Bicycle Infrastructure And Accessibility In Boston’s Environmental Justice Communities

This project focused on bicycle infrastructure in Boston, including the city's count of bicycle infrastructure and cycling accessibility. Infrastructure included Bluebike stations from November 1st, 2023, and bicycle trails from the 2020 MassDOT Bike Inventory. Accessibility explored the gaps in Boston's bicycle infrastructure in environmental justice (EJ) 2020 census block groups. As of the 2020 Census, 460 of the 581 census block groups in Boston are EJ designated, meaning that approximately 79.17% of census block groups are EJ designated. 2020 EJ designated census block groups' count of bicycle infrastructure and their accessibility to bicycle infrastructure in Boston, MA were analyzed in ArcGIS Pro using spatial joins, distance accumulation, and a suitability modeler. The average number of bicycle trails in a 2020 EJ census block group was 4.22, while the average number of Bluebike stations in a 2020 EJ census block group was less than 1 (0.465). Bicycle lanes were the most common bicycle trail type across the EJ designated census block groups, but 139 (30.22%) of the EJ 2020 census block groups had zero bicycle trails, showcasing a need for bicycle trail connection in these areas. More than the majority, or 302 (65.65%), of EJ designated census block groups had 0 Bluebike stations as of November 1st, 2023. Accessibility to bicycle infrastructure was highest in the neighborhoods surrounding Downtown, such as the North End, West End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway, South End, Chinatown, and the South Boston Waterfront. Accessibility was more varied elsewhere, particularly in the West Roxbury, Hyde Park, Brighton, Dorchester, Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, and Roslindale neighborhoods. Bicycling is an essential aspect of multimodal transport and should be constantly evolving and improving.Geography and Sustainabilit

Adiel Lopez

Lopez, an eternally optimistic person, was born in El Salvador in 1985. His grandparents raised him between the ages of five and thirteen, as his parents had migrated to the United States to build a better future for their family. His grandparents' farm, where he and his siblings worked, had neither running water nor electricity. Although Adiel used to "love to play dress up" as a child, he did not talk about his sexuality or gender until much later. He speaks proudly about his mother's acceptance when he finally decided to come out to her. His teen years were spent in Chelsea, MA, and then he moved to Lynn after discovering Fran's place in 2013. Adiel identifies Fran's Place with "family, friendship, and community." He currently lives in Lynn with his husband Robert and two-year-old son Gabriel. Interview carried out by Andrew Darien

Steve Sklavounos

Steve Sklavounous was born in Beverley in 1951 and was raised by his grandparents in the Brickyard Neighborhood of West Lynn. He is a 1970 graduate of Lynn Classical who worked at nurseries owned by his grandparents and later at the North Shore Council on Alcohol. Known as Steve “The Greek,” he is proud of his Greek heritage but notes that he grew up in an ethnic enclave of Greeks, Italians, and Poles. He learned his work ethic and grit from his grandmother, who put him to work in the family nursery while still in grammar school. He was first introduced to Fran’s place at age eight by his grandmother, who would go there to gamble. He describes Fran’s as a lesbian bar in the 1960s and 1970s and discusses many of the fights among patrons. He describes a horrific Thanksgiving episode in which her mother shot her father, for which she was sent to prison. He frequented many gay bars in Boston and Lynn, including The Lighthouse Cafe, Fran’s Place, Jacques, Mr. Dominic’s, 47 Central, Northern Lights, Tammany Hall, and Napoleons. He discusses the fears of AIDS in the 1980s and his activism to bring it more attention

Bluiston DeYong

A retired house painter living outside Northampton, MA, Bluiston was born in 1960 and raised in Beverley by a single mother. They discuss the shame and resilience that came with growing up in poverty. Combative from an early age, DeYoung spent much of their life fighting, both literally and figuratively. Their interview discusses being misgendered as a child, getting in scraps with boys, and hiding their identity from their mother. They talk about the community at Fran's, where they and their friends could go to "forget about our bullshit." Bluiston describes consistent police harassment and an all-out brawl with officers in Fran's parking lot. The interview addresses generational differences in language, including the class dimensions of the butch-femme dynamic. The interview concludes with commentary about the recent backlash against LGBTQ+ people. Interview carried out by Andrew Darien

The Effects of Kangaroo Care Pertaining to the Attitudes and Values of Fathers Caring for Their Premature Newborn

Skin-to-skin contact also known as “Kangaroo Care” (KC) is a practice used in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to care for premature newborns. Premature newborns are a vulnerable population as these babies are not yet fully developed leading to breathing, feeding, and heart complications. Placing the newborn on the parent’s bare chest addresses these problems to help with thermoregulation, stabilizing glucose levels, and helps with sleep as a few benefits. Kangaroo care is centered among mothers to help promote breastfeeding while fathers will have the opportunity to do the practice later on. In some countries around the world, Kangaroo Care is limited to fathers due to hospital protocols and cultural views. There is a gap in research for maternal kangaroo care and paternal kangaroo care that needs to be discussed to populate this practice. An Integrative Review based on the Russell Model will be used to explore kangaroo care from the paternal aspect and bridge the gap in nursing care.Nursin

Tia Cole

Tia Cole, born in 1984 and raised in the Highlands of Lynn, is the oldest of four children and the mother of three. She is a graduate of Lynn English, where she was a founding member of the GSA and North Shore Community College. Her family has deep roots on the North Shore, as far back as the 17th century. She describes her upbringing as “rough and tumble” but with a good deal of affection and community. Tia started going to Fran’s Place after school as a teenager, and she remembers it as a quiet and supportive place to work. Her January 2024 interview discusses being a “queer kid” and the dress code and cultural conflict with the administration at Lynn English, a battle she fought while remaining closeted to her parents. Tia talks about the changing language of gender and sexual identity among various generations. She also talks about serving as a surrogate and the painful ostracization from the LGBTQ+ community when she, as a polyamorous person, began a relationship with a man. Her interview addresses strategies for pushing back against religious arguments about LGBTQ+ people

Women's Experiences with Postpartum Depression During the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Integrative Review of the Literature

Aim: The aim of this integrative review of literature was to assess the correlation between the rates of Postpartum Depression (PPD) during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Background: Risk factors of PPD include social isolation and stressful life events that were both occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: An integrative review of the information provided by ten scholarly articles from the EBSCO databases CINAHL and MEDLINE. These articles were then synthesized by theme in the literature review section. Analysis: Three major themes were used to separate the articles used for this integrative review. These themes included "The Importance of Social Support", " Significant Increase in Symptoms During the COVID-19 Pandemic", and "Other Risk Factors During the Pandemic." Conclusions: Postpartum depression is a devastating mental health issue that many women deal with in the United States. Factors brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic increased the risk of PPD. There must be new pandemic-related implementations and more research done on PPD.Nursin

Understanding the Role of Higher Education in Shaping Asian American and Pacific Islander College Students’ College Experiences and Cultural Identity

While praised for being the “model minority” due to societal perceptions of their educational and economic achievements, systematic, institutional, and individual racism towards the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community still exists. This research study examines the role of higher education in shaping AAPI college students' college experiences and cultural identity. Using interview data from 15 AAPI college students from 9 different college campuses, this study reveals that college campuses discriminate against AAPI college students. Such institutional forms of discrimination impact AAPI college students through a lack of resources in supporting the multiple diasporas that make up the AAPI community or undermining racial discrimination students report. In response to pervasive institutional discrimination at their college campus, AAPI college students may have little choice but to seek out support from on-campus AAPI organizations. Indeed, the AAPI college organizations appear to be one of the only options on campus that culturally affirm the status, experience, and identity of Asian American/Pacific Islander students. Creating resources that specifically address the needs of different demographics instead of creating resources that incorporate the one-size-fits-all approach allows for students’ needs and perspectives to be heard in spaces that have oppressed them in the past.Sociolog

Cristela Guerra

A current Senior Arts and Culture Reporter at WBUR and Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Cristela Guerra previously served as a reporter for the Boston Globe and the News-Press. The daughter of a pediatrician and a nurse, Cristela was born in Panama City and joined her parents in Anaheim, CA, Queen, NY, and Fort Lauderdale, FL. She is a 2003 graduate of Saint Thomas Aquinas High School and a 2007 graduate of Florida International University. Cristela moved to Lynn in 2018, where she currently lives. She resides in the building formerly housing Fran’s Place, where she produced a WBUR radio story in 2019. Her interview discusses diaspora issues, her attachment to her grandmother’s home in Panama, and her parents’ negotiation with American culture. She talks about her struggle to come out to her evangelical parents and find her voice as a spiritual queer person. She expresses sympathy for people bullied as “queer” and explains how others have chosen to take ownership of the term. Interview carried out by Andrew Darien

Saving for Retirement in America: The Struggle and the Solutions

Retirement is a part of life that all working Americans work towards. Sadly, it is not the reality a lot of people can enjoy. With the death of pensions, lack of retirement savings, poor finance education, and high cost of living, a lot of Americans do not get to retire and work until the day they die. There are several avenues that can be pursued to remedy this crisis. Becoming aware of what options are present such as the types of accounts where retirement savings can be invested effectively. Additionally, increasing the financial literacy of Americans during their primary and secondary education would greatly prepare them for their own financial future, and improve the U.S. as a whole. Furthermore, on a widespread scale, regulations and laws can be implemented to increase the minimum wage to an amount that is acceptable to live on in a given area, executive pay can be kept in check while increasing the median worker’s pay, or monthly stimulus payments can be made to support individuals. Lastly, with the power of collective bargaining, individuals through a Union can fight for better wages, benefits, protections, and retirement benefits when firms are not willing to grant them by their own accord.Accounting and Financ