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Navigating the Intersections of Identity: The Shared Experiences of Women of Color Chief Student Affairs Officers
Get PDFThere is a lack of equitable representation of women of color in upper-leadership roles on college campuses. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore how women of color who serve as Chief Student Affairs Officers (CSAO), navigated both their racial and gender identities in their professional role, how they were prepared for this identity navigation throughout their career, and how they mentor younger professional women of color. Women of color CSAOs only make up about 4% of the population, so it was important to learn from their experiences in order to improve as a field. A qualitative study using a phenomenological approach, and Intersectionality as the theoretical framework, was conducted amongst women of color who serve as CSAOs at predominantly white, four-year colleges or universities. The theoretical framework was applied to illuminate the structural, political, and representational aspects of intersectionality that were experienced by the participants. The findings from this study illuminated the practices in the higher education and student affairs workplace that impact the racial and gendered experiences of women of color who serve as CSAOs. The results can and should be utilized to create more equitable workplace practices and policies for institutions of higher education. Overall, this study sought to add to the small body of research on women of color Chief Student Affairs Officers by continuing the much-needed conversation about the intersection of navigating both race and gender in a white and male dominated workplace
Expanding the Definition of Liminality: Speculative Fiction as an Exploration of New Boundaries
Get PDFSpeculative fiction allows an expanded view of literature and so allows scholars to explore new boundaries in the way words and ideas work. In the titular character of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, the reader sees an expansion of self through liminality while A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick explores its collapse. In order to portray each of these the character examined must move though one seems to move upward and the other downward. This idea of movement is only part of what expands the idea of liminality past the traditional idea of a doorway to create a hallway that the character might traverse on the way from place to place. This is not a redefinition of the term but a revision, a change in the way that we look at the concept as we accept and explore newer genres
Weathering the Storm: Black Maternal Mortality, Resistance, and Power in Richard Wright’s “Down by The Riverside,” Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones
Get PDFRepresentations of natural disasters in Black Southern literature identify social location as the greatest indicator of risk vulnerability. Moreover, they can expose the precarious subjectivity of the Black female reproductive body, as addressed through characters Lulu in Richard Wright’s “Down by the Riverside,” Janie in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Jesmyn Ward’s Esch in Salvage the Bones. Together, these female characters share a legacy of social marginalization and Black female resistance that is (re)shaped through their experiences with ecological catastrophe. This thesis considers these three texts together as an ongoing testimony and as a means to bear witness to a socio-historical record of disaster oppression and Black female resistance
Sicilian Roots: How the Agricultural Pursuits of Immigrant Sicilians Shaped Modern New Orleans Cuisine
Get PDFThe influx of immigrant Sicilians into southeastern Louisiana in the nineteenth century resulted in a parallel rise of the French Quarter as a culinary destination. Through an analysis of menus, recipe books, city directories, newspapers and census rolls, this work maps the growing influence of Sicilian farmers, vendors, and restaurateurs on New Orleans foodways. The often-overlooked community of Sicilians already living in the city in the early nineteenth century set the stage for the mass migration from Sicily to New Orleans later in the century, when Sicilians gained control of the produce food market in southeast Louisiana. A comparison of local cookbooks and recipes from before the mass arrival of the Sicilians with those created after Sicilians began to dominate agricultural production in Louisiana reveals a subtle shift in the use of ingredients, as local cooks incorporated into local dishes the produce made available by Sicilian farmers and vendors
Investigation of the amino acids responsible for isomerase activity through mutagenesis of bilin lyase MpeW from Synechococcus sp. A15-62
Get PDFSynechococcus sp. A15-62 is a marine cyanobacterium that undergoes Type IV chromatic acclimation (CA4) by altering the bilin content of the phycobilisome (PBS) or light harvesting complex to match the light color of its environment. The PBS is a protein complex comprised of rods containing phycobiliproteins (PBP) and linker proteins. In this species, phycoerythrin I and phycoerythrin II (PEI and PEII) are the phycobiliproteins located on the distal ends of the rods and the alpha () subunits of these proteins are the ones with altered bilin content during CA4. Bilin chromophores such as phycoerythrobilin (PEB) and phycourobilin (PUB) are bound to these PBPs at specific Cysteine (Cys) residues by phycobilin lyases. In marine Synechococcus species, lyases and lyase-isomerases within the MpeQWYZ sub-family of lyases are specific for attaching bilin to Cys-83 site of the α –subunit (MpeA) of PEII. The similarities between the enzymes in this family were investigated by aligning them with Geneious 6.1.8. The four positions 104, 331, 335 and 364 were identical or similar between isomerases. The residues at these positions differ between lyases and lyase-isomerases, but are conserved among lyase-isomerases which suggests that they might be involved in the isomerase function. To investigate amino acids responsible for isomerase function, MpeW, the lyase responsible for attaching PEB to Cys-83 of MpeA, was mutated by overlapping PCR to create: a quintuple mutant, triple mutant, and double mutants. Point mutations were introduced in which the residue present in MpeW was mutated to the corresponding residue in MpeQ, a lyase isomerase. After co-expressions with HT-MpeA using a heterologous co-expression system in E. coli, purified HT-MpeA was analyzed by zinc-enhanced fluorescence and fluorescence spectroscopy for bilin attachment. It was observed that MpeW (T110A,G319V,V320T,Q323Y,A352T), MpeW(G319V,V320T,Q323Y), and MpeW(G319V,V320T) attached both PEB and some PUB. These results indicate that positions 319 and 320 are important for isomerase function
Reliability of Technical Stock Price Pattern Predictability
Get PDFAcademic research has shown throughout the years the ability of technical indicators to convey predictive value, informational content, and practical use. The popularity of such studies goes in and out over the years and today is being recognized widely by behavioral economists. Automated technical analysis is said to detect geometric and nonlinear shapes in prices which ordinary time series methods would be unable to detect. Previous papers use smoothing estimators to detect such patterns. Our paper uses local polynomial regressions, digital image processing, and state of the art machine learning tools to detect the patterns. Our results show that they are nonrandom, convey informational value, and have some predictive ability. We validate our results with prior works using stocks from the Dow Jones Industrial Average for a sample period from 1925-2019 using daily price observations
Pedestrians and Bicyclists Count : Developing a Statewide Multimodal Count Program
Get PDFThe purpose of this study was to research best practices and available methods and technologies for measuring active transportation activity, in order to provide DOTD with needed information in support of the development of an efficient, cost-effective bicycle and pedestrian count program. Measuring progress toward Complete Streets policy implementation, as well as measuring the performance of individual projects in terms of safety outcomes, requires understanding patterns of and changes in active transportation demand so as to a) evaluate safety outcomes relative to rates of exposure, b) identify appropriate, context-sensitive complete streets infrastructure interventions, and c) understanding overall statewide and location-specific transportation trends which will impact long-range planning and investment.
To this end, the research team conducted a comprehensive review of academic and applied literature pertaining to collecting pedestrian and bicycle data collection and benchmarking, with a focus on techniques for using count data to evaluate exposure rates and safety outcomes or trends, researched methods of counting bicycles and pedestrians including both manual counts and automated electronic counts using various technologies (including automated video-based counts), and identified potential funding sources and potential partners for systematic as well as incidental data collection. Finally, the research team conducted pilot data collection and analysis at three case study locations in New Orleans and Baton Rouge to test recommended count equipment and count methodology and advance fundamental elements of comprehensive evaluation of the safety impacts of complete streets-oriented infrastructure.
The results of this research indicate that the incremental development of systematic active transportation monitoring, in coordination with existing traffic monitoring activities and in cooperation with local and regional agencies interested in or already engaged in data collection and analysis, is feasible and scalable (geographically and fiscally) using a combination of traditional and emerging technologies. Moreover, significant expansion of long-duration count data availability is critical to all efforts to holistically evaluate safety impacts at the project level, and an area where state leadership and investment will have the greatest impact
The Half-Lives We Were Living
Get PDFThis short story collection deals with themes of race, kinship, desire, subjectivity, and appearance vs. reality
