Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Planting The Seeds Of Security: The Influence Of Agricultural Products On Food Security Levels In U.S. Counties, Vanessa R. Scalora

Business and Economics Honors Papers

The United States produces, imports, and widely distributes incredible amounts of food every day. Despite the country’s abundance and availability of food, a prevalence of people with low food security levels exists. In 2015, 42.2 million U.S. citizens, including children, lived in food insecure households. The source of food insecurity is complexly rooted in the mechanics of America’s economic and food systems. Understanding that the fundamental causes of food insecurity are systemic, this study focuses on the impact of one of these potential elements: agriculture. Using economic analysis, this research explores the relationship between various agriculture products and food insecurity …

Is The Dodd-Frank Act Destroying What Is Left Of U.S. Thrifts?, Scott Deacle

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

I examine data from 1992 to 2015 to assess the Dodd-Frank Act’s impact on the performance of U.S. depository institutions, thrifts in particular. Ceteris paribus, the average FDIC-regulated institution experienced a decline in profitability as measured by pre-tax return on assets (ROA) following the Act’s passage, but the decline was concentrated among commercial banks. Small thrifts increased pre-tax profitability, after controlling for other factors including weak economic growth. Depository institution loan quality improved after Dodd-Frank, less so for small thrifts but more so for large thrifts. Efficiency ratios, which regulatory costs affect, increased, more for thrifts than banks.

Ethnobiology In The City: Embracing The Urban Ecological Moment, Marla R. Emery, Patrick T. Hurley

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

More than half the world's human population resides in cities (United Nations Economic and Social Affairs Population Division 2015). Unpacking this singular statistic, it becomes clear that people come to live in urban environments via numerous routes. Some have lived in cities all their lives and are descendants of city dwellers. In other cases, cities spread and encircle them (Hurley et al. 2008; Unnikrishnan and Nagendra 2015). Increasingly, rural residents are national and transnational migrants to cities, pushed by armed conflict, natural disasters, and economic need or opportunity (United Nations Economic and Social Affairs Population Division 2013). In the case …

Federal Home Loan Bank Advances And Bank And Thrift Holding Company Risk: Evidence From The Stock Market, Scott Deacle, Elyas Elyasiani

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

Using bivariate GARCH models of stock portfolio returns and risk, we find that bank and thrift holding companies that relied the most on Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) advances exhibited less total risk and market risk than those that relied on them the least between 2001 and 2012. When we control for differences in holding company size, stock trading volume, residential mortgage lending, and holding company type (bank vs. thrift), the most FHLB-reliant holding companies sustain the aforesaid risk advantages except during the crisis of 2007–2009, when they exhibit greater idiosyncratic risk. The latter finding suggests that investors perceived the …

Art And Rebellion In Medea And Pleasantville, Annika Phillips

CIE Essay Writing Contest

No abstract provided.

A Macro Economic Approach To Gender Disparities In Hiring At The Ceo Level, Abigail R. Wood

Business and Economics Summer Fellows

More men named John run S&P 1500 companies than all women combined, causing many to wonder what factors are limiting women’s career advancement. While many studies have been written about the topic of women’s success in the business world, most focus on individual firms or positions and therefore miss macroeconomic factors such as women’s completion of master’s degree programs and labor force participation rates. This research examines the disparity of gender in CEO positions through the examination of macroeconomic data which captures women’s career trajectory and qualifications. This research specifically examines trends in women’s obtainment of master’s degrees in business …

Latent Semantic Indexing In The Discovery Of Cyber-Bullying In Online Text, Jacob L. Bigelow

Computer Science Summer Fellows

The rise in the use of social media and particularly the rise of adolescent use has led to a new means of bullying. Cyber-bullying has proven consequential to youth internet users causing a need for a response. In order to effectively stop this problem we need a verified method of detecting cyber-bullying in online text; we aim to find that method. For this project we look at thirteen thousand labeled posts from Formspring and create a bank of words used in the posts. First the posts are cleaned up by taking out punctuation, normalizing emoticons, and removing high and low …

Statistical Plight Of Black Women, Kimberly-Joy M. Walters

Sociology Summer Fellows

The purpose of this research is to examine how television shows and their portrayals of professional Black women impact the interpretation of marriage rates by race and perpetuate ideologies about the angry, unlovable Black woman. Using a content analysis of cable and network television shows with Black professional women as lead characters, this study connects an analysis of the characters’ lived experiences to normative expectations of Black women in relationships to call into question the prevailing narrative that Black women are in part personally responsible for their statistical plight. I will closely study how the two stereotypes, the Jezebel and …

Talk About Race In The Undergraduate Classroom: A Discourse Analysis, Leighnah L. Perkins

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

As researchers have noted, many people are afraid to talk about race (Alexander, 2010; Miller & Harris, 2005). Given the race-related events and tragedies occurring in the U.S. today, people need to find ways to move past this fear in order to work together to solve societal problems. Harris (2003) suggested that the undergraduate classroom is a key place to engage in discussions about race. This research project examined the ways that college students talk about race and race-related problems in the classroom. The data collected for this project included observations and audio recordings of three sections of a seminar …

Investigating Asylum And Assimilation Procedures In European Countries As It Relates To The Independence Of Women, Katherine R. Avetta

International Relations Summer Fellows

This project investigates and analyzes immigration policy, specifically focusing on asylum seeking women, in European countries including, but not limited to, Germany and Sweden. Many European nations have limited immigration policy that ultimately negatively affects immigrants from Middle Eastern and African nations, especially female migrants fleeing those nations in order to gain independence and freedom from torture and gender based persecutions. However, what little policy European countries do utilize inevitably hinders women from gaining independence and rather mirrors the male dominated socio-cultural societies from which these very women fled. Through the examination of articles and policy, this project will analyze …

What Is Magic To The Laveyan-Satanist Ideal Type?: A Content-Analysis Of The Satanic Bible’S Descriptions Of Magic, Carter E. Timon

Anthropology Summer Fellows

In 1966 Anton Szandor LaVey founded the Church of Satan (CoS) in California, and by 1969 published The Satanic Bible (1969). While many believe that the use of magic has declined in the Western world, LaVeyan Satanism according to The Satanic Bible actively includes magic while embracing rationalist philosophy. Satanism is an understudied New Religious Movement (NRM) and little is understood about its core tenets and practices. This paper uses content analysis of The Satanic Bible to understand how LaVey originally presents the workings of Satanic magic to his Western audience. Conclusions refer to the import of magic to the …

Jury Bias: Myth And Reality, Callie K. Terris

Politics Summer Fellows

Juries are often thought of as being fair and crucial to producing fair trials. Things such as scientific jury selection (SJS), peremptory challenges, jury size, and jury nullification skew jury verdicts by introducing biases that reflect the attitudes, characteristics, and behaviors of jurors. This paper demonstrates how bias is formed starting during the voir dire process and continuing until the rendering of a verdict. Each bias can lead to wrongful convictions such as conviction of the innocent or acquittal of the guilty. With a system that prides itself on the notion that justice is blind, the bias that is created …

Perceptions Surrounding Cyberbullying And Self-Disclosure Among The Lgbtq Community: A Qualitative Approach, Alec Martin

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

LGBTQ adolescents, like all youth, face challenges: the push for high academic marks, the desire for positive relationships, and the right to be themselves in a safe environment. Unfortunately, LGBTQ youths are far more likely than their heterosexual peers to experience bullying and cyberbullying. According to a 2005 study by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, the second largest cause of bullying was actual or presumed sexual orientation or identity. Gay males were more than twice as likely to be bullied on school property than their heterosexual peers, 43.1% and 18.3%, respectively (Olsen et al, 2014). In addition, 23.1% …

Female Moments / Male Structures: The Representation Of Women In Romantic Comedies, Jordan A. Scharaga

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again. With this formula it seems that romantic comedies are actually meant for men instead of women. If this is the case, then why do women watch these films? The repetition of female stars like Katharine Hepburn, Doris Day and Meg Ryan in romantic comedies allows audiences to find elements of truth in their characters as they grapple with the input of others in their life choices, combat the anxiety of being single, and prove they are less sexually naïve than society would like to admit. In 1999, a character struggles …

Have You Counted The Ingredients On Your Child's Lunch Tray?: An Economic Analysis Of Sustainability Initiatives Within The School Lunch Program, Vanessa R. Scalora

Business and Economics Summer Fellows

In 2010, President Obama signed the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, establishing a monetary incentive for schools that served meals following a more rigorous nutritional requirement than standard guidelines. This act is a step in the right direction towards placing more importance on school lunches, however America’s lunchroom practices continue to be environmentally unsustainable, and students absorb this message. The production and transportation of processed cafeteria food contributes to climate change, its packaging is polluting, and its consumption contributes to obesity. The use of premade foods and sales from vending machines increase as lunch times grow ever shorter. In addition, …

Detection Of Cyberbullying In Sms Messaging, Bryan W. Bradley

Computer Science Summer Fellows

Cyberbullying is a type of bullying that uses technology such as cell phones to harass or malign another person. To detect acts of cyberbullying, we are developing an algorithm that will detect cyberbullying in SMS (text) messages. Over 80,000 text messages have been collected by software installed on cell phones carried by participants in our study. This paper describes the development of the algorithm to detect cyberbullying messages, using the cell phone data collected previously. The algorithm works by first separating the messages into conversations in an automated way. The algorithm then analyzes the conversations and scores the severity and …

One Man's Reaction To Nato Expansion, Jamie M. Putnam

International Relations Honors Papers

Using the policy of NATO expansion and the events of the Ukraine crisis, this paper examines President Vladimir Putin’s impact on Russian foreign policy and analyzes the extent to which his personality and personal interests have shaped Russia’s actions. In doing so, it seems that Russia as an actor on the international stage cannot be understood without considering Putin’s role in creating what Russia is today.

Bosnia: Doomed To Failure Or A Rising Hope?, Caitlin V. Moore

Politics Honors Papers

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country that suffers from a lack of a national identity as it has three main ethnic groups, Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, who are all fighting for power. After the Bosnian war, which lasted from 1992-1995 and involved genocide that was committed against the Bosniaks, the ethnic divisions were further entrenched. These divisions were not helped by the provisions of the Dayton Peace Accords, which was the peace settlement that brought an end to the war. Dayton created an ethnocracy within Bosnia that places more importance on ethnic groups than national identity. In order to see …

Cost Of Debt And Federal Home Loan Bank Funding At U.S. Bank And Thrift Holding Companies, Scott Deacle, Elyas Elyasiani

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

We investigate the relationship between the cost of debt issued by bank holding companies (BHCs) and thrift holding companies (THCs) and their use of Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) advances. Cost of debt is used as a measure of bank riskiness for the first time in a FHLB study. A two-equation model of FHLB advances and cost of debt is estimated. Three main results are obtained. First, greater reliance on advances by BHCs and THCs is associated with lower cost of debt in the pre-crisis period, and more strongly so during the crisis, because granting of advances sends a positive …

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Grant Proposal, Jessame Ferguson

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This is the narrative written for the IMLS Sparks IL Framework Cooperative Project grant proposal. Through a partnership of five institutions led by McDaniel College, including Goucher College, Ursinus College, Washington College, and Washington & Jefferson College, we propose to develop best practices for ensuring information literacy education programs at smaller institutions support success and persistence of at-risk students in their critical first-year. We will use the newly adopted Association of College & Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education to develop and test new assessment methodologies and engaging educational experiences for first-year students. The project will take …

Reparations For Racism: Why The Persistence Of Institutional Racism In America Demands More Than Equal Opportunity For Black Citizens, Alexander Lowe

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Anime And Identity: The Reception Of Sailor Moon By Adolescent American Fans, Darrah M. Hewlett

East Asian Studies Summer Fellows

This project looks at the way fans think, talk, and feel about the anime they watch and the manga they read. Specifically, it looks at fans of Sailor Moon, a series of Japanese anime and manga made in the 1990s that have been dubbed and translated into English and have been met with an enthusiastic reception among girls and young women in the United States. Sailor Moon is considered one of the first mass cultural productions to present images of girl power and gender equality and has generated a large and enthusiastic online community of fans. Most of its …

Classifying Political Similarity Of Twitter Users, William K. Paustian

Computer Science Summer Fellows

The emergence of large scale social networks has led to research in approaches to classify similar users on a network. While many such approaches use data mining techniques, recent efforts have focused on measuring the similarity of users using structural properties of the underlying graph representing the network. In this paper, we identify the Twitter followers of the 2016 presidential candidates and classify them as Democrat, Republican or Bipartisan. We did this by designing a new approach to measuring structural similarity, PolRANK. PolRANK computes the similarity of a pair of users by accounting for both the number of candidates they …

Urban Foraging Social Meetups In Philadelphia, Pa, Kristin G. Mcgillis

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

Urban foraging is the practice in which city residents gather plants and plant parts from green spaces—such as parks, sidewalks, or yards—to use for a variety of reasons. Research on the practice is in its early stages, with key questions in need of further research, including who participates, why they participate, and how they initially engage the practice. Existing research suggests most foragers consume what they gather for food, however, many also use materials for medicinal or craft-related purposes. Foraging meet-up tours appear to be a popular way for urban dwellers to learn about and engage in this practice. This …

Divided Scholarship Over Divided Government: Why Do The President And Congress Seem Unable To Work Together?, Nicholas J. Mcintyre

Politics Summer Fellows

David Mayhew’s book Divided We Govern (1991, 2005) has profoundly affected the way political scientists not only study but also understand “divided government” in American national politics. By analyzing hundreds of congressional statutes enacted during periods of both divided and unified government, Mayhew showed that divided government is not as bad as often thought. The scholarly response to Mayhew’s book has continued to reshape how divided government is perceived and studied by considering the role of other aspects of our political system that Mayhew overlooked, such as the formation of party coalitions in times of divided and unified government, the …

Keeping Pace: The U.S. Supreme Court And Evolving Technology, Brian Thomas

Politics Summer Fellows

Contemporary mainstream discussions of the Supreme Court are often qualified with the warning that the nine justices are out of touch with everyday American life, especially when it comes to the newest and most popular technologies. For instance, during oral argument for City of Ontario v. Quon, a 2010 case that dealt with sexting on government-issued devices, Chief Justice John Roberts famously asked what the difference was “between email and a pager,” and Justice Antonin Scalia wondered if the “spicy little conversations” held via text message could be printed and distributed. While these comments have garnered a great deal of …

The Spectacle Of Black Violence: Historicizing Worldstarhiphop.Com, Caylon Fowlkes

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Have you ever watched, and possibly laughed, at videos of Blacks fighting? You’re not the only one. Worldstarhiphop.com was created in 2005; it is an online hub for “everything” in regards to hip hop culture. This includes sports highlights and new rap artists as well as “crazy fights” mainly between Black people. The videos are primarily made by Blacks and exploited by many. The purpose of this project is to investigate the attraction society has to the behavior of black youth. There are many things that contribute to this phenomenon of violence occurring among black youth. I have chosen to …

The Association Of Different Types Of Bullying With The Mental Health Of Children And Teens From The United States, France, And Canada, Christina Fisher

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Bullying continues to trouble youths around the world, sometimes with devastating effects for victims’ mental health. This suggests an ongoing need for awareness, intervention and tolerance for everyone involved. This study, a literature review, explored the extent of these mental health effects found in 50 studies of victims, bullies, and bully-victims, those who are victims of bullying and who also bully others, in the United States, France, and Canada (Willard, 2007). Particular attention was paid to the impact that gender, age, ethnicity, and the LGBTQ community had on researchers’ findings. Findings show that 25.9% to 33% of students in these …

Decriminalizing Mental Illness: The Need For Treatment Over Incarceration Before Prisons Become The New Asylums For The Mentally Ill, Rebecca L. Brown

Psychology Summer Fellows

Currently, US prisons are home to 10 times more mentally ill individuals than state psychiatric hospitals. Instead of treating those with mental illness, an extremely vulnerable population is being thrown behind bars. Mental illness is often exacerbated during incarceration, leaving inmates much sicker than when they entered. Moreover, upon discharge mentally ill inmates have virtually no support, making recidivism almost inevitable. This lack of treatment has devastating consequences for the mentally ill as well as the community at large. Removing the mentally ill from jails and prisons would reduce recidivism, increase public safety and save money.

The current research explores …

Impaired Executive Function In Concussed Athletes, Marisa Gretz

Neuroscience Summer Fellows

Concussions are classified as mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI). An individual that has sustained a concussion will experience symptoms such as nausea, possible memory loss, blurry vision, or loss of balance. Most symptoms subside within a few days, but a large pool of research raises concern for the recovery of executive function, specifically impulse control. Executive function relates to all tasks that require deliberate attention. Past research has shown adolescents record the highest number of sports concussions when compared to collegiate and professional athletes. The frontal lobe, which controls executive function, is not fully developed during the time of adolescence. …