Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Relationship Between Fatalities In Police Violence And Their Identifying Characteristics: Age, Gender, Race, And Region, Yuechu Hu

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2024

Police violence, highlighted by the George Floyd incident in 2020, has intensified concerns about police brutality and perceived racism in U.S. law enforcement (AP News, 2022). Therefore, we intend to analyze Fatal Encounters data, which documents non-police deaths that occur in the presence of the police in the United States. By creating statistical tables and graphs, as well as applying time-series methods, classification and regression trees, and a multinomial logistic regression model, we find that males and transgender people are more likely than females to encounter victimization during police brutality enforcement for any cause of death. Victims older than 19 …

K-12 Education Fostering White Fragility, Ashley Johnson

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2023

Scholars such as Carol Anderson (2017) and Joe Feagin (1994; 2006) have written extensively about the prevalence of white rage and systemic racism in contemporary society. We are seeing this played out in real time with Florida Governor De Santis trying to enact legislation to remove discussions of African American history and block dialogues about racism in schools. Robin DiAngelo (2019) explains “white fragility” as blaming “others with less social power for their discomfort” (109). DiAngelo and others have asserted that efforts, such as that of Governor De Santis, reinforce white fragility in schools. Specifically, curricula and instructional materials that …

Stevens County Food Assessment, Ed Brands, Danny Kenyon, Torin Klebba, Allison Koos, Argie Manolis, Lily Sugimura

Center for Small Towns

This report is the culmination of a year-long community food assessment conducted by staff, students, and faculty at the University of Minnesota Morris, and informed by an advisory council made up of key local stakeholders. The main goal of the community food assessment is to describe food security in Stevens County at both community and individual scales.

This assessment examines what food is grown in the county, what food is available, where food can be obtained in various forms, accessibility and affordability of food, as well as county residents’ experiences with and thoughts and suggestions about food. Findings summarized below …

Environmental Political Theory: Georgia, Sophie Wieland

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2022

Perceptions of the environment are based on individuals’ experiences and values. This work, in the subfield of environmental political theory, seeks to understand why people hold the environmental beliefs that they do. Through a literature review, the beliefs of two hypothetical citizens of the country of Georgia were deduced based on the economic, political, and environmental history of Georgia. I hypothesized the likely values and experiences of an Azeri pharmacist and Georgian casino dealer, concluding that the power structure of Georgia would privilege the Georgian casino dealer. The Azeri pharmacist is likely of a lower socioeconomic status, is more tied …

The Effects Of Expectation Violations In The Workplace: Why Do Fresh Graduates And New Employees Leave?, Yingluo Zhu

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2022

For years, recent graduates and new employees have been faced with a work environment that is different from their expectations when they first choose a job or enter the workforce. The factors that new employees perceive as violating their expectations in the workplace may cause employees to lose interest in their careers, decrease job satisfaction, lose the momentum of completing work, and even wish to leave their jobs. This study was conducted through a questionnaire and quantitative analysis, applying expectancy violations theory (EVT) to recent graduates and new employers who are preparing or just starting their careers. Both the participants’ …

Interpreting Settler Infrastructure In Stevens County, Minnesota: Gager's Station And The Post Dakota-Us War Of 1862 Frontier, Mitchell Kane Hancock

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2022

Gager's Station is a little known, but formative settler infrastructure project from the 1860s in west-central Minnesota. Gager's Station was situated along both an important military supply route, and lands of significant importance to the Indigenous people of the area. Gager's Station bears several similarities to the scout camps and civilian defense forts in the broader Fort Wadsworth network that provided civilian defense to new homesteaders following the Dakota-US War of 1862. Fort Wadsworth served as another goal post in western expansion of the United States. Further, the networks of forts that supported it appeased the anxious settlers who feared …

Constitution Day Event 2020, Leann Dean, Roland Guyotte, Tim Lindberg, Roger Rose

Special Events

The Constitution Day Event was held on September 15, 2020 and was presented by LeAnn Dean, Roland Guyotte, Tim Lindberg, and Roger Rose.

Included here are Roger Rose's powerpoint presentation titled: The Constitution: Why Our Shared Values are Important, LeAnn Dean's remarks, and Roland Guyotte's remarks.

An Examination Of Two Types Of Identity Achievement, Emily Kuehn, Maggie Schauff, Oscar Baldelomar

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2019

Marcia’s ethnic identity status model (MEIM) emphasizes an independent process of identity formation where adolescents choose a differing identity from influencing authorities, similar to changing religions from what one’s parents believe to another. Phinney & Baldelomar (2011) modified this approach to balance individualistic and collectivistic identity outcomes. This modified approach uses the AMIS (Adaptive Measure of Identity Statuses), which classifies participants into statuses including two types of identity achievements: interdependent/collectivistic and independent/individualistic identity outcomes. The AMIS is a self-guided questionnaire that provides follow-up questions based on past answers. We examined the validity of the AMIS against the MEIM’s scores on …

Domestic Violence And Its Impact On Children, Charles D. Hassinger

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2019

Domestic violence (DV) is an ongoing phenomenon, detrimentally affecting society. Often, women suffer as direct victims of DV, but children who witness DV also experience adverse effects in these settings. For a single day in 2018, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services reported, “19,673 children found safe-refuge in domestic violence emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, with another 5,888 children receiving non-residential services with their abused parent”. Research studies in the fields of Human Services, Sociology and Psychology have not fully explored this element of the family relationship. In my review, so far, I have learned that the …

Social Class And Its Affects On Childhood Bereavement, Connor Kirwan

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2019

I propose that the treatment and coping of bereavement among children depends on their social class. I researched and analyzed secondary sources and cited existing related literature studying childhood bereavement in the United States as well as the effect that social class has on it. I argue that social class greatly determines children’s experiences of bereavement as well as the struggles and dynamics that change within the family due to differing financial situations, emotional availability and responsiveness of the surviving parent, and ability to adapt to take on a new role in the family.

Responding To The Child Care Shortage: Case Studies Of Innovation In Greater Minnesota, Nathan Bean

Center for Small Towns

This report features seven accessible case studies that highlight different community approaches to increasing child care access. The case studies are built on information gained from interviews with those involved in the efforts. Each case has “key words” that allow readers to quickly understand its context and model. The cases highlight the shortages that led to community efforts, what assets were available, and why communities chose the solutions they did. The options available to each community look different because of their unique assets, but the report synthesizes valuable insights that may be useful for others looking for solutions. Some of …

The Effectiveness Of The Commercial Driver Medical Examination In Screening For Hypertension, Yutao Li

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2018

The Commercial Driver Medical Examination (CDME) is used to assess the medical fitness of a driver to safely operate a commercial motor vehicle. Hypertension is a disease that has been shown in prior research to cause reduced driving safety performance when not properly managed, and it is therefore important that medical examiners be able to consistently identify it in drivers. However, the CDME has historically been ineffective at screening drivers with safety-related diseases. For example, a report from the US Government Accountability Office showed the existence of a substantial number of drivers who were deemed eligible by the federal government …

Conquering Gender Stereotypes One Football At A Time, Rani Bezanson

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2018

In the U.S., gender stereotypes in sports are real. As a result, women who are involved with professional sports, either as players or have professional positions face negative stereotypes. When women have coaching positions, they feel unsupported from administrators and colleagues, which has a direct impact on their involvement and prove their credibility at their jobs (LaFountaine and Kamphoff 2016). My thesis here is that there is a relationship between the impact of negative stereotypes for women who are active in sports and their involvement. For, they do not receive sufficient support. The hypothesis, taken from the above thesis, is …

The Impacts Of Family Support On The Victims Of Sex Trafficking Seeking Professional Care, Charles D. Hassinger

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2018

According to the Polaris Project, the International Labor Organization estimates currently 4.5 million people are victims of human trafficking globally (2018). My project investigates the intersection of conventional health professionals’ treatments for the victims of sex trafficking and the role of supportive family in helping victims reintegrate into mainstream society. My thesis is, that there is, for victims to recover, a relationship between strong family support and professional health care. My research questions are: 1) Is there a relationship between strong family support of victims and successful reintegration into the mainstream of society after professional health care? 2) Will the …

Treating The Opioid Crisis: Assessing Programs To Address Overdose Deaths In West Virginia, Ruby Debellis

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2018

Problem Statement: Too many people in West Virginia are dying from opioid overdose.

West Virginia’s current policies and regulations are insufficient in addressing the opioid epidemic. West Virginia had the highest rate of overdose deaths in the country in 2016, that being 881 or 52 deaths per 100,000 people (“Drug Overdose Death Data”, 2017), and it is costing the state an estimated $8.8 billion per year (Eyre, 2018a). To address this issue, four different policy alternatives have been formulated in an attempt to decrease the number of opioid overdose deaths in West Virginia. These alternatives are allowing current trends to …

Family Influence On Chinese International Students’ Sense Of Coherence, Yiwen Zhang

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2017

As the number of Chinese international students rapidly increases in U.S. colleges, it becomes important to understand the factors that contribute to their mental health, especially during their first semester of adjustment to the new culture. This study tested the hypothesis that: family condition predicts Chinese International Students’ Sense of Coherence (SOC), the overall capacity of handling tension derived from life stressors, with adaptation performance works as a mediation during their first semester. Data collection sessions were conducted for a collage-based cohort of 43 freshman Chinese international students at the beginning and at the end of their first semester. Participants …

Maternal Autonomy And Child Health Care Utilization: Evidence From Bangladesh, Ashiqul Alam

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2017

My research looked into the relationship between maternal autonomy and how child health care is utilized in third world countries. I worked with my professor, Dr. Bibhudutta Panda, to specifically look at Bangladesh as our country of interest. The country itself is smaller than Florida but is ranked number 8 for the most populated country. In Bangladesh the infant mortality rate is 6 times more than the US, at 30.7 per 1000 live births and government expenditure is also low. The main reason behind to pick Bangladesh is also that it is a third world country and also a patriarchal …

Best Practices For Online Tutorials In Academic Libraries, Kari Haynes

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2017

In a world that is increasingly dependent on technology, libraries must find ways to harness this tool to stay relevant to the communities they serve. For example, Briggs Library offers onsite training as well as online tutorials to reach all types of users. The purpose of my literature review and research was to identify the best practices for online. This was achieved by locating academic sources that described how other university libraries created effective online tutorials. I came to the conclusion that effective online tutorials meet diverse student learning needs by using similar teaching strategies. Furthermore, the various universities made …

Asexual-Identified People’S Interactions With Health Care Practitioners, Shelby Flanagan

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2017

People who identify as asexual use this label because, rather than a sexual orientation like “heterosexual,” “homosexual”, or “bisexual,” which labels attraction by gender, they experience a lack of sexual attraction. Previous psychological research on the topic asexuality is limited, but one conclusion agreed upon by several studies is that people who identify as asexual differ from those diagnosed with hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in several ways, the most notable of which is that asexual people were shown typically to have little or no distress related to their lack of sexual desire, whereas distress is a key part of …

Morris Public Library Expansion And Renovation Survey, Kelly Asche, Ai Sano, Taylor Vetsch

Center for Small Towns

The Library is exploring expansion and renovation options and sought public feedback on the role the library building and programming plays in the community. CST assisted in developing a survey which gather this information and is being used in the development of additional programming and as guidance in the development of expansion and renovation plans.

Views On Identity And Services: English-Speaking Morris Residents Consider Latino Immigration, Christina Nyquist, Hannah Wahstrom

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2016

According to the US Census Bureau, the Latino population of Stevens County increased by almost 300% from 2000 to 2010. Previous research in the Morris community focused on the concerns of the Latino population and education staff at Morris public schools. This project examines the perspectives and experiences of English-dominant Morris residents, particularly civic leaders and business owners, to better understand how they view their communities and the changes taking place. Our project conducted 15 semi-structured interviews where questions focused on how participants understand their own identities, their knowledge about and interaction with the Morris Latino population, and the challenges …

Women And Drug Abuse: Applying A Gendered Lens To Treatment Programs, Taylor D. Montbriand

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2016

At present, the body of research on chemical dependency programs does not adequately address gendered barriers to treatment. A gendered approach is needed to conceptualize and address women’s experiences with addiction as distinctive from that of men. A gendered approach sheds light on how gender plays a role in the entrance, continuance, and success of women in treatment programs for chemical dependency. In my research, I argue that applying a gendered lens will lay the groundwork for addressing women’s specific needs in regards to substance abuse treatment. The research design for this project utilizes an analysis of existing secondary sources. …

The Impacts Of Agriculture On Small Mammals In Prehistoric Southern Arizona, Laura Borkenhagen

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2016

Agriculture was first introduced to the Tucson Basin of Arizona during the Formative period (also known as the Early Agricultural period) around 2000 BC. During the Classic period (AD 750–950), the later Hohokam people developed large-scale riverine irrigation systems. Despite the size and numbers of excavations that have been conducted at Hohokam sites, it is still unclear when the Hohokam developed a sedentary lifestyle and the degree to which they impacted the environment around them. One way to answer these questions is to look at the effects of human activity on animals, particularly whether anthropogenic environmental changes established new ecological …

Academic Success And Christian Affiliation In College, Eden M. Broberg, Mathea J. Krogstad

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2015

The goal of our study was to provide a more thorough understanding of the relationship between religious attitudes and academic success, and will provide direction for future research in this domain. Our research examined the relationship between Christianity, academic achievement, and mediating variables in college-aged students. Past studies regarding religion and academic success have found that in some communities, academic success is positively correlated with religious involvement. However, these studies primarily looked at academic success in relation to involvement in a religious community, and not to personal attitudes regarding religion. To gain a better understanding of the role of personal …

Constructing Health Together: Validating Knowledge In The Implementation Of Community Health Initiatives, Allison L. Wolf

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2015

In the field of public health, peer-reviewed publications using randomized control trials are held in the highest regard. Unfortunately, for many members of the general public, peer-reviewed publications don't offer practical solutions to their community’s public health concerns. Additionally, when the two communities come together, conflict can arise from unequal perceptions of their own values, goals, and resources. Through the implementation and promotion of community-based participatory research (CBPR), academics and community members can produce public health outcomes that simultaneously benefit scholarly goals and practical applications when their knowledge bases are validated. The conflicts between academics and communities center around perceived …

Exploring Reasons For The Persistence Of Girl-Child Marriage In Nigeria, Oluwatomisin Bello

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2015

Child marriage, here, is defined as marriage after the onset of puberty but before age 18. This is a problem particularly for adolescent girls, although it affects boys as well. Although the Child’s Right Act passed in Nigeria in 2003 defines the legal minimum age of marriage as 18 and thus criminalizes child marriage, child marriage is still occurring in various parts of the country. The problem of girl-child marriage in Nigeria is significant because it is a leading cause of reproductive health issues, specifically obstetric fistulas. Acknowledging the latter, one pressing question remains, “Why is child marriage continuing?” In …

Highway 68 Corridor -- Public Input On Safety And Transit, Michael Lindgren, Neil Linscheid, Kelly Asche

Center for Small Towns

The University of Minnesota, Morris | Center for Small Towns worked with the Highway 68 Corridor Coalition to gather input from citizens and publicly available data relating to safety and transportation issues along Highway 68 from Canby to Marshall, MN. The compiled information in this report will be used to inform the Minnesota Department of Transportation concerning future changes to the Highway.

Attitudes Towards Drug And Alcohol Use: Culture And Emerging Adulthood, Sam Daniewicz

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2014

This study examined attitudes toward drug and substance use during emerging adulthood (18-26 years of age), a stage of the life span that works as a transition into adulthood and is defined by exploration and openness. Since drug and substance use among emerging adults is often a subject of current debates, it is important that more research is done about why young people think of certain drugs the way they do. Specifically, this study focused on how perceptions of drug and substance abuse are related to cultural values (individualism/collectivism) during emerging adulthood. To accomplish this goal, attitudes towards drugs in …

Moving Ahead By Thinking Backwards, Conner Lewis, Amanda Wiener

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2014

Although some research exists regarding collegiate GPAs, little is known about which individual student characteristics predict college graduation. We study 100 students from the University of Minnesota Morris. Information collected includes demographics, standard personality traits (known in Psychology as the “Big Five”), two economic preferences (risk aversion and patience), and three cognitive skills (numeracy, non-verbal IQ, “Hit15”).“Hit 15” is a game played against the computer in which each player must add 1, 2, or 3 on each turn. Winning is exactly hitting fifteen first; players take turns going first and the starting point total varies (game theory calls solving this …

Economic Underpinning Of Renaissance Italian Art, Katherine Jacobson

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2014

In 1902, art historian, Aby Warburg, asserted that in Renaissance Italy, "works of art owed their making to the mutual understanding between patrons and artists. The works were, from the outset, the results of a negotiation between client and executant". This research seeks to examine patronage relationships in the context of politically fragmented Renaissance Italy to further our understanding of art's ability to promote political, ideological, or religious agendas. By referencing renowned works of art from the Italian Renaissance, I attempt to identify the significance of using culture and art as a rhetorical tool, rather than other more direct avenues, …