University of Southern Mississippi
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Downtown Hattiesburg: In History and Memory
This paper explores how public memory of Downtown Hattiesburg has been shaped by race, class, and historical change, drawing primarily on oral history interviews conducted by the author. Once the heart of the city, Downtown Hattiesburg experienced significant decline from the 1970s onward due to suburbanization, white flight, and demographic shifts. In response, the 1970s saw the emergence of a historic preservation movement focused on revitalizing memories of the city\u27s early 20th-century prosperity (1910-1929), often idealized as a period of economic success even despite racial segregation. Many interviewees identified this era as the city’s golden age, despite its deeply inequitable racial structures. The paper also examines the World War II era, marked by the reactivation of Camp Shelby, which boosted the local economy. Preservation efforts, particularly of two WWII-era USO buildings, play a central role in promoting this period in public memory. Additionally, the destruction of Hattiesburg’s Mobile Street district—largely due to flooding and urban neglect following the civil rights movement—represents a loss of a vital Black community and creating a historical silence of this area in public memory. This paper argues that public memory of Downtown Hattiesburg is deeply influenced by race and class, with preservation efforts often reinforcing some historical narratives while obscuring others
The Origin of Educational Technology in China
Educational Technology is the means and methods employed in educational activities. Since the inception of education, there has been a parallel development of Educational Technology with a rich historical background. The entire evolutionary process of Educational Technology can be divided into three stages: Pre-Educational Technology, Current Educational Technology, and Post-Educational Technology, corresponding to the past, present, and future of Educational Technology. Throughout history, the Chinese nation has made irreplaceable contributions to the creation and inheritance of human civilization. The educational philosophy embedded in the discussions of education and technology among various schools of thought in ancient China and the educational ideas found in ancient Chinese scientific works laid the theoretical and practical foundations for optimizing the teaching and learning process. The creation of Chinese characters, the invention and dissemination of papermaking and printing techniques, and the development and application of intuitive teaching aids enriched the theory and practice of teaching and learning resources. The combination of the two not only promoted the development of Chinese education, but also influenced the process of global education development. Ancient China possessed the necessary and sufficient conditions for the birth of Educational Technology, therefore it can be considered that China is the birthplace of Educational Technology, and the Chinese nation is the indigenous people of Educational Technology
Stable Isotope Analysis of Manatee Vibrissae to Investigate Individual Patterns of Resource Use in the Northern Gulf of Mexico
Envisioning the Future of Scholarly Communications with Digital Commons
We’d like to take you on a quick journey, starting at the very beginning to examine how institutional repositories came to be, why we think the library remains at the center of knowledge management and distribution and how the librarian community plays a pivotal role in advancing scholarly communication. We will then discuss the role Digital Commons plays in supporting this community and our ongoing commitment to furthering open access and scholarly communications
A Conductor’s Guide to Blas Emilio Atehortúa’s Diagramas Op. 49.
Blas Emilio Atehortúa (1943-2020) was a Colombian composer with an extensive catalogue of works, and has been recognized as the most prolific and performed Colombian symphonic composer of the second half of the 20thcentury. Although many of his works were commissioned in the U.S. and Latin-America, very few of his pieces have been published, regularly performed, and further studied.
Atehortúa studied in Argentina at the Latin-American Center for Advanced Musical Studies, (CLAEM, is its acronym in Spanish) from 1963 to 1968, thanks to scholarship awards by the Organization of American States. He studied with revered avant-garde composers such as Ginastera, Dallapicola, Xenakis, Malipiero, Maderna, Messian, and Nono among many others, thus expanding his knowledge in compositional techniques of the 20th Century while exploring his own style as a composer. Further collaborations with the CLAEM and the OAS would prove fruitful for him, as he was hired as a composer, conductor, and researcher. But most importantly, the OAS would commission different works from Atehortúa. Among these commissioned works, Diagramas op. 49, is an excellent example of the pieces he wrote under the influences of the styles and composers met at the CLAEM.
This research will provide brief biographical context on Blas Emilio Atehortúa, and a Conductors’ Guide to Diagramas op. 49. In hopes of providing further guidance to performers of Atehortua’s music, this writing will also contain selections of an interview to Pedro Sarmiento, Colombian composer, Atehortúa’s former student, and leading Atehortúa scholar
Examining the Effects of Food Supply on Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) Larval Performance and Settlement Potential in Delaware Bay and Mississippi Sound
Oyster population maintenance and growth require sufficient larval stocks capable of timely development, growth, and successful metamorphosis, whereby larval performance and settlement potential determines the capacity for a larval cohort to effectively establish into an existing population. Exogenous factors influencing larval performance include temperature, salinity, and particularly food supply. Regarding food, a sufficiently abundant and nutritionally balanced diet composed of protein, lipids, and carbohydrates is critical for successful metamorphosis. The influence of exogenous factors on Crassostrea virginica settlement potential were examined in Delaware Bay and Mississippi Sound by incorporating in situ environmental conditions and food supply metrics into a well-established biochemically-based larval performance model. Additionally, physiological variation in initial egg size, lipid content, and assimilation efficiency was modeled to reflect potential within-cohort phenotypic variability. Extended periods of suppressed salinity routinely impeded larval survival, but under adequate environmental conditions, food quality was the primary control on larval success. Reproductive seasons with favorable exogenous conditions prolonged settlement windows whereas strenuous conditions constrained settlement windows. Evaluating simulated settlement windows against concurrent recruitment observations validated the predictive power of the model and emphasized the importance of food quality on larval performance. To further characterize food assemblages available to oyster larvae in Mississippi Sound, linkages between inherent optical properties to environmental conditions and biochemical food metrics were investigated. Phytoplankton and colored detritus distributions were inferred via measured absorption coefficients but exhibited weak correspondence to biochemical metrics. Optical analyses demonstrated that biochemical food analyses remain superior food supply indicators over chlorophyll and particulate matter measurements
Eliciting a Syncopated Response from an Ensemble
This dissertation began the process of aggregating available knowledge on the subject of eliciting a syncopated response from a musical ensemble from professors of conducting and conducting textbooks, searching for commonalities, and distilling them into several independent variables which can then be quantitatively tested in an experimental or quasi-experimental setting in future research.
Participants (n = 11) were Directors of Choral Activities, or any other job title with similar responsibilities, at universities which confer doctoral degrees in Choral Conducting. Each participant was required to have a different educational background than every other participant. Participants were given 15 examples of syncopated entrances on every sixteenth note of a simple quarter note beat and every eighth note of a compound dotted quarter note beat. Each portion of the beat was examined in three different positions: at the beginning of a work, within a work, and within one beat of having sung.
Very few conducting textbooks address syncopated entrances and, of those that do, even fewer go past an eighth note anacrusis in a simple meter. This small pool of textbooks reached a contradictory conclusion when compared to the participants. The textbooks suggested that if a note is perceived to be functioning as an anacrusis, one may cue the beat following the syncopation rather than the beat which contains the syncopation. The majority of the participants disagreed with that statement, advocating instead for a gesture before the note in all circumstances.
The specific gesture used varied based on whether the participant thought of the cue as taking place at the syncopated entrance or at the beginning of the syncopated beat. Those who cued at the syncopated entrance started their gestures away from the plane and moved downward first. Those who cued the beat of syncopation started their gesture at the plane and moved upward first.
The factors that affected participant answers were the placement within the beat, the perceived function of the note, context (within the same part, in other parts, language and articulation, historical and genre-specific considerations), level of comfort with the ensemble, and the ensemble’s place in the learning sequence
PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH EXAMINING ADMINISTRATORS AND SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS\u27 PERCEPTION, EXPERIENCE & KNOWLEDGE OF THE MISSISSIPPI SPECIAL EDUCATION GROWTH RUBRIC
In the current era of accountability, public school administrators’ responsibilities may include evaluating special education teachers and providing them with feedback and support to improve their effectiveness. The problem that exists is that administrators who do not have a background in special education are charged with the responsibility of evaluating special education teachers, resulting in special education teachers not getting the support or feedback necessary to improve their instructional practice.
In addition to administrators not having the background knowledge necessary to effectively evaluate and support special education teachers, the problem of developing an effective evaluation model to evaluate special education teachers also exists. Despite the vast majority of research and literature that exist on developing effective evaluation models for general education teachers, there is a limited amount of research conducted on effective evaluation models for special education teachers and how special education teachers benefited from their evaluation process. In this study, I asked a) how special education teachers and administrators perceived the Mississippi Professional Growth Rubric (MSEGR)? b) How administrators perceived their ability to provide special education teachers with feedback and strategies to improve their effectiveness? c) and how special education teachers perceived their evaluation and evaluation results