The Psychology Behind Password Choices: A System Dynamics Approach to Enhancing Security Hygiene

Despite widespread awareness of cybersecurity risks, users often choose weak or repeated passwords, posing a significant challenge to information security. This study explores the psychological factors that drive such behavior, even among informed users. Leveraging insights from behavioral psychology, human-computer interaction (HCI), and cybersecurity studies, we propose a system dynamics model to visualize the cyclical patterns of poor password hygiene. This paper integrates findings from existing research on password generation, password managers, and user behaviors, shedding light on the gap between awareness and action. The findings underscore the importance of designing user-centric password policies and tools that align with human cognitive processes to encourage stronger password practices. Practical recommendations for mitigating risks, such as implementing adaptive password management systems and promoting user education, are also discussed

More Than a Peanut Inventor: George Washington Carver and the Natural Enviornment

George Washington Carver is the most famous Black scholar in American history. Still, he has yet to receive fastidious investigation through a Black Studies lens--the list of full-length academic inquiries into Carver remains short. Linda O. McMurry\u27s decades-old George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol remains the only full-length secondary scholarly report on Carver. Carver yearns for fresh eyes. My brief narrative intervention situates Carver in the context of a heated battle for the souls of Black folk. As W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington clashed over competing pedagogical and political differences, Carver battled Washington over the trajectory of the Agricultural Department at Tuskegee. I argue that Carver\u27s love for the natural environment, eccentricity, artistic genius, and sexual queerness were dominant factors that led to his clash with the austere and practical Washington. Washington demoted Carver twice in favor of another scientist, and it was only after Washington’s death that Carver achieved his true potential and rose to national fame. I argue that Carver was more than the peanut; he was a mystic genius whose deeply spiritual view of the environment lifted him to heights no Black scholar has eclipsed

The Catholic Church should Host an Interfaith Synod on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

How can synodality be used to facilitate interfaith dialogue at a violent political impasse like the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? Pope Francis has reinvigorated the Catholic Church’s commitment to communal discernment by calling for a series of synods–or discursive assemblies of clergy and laity–that address the deepest wounds felt by people today. Nowhere is this need more pressing than in the war torn land at the heart of the Abrahamic world, where two seemingly irreconcilable cries echo: one for a unified Israel and another for a liberated Palestine. Firstly, historical perspectives on the conflict will be analyzed with attention to how inviting Jewish, Christian, and Muslim voices to the synodal table is critical to discernment in this region. Next, a literature review on synodality and the ‘see, judge, act’ method will identify the theological premises of these Catholic dialogical traditions and determine what adaptations are necessary to promote multifaith participation. Lastly, the argument for including representatives from other faiths in synodal dialogue will be framed through the lens of strengthening the Church’s ability to serve the entire Abrahamic community. Through this analysis, I shall argue that hosting an interfaith synod would position the Church to have a significant impact on the peacebuilding process in Israel and Palestine by modeling the efficacy of encounter in resolving even the most emotional and existential of conflicts

Leading Against the Odds: Women’s Leadership Challenges and Strategies in the Nonprofit Sector

The purpose of this research is to identify the unique set of barriers to nonprofit leadership that women face in their careers, while also providing insight into how future leaders can navigate these obstacles to achieve upward mobility within the nonprofit sector. This study employs semi-structured interviews with female graduates of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program at Villanova University to examine the challenges they have encountered in pursuing leadership roles and the strategies they have used to overcome them. The findings highlight a range of structural, cultural, and personal barriers, including gender biases, work-life balance challenges, limited advancement opportunities, and self-doubt. At the same time, the study identifies key strategies that have enabled women to break through these barriers, such as leveraging mentorship and professional networks, adopting transformational leadership styles, advocating for themselves, and actively pursuing professional development. A significant contribution of this research is the creation of two comprehensive tables summarizing both the barriers and the strategies for overcoming them. These tables serve as a valuable resource for scholars, nonprofit professionals, and aspiring leaders by offering a clear framework for understanding and addressing gender disparities in nonprofit leadership

“You Can Never Work Facts as You Would Fixed Quantities”: Political Economy’s Failures in Thomas Malthus and Mary Barton

Many literary critics have read Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton (1848) through an economic lens, criticizing the industrial novel for failing to follow through on its sympathy for impoverished workers to the point of condemning capitalist exploitation. This essay reads Mary Barton in connection with Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) to analyze how the forms of reasoning characteristic of political economy circulate in the novel, particularly in the culminating scene of class conflict—a conversation between the factory owner Mr. Carson and the working man Job Legh.  Differentiating himself from utopian and revolutionary speculation, Malthus presents his theories of political economy as natural law, masking their ideological assumptions. His insistence on inductive reasoning based on the status quo functions to foreclose the possibility of alternative social structures. While Gaskell’s novel echoes credence in political economy as natural law, its attention to its working-class characters and the particularity of their lived experiences nonetheless reveals the deliberate obtuseness of political economy’s forms of reasoning

Unveiling Patriarchy: Brazilian Gender Dynamics Through the Lens of the Bolsonaro-Maria do Rosario Incident

Sexism, machismo, and the patriarchy are here to stay in Brazilian politics. Over the years, these systems have twisted themselves in Brazilian society, dictating attitudes, power dynamics, and norms to be executed and blindly followed. Despite attempts at lessening their relevancy and effect, politics remains a stronghold for traditional gender roles and expectations. This paper seeks to address the topic by utilizing an event that is still talked to this day: Jair Bolsonaro and Maria do Rosario’s discussion. In 2003, while having a political disagreement with Rosario, Bolsonaro – while pointing a finger at Rosario – told her that he would not rape her since she was not deserving of it. In 2014, Bolsonaro would once again profane such words twice in 2014, where he added that Rosario was simply too ugly for him. With his said, this essay hopes to outline how Jair Bolsonaro’s statements towards Maria do Rosario exemplify power dynamic and patriarchy in Brazil

Memorandum Mori: How the Budapest Memorandum Failed to Protect Ukraine

In 1994, the United States, Russian Federation, and United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum to assure the integrity of Ukraine\u27s borders, the independence of the Ukrainian economy and Ukrainian politics, and that Ukraine would become party to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. In exchange, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia. However, Russia continued to meddle in Ukrainian politics, and in 2014 invaded the country for the first time, then in 2022, launched the largest war in Europe since World War II to conquer all of Ukraine. The Budapest Memorandum failed to protect Ukraine not only because it was unenforceable, but because it was designed to be that way. The document contains no provisions for violations, nor any guarantees or enforcement mechanisms. The goal of the Budapest Memorandum was to neutralize the Ukrainian nuclear weapons arsenal, even if that meant empty promises to Ukraine. It achieved its immediate goal of denuclearization and has done nothing more to halt Russia\u27s progressive encroachment upon Ukraine. &nbsp

"Three Augustinian Clerics Die": Navigating a Campus\u27s Experience During a Global Pandemic

When the 1918 influenza pandemic swept through Pennsylvania, Villanova was a small, developing campus consisting of a prep academy for boys, a seminary, and a college for lay people. The campus was forced to navigate unfamiliar territory involving a quarantine, tens of cases of the flu, and four student deaths all within a matter of weeks. This paper unfolds the course of events throughout those trying times to see how the small-knit Villanova community was affected by and responded to a global pandemic that devastated millions.&nbsp