ESTIMATING COMPARATIVE COSTS OF PRODUCING MILK AMONG THE SOUTHERN STATES

Production Economics,

LEVEL OF STRUCTURAL AGGREGATION AND PREDICTIVE ACCURACY OF MILK SUPPLY RESPONSE ESTIMATES

Milk supply response was estimated for Pennsylvania using three different levels of structural aggregation. The base level involved the estimation of milk production in a single equation. Under the second method, production was the product of two equations: milk per cow and number of milk cows. The third method factored production into three equations: milk per cow, number of dairy farms, and number of cows per farm. As expected, the greater the degree of disaggregation the more was learned about the structural aspects of milk production. At the same time, predictive accuracy generally decreased, but the differences among models was slight.Livestock Production/Industries,

DEFINING AND MEASURING RURALITY

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

ESTIMATING THE RELATIVE RURALITY OF U.S. COUNTIES

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Peak of the Day, or the Daily Grind?

Survey research explores the relationship between commuting and overall happiness

Critical Literacy in Fairytales: Through the Eyes of a Preschooler

Critical literacy theory says that students can make connections between a text and the meaning of its words, thereby, connecting it to societal ideas around them. Critical literacy in the classroom has often been tied back to various texts, including fairytales. When most think of critical literacy, the common idea is that it is used in an upper elementary classroom and the grades following. Various articles provide lots of insight into the minds of students in relation to critical topics; however, one age group has not been given much of an opportunity to participate in these discussions. This paper applies critical literacy to this age group--preschoolers. Through four fairytale lessons, students engaged in critical discourse with questions preplanned and facilitated by the researcher. This study aims to show that even young students can think critically about topics if they are challenged and provided with questions that push them to think about a topic

Cruising, Crossings & Care: Sounds of Collective Black Girlhood

This dissertation is an autoethnography of my three-year and ongoing participation in Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT), a creative organizing collective that focuses on envisioning and creating spaces within the local community that celebrates the complex lived experiences of Black girls with Black girls. In this project, I argue sounds of collective Black girlhood, created in SOLHOT, reveal the importance of collective music-making practices in Black girlhood studies and girl programming. Cruising, Crossings and care, as sounds of collective Black girlhood created in SOLHOT, resound us towards 1) being with Black girls and women across difference in deep love, trust and care 2) remembering Black feminist/women and artists love and care for each other as critical to how we celebrate and organize Black girlhood, together. I begin with a review of literature of Black feminism, Black girlhood studies, performance studies and sound studies to locate and define the range of research that center Black girls and women’s lived experience and power made together, particularly as it relates to organizing a Black girl sound. Treating SOLHOT visual and material archives, Black feminist poetic texts, as well as the digital music productions, art and performances that come from being in intentional relationship and sociality with Black women and girls as primary sources and usable truths. My analysis theorizes from sound and music created in SOLHOT, Black feminist poetic texts, and experiences of being an artist with the collective. This work addresses sounds and songs that come from doing Black girlhood celebration and function as a way to document, analyze, interrogate and make space for complex Black girlhood in service of creating a better now and future that get us away from programming youth and more into making space/power for us to be fully human, together, across generations and differences. Making a specific contribution to Black girlhood studies, SOLHOT, art education and feminist theory, this study expands how we creatively engage Black girls, Black feminist organizing genealogies and practices, where music-making, poetry and sound serve as ways to remember our relational work and envision spaces and worlds to live out our full humanity