The first of its kind--the impact of WHER-AM and WDIA in postwar Memphis radio.

In 1947, WDIA Memphis became the first radio station in the U.S. to switch to programming featuring only Black performers and announcers. Eight years later in 1955, WHER-AM became the first all-female radio station in the country, also originating in Memphis, Tennessee. This thesis will discuss the ways WHER and WDIA have both contributed to and reflected social change movements between 1947 and 1970, from civil rights to feminism. Substantive sources include media perceptions of both stations through local newspapers, interviews with early participants, and various secondary scholarship on the impact of both stations. Ultimately, I argue that Memphis’s racialized demography, collaboration with other music icons, and increasingly affluent Black population particularly predisposed station owners in the city to take advantage of the “narrowcasting” boom in postwar era radio. However, WDIA achieved a significantly broader reach than that of WHER due to the growing nature of Black-appeal radio, as well as the station’s commitment to genuine community uplift, rather than performative activism. While WHER was launched as an interesting experiment in female broadcasting, the women’s movement ultimately rejected female-centric radio as contradictory to its aims, creating further gendered separation in broadcasting from which feminists sought to move away. The difference in success of the two stations suggests a difference in the goals of the women’s movement and the movement for civil rights, a difference between desire for integration and actual community empowerment

A New Look at Sex Offender Rehabilitation: Embracing Elective Chemical Castration

This essay analyzes the historical and modern use of castration efforts on sex offenders and advocates for federally supported, elective chemical castration as an effective means of rehabilitative treatment and relapse prevention post-incarceration

Two-player trick-taking games on bipartite tournaments.

We consider a two-person game played on a bipartite tournament with equal size parts. The game is modeled after trick-taking card games like bridge or euchre. The two players, South and North, each receive one of the parts as their hand, and the arcs from a vertex in one hand beat the corresponding vertices in the other hand. The game is played over rounds called tricks where the number of tricks is equal to the number of vertices in each player’s hand. At the beginning of the game, one player is designated as the leader, and they play the first vertex of the first trick after which the other player, the follower, plays one of their vertices. Whichever player’s vertex beats the other vertex wins the trick and becomes the leader for next trick. The goal of the game is to win as many tricks as possible. On account of the changing leads, deducing an optimal strategy is difficult. In this paper we derive some bounds for the scores achieved on different tournaments and compare these to some of the corresponding bounds derived for a game where the tournament has no directed cycles

Design Dogma: Redefining Tradition and Innovation Through Mahjong.

This design project explores the creation of a Riichi Mahjong set that bridges the traditional cultural heritage of the game with modern design, aimed at introducing the game to new audiences. Riichi Mahjong, a variant of the traditional Chinese Mahjong game, has evolved significantly over the centuries. This project focuses on the development of a visually appealing and functional set that enhances a player’s experience, while staying true to the historical roots of Mahjong. The design uses careful selection of color schemes and symbols, such as the use of both Chinese characters and Arabic numerals to encourage recognition and learning for English-speaking players. Each tile design was made to be both distinct and harmonious in the broader set. The packaging and instruction manual were carefully made to create a game accessible to newcomers. The instructions are concise yet informative, employing visual cues to enhance clarity. The packaging was adjusted throughout the process to optimize space and usability, resulting in a simple presentation that contrasts yet respects historical packaging conventions. This project demonstrates the power of design thinking in reinterpreting traditional games for contemporary contexts, ensuring that cultural heritage is preserved while allowing for approachability for new players. This project illustrates how traditional games can be thoughtfully reinterpreted for a global, contemporary audience

School choice and spatial equity: a comparative analysis of public and private K-12 school enrollment in three American metropolitan areas

This thesis investigates the factors influencing school choice and enrollment patterns in three Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs): Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI; Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN; and Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell. It explores the role of socioeconomic and spatial variables, including income levels, racial composition, and educational attainment, political fragmentation, and urbanicity in shaping enrollment decisions across public and private schools. Using spatial analysis and multiple regression techniques, the study examines how these factors contribute to variations in school enrollment within the selected MSAs. The results reveal that income level and racial composition significantly affect enrollment patterns while other factors such as urbanicity had minimal impact. This study underscores the importance of understanding local contextual factors when analyzing school choice and provides insights into the broader implications for educational policy and future research on urban school systems