Posters and Online Posters
Manufacturing Criminals: The North American Free Trade Agreement's Connection to the Mexican Drug Cartels
Virtual Poster Jose Guzman Dominguez
This study examines how the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) led to the development of drug organizations in México. It utilizes a qualitative method to examine primary and secondary sources. The findings indicate how NAFTA disrupted the nation’s economy, which created high levels of unemployment, inequality, and an atmosphere of social competition over industrial jobs; these elements precipitated the growth of drug cartels. This research demonstrates that neoliberal policies in México, such as NAFTA, destabilized México’s economy and led to the development of drug cartels.
Building Bridges between the Humanities and Sciences : Assessing Students’ Writing and Understanding the Placement and Reevaluation of Students’ Self-ascribed Roles
Poster/Exhibit Session Yasmin Rioux
Our current times are marked by anthropogenic climate changes (Anderson, 2014; Brown, 2008), it is our collective responsibility to address our ethical and social obligations in regards to the future of our environment and to do so in a cross-disciplinary manner (Tremmel, 2012; Johnson-Sheehan, 2007; Klahr, 2012). Considering our writing students, it is crucial to gain a better understanding of how writing courses can act as places of change that cultivate in our students a sense of environmental awareness and responsibility towards our environment. Knowing whether an environmental literature and writing course can successfully challenge students to reevaluate and perhaps change their current understanding of themselves within their local and global natural environments is an important endeavor when seeking to create spheres for the cultivation of environmental awareness. Regarding methodology, I will gain a better understanding of my students’ sense of environmental responsibility in regards to their larger environmental context, by assessing their course writings and e-book using a modified version of an existing writing rubric (Balgopal and Wallace, 2009) that seeks to address the students’ level of “authenticity” in their writing. I will interview my students following the completion of the semester to examine how they feel the course influenced their perception of their roles within their environmental surroundings.
Basketball, Women, and the Reservation: The Transformational Power of High School Girls Basketball in Native America
Virtual Poster Richard Miller
American sport has played a vital role in helping integrate American society and empowered women and minorities in substantial ways. This online poster presentation discusses this transformative power of sport to an invisible segment of the American population: Native American teenage girls living on the reservation. Students, educators and Humanities scholars have much to gain unraveling the complex lives of these female high school basketball players against the backdrop of family, community, and tribe. This study discusses four different tribal cultures and theorizes how the roles these female athletes play may be empowering and perilous. Drawing from texts and films, the presentation will compare and contrast the impacts and legacies of four teams from different times and places: the Ft. Shaw Indian Boarding School (MT) Girls Team of 1904, the Hardin High School (MT) Lady Bulldogs and Shiprock High School (NM) Lady Chieftains of the mid-1990s, and the Franklin High School (OR) Quakers in 2009. Studying the lived conditions and participation of these particular groups of teenage girls in sport will bring to light the complex web of subcultures within indigenous America societies that promote and deny opportunities for female empowerment and leadership.
Gloria through Her Eyes: Lotta’s Influence on Carioca Landscape
Virtual Poster Helena Vilela, Jane Victal
Maria Carlota C. Macedo Soares (Paris, 1910 - NY, 1967), also known as Lotta, studied painting with Portinari, and was one of the founders of União Democrática Nacional – UDN, a progressive political party. As an intellectual and a world citizen, born into a rich family in Rio de Janeiro, she was always surrounded by personalities like Calder, Lina Bo, and Pietro Maria Bardi. Lotta also was intimately involved in the creation process of the Modern Art Museum of Rio de Janeiro. In the 1960s, her venture in politics was enough to prevent the execution of a progressive urban project designed for Aterro do Flamengo. Under her supervision, she led a team of professionals to design and construct Parque do Flamengo, the largest public space and recreation area in Rio de Janeiro. After reviewing her biography and the project of Aterro do Flamengo, this work investigates the importance of the feminine perspective to the maintenance of Carioca landscape, its permanence, and resistance.
By Any Other Name: An Exploration of Afro-Amerindian Heritage in the Southeastern United States
Poster/Exhibit Session Steven Gayle
This poster examines ongoing research regarding the overlap and interaction between African Americans and Native Americans in the Southeastern United States. It specifically highlights evidence of African American and Native American interaction through enslavement, legislation, and documentation. In this work, larger implications concerning the social construction of race and the need for expanded interdisciplinary research is outlined.
Artificial Intelligence and Extending the Reach of Contemporary Asian Canadian Arts
Virtual Poster Kay Li
The aim of this study is to explore how artificial intelligence can help to promote Asian Canadian Arts, especially through the IBM Watson Platform. Despite the huge resources contributed to Contemporary Asian Canadian Arts, artists and their works still need promotion, especially to people beyond the connoisseur of ethic art. Seldom are these artworks on display in major, “mainstream” art galleries, and artists face problems when struggling to gain recognition. The Government of Canada has policies in place addressing multiculturalism and diversity, but how are these translated into action. Different kinds of artists with different backgrounds may need different strategies. Such backgrounds include country of origin, ethnicity, gender, age and languages. This paper explores whether the rise of digital infrastructure, especially artificial intelligence, helps Asian Canadian artists gain recognition, reach their potential spectators, and, subsequently, to help them to interpret the artworks. Asian Canadian arts here is taken in the broad sense, covering literature, visual art, film and video, music and the performing arts, and photography. In particular, I explore how the functionalities on IBM Watson can contribute to Asian Canadian arts. Instead of featuring the artists in an ad hoc manner on websites, can the powerful artificial intelligence functionalities offer solutions that can work across digital platforms - and on mobile devices? How can these inform marketing strategies, and may eventually contribute to the formulation of digital strategies and policies?
Who Will Teach in Our Public Schools? : Recruiting and Retaining the Best and Brightest
Poster/Exhibit Session Jon Andes
Civic society depends upon a well educated citizenry. The 'front-line' to a developing and sustaining a well informed citizenry is public schools. The success of our youth depends upon our ability to recruit and retain high quality teachers to work in public education. The United States and other countries face a critical teacher shortage. This poster shares preliminary findings from a study of why people become teachers and what factors influence their decision to stay or leave the profession.
How Self-Compassion Frees Individuals : More Body Appreciation and Less Appearance Anxiety
Virtual Poster Priscilla Gitimu
The premise of the study is that increased self-compassion frees one to have more body appreciation and less appearance anxiety. Self-compassion is the ability to be kind to oneself in the midst of difficulties (Neff, 2003). The purpose of the study is to explore whether self-compassion influences one’s body appreciation and appearance anxiety. This study uses three scales, Self-Compassion Scale, Body Appreciation Scale, and Social Appearance Anxiety scale. Participants in the study were 125 students from one Midwestern university; 45.3% men and 53.1% women. Results indicated that the overall self-compassion mean was 37.82 out of a possible 60 points. Participants who scored higher than the mean were categorized as the ‘high self-compassion group’, while participants who scored lower than the mean were categorized as the ‘low self-compassion group’. ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) was conducted to compare the Body appreciation means between the high and low self-compassion groups. Results indicate that the high self-compassion group N=71 had significantly higher body appreciation means (mean =41.30) than the low self-compassion group N= 54, mean 34.41 In addition, ANOVA was conducted to compare the social appearance anxiety means between the high and low self-compassion groups. Results indicate that the high self-compassion group N=71 had significantly lower social appearance anxiety means (26.92) than the low self-compassion group N=54, mean 41.44 Self-compassion appears to be associated with body appreciation and appearance anxiety. Boosting self-compassion can free individuals to appreciate their body more - and decrease appearance anxiety.
Distant Empathy: The Suffering of Animals and Provisional Science in Miroslav Holub’s Poetry and Prose
Virtual Poster Richard Dragan
This paper will consider the work of Miroslav Holub (1923-1998), the Czech poet and immunologist, and his writing in English that addresses the problem of freedom for animals. I will argue Holub invokes a radical empathy for animals across the biological spectrum, including microscopic organisms in poems like “Suffering,” where the poet/experimenter imagines the lives of “ugly grunting creatures” under his microscope. In several poems, Holub uses dogs as central figures, such as “A Dog Who Wanted to Return,” a prose poem where a dog escapes from his life as a test subject only to discover he has nowhere to go – an allegory of political freedom. Similarly, “A Dog in the Quarry” depicts a dog trapped on an island in the middle of a lake before being rescued. In later work, Holub meditates on politics and mortality through other animals. “Half a Hedgehog” describes a car accident with a hedgehog and in “Shedding Life,” he describes the final struggles of a muskrat – at the physiological and cellular level – which has been trapped in an empty swimming pool and then shot by a neighbor. Holub’s portrayal of animals in his writings offers a new lens through which to examine this multifaceted, prolific poet, who was included in Penguin’s Modern European Poets series in 1969, and then went on to publish for nearly 40 more years. This paper is informed by a full reading of all of Holub’s published work in English as a part of a sabbatical project.
Determinants of Adolescents’ Attitudes toward Equal Rights in Five Asian Countries
Poster/Exhibit Session Soo Eun Chae
This study aims to provide empirical evidence about the variations in multiculturalism in Asian countries that have been suggested by previous studies. We explored the determinants of students’ attitudes toward equal rights for all ethnic and racial groups and immigrants in five representative Asian countries (South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia) using a subset of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) data (n=23,437). The result derived from multilevel regression analyses indicated that attitudes toward equal rights varied by nationality for Asian adolescents. Highly Westernized Hong Kong residents, and people in Chinese Taipei, who live in countries that actively seek interactions with Western countries, scored highly on items related to support for equality for ethnic groups in comparison with the other three countries. However, the result was different for support for equality for immigrants. According to multilevel regression, perceived class openness was positively related to attitudes toward equal rights. In contrast, political activities outside schools were little related to students’ attitudes toward equal rights.
