Choosing Your Battles: Provoking the Public at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park

During training to be an intern at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, our instructors continuously stressed the importance of reading our audience. Whether we were greeting visitors at the front desk or leading walking tours, our job was to always watch the visitors and gauge what they are interested in. For me, this was initially very frustrating. I prefer to deal with concrete things instead of making judgement calls. It all sounded pretty wishy washy and that I would somehow ‘know’ what the visitor wanted just by looking at them. Needless to say, I was not convinced

Documenting the Value of Librarians in the Classroom: Results from a Mixed-Methods Research Collaboration with Campus Partners

This paper details the results of a mixed-methods study of first-year and upper-division students’ information literacy (IL) competencies. The study used a rubric and a survey, seeking to answer two research questions: 1) Is there a correlation between National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) IL survey responses and IL rubric scores? 2) Are there any indicators that correlate to improved IL performance in first-year students? Results demonstrated that first-year students reported greater engagement with IL and also indicated that instructors placed greater emphasis on IL competencies than students in upper-division courses. They also show a statistically significant impact on first-year students’ rubric scores when a librarian is in the class. This finding held even when controlling for other variables. Results provide an evidence-based foundation to spur conversations with faculty and university administration on the value of IL and the role of librarians in undergraduate student success

A Different Way of Touring Europe; One Aid Man\u27s Journey Across Europe During World War II

Robert Bell Bradley enlisted in the United States Army in October of 1942 as an aid man. He spent several months training to be a first responder on the front lines of combat and learning how to deal with a variety of issues. He was then attached to the 30th Infantry Division and sent to England in preparation for operation OVERLORD and the D-Day Invasion. Two months later, he was captured by the Germans and this event began a year long journey filled with death and near misses. [1] While Bradley’s experiences cannot speak for all prisoner of war narratives, his tale represents a unique story in which he traversed nearly all of Europe and became a part of several key events of World War II. Several characters make periodic appearances in Bradley’s narrative, including Arley Goodenkauf, a fellow prisoner in Stalag III C, who plays a key role in said POW camp. As more and more veterans die, it has become increasingly important to share their stories so they are not lost. For such a prolific writer as Bradley, this is doubly important as he has recorded his memoirs for future generations but has left it up to historians to contextualize and interpret them. What follows is a first attempt at such an interpretation. [1] Robert B. Bradley, “The Lost Battalion,” “The Lost Battalion and Vermont Poems ( n.p. 1993), Musselman Library Special Collections; Robert B. Bradley, Aid Man! (New York: Vantage Press, 1970), Musselman Library Special Collections, 14-104

A Different Way of Touring Europe

Robert Bell Bradley enlisted in the United States Army in October of 1942 as an aid man. He spent several months training to be a first responder on the front lines of combat and learning how to deal with a variety of issues. He was then attached to the 30th Infantry Division and sent to England in preparation for operation OVERLORD and the D-Day Invasion. Two months later, he was captured by the Germans and this event began a year long journey filled with death and near misses. While Bradley’s experiences cannot speak for all prisoner of war narratives, his tale represents a unique story in which he traversed nearly all of Europe and became a part of several key events of World War II. Several characters make periodic appearances in Bradley’s narrative, including Arley Goodenkauf, a fellow prisoner in Stalag III C, who plays a key role in said POW camp. As more and more veterans die, it has become increasingly important to share their stories so they are not lost. For such a prolific writer as Bradley, this is doubly important as he has recorded his memoirs for future generations but has left it up to historians to contextualize and interpret them. What follows is a first attempt at such an interpretation

Alien Registration- Currier, Annie M. (Madison, Somerset County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/6701/thumbnail.jp

Dispersal Dynamics of the Bivalve Gemma Gemma in a Patchy Environment

The purpose of this study was to analyze the dispersal dynamics of the ovoviviparous bivalve Gemma gemma (hereafter referred to as Gemma) in an environment disturbed by the pit-digging activities of horseshoe crabs, Limulus polyphemus. Gemma broods its young and has no planktonic larval stage, so all dispersal is the result of juvenile and adult movement. Animal movement was measured using natural crab pits, hand-dug simulated crab pits, and cylindrical bottom traps in the intertidal zone at Tom\u27s Cove, Virginia, USA. This study demonstrated that horseshoe crabs create localized patches with reduced densities of Gemma, that all sizes and ages of Gemma quickly disperse into these low density patches, and that the mechanism of dispersal is passive bedload and suspended load transport. Freshly excavated natural pits had significantly lower Gemma densities than did undisturbed background sediment, but there were no significant differences in total density of other species, number of species, and species diversity (H\u27). Equitability (J\u27) was greater in pits than in controls because of the reduced abundance of Gemma, the numerically dominant species. Newly dug simulated crab pits also had significantly lower Gemma densities than controls and returned to control levels by the next day. Density recovery trajectories for individually marked pits showed consistent responses in summer and fall, but not in winter when low Gemma abundance resulted in greater variability among pits. Significant positive correlations between the volume of sediment and the number of Gemma collected per bottom trap support the hypothesis that Gemma dispersal is a passive transport phenomenon. Assuming no active, density-dependent movement, the product of the Gemma density frequency distribution in undisturbed background sediment and the frequency distribution of sediment volume collected per trap created a predicted Gemma frequency distribution in traps that matched the actual distribution. Absolute dispersal rates and relative dispersal rates (absolute dispersal rate divided by background density in undisturbed sediment) into pits and traps were greater in summer than winter. Dispersal rate results suggest that increased horseshoe crab disturbance in summer may cause an increase in Gemma transport. Because Gemma individuals are dispersed by hydrodynamic action, it was expected that small, young individuals would be most easily transported in the bedload. There was, however, little evidence that movement into pits and traps was size- or age-selective. Most recent benthic dispersal research has focused on the large-scale movement and settlement patterns of invertebrate larvae. The results from this study illustrate that dispersal of bottom-dwelling juveniles and adults plays an important role in regulating the local distribution and abundance of Gemma. Previous workers have shown that young Gemma live in dense aggregations and that growth and fecundity are reduced at such high densities, leading to population crashes. This study demonstrated a mechanism by which Gemma disperses into low-density patches where intraspecific competition may be mitigated, possibly resulting in enhanced individual reproductive success and population fitness

Residential treatment for combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder: Identifying trajectories of change and predictors of treatment response

Background Combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be a difficult condition to treat and has been associated with serious medical and economic issues among U.S. military veterans. Distinguishing between treatment responders vs. non-responders in this population has become an important public health priority. This study was conducted to identify pre-treatment characteristics of U.S. veterans with combat-related PTSD that might contribute to favorable and unfavorable responses to high value treatments for this condition. Method This study focused on 805 patients who completed a VHA PTSD residential program between 2000 and 2007. These patients completed the PTSD Clinical Checklist at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and a four-month follow-up assessment. Latent growth curve analysis (LCGA) was incorporated to determine trajectories of changes in PTSD across these assessments and whether several key clinical concerns for this population were associated with their treatment responses. Study Findings LCGA indicated three distinct trajectories in PTSD outcomes and identified several clinical factors that were prospectively linked with changes in veterans\u27 posttraumatic symptomatology. When compared to a group with high PTSD symptom severity that decreased over the program but relapsed at follow-up (41%), the near half (48.8%) of the sample with an improving trajectory had less combat exposure and superior physical/mental health. However, when compared to a minority (10.2%) with relatively low symptomatology that also remained somewhat stable, patients in the improving group were younger and also reported greater combat exposure, poorer physical/mental health status, and more problems with substance abuse before the start of treatment. Conclusions Findings suggest that veterans are most likely to benefit from residential treatment in an intermediate range of symptoms and risk factors, including PTSD symptom severity, history of combat exposure, and comorbid issues with physical/mental health. Addressing these factors in an integrative manner could help to optimize the effectiveness of treatments of combat-related PTSD in many cases

Coming and Going: Assessing Information Literacy to Shape Curriculum

In the era of fake news, assessing students’ Information Literacy competencies is especially important. Understanding first-year and senior students’ ability to find, evaluate, and use information provides powerful assessment data to capture what students come to college with, how they leave, and how that can shape the curriculum. This poster details the results of a project which combined indirect (survey, n=630) and direct (rubric analysis of final papers, n=775) measures to assess students’ Information Literacy competencies. Attendees will learn about implementation, results, and lessons learned as well as strategies for instituting a similar ground-up assessment project