IDA Mount Holyoke College Institutional Digital Archive
Not a member yet
1794 research outputs found
Sort by
Sustainability at Mount Holyoke - Where We Are and Where We Could Go
No full textClimate change is the existential issue of our time, and institutions of higher education
can have a measurable impact thereon through sustainability initiatives like carbon neutrality
goals. To understand where four institutions, Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith
Colleges, stand in terms of their relative sustainability, a comparative case study approach was
employed with a focus on four critical parameters. Data were collected representing water use,
energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and curriculum at the institutions. The first three
parameters represent the three traditional pillars of sustainability; the fourth parameter,
curriculum, was chosen to reflect a more holistic view of sustainability at institutions of higher
education. The findings for each parameter were examined relative to the other institutions to
reach a better understanding of patterns and factors influencing parameter values. A significant
portion of the study concerns the limitations and merits of the available values to truly represent
the parameters. Ultimately, Hampshire proved to have the best overall values across the four
parameters while Amherst had the worst. Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges alternated between
second and third place, suggesting that they have achieved some sustainability success but could
do even more. A second focus of the study was Mount Holyoke College’s individual situation
and institution specific recommendations to improve sustainability data collection procedures
and by extension sustainability on campus. A series of recommendations were made to create a
consistent and comprehensive approach to this data collection, to increase regular campus-wide
collaboration on sustainability efforts, and to restructure existing data collection and
management procedures and division of tasks among staff at the Miller Worley Center of the
Environment.Environmental Studie
The Heterodox Orthodoxy of María de Ajofrín and María de Santo Domingo: Corporeal Spirituality and Female Authority between Centuries
No full textThe end of the fifteenth century saw the emergence of new forms of Iberian popular spirituality emphasizing individual religious practice and personal connection to the divine. In this project, I focus on María de Santo Domingo and her contemporary María de Ajofrín, two female mystics within Castilla during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. Both women were known for embodied spiritual practices, including Eucharistic miracles, imitatio Christi, and mystic visions. These practices were often denounced as unorthodox, despite their prevalence in communities of religious women prior to the Counter-Reformation. Within the context of late fifteenth-century Iberia, María de Santo Domingo and María de Ajofrín used these practices to legitimize the Inquisition, the military campaign against the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, and the system of limpieza de sangre (“blood purity”).
In order to examine the contours of corporeal spirituality in the lives of these religious women, I draw from two sources: the spiritual biography of María de Ajofrín and María de Santo Domingo’s Libro de la oración (“Book of Prayer”). Libro de la oración contains both biographical information and accounts of María de Santo Domingo’s visions. In my analysis, I focus on the representation of grief and imitatio Christi, as well as the political significance of both texts. While María de Santo Domingo lent religious authority to the ambitions of the monarchy and the Inquisitor General, María de Ajofrín used mystic experiences to participate in local Inquisitorial proceedings in Toledo. Relying on the support of the monarchy and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, María de Santo Domingo and María de Ajofrín used heterodox mystic experiences to participate in the construction and violent imposition of Iberian Christian orthodoxy.Spanish, Latina/o, & Latin American Studie
Counting Solutions to Non-Algebraic Equations Modulo Prime Powers
No full textIn the digital age, cryptology, always important during conflicts, is becoming more and more significant as cybersecurity influences world affairs. We are interested in studying the mathematical properties of certain functions that are employed to create digital signatures, in particular via the ElGamal Digital Signature Scheme. Using techniques from Holden, Richardson and Robinson [3], we examine the properties of these non-algebraic functions and, more specifically, we count the number of fixed points of these functions modulo any positive power of a prime p. We show explicitly how the singular points of the function (i.e. the points where the derivative is zero modulo p) complicate the solution.Mathematics & Statistic
Youth Trauma, Substance Use, and Youth Experiences in Public Systems in Hawai’i
No full textExperiencing trauma during childhood and adolescence is a potent predictor of subsequent life adversity. Youth who are experiencing homelessness, experiencing foster care, involved in the juvenile justice system, experiencing elevated substance use, or elevated mental health needs are at heightened risk for life trauma and are in vulnerable positions of experiencing additional trauma within the public youth systems in which they are involved. Additionally, having predispositions for youth substance use and abuse habits are connected to both trauma experiences and youth system involvement. The present project investigated how trauma, youth system involvement, and substance use interact and create specific circumstances of adversity for youth involved in public youth systems of care in Hawai’i (homelessness youth services, juvenile justice services, foster care services, substance use youth services, and mental health youth services). The project aimed to gain insight into youth experiences of public systems through qualitative focus group interviews and offer recommendations to the State of Hawai’i Department of Health, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division. From the data, youth shared trauma complex understandings of systems, and more importantly some shortcomings of these systems. They demonstrated the importance of centering youth voices and their insights spoke to improvements in supporting youth trauma within youth public systems of care.Psychology & Educatio
The Nutritional Effects of Subsequent Birth Spacing in Chad
No full textEarly childhood nutrition has extensive effects on later adult outcomes including those relating to life expectancy, health, cognitive development, educational attainment, and lifetime earnings. This study is an exploration of how the nutrition of four-year-olds is impacted by subsequent birth spacing in the Republic of Chad. A subsequent birth interval is the length of time between a child's birth and the birth of their closest younger sibling, which is an under-explored area of research. The data for this study are from the Chad 2014-2015 Demographic and Health Survey. The analyses are completed by running multivariable linear regressions with weight-for-height z-score or body mass index z-score as the dependent variable. The results show that subsequent birth intervals affect the nutritional status of four-year-olds on both the extensive and intensive margins. That is, children with subsequent birth intervals of fewer than 36 months are nutritionally worse off, and among children who experience a short interval, an additional month of space is beneficial. These findings have implications for the global fight against early childhood malnutrition as well as for several goals in developing countries relating to improving health, education, income, and life expectancy.Economic
"When We Fight, We Win": Analyzing the Chicago Teachers Union's Practice of Social Movement Unionism from 2010-2020
No full textIn 2012, when the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) took to the streets for their first strike in decades, some scholars hailed their practice as an example for unions across the country to follow in order to combat the threat of privatization and defunding. At rallies with thousands of rank-and-file teachers and allies, CTU leadership delivered a message that rejected the city government’s neoliberal policies that prioritized free-market principles over public services, framing their demands as a “fight for the soul of public education.” This rejection of traditional, business, and elite-oriented trade unionism in favor of a grassroots-oriented, militant coalition of activist and community organizations is known as social movement unionism. This project looks at CTU's practice over the past decade, analyzing the period’s three contract negotiations through the lens of social movement unionism.
To operationalize social movement unionism for this case study, I propose three criteria for analysis. First, union leadership is accountable to an energized base with new opportunities for engagement and learning. Second, that grassroots-oriented leadership rejects traditional ties with corporate and political elites, instead building political capital by joining forces with activists and community organizations. Third, unions use that capital to demand more than just wages and fair working conditions, instead articulating the connection between the contract fights and a broader political agenda. The culmination of this work adds to existing literature on social movement unionism by providing critical analysis of this case study over a longer period with an updated framework for the twenty-first century.Politic
COLOR PERCEPTION: IS YOUR RED MY RED?
No full textMy thesis work explores color alongside its relation with surrounding colors and the effect that has on human perception. Because color and visual perception are subjective, not every person perceives color equally. Each of us has a subjective experience of color; the way we see color may be informed by our past experiences, memory, and culture, in addition to our neurological similarities and differences. The works I produce invite one to question their understanding of the connection between colors, and by extension, everything they think they know. My works are created by manipulating colors and objects that are thought to match with their corresponding or complementary shade. In these videos, objects are constantly shifting within colored grids to explore how colors function ambiguously in perception. I draw on the work of Joseph Kosuth, an American conceptual artist that creates conversations about objects and their representation, and the possibility of new meanings in which we express our experience of art. Josef Albers, a German artist known for his ‘Interaction of Color’, will also be discussed alongside my own experience in exploring his research, as well as exploration of Anoka Faruqee, Tomashi Jackson, Richard Anuszkiewicz, and René Magritte.Art Studi
Dancing in Time: Embodied Engagements with Feminist and Queer Theory
No full textMy project springs from the years I have spent at Mount Holyoke College deepening my understanding of the world through simultaneous engagement with my dance practice and with feminist and queer theory. Dance has always been a way in which I create meaning for myself and synthesize knowledges produced through theory. Embodiment as a site of epistemology is a grounding truth in my work.
This thesis work is a collaborative research project, engaging with the work of others across space and time to think through the ways that my modern and postmodern dance practice creates space for queer futurities. Most significantly, my work is in conversation with a duet that Katherine Kain and I made collaboratively called swirly, phrase, make out, lollipops (2021), as well as with Katherine’s thesis work Pillars Remnant (2020), and Barbie Diewald’s Just the Beams (2018). Through the framework of these three rehearsal processes, I examine materiality, temporality, futurity, and queerness in three chapters. In the first chapter, I explain physicist Karen Barad’s theory of actively drawing boundaries as the basis of any research project, and Donna Haraway’s notion of vision as always mediated. I use these theories to engage with rehearsal notes and videos, and think about what each offers to the medium of dance. In the second chapter, I move to talking about the temporal intricacies of Just the Beams in particular, the material connections between past and present, and this works relationships to settler colonialism. This chapter engages deeply with materiality alongside theorists like Haraway, Samantha Frost, and Diana Taylor. In the final chapter, I write about the role of the audience in relation to the queer futurities enacted and embodied by the performers on stage.
My work follows in the traditions of feminist research because I center my personal experiences as evidence in a collective project of knowledge production about space, time, history, and their embodiments. My work specifically produces knowledge about dancing queer embodiments and futurities during a pandemic.Gender Studie
Demonstrating Failures of Attentional Guidance in Visual Search
No full textThere are many differences across individuals in the strategies that people use while performing
visual search tasks. Prior literature suggests that visual search is more efficient when performed
using some search strategies than others, based on different experimental conditions. People
sometimes also use suboptimal strategies (such as unguided search, etc.), while performing a
search task. This present study uses data from multiple eye tracking experiments to explore the
distinct decision-making strategies employed by humans while performing visual search tasks.
This is primarily a multi-layered data analysis study that investigates a phenomenon called ‘Step Path’. ‘Step-paths’ occur when people fixate objects adjacent to one another in a unidirectional
pattern. The goal of this analysis is to explore how probability of a fixation falling in a step-path
changes over the course of a trial, in different experimental conditions. A step-path pattern suggests
that eye movements are not being guided by target features during search, and so the step-path
probability can reflect how guidance changes across different search conditions. Moreover, it
would also enable us to explore experimental conditions that might nudge people towards using
more efficient search strategies.Neuroscience and Behavio
‘Do not uproot the tree and save its fruit’: the Moral Autonomy of Children in Versions of the Martyrdom of Cyricus and Julitta
No full textFor early Christians, martyrs were the moral models par excellence. Hundreds were venerated and remembered in hagiographic narratives told and retold throughout the centuries. The martyrdom of the three-year-old Cyricus and his mother Julitta, killed in Anatolia in the early 4th century, is exemplary. While varying stories are told about many saints, Cyricus and Julitta’s competing narratives are unusual in that there are two versions of their martyrdom with almost no overlap in their plot. In Version 1, Cyricus is the protagonist, engaging the governor in clever arguments and enduring extensive torture along with Julitta. The climax of the narrative comes when the martyrs are led to a cauldron boiling with tar. Julitta is frightened and shrinks from the cauldron, until Cyricus prays and God removes the fear from her, allowing her to enter the cauldron. This version was condemned as apocryphal in several Greek sources. In Version 2, which is first found in a letter written specifically to condemn Version 1, the governor holds Cyricus on his lap and does not include him in the torture. When he sees his mother being beaten, Cyricus bites and kicks the governor, who is enraged and throws the infant down the stairs to his death. Julitta is tortured further and is eventually beheaded.
This project examines the attitudes towards children found in these versions in the larger context of early Christian debates over the nature and characteristics of children. Children’s moral autonomy was a contentious issue for early Christians, as can be seen in writings on infant baptism, Christian parenting, and the Holy Innocents. Two general strands of thinking emerge from these writings. In one conception, children are seen as generally innocent, inclined towards moral behavior, and capable of religious participation and choice. These characteristics make them models of behavior for adults. In the other, children are either neutral or sinful, incapable of becoming moral agents on their own, and must be formed into good Christians by their parents. This difference of opinion informs the topoi in the martyrdoms of children, which present a range of attitudes towards the moral autonomy of children reflecting the ongoing debates. In some martyrdoms, like those of Agnes and Ṭalyā’ of Cyrrhus, children can articulate Christian doctrine, choose to be martyrs, and endure torture without help from an adult. In other martyrdoms, influenced by the story of the mother with seven sons in 2 and 4 Maccabees, mothers encourage their children to endure martyrdom without hesitation and are praised for raising martyrs.
A close reading of the texts of both versions of the Martyrdom of Cyricus and Julitta shows that Cyricus’s moral autonomy was a central concern for both texts, despite their plot differences. I conclude that the portrayal of children and mother-child relationships in Version 1 was a major factor in why it was condemned as apocryphal. In the context of the contemporary debates over children and how other martyrdoms engaged with these debates, Version 1 simply went too far in presenting children as moral agents. Version 2 was written specifically to replace Version 1 and to assert the attitude that children are not independent moral agents and are merely as good or bad as their parents molded them to be.Religio