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“Insuring Peace: British Intervention in Northern Ireland After the Belfast Peace Agreement”
Full text linkHistory Department Honors Thesis, 2017. Awarded: Highest Honors.This work examines the political transformations in Northern Ireland after the Belfast
Peace Agreement of 1998 ended 30 years of conflict between the country’s Protestant, Unionist
and Catholic, Nationalist communities. This analysis fills in what was a missing chapter of the
current academic story, the role of the British government in maintaining peace and stability in the
years immediately following the signing of the Agreement. Drawing on a perspective from
Economics, the work explains how the British government provided something like insurance for
the peace process by stepping in to govern each time the Catholic and Protestant parties reached an
impasse. This British "insurance" protected peace and prosperity, shielding the Northern Irish
from the consequences of increasingly uncompromising political stances, but in the process also
unintentionally encouraged individuals to vote for those uncompromising stances—an insurance
phenomenon known as "moral hazard." This idea of British insurance helps explain a series of
unusual phenomena that followed the Belfast Agreement, including the peaceful rise of radical
parties that displaced the more moderate parties that had helped craft the agreement, and the
phenomena of increasing prosperity that seemed to counter intuitively track increasing political
instability. In the end, the British interventions played a crucial role in eventually bringing
together Northern Ireland’s two most radical parties in negotiations that created a more stable
peace through the St. Andrew’s Agreement.Department of HistoryCollege of Arts and Scienc
“Benign Negligence: U.S.-South Korean Relations at the End of the Carter Administration”
No full textHistory Department Honors Thesis, 2017. Awarded: Highest Honors.President Carter hoped to define his foreign policy on human rights and liberalization. With the removal of the longtime authoritarian leader, Park Chung Hee, the year 1979 presented an opportunity for democracy in South Korea in 1979. The Carter administration missed this opportunity because of world events and poor communication. This thesis analyzes President Carter’s goals and the way changed over the course of the administration. Ultimately, international crises like the oil crisis, the Iranian hostage crisis, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan distracted the administration from the hope for democratization in South Korea. This unintended negligence left the security-minded American officials in South Korea in charge. This thesis shows the opportunities and limits of American power abroad and the difficulty in pursuing a moralistic foreign policy.Department of HistoryCollege of Arts and Scienc
“Jeffrey Sachs and the Costs of Capitalism. Shock Therapy in eastern European Transition Economies”
No full textHistory Department Honors Thesis, 2017. Awarded: Honors.This thesis examines economist Jeffrey Sachs’s implementation of shock therapy in transition economies from 1985-1994. Analysis begins with the foundation of the practice in Bolivia, and examines the changes in the approach and evolution of thinking that impacted its execution in Poland and subsequently post-soviet Russia. This thesis argues that the successes and failures of this economic practice are heavily dependent on two determinant factors – international backing for debt forgiveness, and the amount of cohesive national support for the effort. Ultimately, Russia failed to see the economic growth following Sachs’s intervention that Bolivia and Poland experienced; however, their individual successes also came with significant drawbacks in the form of rioting and a constitutional state of siege in Bolivia, and deindustrialization and unchecked increases in unemployment in Poland. This thesis concludes that current economic and historiographical interpretations of these transitions are too narrow in their analysis, and that the discrepancies behind Jeffrey Sachs’s, among other economic advisers’, ability to fully implement these policies from nation to nation contextualizes their effects on macroeconomic stabilization.Department of HistoryCollege of Arts and Scienc
Capstone ELL Portfolio
Full text linkTeaching and Learning Department capstone projectThis ELL portfolio demonstrates my understanding and competence in teaching culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) English language learners based on my theoretical knowledge at Peabody College along with a variety of practices including field trips, classroom observations and teaching experiences.
The portfolio consists of three parts: 1) Philosophy of Teaching, 2) TESOL standards for ESL/EFL Teachers of Adults, 3) Bridging theory and practice. In the first section, I state my philosophy of teaching under the theoretical framework of Vygotsky’s sociocultural view of learning, Cummin’s interdependence Hypothesis, communicative language teaching and culturally responsive pedagogy. In the second section, I interpret the TESOL standards and provide the artifacts I completed as evidences to illustrate the relevance and demonstrate my understanding of the eight domains—planning, instructing, assessing, identity and context, language proficiency, learning, content, commitment and professionalism. In the last section, I present my ideal vision of my future classroom, anticipate the challenges and solutions in future teaching and identify the direction of my continued professional development.Department of Teaching and LearningPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen
Capstone EFL Portfolio
No full textTeaching and Learning Department capstone projectThe capstone EFL portfolio manifests my beliefs, knowledge, and experience working with English language learners. At the end of the ELL program, I systematically collect my works and reflect upon my understanding obtained through theories and practices so as to inform and guide my further professional development.
The portfolio includes three parts: 1) philosophy of teaching 2) professional knowledge 3) application to practice. In the first part, I analyzed the factors that influence second language acquisition concerning cognitive, social-cultural, and linguistic dimensions. In the paper, I linked my analysis to three major theories: Piaget’s (1952) schema theory, Vygotsky’s (1978) social cultural theory, and de Jong’s (2011) linguistic theory. Based on the analysis and theories, I stated my beliefs of being a good language teacher focusing on two aspects: students and communities, curriculum and program design. In the second part, I took advantage of eight artifacts (examples of my work) to shed light on my understanding of the eight TESOL standards. I specifically addressed my professional knowledge and experience by focusing on learners and learning, the learning environment, curriculum, and assessment. In the last part of the portfolio, I depicted my future class concerning learners, environment, curriculum, and assessment. Meanwhile, to address the question of applying theory to practice in a class in which traditional notions dominate, I formulated specific instructional plans targeting at issues related to the conflict between my beliefs and traditional notions. Additionally, based on the recognition of my lack of knowledge as a novice teacher, I reflected upon options and directions to guide my career development.Department of Teaching and LearningPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen
“Detroit ‘Polar Bears’ in the Land of Lice and Snow: The American Soldier Experience in North Russia, 1918 – 1919”
Full text linkHistory Department Honors Thesis, 2017. Awarded: Highest HonorsThis thesis examines the experience of American soldiers serving in North Russia in 1918 – 1919, an expedition often referred to as an offshoot of World War One. It bases its conclusions by utilizing the comprehensive Polar Bear Expedition Collections archive at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library. The thesis uses this extensive primary source base to identify common themes and describe the soldier experience in a confused and ultimately failed military intervention. This focus on a relatively unexplored military mission places the thesis in a larger genre which examines the experience of American soldiers on the ground. It also readjusts the standard twentieth century American interventionism timeline.Department of HistoryCollege of Arts and Scienc
Social Horror and Social Media: The Threat of Emergent Technology in "Unfriended" and "Sickhouse"
Full text linkEnglish Department Honors Thesis.Vanderbilt UniversityEnglish DepartmentCollege of Arts and Scienc
Portrait of a Grandmother
Full text linkEnglish Department Honors Thesis.Vanderbilt UniversityEnglish DepartmentCollege of Arts and Scienc
Absent Characters: Stage Space and Social Change in Modern Drama
Full text linkEnglish Department Honors Thesis.Vanderbilt UniversityEnglish DepartmentCollege of Arts and Scienc
English Language Learners Capstone Portfolio
No full textTeaching and Learning Department capstone projectThis portfolio introduced my educational philosophy, how I learned to become a qualified English language teacher, what I have achieved in TESOL teaching field, and my vision of my future teaching life. This portfolio has four big parts and they work together to illustrate how I am as a TESOL teacher. First, I introduced my teaching belief and the literature that most influenced me. This provides my theoretical framework and my attitude towards second language teaching. Second, I showed my professional knowledge of the TESOL domains supported by artifacts of my work. Third, I talked about my concerns, reflections, direction and remaining questions in my future teaching career. Fourth, I attached several artifacts as evidence.Department of Teaching and LearningPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen