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Grand Rapids Community College: Program Profile
No full textGrand Rapids Community College (GRCC), Michigan’s first community college, was established in 1914 and is focused on offering traditional liberal arts and occupational pathways, adult education courses, and skilled training courses and apprenticeships. Academic offerings include twelve Academic Pathways, eight degree programs, and several certificate programs. GRCC had 11,777 students enrolled in fall 2022; 72% are part-time, 57% of enrolled students are female, 40% of the student population are from underrepresented groups, and 72% of the students are considered in-district residents of Kent County
Planning for Solar Equity: Zoning and Land Use Strategies for Community Solar Gardens in Rural Minnesota
No full textThis project examines how land use planning and zoning can support equitable deployment of community solar gardens (CSGs) in rural Minnesota counties and townships. Although Minnesota is widely regarded as a policy leader in community solar, most solar arrays are concentrated in metropolitan areas with greater planning capacity and demand. By contrast, rural jurisdictions must navigate dispersed populations, limited staff, and competing agricultural land uses. Focusing on Clay, Stearns, and Chisago Counties, the study analyzes local ordinances and related land use policies to understand how community-scale solar is defined, sited, permitted, and decommissioned.
Solar regulations are systematically coded for key elements (definitions, siting standards, review pathways, and end-of-life provisions) and interpreted through the lenses of energy equity and rural planning practice. Semi-structured interviews with county planners and solar developers provide practitioner insight into community resistance, utility interconnection delays, and infrastructure constraints. Cross-case comparison reveals emerging innovations, such as tiered permitting thresholds and solar overlay districts, alongside persistent gaps in explicitly accommodating CSGs and prioritizing low- to moderate-income access.
Drawing on these findings, the project proposes a solar ordinance template that emphasizes transparent procedures, consistent standards, and intentional equity outcomes. By linking ordinance language to implementation pathways, the study offers practical tools rural local governments can use to balance farmland preservation with clean energy goals and to position rural communities as active partners in Minnesota’s renewable energy transition.
Advisor: Yunwoo Na
How Presidents Shift Ideological Stances in Legislative Elections: Evidence from South Korean Presidential Speeches
No full textPresidents have a strong desire to lead their parties to victory in elections. However, relatively little attention has been paid to their ideological stances in legislative elections. This contrasts with extensive research on the ideological strategies of parties and candidates who directly compete for office. How do presidents adjust their ideological positions in legislative elections? This study examines the institutional dynamics surrounding presidents, focusing on their dual responsibilities and the role of legislative elections as a referendum on the presidency. It also considers presidential popularity as a factor that influences these dynamics. I argue that presidents are more likely to moderate their ideological stances during legislative elections, but popular presidents are less inclined to do so. To test these hypotheses, I apply the WORDFISH algorithm to South Korean presidential speeches to measure ideological positions and track shifts during legislative elections. The results show that progressive presidents engage in ideological moderation in legislative elections, but refrain from doing so when their approval ratings are high. This study is the first to explore how presidents act as electoral figures in terms of ideological strategy, even when their own re-election is not directly at stake. More broadly, it demonstrates how political elites navigate institutional constraints while continuing to pursue strategic goals.
Advisor: Geoffrey M. Loren
The Role of Peroxisomal ACOT4 and ACOT8 in Modulating Lipid Metabolism and Stress Pathways in Steatotic Hepatocytes
No full textMetabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is characterized by excessive lipid accumulation in hepatocytes and the development of lipotoxic stress that disrupts cellular homeostasis. Peroxisomal lipid metabolism plays an important role in maintaining acyl-CoA balance during fatty acid overload, yet the contribution of peroxisomal acyl-CoA thioesterases to early lipotoxic responses remains insufficiently understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the functional involvement of the peroxisomal enzymes acyl-CoA thioesterase 4 (ACOT4) and acyl-CoA thioesterase 8 (ACOT8) in hepatocyte lipid handling under acute lipotoxic conditions. An in vitro model of steatosis was established in AML12 cells through exposure to a mixture of palmitate and oleate (1:2). Lipid accumulation, metabolic stress markers, and gene expression profiles were assessed following individual silencing of Acot4 or Acot8. Fatty acids treatment induced steatosis and increased the expression of Acot4 and Acot8, alongside genes associated with lipid storage and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Silencing of either Acot4 or Acot8 reduced intracellular lipid accumulation and attenuated stress-related gene expression, indicating that the upregulation of these enzymes during lipid overload may represent a maladaptive response that promotes lipotoxicity rather than preventing it. These findings suggest that peroxisomal acyl-CoA metabolism contributes to early lipotoxic stress and highlights ACOT4 and ACOT8 as potential druggable nodes to mitigate hepatocellular dysfunction during the onset of MASLD.
Advisor: Tomasz K. Bednarsk
Evaluation of Distractor Model Specifications on Assessment Quality Within the Framework of Assessment Engineering
No full textResponding to the high demand for new test items, model-based item development has emerged as a promising approach for efficient item creation. Item models within Assessment Engineering (AE) offer a systematic framework that effectively generates a large volume of new items. In the development of multiple-choice questions, well-constructed distractors are essential for ensuring item quality, although creating them requires significant time and resources. A distractor model is a sub-model within an item model, producing correct answers and distractors aligned with all potential items to be generated. Various types of distractor models have different characteristics and offer efficient methods for generating distractors depending on the nature of items and tests.
This study focuses on the features and usage of various types of distractor models within the AE framework, exploring their characteristics through empirical data. It aims to assess how different types of distractor models affect psychometric properties such as item difficulty and discrimination in real testing environments. By employing item statistics alongside examinees’ verbal responses from the think-aloud method, this study showed that items with certain types of distractor models are more difficult than those with other distractor models when other conditions of these items are consistent. The findings of this study provide empirical insights into the characteristics and effectiveness of these distractor models, offering practical guidance for item development using these models in both formative and summative assessment.
Advisor: James Bovair
Multiscale Drivers of Water Level Fluctuations and Nutrient Availability in Small Intermittent Reservoirs in the US Midwest
No full textReservoir dynamics are often captured by fluctuations in water surface elevation, which reflect a complex interplay of hydrologic inputs, climatic conditions, land use influences, and management operations. While water level fluctuations (WLFs) in large regulated systems have been widely studied, the drivers and implications of WLFs in small reservoirs, particularly those fed by intermittent streams, remain poorly understood. Here, we examined the temporal dynamics of WLFs and their relationship with nutrient availability in nine small reservoirs in the U.S. Midwest using daily records from 1985 to 2022. We used water level classification from modified Zscore and transition matrices to assess the stability and dynamics of water levels across daily, monthly, and annual timescales. Mixed-effects and generalized linear models were used to identify the physical and environmental drivers of water level changes, as well as their relationships to summer nutrient concentrations. Results indicate strong stability in low (\u3c -1.5 zscore) and normal (–1.5 \u3c Z \u3c 1.5) water level conditions across timescales, with elevated dynamics at the monthly scale. In addition to lag effect, precipitation was the dominant driver at daily and annual scales, while seasonal and land use interactions were more influential at monthly resolution. Agricultural land use appeared to moderate the immediate effects of rainfall, likely due to increased infiltration and catchment retention. The results from our nutrient models revealed that nitrate and phosphate concentrations were significantly associated with water surface elevation, windspeed, and temperature, pointing to both external loading and internal processes such as sediment-water interaction and oxygen availability through mixing events. Our findings demonstrates the need to integrate scale-dependent hydrologic variability into reservoir management and nutrient mitigation strategies, particularly in small reservoirs fed by intermittent streams and are subject to climatic and landscape control.
Advisor: Jessica Corma
Experiences of Disclosure among Transgender and Gender Diverse Sexual Assault Survivors
No full textAround half of TGD people have experienced sexual assault victimization (Abern et al., 2023; Clements-Nolle et al., 2006; James et al., 2016; Martin et al., 2022; Risser et al., 2005; Stotzer, 2009), which leads to higher rates of depression and PTSD (Grant et al., 2011; Grocott et al., 2023; Fernández-Rouco et al., 2017; Hawkey et al., 2021; Matsuzaka & Koch, 2019; Parr, 2020; Ussher et al., 2020). Disclosure of victimization may be important among TGD survivors. The current study was guided by minority stress theory (Meyer, 2003) and the gender minority stress and resiliency model (Testa et al., 2015) to explore experiences of disclosure among TGD sexual assault survivors. Participants were 318 TGD people who had experienced past six-month sexual assault victimization drawn from the Strong, Thriving and Resilient Men (STAR-M) Study. Relationships among minority stress, sexual assault disclosure, and mental health were explored. Results indicated that most participants experienced attempted rape by coercion in the past six months (40.3%; n = 125) and 45.6% (n = 145) disclosed in the last six months. Of those who disclosed, most participants disclosed to a friend (84.8%; N = 145) and an informal source (47.6%) rather than a formal source (4.2%). Most participants did not disclose because they wanted to deal with it alone, forget, not worry others, or had other concerns to focus on; were ashamed; feared being blamed; felt it was not serious enough or others would not think it was serious enough or would not understand; or felt nothing would be done. Disclosure of one’s identities was related to sexual assault disclosure, but no other analyses were statistically significant. However, 57.4% (N = 317) and 67.4% (N = 316) of participants were considered clinically depressed or met criteria for a provisional PTSD diagnosis, respectively. Implications based on findings, especially reasons for non-disclosure, include exploring contextual factors around sexual assault and disclosure (e.g. intersectionality) and unique barriers to disclosure among TGD survivors, advocacy against anti-TGD legislation and rhetoric, and changes to existing programs and services (e.g. crisis and sexual assault hotlines) and clinical spaces to be more welcoming and TGD-affirming.
Advisors: Katie M. Edwards and Dena M. Abbot
The Career Resilience of Women of Color Amidst Intersectional Racism-Sexism in the US: A Consensual Qualitative Study
No full textWomen of color have historically and presently experienced both sexism and racism on interpersonal, institutional, and cultural levels (Sue et al., 2007). While discrimination based on racial-ethnic and gender identities has by far the most extensive literature base (Duffy et al., 2016), literature on the development of women of color career resilience is not as expansive. Informed by the Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) (Blustein, 2006; Duffy et al., 2016), the intersectionality framework (Crenshaw, 1989; Collins et al., 2021), and critical consciousness (Freire, 1971; Quiñones-Rosado, 2020), this consensual qualitative research (CQR; Hill, 2006) explored how women of color in the United States, specifically those who experienced racism and sexism in their work and career, define and develop career resiliency. This qualitative study thus expands the understanding of career resilience by centering the lived experiences of women of color navigating intersecting racism and sexism during their career journeys. Findings of this study reveal that career resilience was defined and characterized by women of color participants as: their abilities to adapt and shift based on changes in the work environment, demands, and personal resources; to persevere while maintaining clarity in their goals, having hope and optimism, and overcoming challenges; to continually grow in their vocational and interpersonal skills; to base actions and decisions in their values; and to be intentionally strategic in navigating workplace discriminations and conflicts, including utilizing personal, community, and institutional resources. Findings demonstrate that career resilience development can be influenced by critical consciousness, community and institutional resources, economic restraints, and caregiving/motherhood. Integrating PWT, intersectionality, and critical consciousness offers a more inclusive and justice-oriented approach to understanding and supporting the career development and well-being of women of color in the United States workforce.
Advisor: Neeta Kantamnen
How a Garden Hoe Changed my Literacy Life: A Story of Teaching, Coaching, and Becoming
No full textIn this dissertation, I explore how personal practical experiences teaching reading intervention impacted my own understanding of the role of a secondary literacy coach. Drawing on the concepts of dialogism and adult learning theory, I leveraged learning conversations to grow my own body of knowledge. The methodology of this study was done using narrative inquiry and autoethnography. This methodological blend allowed me to closely study myself as the primary participant with a unique positionality as a scholarly practitioner. I unpack the complexities, contradictions, and tensions of my lived experience through stories and vignettes set in a rural midwestern public school district. My analysis suggests the importance of advocacy, cultural implications, teacher knowledge, and outcomes of reading intervention to both reading interventionists and secondary literacy coaches. My analysis also includes suggestions to improve secondary reading intervention practice guides and literacy coach standards of practice. This dissertation is an examination of complex issues at the intersection of adolescent literacy, teaching reading, and teacher professional development from a scholarly practitioner perspective. My research contributes to the field by detailing the ways secondary literacy coaches grow their body of knowledge through professional conversations and deep, introspective work to explore contradictions and tensions among a cast of characters. This scholarship provides insight and perspective into the lived experience of a teacher’s ongoing learning journey and process of becoming.
Advisor: Elaine Cha
Claims genAI Copilot
No full textThe team was tasked with enhancing the efficiency of Mutual of Omaha’s claims processing operations by introducing a generative AI-driven assistant. Historically, claims benefit specialists relied on legacy systems and manual review of dense policy and rider documentation—methods that are not only time-consuming but also difficult to scale. In collaboration with Mutual of Omaha’s internal GenAI team, the Design Studio team developed an AI-powered solution designed to provide fast, accurate access to policy information through natural language queries.
The team implemented a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture that leverages large language models via AWS Bedrock to retrieve and deliver form-specific content in real time. By integrating document-level metadata filtering, semantic embedding, and a user-friendly Gradio interface, the solution enables claims associates to interact with hundreds of complex insurance documents in a conversational and guided manner. This project sought to modernize the existing system with intelligent automation that reduces claim processing time, enhances training for new hires, and improves the overall user experience for employees engaging with critical policy content