been in a state of flux (Fromkin et al. 2017:331). Labov et al. (2006) have documented two macrolevel shifts in North American English: The Northern Cities Shift and The Southern Shift. At a microlevel, vowel shifts are happening in various regions of the US, as amply described in Wolfram and Ward (2006). However, vowel shifts in Minnesota English are poorly documented, except for stereotypical portrayals in popular culture. A shift involving [ʌ] and [ɔ] is quietly underway. It drew our attention only because of a misunderstanding between a …

An Acoustic Phonetic Analysis Of Three Tonally Contrastive Grammatical Moods In Anyi: Orthographic Implications - A Festschrift In Honor Of Rev. Dr. Gilbert Ansre, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

It is an honor to write this paper for Dr. Gilbert Ansre’s festschrift. He was my mentor when I was doing my Ph.D. in linguistics. In the summers, the United Bible Societies would send me to study under him as a translation-consultant in training. He challenged me and coached me in applying theoretical linguistics concepts to real life language problems. When I received my Ph.D. and joined him in Togo, West Africa, he congratulated me saying, “Now, you are going to do real linguistics." This was an absurd statement at first, but over the years, I keep discovering its …

An Acoustic Phonetic Investigation Of The Similarities And Differences Between Northern And Central Minnesota English, Ettien Koffi, Michel Lopez-Backstrom

Linguistic Portfolios

Northern Minnesota English is a dialect that is suspected to be perceptually different from other Minnesota dialects (Bartholdi 2015). The current study seeks to investigate whether there is any acoustic phonetic evidence to prove and/or disprove these impressionistic claims. To do this, acoustic data was collected from twenty participants from Northern Minnesota who uttered 11 different English vowels ([i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ, ɑ, ɔ, o, ʊ, u, ʌ]). Those utterances were then compared and contrasted with vowel sounds uttered by 32 Central Minnesota English speakers, which were originally collected by Koffi (2013). The findings from this study confirm the …

Vowel Intelligibility Analysis Of Female Saudi Spoken English, Mahdi Duris

Linguistic Portfolios

This article describes the acoustic characteristics of female Saudi-accented English vowels and uses acoustic phonetic measurements to assess the intelligibility of their vowels. Peterson & Barney’s (1952) and Hillenbrand et al.’s (1995) methodology is slightly modified. Whereas their studies extracted various measurements, including F1 and F2 of vowels in General American English (GAE), the current study examines measurements extracted from 11 monophthong phonemic English vowels in running speech produced by 23 female Saudi EFL teachers. Intelligibility assessments of their vowels are based on Koffi’s (2019) Acoustic Masking and Intelligibility (AMI) theory. He contends that intelligibility of vowels can be measured …

A Comprehenisve Review Of The Acoustic Correlate Of Duration And Its Linguistic Implications, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

Speech is a three-dimensional physical entity that consists of F0/pitch, intensity, and duration. This paper is the last of three publications devoted to a comprehensive review of the aforementioned correlates. Koffi (2019) and Koffi (2020) focused on F0/Pitch and intensity respectively. The current study is devoted entirely to duration. The goal behind these comprehensive reviews is to assemble in a single paper as much information as possible so that speech data can be interpreted accurately in accordance with acoustic phonetics, engineering, and speech signal processing norms. With regard to duration, first, it must be noted that its measurements are to …

Editor's Prologue: Welcome To The 10th Volume, Ettien Koffi

Linguistic Portfolios

No abstract provided.

St. Cloud Metro Area Visitor Profile & Economic Impact Final Report Summer 2019-Winter 2020, Kristy Modrow, Brigid Tuck, Pengyu Qian, Hungchih Yu, Andrea Haataja

St. Cloud Metro Area Visitor Profile Study

This report is a summation of results from fall summer 2019, fall 2019, and winter 2020 St. Cloud Metro Area Visitor Profile Surveys.

In 2019, the St. Cloud City Hall, St. Cloud Area Convention and Visitor Bureau, and Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) contracted with St. Cloud State University School of Public Affairs, Geography & Planning Department, and the Hospitality and Tourism Program to conduct a visitor profile survey from summer 2019 to spring 2020. Spring 2020 area events and airport travel were suspended due to COVID-19, thus concluding the study. Therefore, the fourth seasonal report could not be …

St. Cloud Area Quarterly Business Report, Vol. 23, No. 1, King Banaian, Richard Macdonald

St. Cloud Area Quarterly Business Report

Revised data released by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) indicate St. Cloud area employment declined 6.5 percent over the twelve months ending January 2021. Area employment was 7,097 lower than one year earlier as the local recession continues into its second year. The pandemic has adversely affected nearly all local sectors—only the local construction center has experienced job growth over the past year. Ninety percent of the impact was felt in approximately one-half of area employment. For example, employment in the local leisure & hospitality sector was one-third lower over the past twelve months and the …

School Of Public Affairs 2020 Annual Report, Danae Swanson

School of Public Affairs Annual Reports

The School of Public Affairs’ annual report presents a magazine-style look back at the school’s year. Contents include the stories and accomplishments of current students, alumni, faculty, and other community partnerships. It also celebrates the generous giving of donors. A limited amount of print copies are produced and mailed to constituents. Support and collaboration of the annual report is regularly given by University Communications, the St. Cloud State University Foundation, St. Cloud State University Alumni Relations, University Archives, and the Departments of Criminal Justice, Economics, Geography & Planning, and Political Science.

Note: The School of Public Affairs annual report evolved …

University Chronicle [January 2021], St. Cloud State University

Chronicle

St. Cloud State University student newspaper, volume 96, issue 4, January 2021

Developing A University Children’S Collection For Pre-Service Teachers Using Placid, Jennifer Hill

Teacher Development Faculty Publications

Not all academic librarians who oversee children’s collections for pre-service teachers have backgrounds in K-12 education. To develop a robust collection, the St. Cloud State University library reached out to an assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Development to help weed their children’s literature collection and recommend new titles because of their dual expertise with both libraries and schools. This commentary paper will outline the development of a children’s collection for pre-service teachers from the perspective of a faculty member with school library media expertise using an acronym they have deemed as PLACID: Pleasure, Levels, Awards, Curriculum, Illustrations, Diversity.