The Minority Population

Many times the issues and triumphs of minority populations in America are either oversimplified or ignored in the media. Through my blog, The Minority Population, the rug will be swept up from under the feet of my readers and they will be invited to engage in a dialogue about some of the major historic and ongoing current event issues facing those in the minority. As someone who grew up living in the digital age, it only makes sense that The Minority Population is a brand that lives and thrives online through social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Having these discussions online, where fake news is perpetuated and social justice movements are created – it allows for a younger generation to engage in these critical conversations about race, gender, sexuality and their place within these discussions. It’s my hope, that through The Minority Population brand, people engaging with the content will be forced to look inward at their own biases, privileges and worldview in an effort to make a difference in their own lives as someone who is culturally competent but more so for the people who have historically been left out of the conversation

Toward Efficacy: Examining The Reported Impact of Quality Enhancement Plans on Student Learning in Postsecondary Contexts

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) mandates the completion of a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), which requires institutions to develop and implement initiatives to improve student learning or the student learning environment as part of the reaffirmation process (SACS, 2016a). The purpose of this study was to examine the reported impact of QEPs of various institutional types and topic areas on student learning at SACS-accredited institutions. Additionally, this study also examined the effective practices that institutions have identified in the implementation of their QEPs. The data analysis revealed the following four areas of student learning that the QEP reportedly impacted: critical thinking, global competence, information literacy, and reading and writing mastery. The data analysis also revealed the following three effective practices for use during QEP implementation: the mixed use of direct and indirect measures of assessment, communities of practice, and high-impact practices. These findings indicated the occurrence of organizational learning during the QEP process, as well as a potential for interorganizational learning that could further foster innovation and maximize impact on student learning

Breathing Room

Breathing Room is a thesis driven by a conceptual investigation of glass as an embodiment of physical limitation. My research considers glass as a somatic medium, as a material with limitations that mirror those of the human body, and a way to engage bodies in space. This work, which used hot glass, scientific flameworking techniques, and collaborative gestures, resulted in a series of performances and objects. My thesis research culminated in two separate yet related bodies of work and two thesis exhibitions. This dissertation will analyze the work and studio-based research in relation to historical and contemporary performance art focusing on the media glass and the body

Comparison of the flash card method of teaching spelling with the spelling today method in grades two and three

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

In search of indicators to support the ‘perfect cluster’ : Where evaluation theory collides with policy practice

The concept of geographically concentrated ‘clusters’ of firms, research institutions and other organisations became popular in economic development policy circles during the 1990s, following the publication of Michael Porter’s (1990) Competitive Advantage of Nations. Today there is widespread acceptance of the need to design policies that nurture and support cooperative relationships among groups of firms and other agents to boost competitiveness and innovation. Despite the widespread use of cluster policies as cornerstones of regional and national competitiveness policy, there remains a shortage of evaluation research and practice that enable us to understand the impacts of these policies. This is due to the inherent methodological difficulties in evaluating cluster policies, and capturing both direct and indirect impacts. For example, standard evaluation approaches focused on the firm as a single point of measurement risk missing the added value of collaboration core to the cluster approach. Addressing these challenges necessitates the coming together of academic expertise and analysis with the real-time and evolving experience of policy makers and practitioners. This paper makes a contribution in addressing this shared challenge and moving the cluster evaluation state-of-art forwards

Non-Pharmacological Pain Managment in Labor: A Systematic Review

During childbirth, women experience labor pain throughout the three stages of labor. The first stage is where the contractions start and end which creates the need for a form of pain management. Various techniques are used to manage first stage labor pains. The use of non-pharmacological methods is becoming more prevalent because natural births are becoming more popular and pharmacological interventions have side effects and drug interactions. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a systematic review of the literature comparing non-pharmacological pain management methods in women during the first stage of labor. This will answer the PICOT question: In women during the first stage of labor, how do the non-pharmacological interventions of hydrotherapy, therapeutic touch, and the use of the birthing ball, compared to the standard treatment, affect pain management. Search methods include use of keywords in databases: CINAHL plus with full text, MEDLINE with full text, and SocINDEX with full text. Twenty research articles are used to describe hydrotherapy, birthing ball use and therapeutic touch as pain management methods in labor. Based on a critical appraisal of the evidence, recommendations for future practice will be created

‘Conspiring Together’: Woolf’s Investigations on ‘Party Consciousness’ and Interwar Instability in \u3ci\u3eMrs. Dalloway\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eTo The Lighthouse\u3c/i\u3e

Woolf has been generalized popularly as enthusiastic about parties, relishing their effervescence and conversation, and she had a particular bent for imagining a party’s vivacity while often remaining distanced from it. This imagination and duality would mark Woolf’s thoughts as is recorded in her diary entries, and they became especially apparent in her fiction. In an entry on April 27th, 1925, less than one month from Mrs. Dalloway’s May 14th publication, she declares that “people have any number of states of consciousness” and reports that she “should like to investigate the party consciousness” (A Writer’s Diary 74). In conjunction with her vivacious social life, Woolf indeed investigates ‘party consciousness’ many times over, as evidenced by her bountiful party depictions spread throughout her fiction. In the wake of the paradigm shifts set in motion by WWI, much of Woolf’s writing acknowledges the new consciousnesses that have been created and also identifies the uncertainty that accompanies these changes. Parties become an opportune experience for Woolf to investigate these shifts as they operate as centers of both observation of and participation in the ever-changing systems and culture. There is, however, a delicate nature attributed to this party consciousness. In studying it Woolf feels that it is potentially fragile as she remarks, “You must not break it. It is something real. You must keep it up—conspire together” (74). I seek to illuminate where we locate this instability in Woolf’s parties, specifically Clarissa’s in Mrs. Dalloway, which takes place after the war, and Mrs. Ramsay’s in To the Lighthouse, which takes place before the war, and to suggest that though these structures, specifically parties, become more fragile post-war, they also become ever more important

A comparative analysis: Implications of the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972

This thesis attempts to identify the determinants of progress in implementing the CZMA; and more specifically, whether progress is related to two independent variables: governmental structures and funding levels. Advisor: Professor Alan WisemanNo embarg