Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Noteworthy, Meredith Harrigan, Patrick Montanaro

Noteworthy

Noteworthy recounts Merry's journey to understand her grief in losing her smile. She explores her community park and discovers solace and inspiration in sights and sounds along the way.

Through a unique blend of critical autoethnography, parable, collage, and visual art, this book captures the intricacy, complexity, and fluidity of navigating a difficult experience, and engages readers in exploring how human and natural elements in combination with the arts, sciences, and humanities might pave a path to self-acceptance during times of difficult change.

Noteworthy Expanded: Creating Spaciousness In Higher Education, Meredith Harrigan, Patrick Montanaro

Noteworthy

Noteworthy Expanded: Creating Spaciousness in Higher Education builds on the story of Noteworthy, adding in education-related reflections, inquiries, discoveries, and the new practices they inspired. It builds on Merry's story to explore the intertwined personal and professional journey the author traversed. Alongside the story is a notebook that presents a combination of jottings, drawings, and reflections, and tangible examples of changes and expansion in the undergraduate classroom throughout this journey.

Can Industrial Agriculture Be Resilient To External Shocks? Industrial Agriculture In Diversified Clusters In Rural China, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zhanping Hu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We propose a new model – “industrial agriculture of smallholders” – to conceptualize the agri-food system in China. These smallholders are embedded in “diversified clusters” in rural China, which also include rural industries and extensive rural-urban linkages. Their relationships with markets are more complex and dynamic than what is often portrayed under the linear framework of “commodity chains”. As an alternative to the globalized model of industrial agriculture, we argue that “industrial agriculture of smallholders” has greater resilience to external shocks. Using a village in northern China during the COVID-19 pandemic, we illustrate how economic diversity within this “diversified cluster” …

New Policy Tools And Traditional Policy Models: Better Understanding Behavioural, Digital And Collaborative Instruments, Michael Howlett, Sarah Giest, Ishani Mukherjee, Araz Taeihagh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The study of policy tools has been undertaken for several decades. This work has isolated and examined many different types of instruments or levers utilized by governments to implement their policies and examined in detail how they are arranged into mixes, packages, or portfolios of tools. However, recent developments in society and technology have highlighted the potential to use new or previously underutilized policy instruments for both traditional tasks and to address new challenges associated with emerging technologies and other contemporary issues. These tools include social media platforms, collaboration, behavioral insights, and data-driven approaches to policy-making and policy design using …

“Everybody Else Seems To Be Able To Get Help”: Rural Regulation, Access Loss, And Antigovernment Sentiment, Jennifer Sherman

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay draws upon two decades of the author’s research on rural United States communities to explicate ways in which the regulatory state has intervened in rural areas and economies, often with the claim of protecting land, natural resources, and/or wildlife. The outcomes are frequently disastrous for the human populations of those communities and generally are not planned for or mitigated by policy. The Essay argues that rural distrust of and aversion to government oversight is not caused primarily by ideological or cultural stances, but rather is an outcome of experiences of abandonment by the agencies that are meant to …

How Seeing Rural America As A Commons Can (Re)Build Mutual Respect Across The Rural-Urban Divide, Lisa R. Pruitt

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay, written for a symposium that honors and amplifies Ann Eisenberg’s 2024 book, Reviving Rural America: Toward Policies for Resilience, contemplates benefits that could flow from taking seriously Eisenberg’s conceptualization of rural America as a commons. In particular, I argue that the mutual respect and collaboration necessary for a successful commons could help heal the rural-urban rift, which has widened dramatically in the last few decades. Recent studies suggest that rural residents have what scholars call a rural consciousnesses, which means that living in a rural place is a key aspect of their identity. One feature of this identity …

Autonomous Vehicles: Security And Privacy Concerns, Christopher Z. Shiu

Senior Honors Theses

The rapid development of self-driving vehicles provides many benefits. Even then, there are various security and privacy concerns that must be addressed. Autonomous vehicles are dependent on advanced machine learning systems in order to communicate. However, concerns about cyber threats and the misuse of data are not studied adequately enough. With the integration of technical and human factors, these developments can address communication and regulatory compliance weaknesses to offer safer implementations to autonomous vehicles. It is only after understanding these challenges, can strategies be developed to counteract threats. As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, autonomous vehicles have the potential to …

A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Emasculation Of Men Through Televised Forums Of Entertainment, Skylar G. Sexton

Senior Honors Theses

What constitutes manliness stands on the brink of collapse. Society wages war on the idea of biological men and women. This simultaneously blurs the lines of the distinctive characteristics that define a man such as initiative, protective instincts, self-control, and leadership. Media forums act as a reflection as well as an influencing medium for a cultural body. Films have fundamentally changed their depiction of men in television since the 1960s and 1970s. Manliness is being redefined through films' depictions of a man, as well as by societal movements such as feminism. Men are being emasculated in society today, which is …

The Effectiveness And Implications Of Telehealth For Mental Health Treatment, Mia Crosby

Senior Honors Theses

As technology has evolved, many mental health professionals have begun to adopt the option of a telehealth format for treatment delivery. Particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the remote form of counseling emerged as an alternative to traditional in-person therapy. This thesis will examine existing studies to evaluate the effectiveness of telehealth counseling, potential implications to consider, and the limitations of this treatment modality. Five themes based on the current research will be discussed: (1) the acceptability and efficacy of telehealth services, (2) the transition and adoption of telehealth, (3) the equivalence of treatment modalities, (4) client and provider …

Mindful Parenting: The Impact On Parental Stress, Self-Efficacy, And Self-Compassion, Maureen Helm

Senior Honors Theses

Parents face additional pressures as they deal with the challenge of their own lives as well as stressors associated with caring for their children. While some stress may serve as necessary motivation, too much stress can adversely impact one’s health, work and relationships. Research indicates that many parents have increased stress and emotional distress, as well as decreased self-efficacy and self-compassion which impacts their overall well-being and abilities as parents. With this in mind, it is essential to study healthy and effective coping strategies to combat these detrimental factors. One potential intervention that has been shown to impact parental stress …

Malled To Death: Surviving Sprawl And Redreaming The American Mall, Gioia Calabretta

Senior Honors Theses

America underwent a shift in city planning post-WWII, a change which still shapes America today. In contrast with Sprawl’s failures in mobility, community, and beauty, New Urbanism, a return to traditional city planning, is presented as the solution to these shortcomings. New Urbanism lacks adequate marketing to advocate these successes, thus more competitive media, such as video, must be pursued. Using the local mall, River Ridge, as a case study to show Sprawl’s short-sighted pseudo-solutions and New Urbanism’s time-tested true solutions, a testimonial-style script is put forth to catalyze the Lynchburg community in promoting traditional city planning.

The Blood Moon, Omar Shafi

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

What turns someone into a monster? Is it their nature—or what the world has taken from them? These are the questions at the heart of The Blood Moon, a short story that reimagines the origin of the werewolf myth through a tragic lens. Created for an upper-division honors course titled Monsters and Monstrosity, this project draws from literary research, folklore, and cultural analysis to examine how trauma, grief, and unresolved hatred can transform even the most innocent among us.

Set in a mythic past, The Blood Moon follows Warrei, a young, wolf-like creature known as a Wolven, who loses everything …

A Review Of The National Partnership For Student Success (Npss) Voluntary Quality Standards: A Resource For Community-Based Organizations In Southern Nevada, Benita R. Brooks, Omolola A. Odejemi,, Carolina Clavel, Amy Wolfe

National Institute for the Advancement of Education (NIAE)

This literature review examined how three nonprofits—Saga Education (high-impact tutoring), MENTOR (high-quality mentoring), and Communities In Schools (wraparound/integrated student supports)—aligned their programs with the National Partnership for Student Success (NPSS) Voluntary Quality Standards. By leveraging empirical research and data analysis, these organizations have developed evidence-based practices that improve academic outcomes, enhance student well-being, and create more supportive learning environments. The review evaluated the impact of each program on student outcomes, offering insights into how research-driven approaches in tutoring, mentoring, and wraparound student support contribute to student success. The NPSS initiative and its Voluntary Quality Standards provide a comprehensive framework for …

Testimonios Of Antiracist School Social Workers: Advancing Professional Equity And Updating The School Social Work Model, Leticia Villarreal Sosa, Christy Mccoy, Laurel E. Thompson, Stephanie Ochocki

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

During a modern era of rising white nationalism and racial reckoning, the opportunity to reimagine the national model for school social work practice was explored in partnership with practitioners, scholars, researchers, and leaders of the profession. It sparked a parallel process of engagement that required the critical analysis of the systemic and structural racism impacting not only our educational communities, but also the historical influences shaping the school social work profession. Like the many antiracist efforts that have come before, the revision process was impacted by a pervasive culture of white supremacy, yet what emerged was an equity-centered model to …

Developing A Pandemic-Related Mental Health Micro-Collection For An Academic Library, Dee Anna Phares

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

Academic library patrons dealing with the impact of trauma, depression, anxiety, or addiction spawned or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic require materials that address the unique conditions that have shaped mental health since late 2019. This paper demonstrates how one academic library endeavored to address patrons’ needs for mental health resources by developing a “Coping and COVID-19” micro-collection.

Teaching Art Beyond The Hierarchy: How “Big Ideas” Combat Cultural Appropriation, Carlie Pearson

Institute for the Humanities Master's Papers, Projects, and Capstones

[First paragraph] As an art educator who has worked with children aged 5-18 in the public-school setting, I find myself constantly assessing and reevaluating my practices. When I was in high school and falling in love with the world of visual art, I had a teacher who introduced me to the beautiful and sacred art of mandala making. We learned about how Buddhist Monks create massive works with colorful sand, and I was shocked to hear that the pieces are traditionally swept away upon completion. When I started my first full time teaching position seven years ago at a high …

The Impact Of Ai Usage On Employee Work Outcomes: The Mediating Roles Of Personal Control And Job Insecurity And The Moderating Role Of Ai Trust, Tiantian Wang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The widespread application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the workplace offers significant potential for process optimization andperformance improvement. However, the psychological mechanisms throughwhich AI usage affects employee outcomes remain underexplored. To address this gap, the present study investigated a sample of 170 employees froma media company in China, utilizing a three-wave longitudinal survey design. Specifically, this study examined how AI usage influenced employee creativity and task performance improvement through two mediatingmechanisms: the enhancement of personal control in problem-solving and the elicitation of job insecurity. Furthermore, the moderating role of trust in AI inthe relationship between AI usage and job …

Understanding Undergraduate Aspirations For Law Enforcement Careers And Motivation In The Classroom, Gabriella N. Burt

Honors Thesis

This study investigates the factors shaping undergraduate student interest in law enforcement careers. By surveying students from various Midwestern universities, this research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between social influences, gender, and curricular exposure in shaping law enforcement career aspirations. Specifically, it examines how motivations for pursuing a public service career, external influences, and background characteristics shape career interest overall. The study also examines how these factors shape career interest between men and women and overall motivation to engage with specific law enforcement course topics. Findings inform policy and curriculum design.

(In)Accessibility: Awareness Project At Northwestern College, Natalie Hoffman, Amber Millard, Grace Harre

Student Projects

Accessibility on any campus is necessary to allow individuals with limited mobility and physical disabilities to feel welcomed and access their education. Community forums are a powerful tool to organize a community to implement change and advocate for a community’s needs. Prior to implementing the community forum, community organizers engaged in research as well as in conversations with those on campus who have direct exposure to how the lack of accessibility impacts various individuals on campus. The community organizers partnered with the NEXT program, a student, as well as several professors at Northwestern college to advocate for change and bring …

Ai And Prompt Engineering For Library Discovery Services, James Day

Publications

We have seen the rise of generative artificial intelligence in the form of Large Language Models (LLMs) to provide answers to users’ queries. Services such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini have quickly become accepted and adopted in the research process. Now library vendors are adding artificial intelligence (AI) to their discovery services to allow for natural language queries to produce generative results. However, the AI model used for discovery services differs from normal LLMs in a significant way that has several positive benefits, but it affects how prompts are written. Library discovery services use a model called Retrieval- Augmented Generation …

Voices Of Uab Social Workers: Key Findings From The 2024 Needs Assessment, Lana Turner Msw Student, Laurel Hitchcock Phd, Mph, Licsw-S, Pip, Uab Social Work Partnership

College of Arts & Sciences Professional Work

The UAB Social Work Partnership (SWP), in collaboration with Dr. Donny Gerke and MSW students Kafui Sakyi-Addo, Eryka Slaughter, Matthew Miller, and Shalini Chatterji, conducted a needs assessment survey in October 2024 to better understand the challenges and priorities of social workers within UAB. The assessment addressed salary equity, continuing education (CEU) needs, networking opportunities, and internship supervision support. This report summarizes the key findings from the 106 survey responses from UAB social workers, offering insights that can inform policy development, professional support strategies, and organizational improvements within the UAB social work community. The survey, conducted via Qualtrics, was disseminated …

Global Crossroads Of Cybercrime: Youth, Enterprise And State Vulnerabilities In The Digital Age, Christopher S. Kayser, Kyung-Shick Choi

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

No abstract provided.

Cybercrime As A Threat To The Banking Sector: A Perspective From Commercial Banks In Bangladesh, Hasibul Hossain, Rezaul Karim Shohag, Nikhil Chandra Nath, Sushmita Das Dalia

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Cyber and technology related crimes are gradually increasing all over the world due to rapid transitions and transactions in the digital world and cyberspace. Cyber related threats are increasingly becoming universal, multi-faceted, sophisticated and transnational in this tech-driven age. Governments, law enforcement agencies, IT professionals, scholars, and researchers worldwide have been concerned about digital deviance and crime. The transition to this widespread cybercrime is particularly difficult for developing countries. Recently, the banking sectors in Bangladesh have seen the emerging threats to its system and reserves through cyberspace, e. g. cyber-attacks or taking illegal access. Cybercrime is becoming a threat to …

Need Of Paradigm Shift In Cybersecurity Implementation For Small And Medium Enterprises (Smes), Shekhar Pawar, Hemant Palivela

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

The increasing digitization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has significantly increased their attack surface, creating opportunities for various cyberthreats. In the global market, there are various cybersecurity standards and frameworks available, but there are still many cyber news stories from each corner of the world talking about increasing sophisticated cyber-attacks among organizations. According to recent studies, one out of five cyberattacks is targeting SMEs. Even though SMEs are relatively smaller as individuals, they are responsible for maximum contribution towards the betterment of the global economy, including the highest role in GDP and various employment opportunities. As compared to large …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 36. Wallace, Evolution And Providence., Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

One of Alfred Russel Wallace’s most important contributions to thought was his identification of the key role provident behavior assumes in human evolution. In this essay I set out the way this idea influenced his thought process after 1864, and especially how it affected his appreciation of the possible role of spiritualism in evolution.

Digital Commons@Tmc 20th Anniversary, Alice Sherwood

TMC Library Newsletter (2015-)

On April 5th, 2005, the first article was deposited in Digital Commons@TMC. Since then, more than 34,000 items have been added, including dissertations/theses and projects, archival materialsfrom John P. McGovern Historical Collections & Research Center and content from seven open access peer-reviewed academic journals hosted on the platform.

Understanding Adolescent Perinatal Wellbeing In Rural Parts Of Kenya: A Qualitative Study, Evaline Chepchirchir Langat, Marleen Temmerman, Margrette Hanselmann, Kethakie Lamahewa, Violet Naanyu, Mellan Lilumbi, Tatiana Taylor Salisbury

Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health

Introduction: Despite global efforts to reduce adolescent birth rates, the problem persists in low- and middleincome countries. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates (97.9 births per 1000 women). In Kenya, more than 15 % of adolescent girls become pregnant. Forty-three percent of these develop depression. This study investigated adolescent pregnancy in rural Kenya to understand the challenges and context-specific factors that can help adolescents maintain good mental health during pregnancy and the motherhood.

Methods: An exploratory qualitative study was conducted in Kilifi County between October and November 2021. A total of 73 participants consented to participate in the …

Policymakers’ Perceptions About Providing Affordable Housing In Rural Georgia, Robert Joseph Wiley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The literature showed that low-income households face a persistent deficit of affordable housing, forcing these families to live in dilapidated housing or to live beyond their means to pay for adequate housing, and that this problem transcends rural and urban counties. Further, researchers indicated that solving this problem provided a stable workforce and a better quality of life for all income groups. A gap in the literature showed the need for more research on nonmetropolitan communities addressing housing and neighborhood revitalization; therefore, through this qualitative multiple-case study local policymakers' perceptions of the affordable housing problem in rural Georgia were explored. …

Social Workers Impact On Behavioral Health Patients In The Emergency Department, Hannah Grumbein

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The emergency department is designed to treat emergency medical conditions, stabilize the patients, and transition them to the next appropriate level of care. The social issue that prompted the search in current literature is increased readmissions to the emergency department for many at-risk populations, including mental health patients. The research problem addressed through this quantitative study was the increasing readmission rates in emergency departments for the mental health population for non-emergent needs. The purpose of the study was to determine whether having social work involvement with adult mental health patients in the emergency department would lead to more services at …

Commanders’ Perspectives On Training, Intervention, And Identity Adjustment For Reintegration, Chelsea Jones

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Military reintegration presents significant challenges for service members returning home to civilian life. Previous research has indicated many reintegration challenges, including reintegration preparation, identity adjustment, and proactive intervention; however, there remains an essential gap in the literature regarding training for military commanders and how they can be updated to help better facilitate service members’ reintegration. Grounded in general systems theory, the purpose of this qualitative study was to ask about the lived experiences of military commanders on reintegration preparation training, regarding proactive intervention during deployment, and about identity adjustment issues upon reintegration. The participants comprised six active and retired military …