Service Learning Commons^™

Creating An Inclusive Culture Guide: A Guide For Leaders & Employees, Cher Broxson

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

Creating an Inclusive Culture Guide is an authentic and customized outline for what an inclusive culture is, the data, the why and the call to action. This guide is simple, easy to read and uses real employee feedback in different titles and geographic locations to enable people to practice and utilize with no pre-work. This guide when used will help increase employee productivity, innovation and benefit the company by exceeding financial targets.

Teen Outreach Program Activity, Savannah A. Sehenuk

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

This project outlines research and first hand accounts from non-profit organizations and teens and young adults both in and out of the system. Using this research, I have created a sample event in order to aid in getting more teens involved in outreach programs that will help with both life skills and having fun and responsible peer groups to aid in development.

Improving The Employee Learning Experience, Kristin I. Schilz

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

This presentation represents my capstone project of improving the employee learning experience within our LMS.

Making Connections: Marketing Ideas For Interpreters, Steve Mcdermott

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

There is a need for skilled interpreters to meet the needs of the increasingly diverse communities. Many get into the field of interpretation and translation in order to assist those with language barriers, as well as earn a living for themselves. The interpreters get into the field not realizing that to succeed they also need an entrepreneurial spirit. These entrepreneurial linguists are classified as independent contractors, as such they are responsible for the business aspects of their livelihood. This includes marketing themselves in order to grow their client base. Marketing can be a daunting task in itself. In speaking with …

Action Capstone: United Standby Travel Handbook, Danaya S. Kinikini

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

This project sought to answer the question, how might I create a travel handbook for airline employees to better utilize their travel privileges and improve morale? The handbook was broken down into three parts: resource how-to guide, standby travel handbook, and Facebook group. The airline industry saw an unprecedented busy summer travel season following the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns. Senior employees were finding themselves burnt out and new employees were overwhelmed with the workload due to short staffing levels. Many new employees were leaving for better compensated jobs. Stakeholders identified were United, management, and employees. If employees can utilize their travel …

Reversing The Aging Of The Skilled Trades Workers, Adam C. King

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

For the past several decades there has been a prevalence of promoting the need for everyone to obtain at least a bachelor's degree to be able to have a successful career. This had led to a lack of interest of the younger generations in entering the skilled trades as a career. The result of this is that the average age of workers in the trades keeps increasing and as the boomer generation has retired there are not enough capable replacements entering the workforce. Having enough workers in the skilled trades is imperative to keeping the country moving forward by building …

Junky To Healthy, Ashley V. Stegall

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

Eating healthy is not always easy. In fact it can be quite challenging especially if you think you are alone. A support group is a great way to feel like you are not alone. This is not your average support group. Since I am a little rough around the edges, you could say the support group is too. It does have structure because I want it to succeed but people can yell, scream, cuss and throw squishy balls at the wall.

Service-Learning "Planning For Retirement" Presentation, Tyler E. Tisdale

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

This project sought to understand the reasons/variables for the lack of participation in planning and saving/investing for retirement by the younger generations that are a part of the current workforce. The problem was defined, and the approach was to create a presentation that established the foundational knowledge for retirement investing among high school students (the individuals who are just about to enter the workforce). The presentation was made, along with a short survey, and sent out to high school teachers in Idaho and Texas. The results presented that there is a fundamental lack of knowledge with regards to the subject …

The Impact Of Fairview, Catriona Juliet Dahlke

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

My senior capstone project aims to spread awareness about the Fairview Training Center, located outside of Salem, Oregon. This institute stood for decades as a home to individuals with mental health struggles. My project also strives to provide the public and local community with stories from former patients, seeking to educate the public about the events that took place at the institution. Through this capstone project, background information is provided, and the voices of the survivors can also be heard by the audience.

Getting Books Into The Hands Of Children In Transition, Earl O. Smith

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

This project aims to get books into the hands of Children in Transition. Who are these children? They are children that have been given a bad hand. These children live in Motels or are homeless or sleeping in their cars. This project will provide these children with the opportunity to get books that are theirs to keep, read and value as their own. I am working with Spread the Word Nevada to get books into these children's hands.

Children in Transition (CIT) WCSD's CIT Program serves children experiencing homelessness by providing resources, support, and comprehensive services to students from birth …

Pandemic Plan Revision Capstone Project, Sharon L. Haylett

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

A Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) for a company “. . . ensures that primary mission essential functions continue to be performed during a wide range of emergencies . . .” (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, n.d.). The COOP includes information for reacting to natural disasters, terrorist attacks, pandemics, etc. As my capstone project, the pandemic section has been updated using an integrative process to include new information and lessons learned from the current pandemic. The revised pandemic section will provide examples of protocols designed to keep employees and the public safe and healthy.

Cartelligent Sales Training Program, Hilary T. Brophy

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

My Capstone project is based on creating an entirely new sales training program at the company I work for, using collaborative and innovative approaches, and for the first time in my company's twenty-two year history, including stakeholders that range from the Executive Team to the newest members of the sales team.

Minimizing Errors In Information Technology, Cameron N. Secaur

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

Our team had not been given structure as to how issues were to be addressed and resolved. The leadership was under the impression that verbally communicating what they wanted for their standards would be sufficient. However, this allowed for more mistakes than was acceptable. Faced with many different issues from user provision, to user termination to basic issues with many different programs; I had to find a solution that would help alleviate the excess of mistakes. The creation of documentation that would provide a stable infrastructure and policy to follow for technicians appeared to be a great way to resolve …

Bridging A Gap Of Understanding: A Model Of Experiential Learning For Incarcerated Students And Non-Incarcerated Undergraduates, Dale Brown, Zoann K. Snyder

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (2014-2023)

Service learning has evolved as a primary experience-based curriculum for undergraduate students. But much of what universities put forward as service learning is not a genuine engagement with community partners to help advance meaningful social change to address social problems. In this paper, we outline our preliminary attempt to do just that—what we call The Bridge Model. The discussion that follows occurs in the context of a semester-long project between undergraduate students at a Midwestern University (MU) and incarcerated participants from the university’s prison education program. First, we briefly situate the partnership in terms of its theoretical background in experiential …

Community Engagement E-News - September 2021, Parkland College

Service Learning Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Becoming A Part Of Your Community: The Personal Account Of A Student’S Journey Discovering The Impact Of Service Learning On Both Community And Personal Development At The University Level, Jacqueline M. Petras

VA Engage Journal

There is plenty of research surrounding the benefits that service learning brings to the community and students alike. But, it is far less common to break down individual experiences and greater effects service learning can have beyond the studies and statistics. Although this piece cannot speak for every service learning experience, it explores the changing mindset of my personal interaction with service learning. This autobiographical account identifies moments of personal and intellectual growth through a long form reflection of my three years as a service learning student at Virginia Commonwealth University. I wrestle with my thoughts and emotions of what …

Reimagining Student Engagement In The Remote Classroom Environment, Christopher B. Denning, Serra Acar, Carol Sharicz, Ellen Foust

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

As higher education institutions struggled with switching to remote teaching due to the COVID19 pandemic, perhaps one of the most important lessons learned is that instructors need additional support to successfully engage students in remote classrooms. Moving courses from the classroom to online delivery radically alters all aspects of teaching and learning, making it easy for interactions to be lost in the transition. It is, therefore, imperative that instructors use elements of effective online teaching and synchronous classroom pedagogy to maintain student engagement. This paper uses the constructivist learning theory as a framework, especially as this theory is applied in …

Semi-Supervised Spatial-Temporal Feature Learning On Anomaly-Based Network Intrusion Detection, Huy Mai

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Due to a rapid increase in network traffic, it is growing more imperative to have systems that detect attacks that are both known and unknown to networks. Anomaly-based detection methods utilize deep learning techniques, including semi-supervised learning, in order to effectively detect these attacks. Semi-supervision is advantageous as it doesn't fully depend on the labelling of network traffic data points, which may be a daunting task especially considering the amount of traffic data collected. Even though deep learning models such as the convolutional neural network have been integrated into a number of proposed network intrusion detection systems in recent years, …

Malicious Hardware & Its Effects On Industry, Gustavo Perez

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In recent years advancements have been made in computer hardware security to circumnavigate the threat of malicious hardware. Threats come in several forms during the development and overall life cycle of computer hardware and I aim to highlight those key points. I will illustrate the various ways in which attackers exploit flaws in a chip design, or how malicious parties take advantage of the many steps required to design and fabricate hardware. Due to these exploits, the industry and consumers have suffered damages in the form of financial loss, physical harm, breaches of personal data, and a multitude of other …

Evaluating Silicon Foliar Sprays As A Strategy To Improve Postproduction Performance Of Potted Basil (Ocimum Basilicum L.), Joshua Tebow

Horticulture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of the study was to evaluate foliar silicon (Si) applications for effects on the growth and performance of container-grown basil during production and resistance to postproduction wilt in retail. Basil (Ocimum basilicum ‘Genovese’ L.) seedling plugs were transplanted into 10-cm diameter plastic containers with peat-based substrate and grown for 42 d in a polycarbonate greenhouse. Plants were irrigated with fertilizer solution consisting of a 17.0 nitrogen (N)-1.3 phosphorus-14.1 potassium water-soluble fertilizer dissolved in tap water at 150 mg∙L-1 N. Foliar sprays containing sodium silicate at 0, 50, 100, 200, and 400 mg∙L-1 Si mixed with deionized water were …

What Were The Factors That Led To The Gamestop Short Squeeze?, Riley Burnette

Information Systems Undergraduate Honors Theses

The world of finance is rapidly evolving - for better or for worse. The introduction of social media in sentimental stock market trading, and new brokerage apps, combined with the new resurgence of retail investors, has led to some interesting results. These new factors in the stock market have challenged the status quo of the stock market. A group of retail investors has led this change on a Reddit forum known as /r/WallStreetBets

In early January 2021, a group of retail investors collaborated a short squeeze on GameStop stock, creating an attack against the hedge funds on a popular Reddit …

Noise Exposure And Hearing Protection In Marching Band Students, Emily Myers

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this research project was to investigate collegiate marching band members’ use of hearing protection during rehearsals and performances. A second purpose was to identify the concerns of marching band members about the use of hearing protection. Finally, the third purpose was to determine if the type of protection used, standard or custom, impacted wearing time. Hearing threshold sensitivity, tympanometry, and use of hearing protection were measured prior to the fitting of the custom earmolds and again at the end of the marching season.

Pre-season results indicated that the majority of band members reported they did not wear …

Expanding Image Datasets For Deep Learning By Evaluating Independence Through Coefficient Correlation And Mean-Squared Error, Ayman Yousef

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

With deep learning being leveraged more regularly in the field of image classification, particularly in medical imaging, network optimizations have become a field in and of itself. With open source, comprehensive medical image datasets few and far, computational dataset expansion has become a useful tool for researchers without the ability to further manually collect data. However, with the rich amount of data that imaging modalities like multi-photon microscopy collect at a time, there is potential to expand datasets through proper utilization of this data that often time goes unused. Previous deep learning studies have shown that improper expansion can conflate …

Evaluation Of Weight Gain, Feed Intake, Feed Conversion And Oocyst Shedding Of Eimeria Maxima And Eimeria Acervulina In Broiler Chickens, Lauren Laverty

Poultry Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the day and the time of sample collection of an

experimental challenge with Eimeria maxima (EM) and Eimeria acervulina (EA) in broiler chickens. One day old male Cobb-Vantress broiler chickens were randomly allocated to one of three groups with ten replicates (n=8 chickens/replicate). Chickens were placed in battery cages with a controlled age-appropriate environment: Group 1) Negative control (no challenge or treatment); 2) Challenge control (Eimeria challenge only); 3) Challenge + Salinomycin. Challenged chickens were orally gavaged with the mixed culture of EM/EA (10,000 sporulated EM containing 4% wild-type EA) …

Fine Roman Dining At Affordable Pompeian Prices: A New Evaluation Of The Non-Domestic Gardens Of Pompeii, Claire Campbell

World Languages, Literatures and Cultures Undergraduate Honors Theses

Previous scholarship has designated Roman gardens into otium or negotium designations; however, this research on Roman gardens suggests that these concepts often exist in the spaces simultaneously. To address this issue, I compiled catalogs of garden spaces identified at Regio I and Regio VI of Pompeii. This methodology cuts across traditional public and private or productive and aesthetic designations, which will allow me to draw connections between the gardens found in different types of settings. This new catalog methodology of Roman gardens presented in this thesis allows for an integrative analysis of garden spaces, which reveals that these commercial gardens …

An Examination Of Grid Stability As It Relates To The Increased Integration Of Inverter-Based Resources, Daniel Voss

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

There is currently a growing interest in increasing the amount of renewable energy resources connected to the bulk electric system (BES) that stems from various environmental, political, and social concerns. However, the differences between conventional generation resources and inverter-based resources (IBR)—namely wind and solar—pose new issues that make this increased integration a larger problem. In other studies, the increased penetration of renewable energy resources has resulted in weak-grid systems that are more susceptible to collapse. This comes as a result from the inability for IBRs to effectively provide enough reactive power, an effect especially apparent during fault conditions, which the …

Determinants Of Female Bargaining Power In Northern Mozambican Households, Sara Marilyn Gardner

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Undergraduate Honors Theses

Melinda Gates stated, “If you search for poverty, you will find women who don’t have power. If you explore prosperity, you will find women who do have power and use it.” Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, women are expected to perform disproportional amounts of labor but are often ignored in household decision-making regarding social and economic matters. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) states that women in Mozambique are highly disadvantaged, relative to men, due to low levels of education, maternal health risks, restricted economic prospects, and cultural norms. This study aims to better understand the causes of female empowerment in Northern …

Designing Cryogenic Strain Device For 2d Materials, Jake Carter

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Churchill lab working within the Physics Department at the University of Arkansas is working to create important quantum states including weak topological insulators (TIs) through the use of symmetry engineering and topological electronic states in two-dimensional (2D) crystals of WHM materials. Experimental results of these topological states have been obstructed due to the difficulty to perform controlled in situ strain. This project strives to create a mount to utilize a piezoelectric nanopositioner within cryostats achieving an in situ strain that creates the quantum states the lab is looking to observe. This report also examines the necessary equations to determine …

Thermal Testing And Characterization Of Nanoparticles Synthesized For Biological Treatment, Tonie Butler

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The overall goal of this research project is to synthesize iron core, silica capped nanoparticles that, when they are exposed to a particular magnetic field, will react by increasing in temperature and emitting substantial thermal output. They will be injected into the human body for biological benefit by targeted thermal radiation. Once in the human body, ideally, they will be able to target a specific area, and then a magnetic field will be applied to induce thermal output through the process of hyperthermia. As the nanoparticles emit heat, they will mimic the natural bodily behavior seen by way of hyperthermia, …

Effects Of Retail Case Environment And Led Lighting Temperature On Color Of Ground Beef Patties, Mesa Kutz

Animal Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this study was to explore different type of retail cases and case environments, primarily lighting, to quantify the impact on shelf life. Coarse ground 80:20 beef from a local retail establishment was acquired between 7 and 10 d from the box date and fine ground through a 9.5 mm grinder plate, and then formed into 150.25 g patties with an automatic patty forming machine. Each patty was then individually packaged in PVC-overwrap packages and randomly assigned to one of the four different treatments: open, multideck cases with 3000 K lighting (OPEN3000),open 3500 K lighting (OPEN3500),enclosed, …