Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2018, English (Arts and Sciences)

Patient narrative is often an undervalued or dismissed genre of writing in the field of literary criticism, largely because the hermeneutics of suspicion leads critics to see these texts as “misery memoirs,” as Ann Jurecic suggests. In this thesis, I argue for a new approach to reading and to criticism that moves away from the hermeneutics of suspicion and instead seeks to find conversations between patient narratives, case narratives, and popular or dominant medical and scientific texts. This shift would have readers focusing not on the ways in which an author might manipulate a story but instead on what the reader might learn from intently examining the resulting conversations. In doing so, I do not argue for a switch in the hierarchy—from doctor-patient to patient-doctor—but instead argue that both patient and case narratives have value; without both texts, we cannot have a full picture of what it is like to live with illness. Making my argument through historical examination, I prove that by examining Charlotte Perkins Gilman's patient narratives—those found in her letters, her diaries, and her autobiography as well as in “The Yellow Wallpaper”—alongside medical and scientific texts from her time, we can not only deepen and nuance current interpretations of these texts but we can also uncover motivations that may not be immediately apparent. While “The Yellow Wallpaper,” for example, has been considered as a critique of patriarchal medicine, a horror story, and a liberation text—among others—it has never been explicitly examined as a patient narrative. This focus allows us to delve deeper into the conversation created between “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Gilman's nonfiction narratives; I focus particularly on how we can see the eugenic arguments within “The Yellow Wallpaper” and how these arguments are connected to Gilman's anxieties about marriage, motherhood, and her usefulness in society. While ignoring patient narratives makes literary critics and histor (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1966, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

John M. Sant was a World War II bomber co-pilot who was shot down over German-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1944. He and the other eight surviving crew members were captured and sent to Stalag Luft I, a German prison camp near the Baltic Sea. Sant spent the next ten months in captivity, keeping a logistical journal of his daily life in the camp. With this journal, along with primary documents, copies of declassified military paperwork, and a typed account of Sant's narrative located in the Skinner Personal Archive as a chronological framework, this thesis constructs a biographical narrative of Sant's life and wartime experiences. Sant's journal provided an indirect glimpse into his inner thoughts. His entries reflect a fear of being overlooked, both during captivity and following release. Sant found solace in escapism through literature and reminisced about home life, emphasizing the importance of morale and interpersonal connections among the POWs. Elements of optimism infuse the passages he chose to copy down, showing his enduring belief in the strength of the Allied forces. The journal also served as a covert way to challenge the authority of the main camp authorities. Sant's hopefulness played a crucial role in maintaining his emotional well-being, a theme more prominent in his post-war writings. The arrival of new prisoners, while disheartening, meant access to more current information. Sant's diary entries not only reflect his emotional state regarding his fellow POWs but also his reaction to news like General Patton's progress in Europe, offering him temporary relief from worries about America's military effectiveness. His aspirations for post-war life served as a comfort and a way to look forward to a future beyond the uncertainty of war. The journal also played a key role in asserting Sant's sense of self-determination under the strict confines of his POW status. While it contained no information unknown to his captors, it provided him with a sense of con (open full item for complete abstract)

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2023, Antioch Santa Barbara: Clinical Psychology

Existing frameworks of psychopathology have received criticism from evolutionary researchers. It is argued that mental health research lacks theoretical unity and that there is no comprehensive understanding of psychiatric disorders. Evolutionary researchers have posited that a paradigm of psychopathology informed by evolution could accomplish this aim. Drawing from evolutionary biology, life history theory provides such a framework. Life history theory is a subfield of evolutionary biology that examines how organisms allocate limited environmental resources over their lifespan in order to maximize their fitness. The strategies that organisms adopt in response to their environment are referred to as life history strategies. These strategies are graphed on a spectrum between two poles, fast and slow. The fast and slow life history classifications form the basis of the fast-slow-defense activation model of psychopathology which describes causal pathways for mental disorder. Within this framework, sex is a moderating factor between life history strategy and psychopathology. At present, there is little empirical research evaluating the fast-slow-defense activation model. The current research seeks to provide an analysis of the fast-slow-defense activation framework by exploring the relationship between life history strategy, sex, and defense activation disorders particularly, depression. It is expected that there will be a causal relationship between life history strategy and depression. Specifically, a fast life history strategy will predict for increased symptoms of depression. In addition to this, it is expected that women with fast life histories experience greater symptoms of depression. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, https://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu.

Bachelor of Arts, Walsh University, 2022, Honors

Over the past few years, the nationwide protests over the long-standing plague of racism in our country, most recently manifested in the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, have placed our nation before a “fork in the road.” We stand on the precipice of monumental change or devastating regression in the area of race relations within our nation. This has been most vivid in the relationship between law enforcement and the African American community. What comes next between these two parties will depend on how law enforcement responds to the cries of the people in these affected communities. Historically, particularly in African American communities, there has been an intimate connection between social movements and sensitives to injustice and faith. At the same time, there appears to be a decreasing appreciation of faith among law enforcement officers. If the disparity between the attitude towards faith by law enforcement and the significance of faith in communities of color continues to increase, it will undoubtedly lead to more tension between these two communities. I hypothesize that reconciliation between law enforcement and African American communities can be achieved through the inclusion of religious literacy in the training and formation of law enforcement officers. As a disclaimer, it is important to understand that the building of trust and the reparation of relationships is an effort that requires the cooperation of both sides. This means that there has to be a willingness and an understanding from both law enforcement and communities of color for any real difference to be made. It is also important to recognize that this is not a “black versus white” issue, this is an issue that affects society as a whole. This understanding will be made present throughout this research, but the primary focus will be on the inclusion of religious literacy in the formation of law enforcement officers.

Bachelor of Music, Capital University, 2022, Music

Theatre is an art form with the capacity to enact real change in our communities. Because of the wide array of topics theatre explores, it can help us to hold up a mirror to real life, critique and comment on proceedings within it, hold space for human emotion and therefore catharsis, and get viewers invested in a good story. This begs a responsibility for theatrical professionals to tie in aspects of community outreach to create a more enriching show, and harness the true power of this art form. In this project, I will be producing and directing Indecent, as well as creating opportunities for community outreach through talkbacks, service projects, and campus engagement opportunities. I will be creating a directorial concept, choosing actors, designing a rehearsal plan, finding costumes, set design elements, lighting, sound, and anything else needed to produce the show, all while organizing the opportunities for community engagement, complementary to the show's themes of LGBTQ+ rights and the history of Yiddish theatre. I have received permission also to conduct interviews and surveys of audience members directly after the show as well as check-ins to measure how the themes resonated with them, and later, how they have noticed them appear in their lives since, or any changes they have made. In the final paper in the execution semester, I will then explore these effects through the findings of this production and outreach components to demonstrate that theatre has the ability, and therefore responsibility to benefit others.

BA, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

I develop an interpretation of Wilfrid Sellars' distinction between the manifest image and scientific image and apply this interpretation to several philosophical issues, including the history of philosophy, ontology, the fact/value distinction, metanormativity, folk psychology, and types of naturalism. The dialectic centers around how normativity can be understood within a naturalistic worldview. My ultimate conclusion is that the most plausible form of naturalism will be one which in fact leaves room for normativity--metaphysically, epistemically, and semantically/pragmatically. I identify the great mistake of prior philosophical understandings of the manifest image as the mistake of taking it as an ontology, or as a theory of what exists. Finally, I come to support Huw Price's subject naturalism.

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2021, Antioch New England: Clinical Psychology

Dream interpretation has been a widely recognized component of psychological practice since the publication of Sigmund Freud's (1900/2010) The Interpretation of Dreams. By providing initial conceptualizations of the dream's function, Freud created the foundation for the numerous iterations of dream work to follow. What these modalities of dream work all have in common is the utilization of dream interpretation to uncover information, or the engagement in research and empirical practice to search for answers regarding the how and why of dreaming phenomenon. Dreams, however, have yet to be considered within the context of relationship. This dissertation, in the format of a book proposal, explored the synergistic qualities between dreams and relationships and how that synergy generates biographically, professionally, and psychotherapeutically formative experiences. Through examining individual interviews with four eminent dream researchers and scholars, I delineated the ways in which dreams provide a foundation for relating, provide a container (Bion, 1967/1993) for the un-thought known (Bollas, 1987), create meaning through relationships, and ultimately foster mass dispersion of relational dynamics originating from the culture of the times, race, ethnicity, and more. From a relational psychoanalytic perspective, this book aims to describe the utility of dreams in creating and maintaining various types of relationships that then shape the lives of others.

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2017, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

Military mental health clinicians (MMHCs) have been essential to Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. They served in extreme stress conditions, including on the frontlines. As co-combatant/clinician, the MMHC bridged unique perspectives on the effects of war stress experienced by Active-Duty Service Members (ADSMs). To date, no study has focused uniquely on MMHCs narratives as they provided care from this multiple perspective. This investigation was carried out from a phenomenological “Duty to military mission or service member?” This dilemma could not be reconciled that resulted in unrealized fulfillment of duty. MMHCs responses to unrealized duty defined an overarching polarity of Integrity—Corruption. A hermeneutic approach was used to identify the author&perspective. A single, open-ended question was asked of seven MMHCs about lived experiences while serving, resulting in in-depth interviews. These were textually coded. Though clinician positive and negative experiences were consistent with previous research, significant differences bear discussion. Following data analysis, participants identified duty as the superordinate theme that led to the question, #x2019;s relevant understandings before, during, and after the interview process. In reconstructing and contextualizing interview material, one finding was that MMHCs were required to operate in a place of turbulence between contradictory military and psychological traditions. Another finding concerned a growing divisive fissure between military and the public at-large, impacting reintegration efforts for those who serve. Public and governmental silence about traumas of ADSMs and MMHCs suggests a parallel, cultural dissociation occurring about war trauma. A question is posed if diagnosing trauma as pathology is a further way that external, contextual forces are consistently kept unformulated, distanced, or denied. Rather than locating the etiology and treatment entirely within the individual—resulti (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2014, Leadership and Change

In the early 1970s, following a decade of social upheaval in the US and a traumatizing military defeat in Vietnam, a group of progressive army officers, armed with recent graduate degrees in the social and behavioral sciences, created a grass roots movement that soon led to the implementation of the largest organizational development program ever conducted. Wartime atrocities and chronic careerism in the Army officer corps, along with President Richard Nixon's promise to create an All-Volunteer Force (AVF), opened up a window of opportunity for these progressives to promote transformational leadership theories grounded in humanistic psychology. In institutionalizing OD across the Army, these officers attempted to transform the leadership culture throughout the institution. However, various strategies employed to effect cultural change met with strong resistance from an officer corps that rejected the strong humanistic elements that characterized OD in the 1970s. Although institutionalization progressed with strong support from Army Chief of Staff (CSA) General Bernard Rogers, the program proved unsustainable once he vacated his position. By 1980, conservative views of leadership permeated the Army's school system and its leadership doctrine. Concurrently, OD evolved in its theoretical application and shifted its emphasis from humanistic psychology to open systems. At that point, the Army OE Program was relegated to a far less priority and essentially became a process improvement mechanism. By 1985, a new CSA terminated the program. This is a history of the Army OE Program and the efforts of the progressive officers who implemented it. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, Environment and Natural Resources

Informal science education (ISE) contexts such as zoos, nature centers, parks, and natural history museums play a critical role in allowing the general public to learn scientific concepts (National Research Council, 2009; 2010). Most adult learning of scientific concepts takes place outside of classrooms and away from work (Rennie and Williams, 2006). Zoos and natural history museums have stated missions to increase visitors' knowledge and behaviors related to the conservation of our natural resources (Krishtalka and Humphrey, 2000; Patrick, Mathews, Ayers, and Tunicliffe, 2007). Theoretically, the successful communication of the desired message of these ISE institutions would inspire a more informed and engaged citizenry on the use and conservation of our natural resources. Effectively framing information can be an avenue to achieving these goals of ISE institutions (Chong & Druckman, 2007; Nisbet, 2009). Shultz and Zelezny (2003) posit that messages framed by egoistic concerns, concerns which focus on the individual, will be better received by the general public, leading to a greater likelihood for them to become engaged. This dissertation reports on a series of descriptive mixed methods studies conducted at a zoo, a natural history museum, and a science center, exploring the framing effects of communications framed by environmental concern (Schultz, 2001). The research examined the relationship between individuals' perceptions of the overlap between their lives and nature, their levels of environmental concern, and their preferences for statements designed to align with the types of environmental concern (i.e. egoistic, social-altruistic, and biospheric). Further, the effects of messages framed by environmental concern on individuals' expressed intent to engage in behaviors were examined. Lastly, interviews were conducted to provide a deeper understanding of the findings. Findings suggested there are framing effects that can be attributed to communication using e (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts, Ashland University, 2011, History/Political Science

This study is an exploratory analysis of the belief in free will within the social sciences. While free will is a common topic in many fields, currently, very little research has investigated this topic. As such, this study was based on the assumption that no statistical difference would be found between the social sciences on belief in free will. To investigate this hypothesis, a historical case study was used to analyze belief in free will among professionals in the social science fields. Three general problems were addressed. First, this study examined the consistency of the belief in free will or determinism across the major divisions of the soft sciences. Second, this investigation highlighted the differences found within anthropology and political science. Lastly, consistency and inconsistency in the belief of free will and determinism within the social sciences was discussed. Significance was found in political science and anthropology. Two potential implications are addressed for these findings. Firstly, anthropology and political science may not accurately be classified as social sciences. Secondly, a mobius model was introduced to explain the natural flow of quantitative and qualitative methods that define the social sciences. These results provide an understanding of the social sciences beliefs concerning free-will. As no research has investigated belief in this way before, this research provides a basis for further research. Further research should be pursued addressing the role of religion, time, sub-fields, and work in multiple fields. The proposed mobius-model should also be further analyzed.

Bachelor of Arts, Ohio University, 2012, Psychology

Sexual assault is a major issue on college campuses (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000). Prosocial bystander behavior occurs when bystanders witnessing a potentially dangerous situation positively intervene. Recent research suggests that prosocial bystander behavior, in both men and women, can play a role in the prevention of sexual assault (Banyard, 2007). However, little research focuses on women as bystanders in situations of sexual assault. There are certain situational barriers that make it difficult to engage in prosocial bystander behavior (e.g., failure to notice, failure to identify a situation as high-risk, failure to take intervention responsibility, failure to intervene due to skills deficit, and failure to intervene due to audience inhibition). The current study examined predictors of prosocial bystander behavior, including the role of bystander attitudes and efficacy, personality traits, situational barriers to bystander behavior, and women's history of sexual assault. In the final regression, positive bystander attitudes were the only significant predictors of bystander intervention behavior, with one situational barrier (failure to intervene due to audience inhibition), marginally related (e.g. when participants were concerned about how an audience would perceive their intervention, or that others would think they looked foolish, they were less likely to intervene).