Sensational Spiritualism: The Study of 19th-Century Reporting and Its Effect on the Spiritualist Movement

The project "Sensational Spiritualism: The Study of 19th Century Reporting and Its Effect on the Spiritualist Movement" will explore sensationalism's effect on the Spiritualist movement in the United States from the mid-19th century through the 20th century. The project explores how sensationalism contributed to the movement's progression, which peaked during the 19th century due to the population's rising numbers and literacy rates. Newspapers are the bulk of the primary sources captured for the project, which depict the unique language and imagery that sensationalism brought forth, intriguing and influencing the interest of society, which directly impacted society's intrigue and interest in Spiritualism. Many scholarly interpretations of why the movement caught on so quickly and dissipated are discussed further in the project. The newspapers are in tandem with Spiritualism's historiography – its rise, fall, and resurgence in the 19th and 20th centuries. Scholarly secondary sources have been chosen to support the vast historiography of the movement. The newspapers will concur with the argument that the preferred choice of language and imagery that sensationalism became known for directly impacted the timeline and historiography of the movement. News agencies had a grasp and influence on society's attention and fascination – Crompton Burton calls it "sophisticated manipulation" - and this project strives to prove that these entities and tactics directly impacted their acceptance and eventual disinterest.Master ArtsHistoryCollege of Online and Continuing Educatio

Case Study: An Approach to Assess the Impact of the Student Success Program that Target Students in Poverty at a New England School

Defining success is difficult due to the abstract nature of the term and the multiple, competing ideas of what success looks like. Therefore, assessing the impact of a program designed to increase student success in an independent, rural high school is murky. The purpose of this dissertation in practice is to understand what students determine as their own factors in their success. This positive deviance approach gives voices to students in the definition of success and allows the resulting suggestions to be implemented at the local level. This scholar-practitioner dissertation in practice uses a positive deviant lens to examine why some students from poverty perform well at a New England high school, with the goal of generalizing the successful findings to better serve future students living in poverty. Participant selection also used a positive deviant approach. Data analysis and interpretation was conducted from interviews, document review, and a teacher survey. The findings of this study indicate five traits of success in the participant: organization, perseverance, resiliency, empathy, and connections. Additionally, the findings indicate further research could be done in the areas of the role of special educators in the lives of students, the concept of Goals, Habits, Growth as a framework of success, and the relationship between helping others and personal success.Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)Doctor of Education in Educational LeadershipSchool of Educatio

Academic catalog spring 2023 - university catalog

This catalog provides a comprehensive overview of the variety of programs and classes offered both on campus and online and along with SNHU’s website, contains information about our history and mission, our services and outreach, our facilities and the many opportunities we provide students for meeting their life and career goals

University Catalog

This catalog provides a comprehensive overview of the variety of programs and classes offered both on campus and online and along with SNHU's website, contains information about our history and mission, our services and outreach, our facilities and the many opportunities we provide students for meeting their life and career goals

A Digital Exhibition on Zoo Exhibits in the United States: The Impact of Public Opinion on Post-Civil War Zoo and Animal Exhibit Development Within the United States

This project explores the influence of public opinion on the development and evolution of zoos and animal exhibits. The main focus will be on the “Big Four” - four oldest accredited zoos in the United States: Philadelphia Zoo, Central Park Zoo in NYC, Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, and Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island. Four animal species will be examined to study zoo and exhibit development since the end of the Civil War in 1865. The animal species are elephants, orcas, red wolves, and timber rattlesnakes. These animal species provide historic examples of positive and negative animal care and species outcomes within captivity. Additionally, zoo and exhibit development progress will be supported with evidence directly from numerous zookeepers’ personal experiences, detailed Keepers Corner in the digital exhibition. This project acknowledges that scientific and medical advancements have lent significant changes to current zoo missions and exhibit design, yet research points to public opinions about animal welfare having historically been the driving factor. The primary sources used are news articles, photographs, and personal testimonials. Secondary sources include journal articles, books, and dissertations. Source categories found focus on cultural, social and political lenses, while acknowledging that other lenses are present in the research but addressing source categories from the particular focal lenses.Master ArtsHistoryCollege of Online and Continuing Educatio

Choosing Gender or Race: Portraits of Female, White Ally Higher Education Administrators Committed to Making Socially Just Spaces for BIPOC Women in their Institutions

Racism in the U.S. is systemic and has relied on centuries of deliberate practice to create a White male hegemonic (White supremacist) power structure. Being systemic, racism is reproduced in all of our defining institutions, including higher education. In addition, White women have consistently contributed to the reproduction of racism by choosing race and enduring sexism in all areas of society, including higher education. However, there are women in academe who choose to deliberately be antiracist and actively seek to create socially just spaces for women of color in their institutions. Filling a gap in the literature related to female White ally higher education administrators, this study inquires into the experiences of five female higher education administrators identified through Community Nomination (Foster, 1991; Ladson-Billings, 1989) as White allies by Black women. Through extensive interviewing and via Portraiture methodology (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) these women revealed the “goodness” of their work as they talked about themselves as 1) aspiring allies, 2) women in higher education, and 3) human beings in this world. Themes that emerged from the creation of the portraits mirror the extant literature on allyship, including 1) allyship is a continuous journey, 2) effective allyship requires humility and curiosity, and 3) being a White ally should be a moral obligation for anyone with White privilege. Filtered through the theoretical framework of Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Feminist Epistemology (2002), this study harnesses the power of storytelling and honors the thinking and scholarship of women of color. Keywords: racism, sexism, female White ally, higher education, Portraiture, Black Feminist Epistemology, Community Nomination.Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)Doctor of Education in Educational LeadershipSchool of Educatio

Exploring Self-Awareness of Self-Advocacy Skills Among Senior High School Students with Mild to Moderate Learning Disabilities

Students with disabilities do not take advantage of the resources available to them while in post-secondary institutions or places of employment because of a lack of self-advocacy skills (Mason et al., 2004). This inability to speak up for oneself results in a student’s inability to access the accommodations that they need in their postsecondary places of education or the workplace. Where does that start? Or where can that inability end? Students with mild to moderate disabilities have an IEP in school that allows their team to work on areas of strength and growth. As such, goals can be created in the area of transition that can explicitly teach students about the importance of self-awareness in self-advocacy as a psychoeducational goal, so students can ultimately embrace their neurodiversity. This qualitative phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of high school seniors with mild to moderate learning disabilities and the experiences that may have encouraged awareness and development of self-advocacy skills. This study is framed around the following research question: What are the lived experiences of high school senior students with mild to moderate learning disabilities as it relates to the development of self-awareness of their disabilities and the development of self-advocacy skills? The study was designed to investigate the complexity of this phenomenon through “exploring and understanding” (Creswell, 2009, p. 4) the meaning that students assign to their lived experiences in high school by exploring their interpretations of self-advocacy in high school and their perceptions of having the skills to advocate for themselves in a post-secondary or employment setting.Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)Doctor of Education in Educational LeadershipSchool of Educatio

Juvenile Competency

The present research examines the issue of juvenile competency, specifically in the interrogation process and in criminal trials. Existing literature has identified critical components related to juvenile competency, such as highlighting the significance of age regarding the inability to appreciate the seriousness of offenses and the increased levels of immaturity within adolescents. The present research displays a thorough review of academic literature and relevant legal cases that shifted the justice system’s perspective on juvenile competency to better understand why juveniles are more likely to be deemed incompetent than adults. Although there are a limited number of laws that address the issue of juvenile competency, current legislation is also evaluated. The findings of this research support the implementation of more laws that protect juvenile suspects within trials and interrogations

“We Just Came Apart”: How the Nonviolent Actions of the Civil Rights Movement Led to the “Revolutionary Violence” of Black Power

“‘We Just Came Apart’: How the Nonviolent Actions of the Civil Rights Movement Led to the ‘Revolutionary Violence’ of Black Power” is devoted to uncovering the relationship between the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in order to identify how the shortcomings of the Civil Rights Movement led to the armed self-defense activism associated with Black Power. Both movements had a similar ideological basis that promoted equality for all Americans, yet the tactics that were pursued to achieve their respective goals were vastly different. In the historiography of the Civil Rights Era, Black Power has continually been vilified in the available literature and displayed historically as being ineffective when compared to Civil Rights. This project challenges that assumption and provides evidence for how successful Black Power activism actually was. In the primary sources of Black Power activities, such as the various newspaper articles from the Los Angeles Times that were reviewed, the media denounced the efficacy of the activists and their protests which led to this trend being shown in the early historical literature written on the topic. Secondary sources were used in the development of this project that both strengthened and challenged key conclusions, and primary sources were provided to support the conclusions found here when they conflicted with what other historians have previously found. “‘We Just Came Apart’” is devoted to reinterpreting how Black Power has been viewed in historical literature, as well as to link how the deficiencies of the Civil Rights Movement allowed Black Power to burgeon.Master ArtsHistoryCollege of Online and Continuing Educatio

Cryptozoology Meets Ecology: A Look into the Megalodon

The megalodon was the largest shark that ever lived with the oldest fossil specimens being around 20 million years old. The creature is estimated to have gone extinct around 3.6 million years ago, but some skeptics maintain that the creature still exists deep in modern oceans. By examining false information surrounding the megalodon and developing an understanding of the paleontological and ecological mechanisms that scientists use to study it, we can paint a picture of the megalodon and determine how it survived in its ancient habitat and if it could thrive in oceans as we know them today