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A Good Neighbor Gone Bad: Exploring U.S. Foreign Policy, Corporate Interests, and the Rise of Communist Activity in Guatemala and Honduras, 1954
Get PDFThis paper examines the U.S. foreign policy response to the 1954 Honduran General Strike, where nearly 15% of the workforce mobilized against the exploitative practices of the United Fruit Company (UFCO). What began as a labor dispute among dock workers on Honduras’ northern coast quickly escalated into a nationwide protest, drawing support from students, teachers, and artisans against the UFCO and the national oligarchic elite. Using State Department documents, CIA reports, and media coverage from Time and The New York Times, this study analyzes how U.S. officials in Honduras and Washington, D.C. responded to the strike. Despite a history of supporting corporate interests, U.S. policymakers took an uncharacteristically pro-labor stance, siding against the UFCO. My research shows that this shift was driven by Cold War geopolitical concerns. By adopting a pro-labor position in Honduras, the U.S. sought to prevent Communist influence from neighboring Guatemala, where Jacobo Arbenz’s nationalist administration had legalized the Communist Party and expropriated UFCO land. To avoid similar radicalization in Honduras, U.S. officials worked to end the strike on terms favorable to the workers. This research highlights how U.S. policymakers viewed and responded to events in Honduras within the broader Cold War context
Cybersecurity Disclosures in the Aerospace and Defense Industry: A Comparative Analysis of AeroVironment and Industry Peers
No full textCybersecurity has become one of the most important topics for companies in every industry, but especially for those in aerospace and defense. With these companies dealing with highly sensitive, governmental data, cyberattacks can lead to serious consequences. In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) changed the rules regarding cybersecurity disclosures for public companies. These changes required public companies to disclose material cybersecurity incidents within four days and provide more details on how they manage and oversee cyber risks. This paper focuses on how these changes impacted the 10-K cybersecurity disclosures within the aerospace and defense industry, specifically comparing AeroVironment to other industry leaders. By using the Gunning Fog Index, word counts, and 3+ syllable word counts from 2020–2024 10-K filings, this paper analyzes how the disclosures shifted in length, complexity, and readability. The results showed that, on average, companies in the aerospace and defense industry made their disclosures longer and more complex after the SEC’s regulatory changes. However, AeroVironment did not show significant improvements in any of these areas. These findings highlight the importance of AeroVironment improving its cybersecurity disclosures to stay competitive and maintain transparency with investors
Queer In & Out of Montana: Oral Histories of the LGBTQ+ Exodus from Montana
Get PDFThis project will summarize findings from six oral histories of LGBTQ+ people who lived in Montana, but have left or are leaving in the near future. This project will explore the questions: Why are queer and transgender people leaving Montana? What are common experiences for LGBTQ+ people living in Montana? The answer to these questions will be derived from the stories of the Narrators who provided their oral histories. The questions utilized in the oral histories covered topics of identity, “coming out,” living history, cultural observations, community experiences and perceptions, well-being, healthcare, laws, and reasons for leaving. Thematic Analysis was derived from an inductive coding process. Themes explored throughout these six oral histories include the importance of community, importance of representation, pride in identity, concern for safety, political rhetoric, and the intersection of Montana culture with queerness. It is predicted that healthcare access, resource opportunity, and queer community will be factors that pull queer and transgender people out of Montana, while state level laws and hostile environments will be factors that push LGBTQ+ people out of Montana. This project will share stories that are often untold, creating new avenues of representation for LGBTQ+ Montanans. Additionally, it will be explored the impacts on the individual leaving Montana has, and the despondent loss Montana faces when queer and transgender people leave. Overall, this project will document and discuss a historical phenomena occurring among LGBTQ+ people in Montana
MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLE HOST TREE SELECTION AND CLIMATE-GROWTH DYNAMICS IN WHITEBARK PINE
Get PDFRecent climate-driven outbreaks of mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) in whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) have raised fears of increasing whitebark pine mortality with increased warming and drought due to climate change. However, little is known about how whitebark pine responds to climate, what characteristics may predict whitebark pine susceptibility to mountain pine beetle outbreaks, or how these may interact. This information is critical in understanding how whitebark pine might persist in a changing climate. My research investigated how whitebark pine growth responds to various climate variables and how these responses may be predictive of attack by mountain pine beetle. I studied growth-climate interactions in whitebark pine at three arid and two mesic sites in Idaho. There were recent beetle outbreaks at the arid sites, but not at the mesic sites. I also researched if whitebark pine is more energy- or water-limited and whether warming over the last decades has resulted in a shift from one limitation type to the other. I found that growth rate was predictive of beetle host-tree selection at the stand level, but not at larger scales. At two sites, trees that were eventually killed by mountain pine beetle grew faster than survivors prior to 1940 but then grew slower than survivors from 1940 up to the beetle outbreak in the early 2000s. At the third arid site, beetle-killed trees grew faster than survivors until 2000, then growth rates converged in the early 2000s prior to the beetle outbreak. I also found significant differences in growth rates between older and younger trees at the study sites. I found that some groups and cohorts (survivor, beetle-killed, older, younger) experienced a release from energy-limitation around 1940, but that there were also shifts from energy- to water-limitation for a subset of trees at the mesic sites. The results from my study are encouraging as they show whitebark pine responds to climate in a variety of ways that indicates high genetic diversity within and among populations. These findings should serve as a cautionary tale for managers on the importance of considering local adaptation and maintaining extant genetic diversity
Investigating How Single-Word Probes Can Inform the SLP During Treatment of Speech Sound Disorder
No full textThe purpose of this study was to investigate a time efficient and effective means for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to evaluate and measure progress during treatment of speech sound disorders (SSDs). An 85-word probe of single-word productions was analyzed in a case study across four pre-school children with moderate to severe SSD during treatment in two treatment blocks; a distributed block and an intensive block. The distributed block involved the participants participating in group therapy one day a week for two and a half hours. Five analyses were used to determine how multiple analyses from repeated measures of an 85-word probe inform speech sound development during treatment and included: Whole Word Accuracy (WWA), Total-Percent Consonants Correct (T-PCC), accuracy on sound classes (Sound Class-PCC), accuracy on extracted targets, and error types on a single-word probe changed over time with speech treatment. Overall, WWA, PCC, and accuracy on sound classes increased from the initial probe to the final probe. The accuracy on the extracted targets depended on the participant. For total number of errors, three of the four children demonstrated a decrease in errors from the first probe to the last probe. This study reflected that a single-word probe is a time-efficient and effective measure to analyze progress through treatment for SSD and that these analyses can capture accuracy on speech sounds, including a gross measure of whole words to a finer measure about errors a child is making before and during treatment
Feminine Felons: Violent Offenders\u27 Intersectional Experiences in Twentieth-Century Montana
Get PDFThis paper explores the treatment of violent female offenders in Montana in both the media and prison system from 1900-1960. Women of all races faced gender discrimination from both the carceral system and popular media. Local newspapers sensationalized crimes committed by female offenders, portraying them as women who lived outside of the expectations of womanhood in the twentieth century. Newspapers and courts placed women into two categories: “mad/sad” female offenders, who received forgiveness for their crimes; or unforgivable, “bad” offenders. Crime did not determine these categorizations; instead, gender expectations of the white middle class shaped female criminals’ treatment. If these women could not present themselves as virtuous mothers, wives, and protectors of their communities, they were deemed unfavorable in the eyes of their peers. In particular, women of color experienced intersectional discrimination based on both their race and gender, which resulted in harsher sentencing for their crimes and biased coverage of their trials in newspapers across the state.
This work provides an overview of all 189 women imprisoned in the Montana State Prison at Deer Lodge in the twentieth century. It also includes case studies of nine women—three white, three African American, and three Native American—to explore how newspapers and courts treated female offenders differently based on race. White women consistently received forgiveness for their crimes from both the courts and their peers, being labeled “mad/sad” offenders and being granted the benefits of the “chivalry hypothesis.” Indigenous women were sometimes granted forgiveness for their crimes by the courts; however, their peers deemed them “bad” female offenders who were unable to redeem themselves. African American women faced discrimination in both the media and courts, experiencing the harshest sentences and marked by racialized language. While all women experienced gender discrimination, women of color faced discrimination from both their race and gender in the courts and popular media
Better Together: Leveraging Existing Research to Evaluate Population Trends, Habitat Selection, and Species Interactions of Mesocarnivores
No full textWhether from human impacts, climate change, or extreme fires, landscapes around the world are rapidly changing (Foley et al. 2005, Grimm et al. 2008, Bowman et al. 2020). As these landscapes change, it is clear that many ecosystems and species are being negatively affected (Laliberte and Ripple 2004, Butchart et al. 2010, Freeman et al. 2018, Li et al. 2022). With an expanding number of species facing extinction risks, it is critical for agencies to know when and where to focus their limited resources and conservation efforts (Martin et al. 2012, Auerbach et al. 2014, Bal et al. 2018). To do this, agencies may establish thresholds of specific population metrics that will trigger specific conservation actions. Monitoring programs can then track populations to determine when thresholds are crossed (Nichols and Williams 2006, Martin et al. 2012, Lindenmayer et al. 2013).
Wildlife population monitoring programs consist of long-term repeated sampling which track metrics of a population through time (Schwartz et al. 2015). However, establishing and maintaining effective monitoring can be difficult due to funding structures, frequent turnover of staff, and the extensive scale of sampling that is required (Field et al. 2005, Lindenmayer et al. 2012, Moussy et al. 2022). In addition, defining thresholds for populations requires a strong understanding of a species’ biology, its role in the ecosystem, and the risks that different populations face, information that is unavailable for many species (Nie and Schultz 2012, Addison et al. 2016).
On a local scale, agencies conduct small scale monitoring and research to inform conservation actions (Cash and Moser 2000, Schultz 2010). Often there are many of these programs scattered across the range of a species, with each potentially collecting information on a range of species. By harnessing these existing efforts, agencies and researchers could monitor wildlife populations at broader scales and develop a better understanding of many wildlife species. This thesis explores this type of cooperative monitoring and research through two examples. In the first chapter, I investigated the statistical strength of using variable existing monitoring programs to assess population trends on a broad-scale. This analysis was conducted through a series of simulations that mimic the ways local monitoring projects change in space and time. Through these simulations I was able to identify the effects of this variation on the statistical strength of wildlife occupancy monitoring.
A variable that can often be critical to the statistical power of a monitoring program is an accurate and broad scale representation of the species’ habitat. For my second chapter I examined the use of ‘bycatch’ data to produce a broad scale understanding of habitat selection and species interactions of a wide ranging mesocarnivore. All data for this analysis was sourced from other projects that were not targeting red foxes, also known as ‘bycatch’ data. By making use of existing bycatch data, I was able to develop inferences regarding the impacts of coyote presence on red fox occupancy while also investigating habitat characteristics that influence red fox occupancy across the Rocky Mountains
A CULTURE-CENTERED APPROACH TO EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF CULTURALLYAPPROPRIATE COMMUNICATION ON PATIENT-PROVIDER COMMUNICATION SATISFACTION FOR BLACKFEET PATIENTS WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES
Get PDFThis study explores how culturally appropriate communication influences perceived quality of care and communication satisfaction among patients with T2D. Grounded in the Culture-Centered Approach (Dutta, 2008), this study explores how cultural identity, systemic structures, and communication practices shape the ways that Amskapi Pikuni individuals navigate their care, and seeks to ask: How, if at all, does a provider’s culturally competent communication influence a Blackfeet patient’s management of their T2 Diabetes? This project is based on in-depth, qualitative interviews with 13 Blackfeet participants, most living within the exterior boundaries of the Blackfeet reservation and receiving their primary healthcare at the local Indian Health Service (IHS) hospital. Interviews focused on narratives, relational dialogue, and shared meaning-making between the participants and researcher. Data collection and analysis was grounded in Indigenous Research Methods (IRMs), from Kovach (2021), Absolon (2022), and Wilson (2008), and situational analysis/situational mapping (Clarke, 2018) and was committed to honoring the lived experiences and traditional Niitsitapi ways of knowing. As an Amskapi Pikuni researcher I approached the data with cultural and relational accountability, guided by Niitsitapi teachings and responsibilities to my community. Three bundles emerged--Resilience, Identity, and Systems of Care--which represent more than thematic categories, reflecting the realities of navigating healthcare as an Amskapi Pikuni person with T2D, where cultural values, systemic barriers, and individual agency intersect in complex and nuanced ways. Throughout this project, I remained committed to following IRMs by listening with intention and approaching each narrative with humility, understanding, and as a transfer of knowledge between the participants and myself. I view this research as a living body of knowledge--a collective Mopistaan-- meant to be shared, cared for, and returned to my community. Based on my data collection and analysis, I recommend the following actions for improving healthcare communications to improve health outcomes for Blackfeet patients with T2D: 1. Implement a dedicated cultural liaison within the local healthcare setting to ensure culturally-grounded communication, advocacy, and support throughout the entirety of the care process. 2. Establish a provider training rooted in Amskapi Pikuni communication and care protocols, that are focused on Blackfeet-specific practices and values, including sopoya’payoohtsimi (to listen carefully), relational accountability, and culturallycentered approaches to health and wellness. 3. Prioritize the continuity of care models that support long-term patient-provider relationships, that allow the Blackfeet community members to build overall trust with incoming providers. These findings, along with an infographic poster (Appendix 7), will be shared back with my community and given to the Blackfeet Nation IRB, as well as Blackfeet Tribal Health. The infographic will be shared with other interested Indigenous focused healthcare facilities, such as All Nations Health Center in Missoula, and other interested tribal health facilities or UIOs. This project underscores the need for healthcare systems, especially those serving Indigenous communities, to provide care in ways that honor Indigenous knowledge systems, lived experiences, and respect the right for Indigenous patients to be heard, seen, and cared for. Ultimately, the findings of this project show that culturally responsive communication and respectful care are not just preferential, but necessary for Indigenous health equity