01: Voices: USU’s Latino/a Voices Project

Utah State University Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives Division (SCA) is home to rich oral history collections. SCA endeavors to preserve Northern Utah history and heritage by collecting the voices of everyday men and women. Our collections range from the poignant reminiscences of those who survived Idaho’s Teton Dam disaster to the recollections of modern-day cowboys. Our oral history efforts serve to enhance SCA’s other documentary sources, such as manuscript, folklore and photograph collections. At times, oral history may be a first effort of discovering the history of some segments of our community. One such segment is Northern Utah’s Latino population. While this community accounts for more than twelve percent of Northern Utah’s population, its history is grossly under-represented in SCA’s holdings. In 2007, as an effort to rectify this, SCA partnered with Utah’s Cache Valley Latino communities to collect and preserve the stories of 45 people. This joint effort became known as the Latino/a Voices Project (LVP).https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/latino_voices/1001/thumbnail.jp

Tennessee Superfund Program Overview, Rules, Regulations & List

This guidance document is intended to assist in furthering the understanding of Local Government officials and others concerning Federal and State Hazardous Waste Superfund regulations, issues and procedures. This document incorporates regulations and procedures already in use by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Tennessee Department of Health and Environment and attempts to demonstrate where they parallel

Caritas Intervention to Reduce Stress and Increase Resilience Among Caregivers

Problem Workplace stress and burnout consistently rank among the highest concerns in surveys of caregivers. A gap analysis was conducted among a group of patient care coordinators and medical social workers. The gap analysis identified a need for tools to address stress, feelings of being overworked, and irritability. Context The setting is an acute care trauma facility providing care to general medical–surgical adult patients, cardiac care, pediatrics, and maternal child care. This facility exists within a larger integrated health care system, consisting of more than 20 acute care facilities in Northern California. The participants were patient care coordinators and medical social workers. Intervention Each participant received one 2-hour education session describing the usage of the Quick Coherence® technique (HeartMath®, 2017). In addition, four 15-minute one-on-one coaching sessions over 8 weeks were offered to each participant to support after the 2 hour educational session. The usage of the new tool was reinforced through leader-led usage in huddles and staff meetings. Measures This improvement project relied on a plan-do-study-act (PDSA) design, utilizing a group of 32 patient care coordinator registered nurses and medical social workers. Blinded participants were asked to complete a pre- and post-intervention Personal and Organizational Quality Assessment – Revised 4 (POQA-R4) questionnaire which measures four primary scales: emotional vitality, emotional stress, organizational stress, and physical stress. Results Among the primary scales, positive shifts were identified in emotional vitality (18%), emotional stress (28%), organizational stress (38%), and physical stress (39%). Intention to quit was reduced by 26%. Conclusions This evidence-based project was successful in meeting its aim of reducing stress and increasing staff resilience. The personal nature of the phenomena attempting to affect, stress, which is both personal and broad, created unique challenges. The key findings for success were: significant consideration for appreciation of the readiness level for the participants, creating a clear personal value proposition, and a commitment by the organization to support the time for the practice of the intervention. In the case of this project, the key reasons for its success were the minimal time necessary to train, and efforts to increase the desire to participate, as well as ongoing support through one-to-one coaching and support for practice in a collective setting with peers. Lastly, the choice of the tool, Quick Coherence®, contributed to the success of this project because it could be engaged in the moment of the stress trigger without others being aware. The same tool could also be used to build a reservoir of resilience against both personal and professional stress triggers

Voices from Drug Court: Partnering to Bring Historically Excluded Communities into the Archives

While many archivists have evolved their professional scope to bring diversity into their collections, we posit that much can still be done. One area for growth is greater work by archival professionals to partner with communities to help them tell and preserve their own stories, incorporating a community’s own perspective and goals. This article discusses the community-based project between the Cache Valley Utah Drug Court and Utah State University Library’s Special Collections & Archives. The project was conceived and co-managed by Andrew Dupree (name used with permission), a participant and now graduate of the Cache Valley Drug Court. Perhaps the only project of its kind as of this writing, this effort gives voice to a historically excluded community in archival records. This article examines the importance of ensuring that archivists include the voices of a diverse community in their collections by actively partnering to facilitate community participation in framing and building these collections. This approach will make archival collections more diverse, socially just, and inclusive, especially with historically excluded communities

Technical Bulletins: Procedures for Issuance of Ordinance Summonses in Lieu of Arrest Warrants

In April, 1986, Tennessee Code Annotated, Sections 7-63-201 through 7-63-204 became effective, authorizing municipalities to appoint enforcement officers by resolution or ordinance to issue ordinance summonses in the areas of sanitation, litter control, and animal control. Attached to this bulletin are sample ordinance and resolution formats

Voices of Resiliency: Utah Stories of Substance Use Disorder, Stigma, & Harm Reduction Afterword

The afterword of Voices of Resiliency: Utah Stories of Substance Use Disorder, Stigma, & Harm Reduction outlines the impetus for the graphic novels in this series and provides a brief overview of the steps the project creators/directors and team members took to initiate this work. The focus of the afterword is to convey to readers that they too can make their community better by launching community-based, participatory projects that can lead to all kinds of creative outcomes and impacts. Along with resources, the afterword suggests five ways to start, including: 1) get a group of people together), 2) build an action plan and map out the steps needed, 3) figure out who can do which pieces, 4) start talking to people, 5) once you have a plan, and you have a team, you’ll undoubtedly have successes and challenges—but starting is the key.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/harmreductioncomics/1006/thumbnail.jp

Voices of Resiliency: Utah Stories of Substance Use Disorder, Stigma, & Harm Reduction Foreword

The foreword to the graphic novels in Voices of Resiliency: Utah Stories of Substance Use Disorder, Stigma, & Harm Reduction explains the aims of this community-driven project, including giving voice to the lived experiences and best practices around drug use, recovery, and stigma and harm reduction. The project creators share their hope that the volumes in the series will aid people who use drugs, their families and friends, neighbors, health professionals, educators, first responders, legislators, and people involved in the justice system in their journey regarding substance use disorder and stigma and harm reduction. The foreword acknowledges the generous funders and supporters and praises the outstanding project team members—including many community scholars. The project is an outcome of Informing the National Narrative: Stories of Utah’s Opioid Crisis Project, 2019-2021 an oral history effort which was partially inspired by Voices from Drug Court: Cache Valley Drug Court Oral History Project, 2016-17; both projects are housed in Utah State University’s Special Collections and Archives in Digital Collection.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/harmreductioncomics/1005/thumbnail.jp

Capturing Voices in the Heat of the Moment: Election Reflections 2016

At Utah State University Libraries, we have a tradition of community-driven oral history efforts aimed at bringing the voices of the underserved and underheard communities into our Special Collections & Archives for preservation and presentation. This effort is called Northern Utah Speaks

Strategies for Recruiting African American Men into Prostate Cancer Screening Studies

Background Recruitment for research and clinical trials continues to be challenging. Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and disproportionately affects African American men; thus, effective recruitment strategies are essential for this population. Objectives To focus on innovative and effective recruitment strategies for research on prostate cancer with minorities. Methods A systematic description is provided of the recruitment efforts for a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study of African American men's experiences in decision-making on whether or not to have a prostate cancer screening. Results Seventeen African American men were enrolled from rural Central Virginia. Recruiting strategies were targeted on places where African American men usually are found, but that are rarely used for recruitment: barbershops, community health centers, and churches. Word-of-mouth was used also, and the majority of the participants (n = 11) were reached through this method. Discussion Recruitment efforts have been noted to be particularly challenging among minorities, for numerous reasons. Making minority recruitment a priority in any research or clinical trial is essential in gaining a representative sample. Word-of-mouth is a powerful tool that is often forgotten, but should be looked at in further detail

Business Intelligence Adoption: A Literature Review and Model Exploration

Purpose: Synthesize a new model of Business Intelligence adoption factors, driven by four key variables: 1-Executive Management Influence, 2-Individual Intention, 3-Technology, 4-Organization. The research seeks to identify new insights from existing publications in factors impacting adoption of Business Intelligence (“BI") through a systematic literature review. The research is comprehensive and review centric, covering over 80 scholarly publications from highly reputable sources, including: -International Journal of Information Management, -MIS Quarterly, -Decision Support Systems. Practical implications: The research is important because BI systems provide immense benefits to organizations who adopt modern BI tools (Acheampong & Moyaid, 2016). BI systems provide an ability to make fast decisions with the most up to date information available. This increased speed to insight results in greater profitability, enhanced competitive advantage, and improved decision making capabilities. However, limited research exists on the factors affecting adopting BI (Acheampong & Moyaid, 2016). The current research will challenge existing theories of BI adoption, synthesize recent advances, and expand existing models in the field through a systematic literature review and empirical study (Puklavec, Oliveira, & Popovič, 2018), (Lee, 2010), (Ain, Vaia, DeLone, & Waheed, 2019)