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“Rest if You Must, but Don’t Quit”: Black Women’s work and welfare in the New Orleans Welfare Rights Organization, 1970s-1990s
No full textThe historic marginalization of Black womens’ work coupled with systematic injustice upheld by destructive state welfare policies did not deter women from organizing for their rights as working-mothers in New Orleans. Histories on welfare rights have not given enough attention to the fight of welfare mothers in the region since the 1980s. The leadership and consciousness-raising strategies of Black women involved in civil and welfare rights have been and continue to be a core part of activist organizing. Low wages and unstable employment forced Black working mothers to become welfare recipients. Grassroots organizing, like that of Ms. Viola Francois Washington’s New Orleans Welfare Rights Organization (NOWRO), exemplifies the mobilization of the poor to defy the myths of the Black welfare mother. Through oral histories, newspaper articles, and archival material on the community involvement and politics of the NOWRO in the 1980s and 1990s, this thesis highlights the significance of activist efforts and strategies of Black Women in the Crescent City in their fight for dignity
Realm Bound
Full text linkKailee Bal paints stills from branching video games narratives to explore the anxieties reflected in everyday decision making. She photographs her everyday life that mimics the aesthetics of video games that blur the line between the escape to virtual worlds combined with the escape found in the act of painting and taking photographs. These are usually moments in a game where the player must make a choice that determines the next objective.
Bal uses imagery from video games within the horror genre as the landscape to explore difficulties of anxiety and apprehension in daily life. Her subject matter focuses on doorways, windows, stairs, and holes that splinter into different unseen avenues where one must decide where they will go. Bal sees these as liminal spaces, where she paint with scumbled, atmospheric brushstrokes, emphasizing the unknowable content of a game when it’s first played, and those first choices must be made
Descent into the Wild: Nature, Nudity, and the Night
Full text linkMy work explores the intersection of vulnerability, autonomy, and the female form by placing nude self-portraits within expressive, psychological landscapes. Drawing from historical representations of women in art, I subvert traditional narratives that have romanticized and objectified the female body, instead presenting figures that exist on their own terms. The night, with its inherent intimacy and uncertainty, deepens this exploration, amplifying themes of exposure, solitude, and self-reclamation.
Through large-scale oil paintings, I engage with ecofeminist ideas, paralleling the exploitation of women and nature while resisting their passive idealization. These figures are not objects of consumption but active presences navigating the complexities of their environments. My work invites viewers to reconsider the relationship between body and space, challenging ingrained perceptions of nudity, femininity, and power. By embracing rawness and psychological depth, I transform both the figure and the landscape into sites of confrontation, reflection, and agency
What We Want is Hard to Find
Full text linkThe stories collected here capture the lives of several characters who share in common their attachment to a rural Midwestern town, as well as a desire to leave. Given few opportunities to experience the world in the way that they wish, they resort to drug abuse, self-destructive behavior, and small resistances in order to escape, at least in their minds, the physical place they believe to be their curse
Financial Motivation, ESG Activities, and Firm Profitability
Full text linkWe conduct two studies to examine the relationship between financial performance and ESG practices. We focus on 32 U.S. IT firms from 2010 to 2022. Using a long-difference multilevel fixed-effects model, we find that ESG practices improve Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) only in the long term. Economic volatility does not affect ROA, showing the IT sector\u27s stability. The COVID-19 pandemic increased ROA due to higher demand for digital solutions. Political regime shifts do not affect ROA but influence ROE.
We also study 307 Fortune-500 companies from 2010 to 2022. We use summary statistics, correlations, and regression models, including Multiple Linear Regression, Fixed Effects, and System GMM. The results show that dividend per share, Tobin’s Q, liquidity, leverage, and company size drive ESG engagement. Company size has the strongest impact. Firms with stronger financial positions are more likely to adopt ESG practices to meet investor expectations and improve their public image. Both studies highlight the strong link between financial strength and ESG engagement, with ESG efforts helping companies manage uncertainty and market demands
Go to Hell
Full text linkGo to Hell, is a UNO thesis film that was filmed in December of 2024 and delivered in April of 2025. It was written and directed by Tobi Akinde who will presume first-person singular (i.e. “I”, “Me”, “My”) in the following reflection paper charting the development, pre- production, production, and post-production of the aforementioned short film. The thesis paper discusses the process of creating the film from concept, pre-production, production, post-production, and completion
Foodways as Agentive Response to Disaster in Colonial New Orleans: The French Quarter Fires of 1788 and 1794
Full text linkDisasters have plagued the City of New Orleans since its foundation in 1718. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Most locals have personal memories of Hurricane Katrina or have friends and family who experienced the storm. The effects of Hurricane Katrina were far-reaching and often life-changing. However, Hurricane Katrina is not the only major disaster to have left an indelible mark on the landscape and culture of New Orleans. Two fires in the eighteenth century destroyed significant portions of the colony and left approximately seventy percent of the population homeless. And yet, we know very little about these transformative fires outside of the anecdotal stories repeated by tour guides and historians alike and a recognition that the fires shifted the architectural signature of the colony from French to Spanish design. These well-known but poorly understood events in the history of New Orleans likely had a greater influence on the people and culture of the burgeoning colony than has previously been acknowledged. The purpose of this research is to expand our understanding of the two eighteenth-century fires through an archaeological examination of foodways. New Orleans is well known for its local cuisine, which blends the cultural traditions of the myriad individuals and groups who have inhabited the city since its founding. Foodways are a practical arena in which to examine how disasters affect culture because foodways are literally the embodiment of culture as well as being reflective of the personal choices of individuals and groups. The goal of this research is to elucidate what changes in foodways can tell us about how people responded to two historic disasters in New Orleans. The results of this research are interpreted through the lens of agency theory with particular emphasis on the concepts of daily practice, cultural embodiment, and individual experimentation. Ingenuity and innovation were crucial to survival in colonial environments, especially when disasters were a regular part of colonial life. I argue that New Orleans’ long history of disasters has created a culture of adaptation and creative improvisation that has persisted from its colonial foundations to the present era
Oral History Interview with Robert Horton (Part 1)
Full text linkRobert Horton, a native of New Orleans, shared his life journey, highlighting his experiences from the 1980s to the present. He discussed his early education, his father\u27s incarceration, and the impact of Hurricane Katrina on his family. Horton\u27s involvement in grassroots organizing began with Black Men United and the People\u27s Institute for Survival and Beyond, focusing on economic justice, fatherhood, and community policing. He later worked with Critical Resistance and Step Up Louisiana, developing new leaders and advocating for the Workers Bill of Rights. Horton emphasized the importance of political education and civic engagement in community organizing. Robert Horton discusses the interconnectedness of racial capitalism and capitalism, emphasizing that capitalism inherently benefits white individuals due to racial biases. He identifies as a revolutionary, advocating for social change and anti-racism. Horton highlights the exploitation of the Latinx community, who perform jobs previously held by African Americans, and the potential for tension between the two groups. Horton stresses the importance of challenging white supremacy systemically to achieve true racial justice.https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ejrloh/1000/thumbnail.jp
Approaching the UNO Volumetric PIV
No full textThis thesis provides necessary background, theory, set-up procedure, and processing recommendations for the correct operation of the University of New Orleans Bosie Bollinger School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering tomographic particle image velocimeter (PIV). PIV is a useful tool for the fluid dynamitist, and the College’s PIV is a state-of-the-art example able to make high precision 3D fluid velocity measurements within a fluid volume. Using the PIV is hardly easy though. It takes a dedicated effort to set-up, precise calibration, and an understanding of how the system works to be able to properly run an experiment. This paper details those steps, along with specific guidance on procedures and best practices
From Perception to Policy: Defining Willful Disobedience through the Experience of Classroom Teachers in Louisiana
Full text linkAs long as teachers have the option of writing students up for subjective infractions, there will always be a question about whether the student\u27s behavior earned a disciplinary referral or if a teacher is less tolerant of certain behaviors and is arbitrarily punishing certain students (Theriot & Dupper, 2009b). In Louisiana, willful disobedience, is an undefined offense but one often seen in documented school suspension data. Theriot and Dupper (2009b) claim this subjective infraction may be widening the school discipline gap between Black and white students in Louisiana.
The purpose of this research focused first on examining school discipline disparities overall in Louisiana\u27s schools. By assessing publicly available school discipline data and school discipline records, this research revealed the propensity of Black students to be suspended more than their white classmates. A second purpose of this research was to document the classroom management strategies of practitioners as these strategies relate to willful disobedience. A third and overriding purpose of the research was to produce an evidence-based and race-neutral definition of willful disobedience for use in teacher training programs throughout Louisiana and beyond