Royce's idea of God.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Beyond Dollars: Philanthropy and BIG CHANGE in the Greater Washington Region

The new release is a 2013 progress report on our earlier publication, Beyond Dollars: Investing in BIG Change from 2009. When the original report was released, our goal was twofold. We wanted to chronicle and celebrate the unrecognized benefits of philanthropy in our region while also elevating what we saw as the common elements that led to change of great magnitude. Now, almost five years later, we want to check in on this work. Is the change lasting? If so, what factors have been critical? If not, what lessons have been learned? Our nation's policymakers are once again debating the charitable deduction. WRAG's 2013 version of Beyond Dollarsdemonstrates that the deduction, which is a critical tool for philanthropy and not a mechanism of fiscal selfishness as some politicians suggest, has lead to sound philanthropic investments that have continued to make an important difference in the lives of people who live in the District of Columbia, suburban Maryland, and Northern Virginia. Today we're sharing that message with our local Members of Congress.We want them to fully understand the impact that philanthropic investments make on the lives of people who live in our region

Far and Away

“Far and Away” is an illustrated pitch bible created to explore the seedlings of a longer narrative I would like to develop in the future. It presents a beat-by-beat synopsis of the first half of the plot, and is followed by a bestiary of creatures met later in the story. I felt presenting the project this way would allow me to display my strengths in children’s illustration and creature design, the two fields of illustration I would like to pursue post graduation. In this project I pay homage to my favorite Hayao Miyazaki movies, who I credit with inspiring me to pursue a career in art and taught me your dreams can achieved at any age. In this paper I also explore my artistic process, and how I approach creature design; followed by the career path I plan to follow once I leave Syracuse University

The Effects of Using Interactive Word Walls to Teach Vocabulary to Middle School Students

Teaching vocabulary to middle school students requires that educators find the most effective means of instruction to achieve this goal. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of using an interactive word wall as the tool to combine five effective, research-based teaching strategies with social interaction to teach vocabulary to middle school students. In this study, 124 middle school students participated. The control group consisted of 67 eighth grade English students, and the intervention group was comprised of 57 seventh grade English students. The intervention was for a period of four weeks and included specific activities that embraced effective teaching strategies plus social interaction. Throughout the intervention, an interactive word wall was used as the tool that combined the teaching strategies and social interaction. The assessments included a pre-assessment, four weekly assessments, and a four-week delayed assessment. The words for the pre-assessment and the four weekly assessments were taken from each group’s newly assigned words for their respective grade level. The words for the delayed assessment were randomly selected from the lists of words that each group used during the intervention phase of the study. Each assessment used the same format and contained a definition and sentence portion. A discriminant analysis was conducted on the data from the study. Overall, the definition portion of the assessments offered a greater weight to the discriminant function than did the sentence portion. Also, the mean scores between the two groups began to narrow as the intervention continued. On the delayed assessment, the intervention group performed almost as well as the control group, which was an unexpected result. Given the improved overall scores on the weekly assessments, and given the narrowed gap in the means on the delayed assessment, indications are that the word wall intervention yielded success in teaching vocabulary to middle school students

Health-Related Quality of Life and Future Care Planning Among Older Adults: Exploring the Role of Hope as a Moderator

Older adults have an increased risk for illness and disease, factors that can lead to functional impairment and intensify the need for reliance on supportive services. Planning for long-term care needs is a vital component of healthy aging and continued autonomy. Yet, many older adults fail to make plans in advance, perhaps due to differences in personal characteristics. The moderating effects of trait hope on the relationship between health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and preparation for future care needs (PFCN) was studied in a sample of 65 older adult primary care patients (\u3c65 years) in western New York. Participants completed a questionnaire on 5 dimensions of PFCN (awareness of risk, information gathering, decisions about care preferences, concrete planning, and active avoidance). In addition, data were collected on five HRQoL domains (physical function, physical role function, emotional role function, social function, and bodily pain) and trait hope. Moderated multiple regression was used to test the moderator hypothesis controlling for personal characteristics. Post-hoc probing was used to further examine significant interactions. At the bivariate level, social functioning, physical functioning, and emotion-based role were inversely related to PFCN and positively related to hope. Multivariate moderation models covarying age, sex, race, education, illness burden, and functional impairment indicated that hopefulness, particularly agentic thinking or goal identification, moderated the relationship between those three HRQoL dimensions and PFCN behaviors. Among those with greater role limitations, lower hope was associated with more awareness of risk and information gathering and less concrete decision making, whereas among individuals with fewer role limitations and better social and physical functioning, higher levels of hopefulness were associated with increased decision making. These results highlight the need for health professionals to gain a better understanding of their patients\u27intrapersonal characteristics when discussing issues related to future care planning

The Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Rural Virginia Secondary Teachers’ Self-Efficacy

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unique challenges for PK-12 education and exposed educators’ skill deficits. Teachers had to learn new approaches to doing their jobs while navigating the mental, emotional, spiritual, and financial impact of the pandemic on their personal lives. This undertaking was even more demanding for rural school divisions, which tend to lack the resources (e.g., personnel, technology, financial) that suburban and urban school divisions have. Schools reopened in fall 2020 offering fully remote, fully in-person, and hybrid modalities, however, there was no going back to teaching as it was before the pandemic. The present study sought to understand how the pandemic has impacted rural secondary teachers’ current self-efficacy perceptions and factors attributing to those perceptions. Findings indicated that teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions increased as a result of the pandemic and were primarily attributed to their personal efforts and prior personal and professional experiences. The findings also revealed the need for tiered institutional support that meet teachers’ post-pandemic needs

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationAdults are participating in all levels of higher education in increasing numbers due to a variety of societal, cultural, technological, and economic pressures. While many adult students attend 2-year colleges and technical institutions, 4-year colleges and universities are also enrolling substantial percentages of adult students. Nevertheless, adult college students - those who are functionally independent, have substantial work/life experience, and must balance school demands with extra-institutional obligations - experience low persistence and graduation rates comparative to their nonadult peers at these institutions. The literature on student retention points to the importance of academic integration for adult students. In recent years, student engagement - or participation in a variety of effective educational practices linked to successful outcomes - has been presented as an alternative formulation of academic integration. Prior research points to the importance of student engagement as a critical influence on student retention. The National Survey of Student Engagement [NSSE] measures engagement on five different benchmarks whose relevance for adult students is verified by the adult learning theory literature. This study utilizes data from the 2005 NSSE and correlational research methods to create an operationally useful definition of adult students and to compare their engagement on each of the five benchmarks to that of their nonadult peers. The findings are then explored to suggest refinements to current theory and practice and directions for future research regarding adult students