Ed.D., Antioch University, 2024, Education

Leveraging the researcher's unique diverse cultural and educational background, this dissertation explores integrating social emotional learning (SEL) within an innovative pedagogy of “with ness” (PoW) towards planetary well-being in educational settings. The overarching purpose is to redefine educational strategies through SEL and PoW to advance planetary well-being in tertiary contexts. As such, this dissertation critically engages with three published articles authored during the researcher's doctoral tenure to highlight transformative SEL practices that are fundamentally attuned to ecological consciousness. Informed by critical theory, feminist perspectives, and process philosophy, the hermeneutic circle reflects on these articles to address complex 21st-century challenges educational systems face such as technological disruption, language and culture diversity, mental health and emotional awareness amidst global scale events. Ultimately, the research from this project suggests there is further potential for SEL to contribute significantly to an educational and eventual societal shift that prioritizes planet Earth. By centering planetary well-being, this dissertation aims to help the researcher and readership gravitate towards a more empathetic, equitable, and ecologically conscious generation. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree Program in Population Health Leadership DNP, Xavier University, 2024, Nursing

Abstract Orienting new RNs to a new organization can easily be derailed by pairing them with a preceptor who has no training. A RN unhappy with orientation is much more likely to leave the organization in the first year of employment. Ensuring RNs receive the appropriate training by a preceptor who has formal preceptor training that includes conflict resolution, adult pedagogy, and how to provide feedback at a minimum is vital to a successful orientation. Here we examine how the creation of a preceptor list to choose appropriately trained preceptors for all new RNs impacts new RN and preceptor pairings, new RN satisfaction, length of orientation, and costs associated with orientation. The Project uses qualitative statistics to examine new RN satisfaction, orientation duration and cost with trained versus untrained preceptors. Following the distribution of a preceptor list for unit managers and educators an 85% improvement in the use of trained preceptors was noted. Choosing trained preceptors can provide a more structured orientation, eliminating variance due to lack of guidance. A more structured orientation can improve new RN satisfaction with orientation, decrease the duration of orientation, and reduce orientation cost for hiring organizations.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Environment and Natural Resources

Soil physical properties play a crucial role in agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. This study investigated the seasonal dynamics of soil physical properties under different tillage and drainage practices in poorly drained soils of Ohio, focusing on their interrelationships with soil structure, crop growth, and climate across various agricultural production stages. Soils were sampled under long-term tillage (no-till, NT vs chisel-till, T) and drainage (drained, D vs non-drained, ND) management. Intact soil cores and undisturbed bulk samples were collected at 3 depths in different seasons. The research examined a. soil hydraulic properties, including saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat), unsaturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) and water diffusivity (Ds) at field capacity, field infiltration, and plant available water capacity (AWC), b. soil structure, including bulk density (BD), pore size distribution (PSD), water stable aggregates (WSA), mean weight diameter (MWD), penetration resistance (PR), and aggregate tensile strength (TS), c. soil physical quality index (SQI) with the selected indicators, and d. crop development and climate factors, including crop height, crop yield, ground coverage, air temperature, daily precipitation, and rainfall intensity. Specifically, this thesis aims to: a. Investigate the dynamics of soil hydraulic properties (Ksat, Ks, Ds, field infiltration, AWC) under different tillage and drainage practices. b. Assess the dynamics of soil structure (WSA, MWD, PSD, PR, TS) under different tillage and drainage practices. c. Determine the yield-oriented SQI across different seasons of crop production. In terms of the first objective, results in Chapter 2 showed that NT generally maintained higher Ksat (0.675-0.898 cm/hr vs 0.307-0.572 cm/hr, p=0.001-0.124) in fallowing seasons, especially in surface soils, due to better soil aggregation and ground coverage. However, during growing seasons, NT (0.326-0.774 cm/hr) (open full item for complete abstract)

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

Micrometer-size particles of the entropy-stabilized transition metal-based oxide (Mg0.2Co0.2Ni0.2Cu0.2Zn0.2)O (TM-HEO) have demonstrated long-term cycling stability and excellent rate performance against lithium-ion batteries. Such a feat has only been achieved with nanometer-size transition metal binary oxides. This electrochemical performance has been attributed to the structural stabilization effect of magnesium, the intrinsic role of cobalt as the main redox active species, and the entropy stabilization effect demonstrated in this material. Here, we demonstrate the formation of single-phase so-called “medium-entropy” oxides, (Co0.25Ni0.25Cu0.25Zn0.25)O (TM-MEO(–Mg)) and (Mg0.25Ni0.25Cu0.25Zn0.25)O (TM-MEO(–Co)), and show that their electrochemical behavior is similar to that of TM-HEO. The slight difference in capacities is attributed to the number of charges stored per formula unit of material rather than the nature of TM-HEO. The mechanism of lithium interaction with these materials is still poorly understood, partly due to the difficulties characterizing structure at the nanoscale. Operando 7Li nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electrochemical techniques are used to demonstrate that the (de)lithiation of these compounds proceeds via a partially reversible conversion-type reaction mechanism involving the reduction of the transition metal cations to their metallic form during lithiation and the oxidation of these individual metal particles to their oxides form, losing the initial single-phase compound after the first lithiation cycle. This proposed lithiation/delithiation mechanism highly contradicts existing ones in the literature. In addition, the 7Li NMR and electrochemical methods reveal that the conductive carbon black used as an electronic conductor can store a significant amount of charge at low voltage, indicating that it is a major contributor to the additional capacity observed in these entropy-stabilized oxides and transition metal salts. Such (open full item for complete abstract)

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

This qualitative dissertation explores the feasibility and sustainability of establishing a tuition-based school by an African American church in a low-income community marked by benevolent dependency. Grounded in social capital and moral authority, this conceptual framework utilized a phenomenological approach to examine the lived experiences of the research participants. Findings revealed three major themes: (1) funding and philanthropic efforts, which included initial funding sources, sustainable capital, and the feasibility of continuous funding; (2) high-quality education, emphasizing core educational values, quality teachers, and scholarship opportunities; and (3) partnership, focusing on church-community engagement, transparency, and accountability. The study suggests further research should involve a comprehensive feasibility analysis and continuity of community financial exchange to determine long-term viability of a church establishing a school in its community.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2024, Chemical Engineering (Engineering and Technology)

Carbon steel pipelines in the oil and gas industry are susceptible to corrosion due to their exposure to corrosive gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolved in the reservoir brine. These pipelines typically carry a mixture of oil, water, and gas phases. The oil phase does not cause corrosion – only the wetting of the pipe surface by water does. However, the alternating wetting of the pipeline surface by oil and water, known as "oil/water intermittent wetting", can influence the corrosion mechanisms and make the surface more resistant to corrosion even if it returns to a fully water wet state. Although extensive research has been conducted on CO2 corrosion in water-only environments, the role of the oil phase has often been far less investigated. Existing literature on the effects of oil are limited to flow patterns and phase wetting studies, with no direct correlation to corrosion rates. This study aims to develop an experimental apparatus and methodology that simulates oil/water intermittent wetting and investigate its effect on uniform and localized CO2 corrosion behavior of carbon steel. A wide range of experimental conditions, including different types of model oils containing surface-active compounds with varying concentrations, different pH values, flow velocities, elevated temperatures, and longer exposure time to oil/water intermittent wetting, were tested.

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Environment and Natural Resources

Conventional efforts to advance sustainable development often emphasize the “economic” and “environmental” aspects rather than the socio-cultural implications of sustainability. Such approaches overlook how racially, and socioeconomically oppressed communities are disproportionally impacted and involved in sustainability decision- making. Given that the intended goal of sustainability is to make the world a better place for everyone and everything, including non-human animals and the natural world, socio- environmental justice must be the nexus used to connect the tenets of sustainability. This study explores how Black residents in the Near East Side community perceive the City of Columbus' decision-making practices and to what degree these practices incorporate their lived experiences. In doing so, just and transformational sustainability, racialized capitalism, and critical race theory are used as tools to guide this process. The results suggest that the Near East Side's Black residential population perceives major shortcomings in city decision-making practices, as many do not feel that their voices are taken seriously in such processes. Moreover, most participants understand that an improved quality of life for Black folks in their community, and those alike, is contingent on systemic change. Due to such perceptions, it is clear that the city's decisions do not (heavily) incorporate their lived experiences. Regarding sustainability, most participants consider it a “reductive practice” meant to protect the planet, reminding us (humans) to be intentional with everything we do, whether it be the things we consume, dispose of, or the spaces we show up in. Given their lived experiences, many noted that sustainability is important to their lives because they believe it serves as a tool for building resilience, longevity, resourcefulness, and stability within their communities. Albeit this study seeks to assuage the wickedness o (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2024, Industrial and Systems Engineering (Engineering and Technology)

In response to escalating inventory costs, dynamic purchasing needs, and the demand for rapid operations in the retail sector, both the warehousing and retail industries have accelerated their pace of innovation. Among these advances, the development of automated warehousing and storage systems stands out. However, despite widespread adoption, a comprehensive framework for effectively implementing these systems remains lacking. Hence, this study proposes a systematic approach that provides a foundational blueprint for harnessing vital information from historical sales data in the deployment of intelligent warehouse systems, incorporating a wide array of Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) technologies. Specifically, it employs unsupervised machine learning for time series clustering to analyze historical sales data, while adapting and modifying the Recency, Frequency, Monetary (RFM) model to optimize the prioritized management of stock-keeping units (SKUs) in periodic segments.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

Climate change presents an unprecedented challenge to global agriculture and food security. Small farms are especially vulnerable to the local impacts of large-scale drivers of change. Effective adaptation in agriculture requires working across scales, and geographic, political, and disciplinary boundaries to address barriers. I use elements of case study, agent-based modeling and serious games, to design a model of farmer decision-making using the sociocognitive framework of climate change adaptation. I examine how adaptation functions as a process, how complex dynamics influence farmer behavior, and how individual decisions influence collective behavior in response to climate change. This novel approach to adaptation research in agriculture examines the relationships between the contextual, compositional, and cognitive elements of the sociocognitive theory. The tools developed for this research have broad practical and theoretical future applications in climate adaptation research and policymaking. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

Aging populations—particularly in areas prone to extreme heat—are facing unique residential challenges. In the past 10 years, extreme heat has killed more people in the United States (U.S.) than all other weather hazards combined, and it is expected to get hotter, with extreme heat events predicted to happen more often in the future. People over the age of 65 are disproportionately represented as the majority of heat victims, and are likely to perish in their own homes during these events. Every day, 10,000 people turn age 65 in the U.S. and many are choosing to age and retire in places of scientific climate concern such as Arizona. This study reveals that age-adaptive and climate-adaptive housing designs contribute to our quality of life as we age in a warming climate. To better understand potential connections between the homes where we live and survivability as we age with extreme heat, the present research was designed and analyzed utilizing a new conceptual framework of my own making titled PLACE: Preparing Living spaces for Aging with Climate Extremes. Employing a mixed-methods approach, this dissertation was accomplished in three parts. First, an archival review of Medical Examiner reports from the hottest 3 days of 2022 in Maricopa County, Arizona, showed evidence of connections between the built environment and an older person's death in their home, which demonstrates these reports to be a useful inclusion when understanding conditions leading to death. Second, a digital survey of people ages 65 and older currently living in Arizona highlighted real-world adaptations that were successful in mitigating the deadly impacts of high heat, and thus support aging in place. Lastly, semi-structured interviews with professionals and older Arizonians provided insights into successful ways to enhance age-friendly and heat-adaptive housing. In addition to advancing our understanding of aging in places with extreme heat, this dissertation offers two pieces of applied mat (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Waste coal in abandoned mine lands poses significant environmental challenges, affecting nearby communities, rivers, and streams. Effective management of these piles is essential due to concerns such as acid mine drainage, soil and water contamination, coal fires, and methane emissions. Various strategies have been proposed for managing waste coal, including potential utilization for rare earth element recovery, soil amendment, construction aggregates, and energy generation. However, the implementation of these strategies remains uncertain due to the lack of precise location and volume data on waste coal piles. Traditional methods for gathering these data rely on field visits and Global Navigation Satellite System surveying, which are costly and labor-intensive. Advances in satellite technologies and the availability of digital elevation models (DEMs) offer an opportunity to estimate waste coal volume on a regional scale in a timely and cost-effective manner. Thus, the objective of this thesis was to develop a robust data analytical framework to locate and estimate the volume of waste coal piles on a regional scale, using the Muskingum River Basin (MRB) in Ohio as the study area. Initially, a prototype was developed to determine the most effective machine learning (ML) model to map waste coal piles in a historical coal mine site within the MRB. While all four ML models effectively identified dominant classes such as Grassland and Forest, the Random Forest (RF) model demonstrated superior performance in classifying the more complex waste coal class, with a precision of 86.15% and recall of 76.71%. Subsequently, the greatest disturbance and reclamation mapping of these waste coal piles were conducted using the LandTrendr algorithm to distinguish waste coal piles in abandoned mine lands from those in active mining areas. Moreover, this study utilized publicly available elevation models to estimate waste coal volume in the MRB. However, since historical terrain mo (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science, Miami University, 2024, Chemical, Paper and Biomedical Engineering

In 2021, over 390 million metric tons of plastic were produced, with a large quantity being PET, which is commonly used for single use plastics such as disposable water bottles. PET is engineered for durability, resulting in a slow natural breakdown. A recently discovered enzyme, PETase, speeds up PET depolymerization; however, it's turnover rate, stability, and production quantity are too low to be used in practical applications. The goal of this work is to address these problems. We assessed the production of PETase using different medias, carbon sources, and induction methods. For expression, PETase activity was measured in clarified lysates by quantifying catalysis on p-nitrophenyl acetate. Using common laboratory medias in a bioreactor, PETase expression levels were increased 1.5-fold. Using a complex media, with glycerol as a carbon source, a further 3-fold increase in expression occurred with increased batch time, reaching greater than 100 mg per L. Activity of PETase seems to limit its ability to catalyze reactions on PET substrates in long reactions. Experiments were preformed to understand and improve the PETase degradation of PET under industrially-relevant conditions. We expect these advances in expression, and characterization of PETase will help improve the application of this enzyme to recycle plastics.

Doctor of Organization Development & Change (D.O.D.C.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Organization Development

This research explored the sustainability of collaborative networks and specifically the role of transparency. This deductive thematic analysis study focused on a midsized rustbelt city's citywide governing strategic change collaborative network that began sometime in 2010 and spawned sixteen individual collaborative networks by the end of 2012. Each of these seventeen collaborative networks were co-led by leaders, called champions, around their passion for the change they were tasked to create. The citywide governing strategic change network was formed to bring together citizen and government leaders to collaboratively decide what could be done to make this midsized rustbelt city better for the citizens and surrounding regional communities. Initially, the effort was governed by the founding key city executive and four citizen leaders and grew to over two thousand members and thirty-nine champion leaders. A disruption in commitment was caused by the change in executive sponsorship when the foundational key city executive's term ended. The successive key city executive was not supportive. This provides a secondary look at how a change in executive sponsorship affects commitment. There were also two outside paid members, a facilitator and me as a coordinator. Literature on collaborative networks, collaborative governance, and transparency has increased recently. Leading to Parung & Bititci's (2008) theoretical framework developed to measure the sustainability of a collaborative network. This framework includes a construct for the health of a collaborative network which has five characteristics, trust, commitment, coordination, communication quality, and joint problem solving. According to research by Schnackenberg et al., (2021), transparency is relatively new and has a variety of constructs not necessarily related other than the fact that trust is a common characteristic. Schnackenberg et al. (2021) also included quality information in their transparency (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Human Ecology: Fashion and Retail Studies

This study delves into the global market dynamics of sustainable home textiles, particularly analyzing how environmental concerns, online reviews, and pricing influence Generation Z's purchasing decisions. As global demand for eco-friendly products increases post-COVID pandemic, understanding these factors is crucial for engaging the growing market of young, environmentally-conscious consumers. Conducted through a survey targeting individuals aged 18-27, the study assesses how these key factors shape their buying behaviors. The analysis confirms that environmental awareness strongly correlates with this demographic's motivation to purchase sustainable textiles. Additionally, online reviews emerge as a crucial determinant in shaping purchasing decisions, indicating the importance of digital feedback in the consumer journey. Furthermore, the study highlights that price sensitivity plays a significant role in influencing Generation Z's choices, pointing to a balance between cost and sustainability as a pivotal aspect of their purchasing criteria. These findings suggest that businesses in the home textile industry should prioritize clear environmental communications, manage online reputations carefully, and consider pricing strategies to engage Generation Z consumers effectively.

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Environment and Natural Resources

The global food system faces a daunting challenge to feed a growing human population while simultaneously minimizing the environmental impacts of food production. The boundary-spanning, social-ecological nature of this system makes it a particularly valuable arena in which to study complex governance. As a focal point for this inquiry, I suggest that novel food production technologies may be seen as wicked problems in the study of food systems governance. For instance, an emerging food production technique called cellular agriculture has gained attention as a promising alternative to animal-derived meat production that may require significantly fewer resources. While cellular agriculture holds great promise in reducing the environmental burdens involved in producing protein for human diets, it also adds a layer of complexity to food system governance. There are several substantial challenges and controversies that must be overcome to realize the potential of cellular agriculture and doing so will require designing policies that consider a wide range of diverse actors with varied, sometimes opposing, interests. The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) provides a strong theoretical basis to understand the actors involved in policy subsystems and how they self-organize into competing coalitions based on key policy beliefs. Yet, important gaps exist in ACF literature regarding how coalitions operate in nascent policy subsystems due to the difficulty in observing “nontrivial coordination” in these early stages. Consequently, there is scant knowledge about early coalition development and agenda-setting as well as broader emergent subsystem dynamics. One valuable way to address this shortcoming is by employing the study of discourse coalitions, or groups of actors in a subsystem who are linked through shared public positions on policy debates, which can lend useful insights into which sets of actors might become advocacy coalitions and how informal groups of actors can influ (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2024, Chemical Engineering (Engineering and Technology)

The imperative to mitigate environmental degradation from the direct application of animal wastewater and the rising costs of commercial fertilizers has spurred the exploration of nutrient recovery through electro-precipitation, focusing on producing solid fertilizer efficiently. In the first study, an investigation on the electrochemical treatment of synthetic animal wastewater at initial pH levels of 5.9 and 6.6 discovered that pH 6.6 favored higher phosphorus recovery rates and proved more energy efficient. Analysis of solid byproducts through scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy highlighted the co-precipitation of struvite and brushite incredibly efficiently at the higher pH level. This pH-dependent outcome suggests the potential for tailored nutrient recovery strategies in waste management. In the second study, the focus shifted to multivariate screening analyses using the Plackett-Burman design on Synthetic Animal Wastewater (SAW) with an initial pH of 6.6 to discern the effects of temperature, cathodic potential, turbulence, and ion concentration on nutrient removal from wastewater. The Mg:Ca molar ratio was identified as the most significant factor in phosphorus recovery. The findings emphasized that controlling the Mg:Ca ratio, temperature, and N: P ratio could yield competitive energy consumption with existing industrial methods. The preference for struvite formation at lower temperatures indicated temperature's critical role in nutrient recovery optimization. In the third study, response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural networks (ANN) were combined to optimize phosphorus recovery from synthetic animal wastewater (SAW). The combination of a multi-layer feed-forward network and Box-Behnken design enabled the approach to be adapted to various environmental and wastewater scenarios. The dual-model system accurately forecasted the recovery efficiency, substantiated by significant R2 values and minimal root (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 0, Chemical Engineering

Carbon capture and plastic waste upcycling are both effective strategies for combatting climate change by reducing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. Carbon capture technology is characterized by three major methods: (i) post combustion capture (ii) pre-combustion and (iii) oxy-combustion. CO2 absorption, which is a type of post-combustion technology, is reported to be the dominant capture technology. The overall performance of this process is majorly determined by parameters such as CO2 capture capacity, amine efficiency and binding energy. A key issue of the CO2 absorption process is the development of a sorbent that will effectively absorb CO2 in a stream of flue gas and then release it in such a way that the sorbent is not thermally degraded, clean, and ready for re-use. The release of the captured CO2 typically involves the use of elevated temperatures for regeneration of the sorbent which leads to high energy penalty, solvent loss, corrosion, and high operation costs. This research focuses on the application of an in-situ infrared spectroscopic (IR) approach to study the structure of adsorbed CO2 species and reaction mechanism during CO2-amine reactions under pure CO2 and direct air capture cycles as a method of developing cost-effective and energy efficient sorbents. The band assignments of these species are identified by HCl probing. In addition, we explore alternative routes for regeneration that involve the coupling of renewable energy in the form of electricity to generate non thermal plasma with in-situ infrared (IR) spectroscopy to separate adsorbed CO2 from novel developed polyamine sorbents. We explored the reaction mechanism of non-thermal plasma induced reaction for the release of adsorbed CO2 from solid amine sorbents packed in a glass cylindrical tube reactor. The lead vs lag relationship of released CO2 and other products are investigated and characterized. Furthermore, we apply the concept of plasma-enabled gas-phase electrocatalysis for an effi (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Cleveland State University, 2024, Washkewicz College of Engineering

Methods are being studied to help reduce the impacts of climate change, and an intermediate solution using hydrogen energy obtained from methane decomposition. This process has advantages over steam reforming of methane, which is the primary method of hydrogen production currently. It is important to model the decomposition to allow for easier use of the modeling software by others in the field looking to advance this technology. CHEMKIN is used for the modeling. The thermal decomposition is first modeled, using available reaction mechanisms and experimental data. The Appel reaction mechanism is found to have the preferred modeling capability and accessibility, but there is a significant error with hydrogen and acetylene yields which require improvement before it can be used for predicting large-scale decomposition. The mechanism is applied to a plasma reactor to test versatility, but the results are found to be inaccurate, indicating specific mechanisms will likely be required for plasma reactors. The modeling is then expanded to a more complex level, including carbon catalyst for catalytic decomposition. With no prior modeling process found for CHEMKIN, steps are taken to produce accurate modeling results compared to experimental data and modeling performed with proprietary code to ensure accuracy in the modeling process when using carbon black catalysts. Then, the process is expanded to a plasma-generated carbon to compare it to the carbon black catalysts. The results indicate that the modeling procedure is accurate and repeatable, which opens up an option for further research to be done with this software to push this process to larger scale. Additionally, by modeling extended decomposition runs, the plasma carbon is verified to outperform two of the carbon blacks, but the performance against BP2000 is inconclusive with available data, and it is deactivated more slowly but has a greater reduction in the percent reduction in hydrogen output from the initial conve (open full item for complete abstract)

MFIS, Kent State University, 2024, College of the Arts / School of Fashion

Today's fashion industry is contributing to catastrophic negative impacts on the planet through industrial and post-consumer textile waste and consumes more than 98 million tons of non-renewable resources every year (Gazzola, 2020). In the current conventional take-make-waste model, only about 13.6% of fashion industrial waste is recycled or reused (Rauturier, 2022). One method to prevent downcycling, incineration, and disposal of textile waste is fashion upcycling. One of the reasons impeding the implementation of upcycling into the existing supply chain is the lack of practice-based research on fashion upcycling and zero-waste design and production techniques that can be used in an industrial setting. This reflective practice thesis examines a creative problem-solving approach to explore an alternate possibility of using pre-owned garments and pre-consumer textile waste to prevent them from going to the landfill and limit the use of virgin materials. This study seeks to address this area of sustainable production through the development of puffer and quilted garment design and production processes that combine circular, zero-waste, and upcycling techniques. To test the appropriateness of the proposed methodology for wider-scale production, garment prototypes are created to ascertain possible problem areas that need to be addressed. To create the prototypes, discounted and less-desirable thrifted garments, as well as deadstock fabrics, are utilized to enhance their aesthetic and retail value. An emphasis is placed on blended materials that are hard to recycle and are most often contributors to landfills.

Doctor of Education (EdD), Ohio University, 2024, Educational Administration (Education)

This study seeks to investigate and illuminate what Superintendents perceive to be their democratic ethos and how they maintain their orientation in the context of school board interactions and/or relationships. A democratic ethos is seen by this study as the intrapersonal convictions needed to enable Superintendents to continually drive forward with their practices, even when policy, school-boards, and the community seem to falter. The schoolboard-Superintendent relationship represents a microcosm of American society and overarching democratic values. The research is concerned with the relational synthesis of two concepts by Superintendents as a mechanism for sustaining a system of governance and ensuring the longitudinal growth and progress of the educational systems they work in. Approached as a multiple-case analyses, this study presents the narratives of a group of 10 Superintendents who self-identify democratically. This research sees the concepts of political literacy and social democracy as intertwined. The study has implications for informing the leadership of practicing Superintendents as well as leadership preparation programs, both for K-12 settings as well as post-secondary institutions and can extend to inform the practice of any individual who is charged with organizational leadership throughout the course of their daily demands.