Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Covid-19 Is Not All Bad News: Negative And Surprisingly Positive Reports From College Stem Students And Implications For Stem Instruction, Yuchen Jiang, Boyan Ma, Zimo Ma, Pamela M. Propsom, Zaheen Rashed '24, Rudrayani Upadhyay, Zichen Zhao

Student Research

The negative educational consequences of COVID-19 are well documented. Much less investigated have been any potential positive outcomes of the pandemic. We surveyed 392 students at one college querying why they continue studying STEM or leave the STEM disciplines and about the effects of COVID-19 on their education. STEM students may have been especially impacted by pandemic-imposed remote instruction given STEM’s reliance on hands-on laboratory experiences. Because the literature indicates that people of color and those from lower socioeconomic groups were more negatively affected by COVID-19, we hypothesized that students from these groups would report greater adverse educational consequences of …

The Information Literacy And The Infodemic In Covid-19 Pandemic At Kampala International University, Justina E. Ogbonna Cln, Jackline Kiwelu

Libraries

Access to reliable information in times of emergency is important. However the quantum of information during emergency may cause infodemic. The study investigated the role of information literacy in mitigating infodemic in COVID 19 pandemic. A survey was conducted among educators and students in School of Mathematics and Computing (SOMAC), Kampala International University (KIU), Uganda. The findings reveal that: majority of the respondents (50%) either agreed or strongly agreed that they evaluated information before use; on the state of their emotions, respondents were confused, overwhelmed, alarmed and anxious; 50% were able to access the information with ease, while 50% could …

Criminogenic Risks Of Interrogation, Margareth Etienne, Richard Mcadams

Indiana Law Journal

In the United States, moral minimization is a pervasive police interrogation tactic in which the detective minimizes the moral seriousness and harm of the offense, suggesting that anyone would have done the same thing under the circumstances, and casting blame away from the offender and onto the victim or society. The goal of these minimizations is to reinforce the guilty suspect’s own rationalizations or “neutralizations” of the crime. The official theory—posited in the police training manuals that recommend the tactic—is that minimizations encourage confessions by lowering the guilt or shame of associated with confessing to the crime. Yet the same …

Examining The Feasibility Of Telehealth Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Tf-Cbt) With Young People In Foster Care, Jill Mcleigh, Adrianna Martin, Laura Lamminen

Behavioral Health/Developmental Delay

Despite the high rate of trauma exposure among young people with child welfare involvement, various systematic and patient barriers exist that inhibit utilization of evidence-based trauma treatments. One strategy for alleviating barriers to such treatments is using telehealth. A few studies have found that the clinical outcomes of telehealth TF-CBT are comparable to those found from clinic-based, in-person treatment administration. Studies have yet to examine the feasibility of telehealth TF-CBT with young people in care. The current study sought to address this gap by examining outcomes for patients who received telehealth TF-CBT, along with factors that may have impacted successful …

Regulatory Paralysis: The Answer To The Unanswerable Question Of Fcc Minority Ownership Policy, Christopher Terry

Michigan Technology Law Review

For five decades, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has struggled to implement policies that promote minority ownership of broadcast stations. Four “Prometheus” decisions from the Third Circuit span a seventeen-year legal impasse that highlighted the agency’s shortcomings on effective minority ownership policies. Now, after the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project, the FCC is required to relaunch its media ownership policy in 2022. This paper explores how the FCC has interpreted diversity in media ownership policymaking by examining a range of diversity policies and assessment methodologies particularly regarding minority ownership. The paper then presents data from …

Coca-Cola Curses: Hate Speech In A Post-Colonial Context, Brittan Heller

Michigan Technology Law Review

Hate speech is a contextual phenomenon. What offends or inflames in one context may differ from what incites violence in a different time, place, and cultural landscape. Theories of hate speech, especially Susan Benesch’s concept of “dangerous speech” (hateful speech that incites violence), have focused on the factors that cut across these paradigms. However, the existing scholarship is narrowly focused on situations of mass violence or societal unrest in America or Europe.

This paper discusses how online hate speech may operate differently in a postcolonial context. While hate speech impacts all societies, the global South—Africa in particular—has been sorely understudied. …

Sports Data Science Job Requirements, Cam E. Morse

Student Publications

Data science is an extremely fast growing field in which job opportunities are opening in every industry related to data science. Within the data science field is the sports data science industry which has it's own requirements and specificities that may not be present in other industries. In this paper, research is done using multiple job posting websites such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Sportstek jobs, and TeamworkOnline to explore the job descriptions of many different sports data science jobs. These job descriptions are then examined using Python coding to find the frequencies of specific data science skills in the various job …

Battling History: A Discussion Of How Controlling Images And The Matrix Of Domination Causes Recreations Of Oppression Affecting Black Female Athletes In Gymnastics Today, Nicole T. Cesanek

Student Publications

The history of the slave era led to the creation of several different tropes of African American women used throughout history including the jezebel and the strong Black woman. Coupled with the matrix of domination, researchers are able to understand how this history has led to recreations of oppression among Black female athletes. This has been particularly evident among the sport of gymnastics in which several athletes have experienced severe oppression, which in many cases, has prevented them from speaking up about other serious concerns within their sport such as sexual assault and mental health. The creation of tropes for …

More Care And Less Pay: The Phenomenon Of Low Wages Among Care Occupations, Allison B. Dayton

Student Publications

This research examines the phenomenon of care occupations paying less than other occupations with similar levels of human capital investment. The paper evaluates the high concentration of women, especially Black women, the resulting wage penalties, social closure theory, temporal flexibility, and positive externalities as possible explanations for this problem. Potential solutions like raising the minimum wage and subsidizing education for care workers are also addressed.

Carbon Sequestration Capacities Of Different Land Cover Types And Climate Change, Nicole L. Melnick, Annabel Gorman, Adam F. Warren

Student Publications

Human-caused climate change creates a positive feedback loop that emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere instead of being sequestered in the Earth or its oceans. A major contributor to this feedback loop is deforestation in order to use land for agriculture and livestock. This study aims to investigate differences in carbon sequestration capabilities of forests, pastures, and cropland through soil and tree sampling in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The main hypothesis of this study is that forested land will be the most effective at carbon sequestration. The loss on ignition method (LOI) was used to determine the percent organic material in …

Reckoning With “Corporeal And Mental Disabilities”: The Bureaucracy Of Immigrant Disease Management In Early-To-Mid Nineteenth Century America, Vivek K. Rallabandi

Student Publications

This paper explores how the American bureaucratic apparatus during the early-to-mid nineteenth century dealt with immigrants who carried risks of physical and mental illness. Though previous studies have discretely dealt with physical and mental illnesses that immigrants during this period carried, this paper takes an integrated approach, arguing that these two elements should be viewed in conjunction with one another.

Living Below The Line: Economic Insecurity And Older Americans, Insecurity In Massachusetts, 2022, Jan Mutchler, Nidya Velasco Roldán, Yan-Jhu Su

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

New estimates from the 2022 Elder Index^TM reveal that the cost of living in Massachusetts has increased substantially in recent years for older adults, especially for renters. The Elder Index measures the necessary costs faced by households made up of one or two older adults, calculated county by county for the entire United States. Estimated costs are higher in Massachusetts than in any other state in the nation. Within the Commonwealth, the Elder Index is lowest in Western Massachusetts, and highest in Metro Boston, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, with differences in the Elder Index across locations accounted for largely …

From Public Sewer To Public Park: The Story Of The James River In Richmond, Va, Todd R. Lookingbill

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

Book Review of Ralph Hambrick’s Transforming the James River in Richmond (2020) by Todd Lookingbill, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability, University of Richmond

The Cruel Case Of Wrongful Convictions: Conveying A Racial And Criminal Crisis In Our Courts, Cullen Livingston

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Starting in 1989 with the advent of DNA analysis, discourse on wrongful conviction has become more prevalent in the U.S., but lacks an explanation for how they happen. There are a number of studies on the effects of wrongful conviction on its victims in social, mental, and historical terms. There is also a concerning level of scope in this concept, with an uncertainty on how to best measure the amount of people who have been victimized by wrongful convictions and what the rate of these convictions may be. Based on this literature I study three different potential causes, these being …

Library Newsletter, Volume 19, Number 1, Sacred Heart University Library

Library Newsletters

Word from the Stacks ... Welcoming the Connecticut Irish American Historical Society (CTIAHS) to the SHU campus -- SHU Reads for Free: Textbook Reserve program -- ChatGPT -- Rare book and Manuscript donation -- Coming soon: A Simpler Search on the library website -- Summer Reading.

Earth Day 2023, Raquel Estrada, William Flores

Library Display Posters

Collection of posters created for Earth Day 2023. Poster topics include: Short Film Recommendations, Select Titles, Popular Titles, Streaming Films, Spotlight on Ila Fox Loetscher, and Research Resources. Book and video covers are hyperlinked.

[Npm] National Poetry Month 2023: Featured Poems From The Rio Grande Valley, Shannon Pensa, Adela Cadena, Guillermo Corona, Maria "Lisa" Huerta, Millie Resendez, Manuel Rodriguez

Library Display Posters

"...We were all meant for something." is a line by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón that not only inspired the 2023 national poster design but also this digital poster exhibit which features the works of regional poets. Each full-time UTRGV Special Collections & Archives staff member designed two posters inspired by select Rio Grande Valley poems.

The Impact Of A Human Trafficking Educational Module On Nurse Practitioner Students Awareness, Knowledge, And Confidence In Responding To Human Trafficking, Casey Elliott

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Translational and Clinical Research Projects

Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine if a human trafficking education module increased master level nursing students’ awareness, knowledge, and confidence in responding to human trafficking (HT) victims. Background: HT in the United States and worldwide is a growing problem. Millions of men, women, and children are victims of HT each year. Victims of human trafficking are often vulnerable due to several factors, including emotional problems, social instability, and economic difficulties. Studies have found up to 88% of victims of HT are seen by a healthcare provider during their captivity. Improving the awareness, knowledge, and confidence of …

Will Populations Of Macroinvertebrate Functional Feeding Groups Survive Precipitation Changes?, Malika Gottfried, Laura Kim, Sophia Zuccala

Other Student Projects

Climate change is a pervasive issue that has the potential to have detrimental effects on many freshwater organisms and their habitats. Fluctuations in precipitation, changes in temperature, and other long-term shifts in weather patterns are just a few examples of the ways in which climate change is impacting the world around us (“What is Climate Change?” n.d.). The Mill River in Northampton, Massachusetts is an ideal location to measure some of these impacts on macroinvertebrates in various functional feeding groups. Macroinvertebrates are small organisms that lack an internal skeletal system, and their functional feeding groups refer to “the type of …

The Impact Of Bone Marrow Transplantation On Forensic Human Identification And Genetic Genealogy Testing, Lisa A. Sikop

Master's Theses

Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy has rapidly evolved to become a highly effective investigative tool to assist with identifying perpetrators of violent crimes and unidentified human remains. With forensic DNA (STR) analysis, it has previously been researched that a person who has received a bone marrow transplant (BMT) may produce a multi-allelic STR profile, as both the bone marrow donor and the recipients' DNA is present. A multi-allelic STR profile can easily be misinterpreted as a mixture DNA profile, when in fact it is a chimeric DNA profile originating from a single individual. While the impact of chimerism on STR profiles …

Bibliography For "National Arab American Heritage Display", Isabella Piechota, Arianna Tillman, Kalea Brown

Library Displays and Bibliographies

A bibliography created to accompany a display about National Arab American Heritage Month in April 2023 at the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University.

Bibliography For "World Intellectual Property Day Display: Women And Intellectual Property", Katherine Roth, Isabella Piechota, Arianna Tillman, Kalea Brown

Library Displays and Bibliographies

A bibliography created to accompany a display about World Intellectual Property Day in April 2023 at the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University.

Afterlives Of The Willowbrook, Hosu Kim

Open Educational Resources

By drawing upon my teaching experience at CUNY and research in critical disability studies, I frame willowbrook mile as a laboratory which connects between historic violence and present dilemmas of public higher education and explore/imagine various modalities of teaching and learning as a site of repair and a decolonizing public higher education.

Enhancing Collaboration: Carolyn Tubbs Relies On Open Communication As Vice Provost, Nathaniel Miller, Leticia Romero

Black History at St. Mary's University - 2025 Collection

Listening and understanding are important to work and collaboration; Vice Provost Carolyn Tubbs deems open communication vital to working with faculty and staff around the campus. In a previous role, she acted as an associate professor of marriage and family therapy, which requires strong communication and understanding. To foster an environment of success and collaboration, Tubbs finds these abilities as well as fostering the formation of faith to be vital for the mission of the university and its staff. Tubbs along with four other women serving as deans for the university are leading the way to advancing the university towards …

Caring For Community: Alumna Received The U.S Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award In 2022, Michelle Mondo

Black History at St. Mary's University - 2025 Collection

Living to serve has been an important aspect of Brenya Twumasi, which in time would be instrumental in receiving the U.S. Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. In her lifetime, Twumasi has contributed over 4,000 hours of volunteering, in which she involved herself in law, criminal justice, and psychology. Caring for those in your community was instilled into Twumasi by her parents at a young age; faith plays a vital role as well. Twumasi worked on projects that aids trafficking and sexual assault victims, in which St. Mary’s Professor of Philosophy James Greenaway aided her. Through her business and work in academia …

Library Assessment Dashboard, Julene L. Jones

Library Presentations

Displays images and organization of Library Assessment Dashboard that went live January 2023 on the UK Library website at Organizational Effectiveness. Presented at April 2023 Town Hall.

The Effects Of Covid-19 On The Home Court Advantage, Dempsey Horton

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Neuronal Glutamate Transporters Mediate Stereotypic Reward-Based Behaviors, Jaci Yong

Psychology

Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a common neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by obsessions (uncontrollable and recurring thoughts), and compulsions (behaviors that one has the urge to repeat several times). One of the genes carrying non-functional mutations in OCD is Slc1a1, the gene that encodes the neuronal glutamate transporter EAAC1. However, we still have an incomplete understanding of how EAAC1 contributes to the onset of compulsivity in OCD-like behaviors. EAAC1 is abundantly expressed in the striatum, the input nucleus of the basal ganglia implicated with compulsivity and reward. Here, we use a series of behavioral assays to determine whether and how reward-based …

The United States After The Third Religious Disestablishment: A Case Study Of The Adf’S Strategies In Prolonging Culture Wars, Rachel Williams

Honors Projects

In the early ‘90s, several conservative Christian legal organizations (CCLOs) sprung up in the United States in response to pluralism. These CCLOs sought to match the strategies and power of long-standing liberal public interest groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Much literature has been produced on the activities of CCLOs, but few have considered the CCLOs’ lasting impact on the nation. Using Willamette University College of Law Professor Steven K. Green's framework of religious disestablishments across U.S. history, this paper proposes that the country has entered a prolonged period of moral reestablishment partly thanks to CCLOs. With a …

Policy Type And Presidential Messaging As Factors Of Legislative Productivity, Madison Garofalo

Honors Projects

This paper attempts to settle scholarly debates around significant legislation’s passage rates within the context of presidential mentions and influence amongst legislation. The first section of this paper will lay out significant literature surrounding topics such as: quantifying congressional-presidential relations, scholarly investigations centered around divided and unified government, works concerning institutional effects on legislative productivity, as well as investigations into legislative success by policy type. Secondly, the paper will discuss the methodological processes and standards used to determine if presidential mentioning is influential on legislative success. The next section will identify key findings to determine if the hypotheses of the …