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How Do Administrators Create Meaningful Positive Relationships with African American Students to Disrupt Disproportionate Discipline Issues?
No full textAfrican American students are disciplined at a higher rate than their white counterparts. There are a number of factors for this. Administrators are usually in charge of doling out consequences. These consequences can often have long-term effects that make African American students more susceptible to the school-to-prison pipeline. This leaves African American students with the perception that they have few allies who can ensure that they will have an enjoyable educational experience. Through the framework of anti-deficit thinking this study addresses how elementary school administrators build meaningful positive relationships with African American students in order to disrupt the disproportionate discipline of African American students. Using narrative methodology, this study revealed three themes to be critical when administrators are trying to build meaningful positive relationships with African American students. The themes, or keys to positive administrator-student relationships, that were revealed in my research were modeling (trusting relationships), being intentional, and self-reflection. These three keys shared a commonality which was trust and care. Trust and care proved to be the bridge that brought each theme together. This study is important because the thoughts and ideas expressed by the participants highlight key ways to make education more equitable and enjoyable for all students, especially if administrators and educators embrace anti-deficit thinking. By creating meaningful positive relationships with African American students, celebrating their strengths, and igniting or restoring their passion for learning, educators can help break the school-to-prison pipeline and create permanent, positive change within the school community
Soil Texture as a Moderator of Cover Crop Impacts on Crop Yields: Evidence From Midwestern Panel Data
No full textThis study investigates whether the adoption of cover crops improves the crop yields ofcorn and soy beans. Furthermore, this study explores whether the inclusion of relevant soil texture information more narrowly identifies this effect. This is achieved through the construction of a county-level panel data set concerning 12 states in the American Midwest from 2005-2016. The data leverage remote-sensing cover crop adoption data, weather data, and soil texture data. We employ linear panel fixed effects models with various alternative specifications as robustness checks. We also include an external-instrument-free estimation strategy estimation strategy. These estimation approaches take advantage of the panel nature of the data to address the stability of the model results under alternative specifications and potential endogeneity issues. Our results indicate modest improvements in the yields of both corn and soy beans through the use of cover crops. Furthermore, we find that the inclusion of soil texture information in particular clay content consistently improves the estimation of cover crop adoption across alternative specifications. Our results suggest that cover crops can improve cash crop yields
Liberation for Sale? Examining STEM, Non-STEM, and Market-Driven Pressures on HBCU Graduate Education
No full textThis dissertation uses a multi-state content analysis to examine how public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) navigate the layered demands of market-driven higher education policy while remaining rooted in their historic missions of racial uplift and educational justice. Analyzing strategic plans, graduate catalogs, and state-level policy documents from Florida, Texas, and North Carolina, the study explores how graduate education is deployed not just as academic expansion, but as institutional strategy—used to resist erasure, secure visibility, and assert value in systems never built for Black educational spaces. Grounded in frameworks of Racial Academic Capitalism (RAC)—a synthesis of racial capitalism (Robinson, 1983) and academic capitalism (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004)—alongside servingness (Garcia et al., 2019; Garcia, 2020; DeTurk & Briscoe, 2020) and mission drift (Jaquette, 2013; Jones, 2007), this research introduces the concept of institutional code-switching: a discursive maneuver through which HBCUs perform policy alignment while preserving core commitments to community, culture, and care. Findings reveal that graduate programs function as both protective spaces and political tools—allowing institutions to survive without conceding the totality of their mission. Rather than chasing external legitimacy, these institutions are reframing what counts as success, on their own terms. This study calls for policy conversations that stop demanding proximity to whiteness as a condition for support, and instead center the lived realities, historical labor, and liberatory visions that HBCUs have always embodied. Chapter 1 grounds the study in contemporary political and policy conditions and introduces the research questions. Chapter 2 reviews literature on HBCU graduate education, performance funding, and institutional identity, and outlines the conceptual framework of RAC, servingness, and mission drift. Chapter 3 details the methodological design, including case selection, coding strategies, and the rationale for using across-case content analysis. Chapter 4 presents institutional findings by state, followed by an across-case thematic synthesis that highlights how HBCUs enact adaptation, resistance, and rhetorical negotiation. Chapter 5 concludes with a synthesis of insights, original contributions—including institutional code-switching—as well as implications for theory, future research, and policy reform
Biodiversity and Anthropogenic Change in Fungal Communities of the Santa Rita Mountains (Arizona, USA)
No full textRepresented by extensive functional and phylogenetic diversity and encompassing mycorrhizae, saprotrophs, pathogens, lichens, animal associates, and endophytes, the fungal kingdom is an important component of global ecosystems. Macrofungi – the subset of fungi distinguished by having macroscopic sporocarps – play diverse ecological roles in wild ecosystems, including substrate decomposition, enhancement of soil fertility, and facilitation of rhizosphere dynamics as root symbionts. Recent observations facilitated by current sequencing methods reveal that some macrofungi may occur in an endophytic phase within plant tissues. Endophytes are those fungi that inhabit plant tissues asymptomatically, often exhibiting commensal and mutualistic lifestyles that influence phenotypes and functional traits of plant hosts. Thus, to characterize macrofungal diversity it is beneficial to combine traditional methods such as collections of sporocarps and reviews of fungal herbarium specimens with evaluation of plant tissues for evidence of endophytic macrofungi. This thesis explores macrofungal diversity in a biodiversity hotspot in southern Arizona: the Santa Rita Mountains and the adjacent grasslands and oak woodlands that comprise parts of the Santa Rita Experimental Range. This area in southern Arizona has a well recorded fire history and stark ecological and vegetation gradients traversing desert scrub typical of the Sonoran Desert to coniferous forests resembling those of Canada in only a few kilometers. The area has been subject to intensive study via the Santa Rita Experimental Range for many years, with extensive knowledge of grazing history and plant community and vegetation dynamics. The goal of my work was to provide a first inventory of macrofungi in the Santa Rita region. In this work I combine several data streams. First, I and my collaborators conducted field collections of macrofungal sporocarps in grasslands, oak forests in woodlands, and coniferous forests over three years. Second, I evaluated over 100 years of historical collections from the Santa Ritas, drawing from specimens housed at the University of Arizona’s Robert L. Gilbertson Mycological Herbarium and made publicly visible through the fungal biodiversity portal, MyCoPortal. Third, I reviewed a compendium of records from community scientists and enthusiasts in a collaborative iNaturalist project for the area. Finally, I used DNA sequencing to characterize culturable fungal endophytes from plant tissues at our selected sites, each having distinctive plant communities, abiotic conditions, and fire histories, to understand the contributions of endophytes to macrofungal biodiversity in this area. Records of sporocarp collection from over a century, coupled with new collections, new iNaturalist observations, and molecular analyses of endophyte communities, revealed at least 300 species of macrofungi in the Santa Rita Mountains and Santa Rita Experimental Range. New collections during the 2024 monsoon season coupled with iNaturalist records added over 40 species to the known records (>10%). We detected macrofungi as cryptic endophytes in both burned and unburned grasslands, oak woodlands and conifer forests, but the contribution to the macrofungal inventory of the region was limited relative to the inputs of community scientists/observers and Herbarium collections. My work contributed new accessions in the Gilbertson Herbarium, new digital records on MyCoPortal and iNaturalist, and new DNA sequences to be archived publicly in GenBank in the future. I also supported the training of an undergraduate student in curatorial activity, with all aspects of my work advancing the understanding of the fungal biodiversity of iconic landscapes of southern Arizona. To complement my research as a Master’s student, I gained a broad perspective on changing ecosystems and the -omics-based tools used to study them in a collaborative manner. My experiences included training through two programs funded by the National Science Foundation: EMERGE-BII (EMergent Ecosystem Response to ChanGE Biology Integration Institute) and the BRIDGES NRT (Building Resources for InterDisciplinary training in Genomic and Ecosystem Sciences). As a trainee in both programs and as a Fellow in the latter, I learned to contextualize my research within a comparative and convergent framework of scientific inquiry and multiple scales of biology. This approach facilitates the discovery of interactions among fungal biology, diversity, and genetics within dynamic ecosystems, spanning molecular to community scales. With these programs, my fundamental graduate training, and my research, my Masters work has begun to elucidate the relationships between the phenology, ecology, systematics, and taxonomy of fungi within Arizona and beyond
Development of a Smart External Ventricular Drain
No full textThe rapid buildup of excessive cerebrospinal fluid in the skull as a result of hemorrhage, infection, or brain trauma, medically termed acute hydrocephalus, requires the drainage of said fluid by a catheter implanted into the brain. The current process of monitoring the fluid drainage is fully manual, and demands frequent measurements be taken of the intracranial pressure and adjustments of the collection bag to regulate the drainage rate. These monitoring and adjustment steps are prone to error, which can negatively impact the quality of patient care and potentially lead to life threatening complications. The Smart External Ventricular Drain is designed to fully automate the drainage process, accurately measuring pressure and fluid drainage rate, and performing all the necessary adjustments to ensure patients receive proper treatment. The system also enables new functionality not possible with current drainage methods, further increasing the quality of care for hydrocephalus patients. Experimental apparatus are constructed to simulate the properties of the brain and cardiac cycle and to test and validate the system functionalities. A prototype version of the core device circuit board is developed to test the flow rate and pressure sensors. Several new pressure sensor locations are tested and the ear is selected to eliminate a flaw found in current drainage systems. A pinch valve is implemented to control fluid drainage and to ensure accurate measurement of intracranial pressure. A system is designed and tested for automatically regulating the fluid drainage rate by actuating a stepper motor to control the height of the drainage bag, validating that the system is capable of maintaining a specified pressure difference by tracking the patient's head movements in real time. Optimal positions are found for the pinch valve and stepper motor to prevent magnetic interference with the flow sensor. Multiple methodologies are explored for detecting the obstruction of catheter inlet holes, culminating in the validation of a method for automatically alerting hospital personnel in the event of catheter blockage
Silvertooth on the Bill Buckmaster Radio Program- Aug. 20, 2025
No full textDocuments in the Arizona Pest Management Center collection are made available by the Arizona Pest Management Center (APMC) and the University Libraries at the University of Arizona. For more information about items in this collection, please contact https://acis.cals.arizona.edu/about-us/arizona-pest-management-center
SPATIO-TEMPORAL CLASSIFICATION OF WEST COAST WINE REGIONS USING VITICULTURAL CLIMATE INDICES
No full textClimate is a primary determinant of viticultural potential, directly influencing grape phenology, yield, and wine style. In recent decades, climate change has introduced increasingly complex challenges for vineyard managers and the wine industry. The critical objective of modern wine growing is to maximize yield and minimize water consumption without compromising quality. This research aims to assess how viticultural climate classifications have changed over time and what these shifts imply for sustainable vineyard adaptation. Using time series analysis of historical climate records and remote sensing data, vineyard regions are classified annually based on the Winkler Index. The study identifies trends in heat accumulation, temporal shifts in viticultural zones, and evolving regional suitability for grape production. These findings offer insights into the long-term effects of climate change on viticulture and aim to support evidence-based adaptation strategies and business decisions for growers and winemakers.This item is part of the MS-GIST Master's Reports collection. For more information about items in this collection, please contact the UA Campus Repository at [email protected]
Language, Variation, and Change
No full textThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]
Successional Use of Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) Fruit by Coyote (Canis latrans) and Desert Fire Ants (Solenopsis xyloni)
No full textThe successional use of saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) fruit by the coyote (Canis latrans Say, 1823) and desert fire ant (Solenopsis xyloni McCook, 1879) removes large numbers of saguaro seeds from those produced each year, which probably results in a measurable reduction of the saguaro recruitment.Immediate accessThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]
JUVENILE SOLITARY CONFINEMENT AS A FORM OF CHILD ABUSE
No full textJuvenile solitary confinement is a harmful and common tactic that leads to devastating, long-lasting effects and should be considered a form of child abuse. The practice of solitary confinement includes complete social isolation, lack of education materials, reduced physical activity, and total loss of autonomy. It is a direct contradiction to the intended goal of the juvenile justice system: rehabilitation. Survivor accounts and studies show how destructive the physical and psychological effects of confinement can be during and after solitary confinement. The practice is ethically wrong and legally problematic and should be banned immediately. It comes down to the idea that if a parent or guardian were to commit these same acts they would be charged with a crime, so why is it justified in juvenile facilities? This thesis gathers evidence to support the argument that the solitary confinement of youth should be considered a form of child abuse and advocates for immediate policy changes and alternatives for the solitary confinement of youth