Master of Arts, Miami University, 2025, Geography

In recent decades, many Indigenous communities globally have invested in food sovereignty initiatives to meet culturally specific community needs and exercise sovereignty over their foodways. The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma (MTO), a federally recognized tribal nation, is deeply engaged in a series of distinct but complementary initiatives in Miami, Oklahoma, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, to improve the cultivation, production, accessibility, and distribution of food to their diasporic tribal members. These initiatives include, but are not limited to, pecan cultivation and processing, cattle raising, meat processing, and fruit and vegetable horticulture. These food sovereignty endeavors are elements of their broader efforts to strengthen tribal sovereignty, revitalize cultural knowledge, expand independent food production, and ensure the wellness of their citizens. I conducted thirteen semi-structured interviews with MTO employees and collected participant observations during a month-long field investigation in Northeast Oklahoma in June 2024. My thesis presents key themes that emerged through discourse analysis of participant interviews and observations. This thesis works to synthesize recurring concepts interviewees used to describe the implementation of food sovereignty initiatives for their community and to situate Myaamia efforts to cultivate greater autonomy over their food systems within the broader Indigenous food sovereignty movement.

Bachelor of Science, Wittenberg University, 2024, Education

In response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which forced teachers and students to learn within a virtual format, the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont (GSMIT) searched for a way to educate teachers on how to execute nature-based STEM lessons under such unconventional circumstances. GSMIT responded with the creation of the School Yard Network (SYN), a virtual network of teachers who model best practices within the outdoor, experiential learning realm. This research will outline how the current organizer of the SYN continues to shape its structures to match the ever-changing needs of teachers within the network. Specifically, this research highlights the ways in which a highly effective professional development program utilizes inquiry-based learning, community building, and teacher-centered practices to advance experiential and outdoor learning for future educators.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2024, Counselor Education (Education)

Children with chronic medical needs face a wide range of challenges (including stress, emotional toll, financial strain, educational challenges, and caregiver burnout). However, existent research is limited as it doesn't adequately capture the lived reality of parents who have children with chronic medical needs. This hermeneutic phenomenological study centers the voices of parents who have children with chronic medical needs. This study is comprised of interviews with parents who have children with chronic medical needs to center their experiences. The analysis of these interviews provides implications for counselors who desire to support parents with chronic medical needs.

Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences

This study examined how applicants perceive AI automated interviews in a vignette description and how applicants' interview self-efficacy may affect their preferences for AI or traditional interviews. The perceived procedural justice ratings and interview self-efficacy measurements were collected from undergraduate students enrolled in psychology courses at a university. Findings showed that applicants tended to rate interviews as fairer when the vignette described a job offer and when participants had higher interview self-efficacy, supporting prior research in self-serving bias. Participants generally found AI interviews to be less fair compared to traditional interviews. Hypotheses regarding interview self-efficacy on preferences for AI or traditional interviews were not supported.

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2024, Education

In this study, I analyzed the ways music can teach phonological awareness to contribute to student engagement and literacy achievement. In recent years, literacy achievement has fallen short. With phonological awareness skills contributing to the success of a reader, an improvement needs to be found. Through the completion of teacher interviews and assessing the different outcomes between phonological awareness lessons with and without music, I was able to determine that music has the capability to improve a student's literacy skills. These findings contribute to the field of education by highlighting the need for supplemental instruction and the power that music integration into core content areas can have for students. This study provides insights for future research that can be done in this field to achieve more positive educational outcomes.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, English

This dissertation considers the relations between time, narrative, and autism. Chapter 0 introduces a kinship model of autism and describes “aesthetic kinship,” the phenomenon of autistic readers recognizing fictional characters as autistic. Chapter 1 describes the eponymous theory of kakokairos, unpacking the contours of neurodivergent temporalities through analysis of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 and Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life. Chapter 2 describes the theory and method of “time maps,” the graphs which are produced by graphing a narrative's fabula against its syuzhet. Chapter 3 is a preliminary analysis of fifteen interviews with autistic adults about their experiences of time in narratives.

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

The research undertaken was a qualitative grounded action research case study. The researcher had the opportunity to work as part of a team seeking to alleviate energy-burdened neighborhoods within a southeastern State. The team was formed from members of the city, county, the federal government, and local not-for-profit organizations. The research questions were twofold. First, what were the project team members' initial individual approaches to achieving the project's goals of clean energy, addressing energy burdens, and community resiliency? Second, how do the team members reach a consensus over time toward achieving the project's goals? As part of the consensus building, how much of a sense of community is developed amongst the members of the team? The theoretical framework that this research was performed under was a sense of community comprised of four elements: membership, influence, reinforcement, and shared emotional connection (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). A literature review was conducted to identify initial themes that were further developed through focus groups and interviews. Two focus groups were held that involved a total of three unique members of the team per focus group who were asked the same semi-structured questions. As a follow-up to the focus groups, four participants were asked to participate in one-on-one interviews to develop further data revealed by the focus groups. The resulting data was then coded, and themes were generated from the analysis. The three themes identified through the analysis involved the Bringing Energy Efficiency Home team members' knowledge (or lack thereof), perceptions, and their bonding and sense of community. Where knowledge leads to perception and the development of a sense of community within the team the recommended course of action identified by this research is the development and implementation of a public-facing website. The development and implementation of the website will lead to readily accessible i (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2023, Curriculum and Instruction: Early Childhood Education

An Abstract of Quality in Early Childhood Education: Parent, Child, and Teacher Insight by Debora L. Belcher Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Curriculum and Instruction: Early Childhood Education The University of Toledo December 2023 The word ‘quality' in the phrase ‘quality early childhood education' (ECE) is notoriously difficult to define. There is no doubt it's important to have enforceable state-level standards in ECE, so consumers can have some assurance their children are being provided a safe and nurturing environment which fosters emotional, intellectual, physical, and social development. Unfortunately, in many instances the regulatory atmosphere born of these good intentions has become heavy-handed, stifling creativity, and rewarding those whose only goal is to comply with a static set of often outdated rules. Conversely, research has shown that methods of providing ever-better quality education to preschool children are likely to flourish in a responsive regulatory atmosphere that rewards innovation, and which seeks input from various stakeholders, such as parents, teachers, and young children. However, with respect to gaining an understanding of the ECE preferences or interests of young children, researchers have found difficulty in obtaining reliable data. Verbal interviews necessarily rely on subjects whose facility with language is at an early stage of development. The relatively new methodology known as Photo Elicitation Interview (PEI) research offers exciting opportunities for hearing the authentic voices of young children, potentially allowing the researcher to largely ‘bypass' complications created by ‘word-heavy' interactions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the preferences of end-state users of ECE: parents, teachers, and young children. The study does this by attempting to discover those preferences in the selectio (open full item for complete abstract)

Undergraduate Honors Program, Malone University, 2023, Honors Thesis

High school football rivalries are a quintessential part of adolescence and community life, although they are not often the focus of academic scholarship. This paper seeks to fill that void. Rivalries exist throughout the United States, but of focus is one of the most storied rivalries in Ohio between two perennial football state champions: Saint Ignatius High School and St. Edward High School. Saint Ignatius High School, an all-boy Catholic high school founded in 1886, is located in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. St. Edward High School, situated in the nearby suburb of Lakewood and founded in 1949, is the second all-boys Catholic school in this classic rivalry. In 1952, the young football program for the St. Edward Eagles faced off against the much more experienced Saint Ignatius Wildcats on the gridiron for the first time. It was the first game in the rivalry – a rivalry that would bring together what could feel like the entire West Side of Cleveland for the yearly match-up. The annual game, played at least once a year every year since 1971, creates an atmosphere of high school football that few other high school football rivalries match. Details and outcomes of the games remain vivid in the memories of players and fans alike for generations, as fathers, sons, nephews, and friends replenish collective memory banks when they take their places on the field or in the bleachers. Alumni from both schools carry their reminiscences everywhere – from local boardrooms to conversations with passers-by in a grocery store. There is a sense of pride and purpose that continues from generation to generation, and the game, the rivalry, and the storied history spills over into every area of life. The players, the fans, and alumni celebrate each year's victory and vow to avenge any loss when the next match-up is scheduled. Such is the intensity of the competitiveness that exists between the St. Edward Eagles and the Saint Ignatius Wildcats. And this rivalry is rath (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Education, Miami University, 2023, Educational Leadership

This qualitative study explores teacher enactment of education policy, specifically Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), in a large suburban Midwestern high school. Participating educators constructed policy meaning while they sought to understand it, over a multi-year rollout process. Data were gathered using five teacher and one administrator semi-structured interviews. These data were analyzed in part using sense making and critical policy analysis to identify five prevailing themes in teacher experiences around education policy—common sense, norms and expectations, accountability, compliance, and barriers. This study shares both individual and collective narratives to explore how teachers approach top-down policies and affect them through teacher decisions at the ground level. Teacher voice adds to the conversation about the experiences of educators as policy actors, how teachers make sense of new political mandates, and how teachers exercise agency in the classroom. Recommendations that resulted from this study centered on the need for legislators and educational leaders to reenter the voices of teachers as they design policy that governs classroom practices. Participants in this study shared their work as political actors translating federal, state, and local educational policy in order to make it meaningful and applicable for both teachers and students in the classroom. Educational policy will continue to shape the personal and professional world of teachers and the inclusion of teachers at the policy creation stage meets challenges presented by neoliberal accountability policies. The overarching lesson was that teachers must embrace their roles as policy actors and act on the agency they possess as the final step before educational policy reaches students.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Psychology/Industrial-Organizational

Despite overwhelming evidence that structured interviews are better than unstructured interviews for selecting more effective employees (Sackett et al., 2021), many interviewers still utilize and show a preference for unstructured interviews (Risavy et al., 2021). There has been limited research, however, that examines the potential for differential resistance to specific aspects of structure in interviews (Roulin et al., 2019). This study used a hypothetical scenario to examine interviewers' willingness to implement aspects of structure in an interview process and also examined their perceptions of those aspects in terms of cost, prevalence, autonomy, and chance to make a personal connection. Results suggest that practitioners are resistant to aspects of structure that are more costly, less commonly used, allows less autonomy, and allows less chance to make a personal connection. Paying attention to different aspects of structure may help to develop structured interviews that practitioners are more willing to adopt.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2023, Leadership and Change

This study explored the experiences of African American mental health clinicians' during the intersecting crises of the Black mental health crisis, the highly publicized racial tension tied to extrajudicial violence and over-policing of Black Americans, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic started a global crisis that affected millions of people's physical and mental health and overall well-being. Shared trauma explores the duality of mental health clinicians' personal and professional experiences. Grounded in critical race theory and models of trauma, this study explores Black mental health clinicians' lived experiences and lessons. This is an interpretive phenomenological study with narrative interviews of 10 mental health clinicians who provided services to at least 50% Black clientele before the advent of COVID-19. The study explored how Black mental health clinicians providing mental health care fared, personally and professionally, during COVID-19 and with racial upheaval: How did they adapt their lives and practices? What did they learn personally and professionally during these crises? Data were collected in individual qualitative interviews and analyzed using Saldana's first-cycle and second-cycle thematic coding model. Themes that emerged were (a) anxiety and fear regarding the unknown of COVID-19; (b) anger towards the continued racism and over-policing and killing of the Black community; (c) the importance physical activity and therapy as a clinician as means of self-care (d) connection to others to help with emotional support and the isolation of COVID-19; (e) transitioning to telehealth from in-office clinical services; (f) increase in demand of services, and (g) increase in demand for the expertise of Black clinicians, specifically. Understanding the lived experiences of Black mental health clinicians during these crises informs future practices of clinicians by teaching how to optimize health and well-being for self-care and not (open full item for complete abstract)

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

Young children's perspectives and understandings are often assumed from informant reports (i.e., parents, teachers) or assessments and screenings. The perceived unreliability of children's reports and underdeveloped language and cognitive skills has dramatically limited the inclusion of their voices in the literature. Using the conversion mixed design, this study explored teachers' and preschool children's perspectives of their mutual relationships. Data collection included the Student Teacher Relationship Scale-Short Form, Classroom Assessment Scoring System, and the Young Child's Assessment of Teacher Support (YCATS). In addition, the study included parallel prompts/questions related to YCATS indicators to elicit children's responses about their relationships with their teachers and school experiences. Participants included 33 preschool-aged children (Mage = 55.4 months) and three teachers. Overall, teachers and children reported close relationships with minimal conflict. The congruency between children's quantitative and qualitative responses suggests children can provide responses related to the experiences happening to and around them. Further implications highlight the importance of including children in research related to their experiences and providing them with multiple methods to share their understandings and perspectives.

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

MDMA refers to the psychoactive drug +/-3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. In clinical settings, robust quantitative and qualitative research has demonstrated that MDMA is an effective adjunct to therapists' conduction of psychotherapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and potentially various other psychological conditions (Barone et al., 2022; Jerome, 2020; Oehen, 2012; Ot'alora, 2018). This study serves as the first qualitative research to exclusively focus on people who have used MDMA without a therapist in non-clinical settings for the purpose of psychological healing (i.e., MDMA solo users). Eight MDMA solo users were recruited as participants from ads posted on internet forums. Each participant underwent a semi-structured interview. A thematic analysis of the interviews discovered themes among participants' experiences with MDMA solo sessions and the practices they found helpful or unhelpful for attaining psychological healing. Themes of experiences included mental health struggles leading up to sessions, introspection, empathy, compassion, emotional changes following sessions, lasting changes in outlook, and lasting increased compassion. Themes that emerged for helpful practices included being open, “following” emotions, and writing. Themes found for unhelpful practices included dosages being too high, using MDMA too frequently, and that nothing was unhelpful. These phenomenological findings were compared to those found in MDMA-AT and MDMA recreational use literature. Nearly all of participants' solo experiences are similar to those of participants from qualitive research on MDMA-AT. When phenomenologically compared to MDMA recreational users whose intentions for usage did not include psychological healing, participants of this study had some similar experiences, but also some directly opposite experiences. For instance, participants of this study reported increased interpersonal intimacy and attunement to emotions, while MDMA r (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2023, Education

I explored the potential ways teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic impacted teachers' outlook on their profession. Participants included 30 full-time teachers and two former teachers from Marazul High School (MHS), a suburban high school in Northern California. I utilized an explanatory sequential mixed methods design for the study combining the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Educators Survey (MBI – ES), focus groups, and interviews. The MHS teachers who experienced high levels of burnout left the profession, and the MHS teachers who did not experience burnout stayed in the profession. Student behavior was the most discussed topic when in the focus groups and interviews. Based on the data, it is also possible that teachers' relationships with administrators impacted their decision to remain in (or to leave) the profession.

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2023, Sociology

Recidivism, or the tendency of individuals to re-offend after release from incarceration, is a complex and multifaceted issue that has significant implications for the criminal justice system, the communities affected by crime, and the individuals who are justice-impacted. Each day, a substantial number of individuals in the United States are released from correctional facilities. Despite efforts to prevent their return to incarceration, more than half of paroled individuals end up going back to prison or jail, perpetuating a vicious cycle of criminality that poses a threat to their communities. The issue of recidivism is a pressing concern that demands effective solutions to prevent further harm to society and promote the successful reintegration of those impacted by the criminal justice system. The United States has created various systems to combat recidivism including two different forms of community supervision, known as probation and parole. For this study, I interviewed parole officers in order to learn their perspectives. This study is designed to investigate the impact of various factors, specifically attitudes toward reintegration into society, on positive recidivism outcomes. The interviews revealed that factors such as correctional programs, substance abuse, mental health, social support, and even newer factors such as aging out all affect recidivism outcomes. While those factors are important, this research also shows a singular factor that seems to have one of if not the biggest effect on recidivism outcomes. The parole officer's belief in the returning citizen attitude is underappreciated in past literature and, when focused, can be huge in increasing positive recidivism outcomes. From a parole officer's point of view, a returning citizen's attitude can affect how seriously they take the educational programs and if they even care to better themselves. This belief can change how a parole officer views the returning citizen in a more negative or positiv (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Media and Communication

The conceptualization of feminism and rise of feminist individuals and groups in Ghana have evolved within the Fourth Republic era (from 1992 to the present), leading to growing misunderstanding about the nature, role, and scope of the feminist activism in Ghana. This thesis examines how individuals who uphold feminist thought and practice, and gender equity nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Ghana use social media to advocate for women's and children's health and well-being, women's participation in politics and media, and elimination of crises, including rape culture and gender-based violence (GBV). The thesis analyzes how Ghanaian feminists and gender equity NGOs contribute to principles of UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5): Gender Equality and ascertains how social media is used for gender equity advocacy efforts. In-depth interviews with self-identified Ghanaian feminists and leaders of gender equity NGOs were conducted. Interview data was analyzed using grounded theory. The result of Research Question (RQ1), on how Ghanaian feminist activism has evolved, indicates growing acceptance of feminism during the latter half of the current Republic era. Findings for RQ2, on how feminist and gender equity NGOs use digital platforms to advocate for Ghanaian women and children, indicate digital platforms are used for training women on leadership and entrepreneurship, defending themselves and their children against GBV, and amplifying women's and children's interests. Findings for RQ3, on how Ghanaian feminists and NGOs contribute to UN SDG 5, reveal productive efforts to educate on gender equity, collaborate with women celebrities to take leadership roles on gender equality to broader publics, and advocate for women's representation in Ghanaian institutions. Finally, RQ4, on roles Ghanaian social media play in amplifying Ghanaian feminists, digital platforms are vital to enable collaboration, support change in public policies negatively affecting women, an (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2023, Educational Leadership

This study examines the professional experiences of three teachers in a national network of urban, low-income serving, Catholic high schools. These teacher-participants were chosen to participate in this study because they engaged in experiential, community-based pedagogy within this national network and exemplified a commitment to social justice through their teaching practice. As detailed in Chapter One, such teaching practice resembles critical pedagogy and aligns with best practice in quality civic education. Therefore, by examining the experiences of critical educators, this study aimed to illuminate ways we can enhance civic learning for K-12 students by enhancing support for and removing the barriers to critical educators' distinct pedagogical practice. This is particularly important for Students of Color, who have faced historical exclusion from formal and informal modes of civic learning (Campbell, 2012; Lo, 2019). Critical theory (Freire, 1970/1993; Giroux, 2003; Horkheimer, 1972[1992]) and social reproduction theory (Bourdieu, 2016; Bowles & Gintis, 2016) were used to frame this study, which employed qualitative portraiture methodology (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) to answer two key research questions. The first question— Why do teachers in this Network engage in experiential, community-based pedagogy? —drew attention to the internal and external factors impacting my participants' practice. This set up inquiry into the second key research question: How do these educators exhibit civic and/or critical consciousness about and through their work? Findings from this study revealed that both internal and external factors contributed to the choice teacher-participants made to engage in experiential, community-based pedagogy. Professional ecology, consisting of local school and corporate cultures, were particularly influential on these teachers. That ecology functioned in distinct ways at each study site to both aid and obstruct the critical teaching (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2022, Agricultural Communication, Education and Leadership

The purpose of the study was to identify the factors elementary teachers consider when selecting elective curriculum for their classrooms, and to describe the acceptability of a newly developed agricultural safety curriculum. Utilizing a descriptive qualitative approach, seven Central Ohio elementary teachers provided their opinion and evaluations of the curriculum. The findings showed that 71.4% of teachers in the interviews used elective topics in their classrooms to supplement the formal curriculum. They cited using books, professional development workshops, students' needs and personal experiences as factors that determined how elective was identified. The frequency to which they taught agriculture varied from daily to twice a year. All the teachers had a connection to agriculture, but not all felt that they were the best people to teach their students about agriculture. The agricultural safety and health curriculum was well received, and teachers responded with positive feedback. Ninety-two percent of the teachers thought that the lessons were easy to comprehend, well organized, age-appropriate and 78.6 % of the teachers thought the lessons served to benefit the community. Agricultural literacy programs have the potential to reach young people throughout the United States with varying degrees of agricultural information. Elementary teachers can be a conduit to provide this education and are an important component in the Social Ecological Model for reaching the vulnerable population of young workers. Teaching agricultural safety and health concepts within the established agricultural literacy programs creates an opportunity for young people to learn safe work practices

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2022, Environmental Science

Current water management practices rely on withdrawing from freshwater supplies and disposing of contaminated wastewater. An increasingly common solution to insufficient water supplies is reuse of treated wastewaters through circular water economies (CWEs). However, water rich regions such as Ohio have been less likely to consider CWEs as a solution to their water issues related to quality concerns. Additionally, CWE projects commonly face hurdles from negative public perceptions of treated wastewater for domestic potable purposes. In this study, I aim to assess the perceptions, opinions, and experiences in Ohio regarding non-potable CWEs. I utilize semi-structured interviews to collect qualitative data from water managers and regulators to answer questions about awareness, attitudes, and potential barrier and drivers of implementing non-potable CWEs in Ohio. My results show there is awareness of intra-firm water reuse in Ohio and intersectoral reuse in arid regions. I did not find strong attitudes towards water reuse, positively or negatively, with positive attitudes tended to be seen in broad hypothetical statements while negative attitudes were mostly focused on necessity in Ohio. Financial and policy barriers to implementing CWEs were brought up by the greatest number of respondents. Similarly, financial and water quality drivers were mentioned by the most respondents.