Crossing Baseball’s Color Line: Javan Emory, Jacob Francis, Hershel Schnebly, and Howard Molden, Revised

This set of three essays describes the careers of Black baseball players and umpires who dealt with a color line that barred them from participating with most teams of white players prior to the mid-twentieth century. The first essay — Javan Isaac Emory: Multiple Trips across Baseball’s Color Line — tells the story of Emory’s playing career during the late nineteenth century with integrated and segregated teams at several levels in Pennsylvania, from town teams to professional leagues. The second essay — Jacob B. Francis: Organized Baseball’s First Black Umpire — recounts the story of the first Black umpire in the minor leagues in 1885 and 1886 in upstate New York. At the other end of this period in history, the third essay — William Hershel Schnebly and Howard “Smokey” Molden: The Persistent Color Line — introduces two players in rural Nebraska who played in semipro leagues during the 1930s and 1940s. As the color line in minor league and major league baseball was about to end after World War II, they experienced attempts to implement segregation on the diamond at a local level. These essays were originally published in 2021 and have undergone revisions and corrections for release in 2025 as part of the five-volume anthology Peeking through the Knothole. The open-access, digital version of these essays is available through the “Download” button on this webpage. The print-on-demand version is available through the “Buy this Book” button for volume three of the anthology (Essays on Crossing Baseball’s Color Line, 1874–1946).https://scholars.fhsu.edu/all_monographs/1028/thumbnail.jp

Integrated Baseball in Ohio, 1883–1900: Sol White and Richard Male, Revised

Two essays amend and expand what has been published about two Ohio natives who played baseball in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the sport became increasingly segregated. The first essay clarifies the early years of Sol White, a Black ballplayer from Bellaire, Ohio, who played on integrated amateur teams in his hometown beginning in 1883, as well as the integrated first nine in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1886–1887 and the segregated Pittsburgh Keystones in 1887–1888. About this same time, Richard Male, who was born in Columbus but was a longtime resident of Cleveland, played under the pseudonym Richard Johnson for white town teams in Ohio before joining low-level minor league clubs in Zanesville, Ohio and in Illinois. However, he was not signed by a high-level minor league or major league clubs after stories spread that he was Black. As with his contemporary, Charles “Bumpus” Jones of Cedarville, Ohio, another ballplayer with light skin, the question of whether Male was Black or white was answered differently in his hometown than in the world of organized baseball. This essay was originally published in 2024 and has undergone revisions and corrections for its release in 2025 as part of the five-volume anthology Peeking through the Knothole. The open-access, digital version of this essay is available through the “Download” button on this webpage. The print-on-demand version is available through the “Buy this Book” button for volume three of the anthology (Essays on Crossing Baseball’s Color Line, 1874–1946).https://scholars.fhsu.edu/all_monographs/1039/thumbnail.jp

The Effect of Peer Mentoring on Stress Levels of First-Semester Nursing Students

Abstract Due to the immense complexities of nursing education, students in a program of nursing experience higher levels of stress when compared to other disciplines, which can lead to negative learning outcomes and attrition resulting in significant financial losses for academic institutions. Peer mentoring is an evidence-based strategy to support students by engaging in a mutual relationship, yielding positive learning outcomes through stress reduction for the mentee and the mentor. A quasi-experimental quantitative-qualitative study design will be performed to investigate the effects of a well-organized, supported peer mentoring program between first-semester nursing students and fourth-semester nursing students at Wichita State University. Students at the local Kansas State University (KSU) campus will participate in the program, while their linear cohorts at the main Wichita State University (WSU) campus will serve as a control group without participation. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) will be utilized to monitor stress level trends during the students’ first semester in the control group and the intervention group, with an anticipated result that will substantiate the value of a peer mentoring program in reducing first-semester nursing students’ stress levels and achieving positive learning outcomes. Qualitative data will be collected through an open-ended comment section following the PSS. By reducing nursing students’ stress levels in the first semester through peer mentoring, optimal educational outcomes can be achieved through support in initiating a valuable relationship between the mentor and the mentee. Keywords: peer mentoring, stress level, learning outcomes, Perceived Stress Scal

Virtual Reality & Cybersecurity

This poster includes how it was created, what we learned, and why it is useful. This project is a collaboration with the Cybersecurity Institute and Technology Incubator (CITI). Our team is developing a virtual reality version of CITI to support a hands-on learning space for information technology and cybersecurity education both in person and online

Identifying the Strongest Links: Factors that Drive Graduate Students’ Progress from Interest to Enrollment

This study examined factors which influence graduate students\u27 decisions to pursue speech- language pathology from initial exposure to final program selection. Through a survey, key links were identified at all stages. Findings suggest recruitment should begin with high school students who exhibit healthcare interests and value mentorship at the graduate level

Resurrecting the Past: Engineering Ancestral Enzymes for Modern Bacterial Applications

Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction (ASR) is a computational technique that infers and resurrects ancient protein sequences to explore molecular evolution and enable protein engineering. By integrating phylogenetics and statistical modeling, ASR produces stable, mutation-tolerant enzymes ideal for directed evolution. This poster presents a workflow for reconstructing enzymes from pathogenic bacteria and highlights ASR’s value in uncovering novel functions and advancing applications in drug discovery and synthetic biology

It Takes Work

It Takes Work By Parker Cyrier Graphic Design, J unior Mixed Medi

When We Grow Old

WHEN WE GROW OLD by Dalton Steinert Accountin

Fleeting

Fleeting Caitlin Arrieta Secondary Educatio

Post Communion

Post Communion Uriel Campos English, Senio