Stander Symposium: Honors Program

Follow

• 

  Relationship Exploration through Music: Treatment Considerations for Adolescents with Attachment Trauma

  Jaylee A. Sowders

  Interpersonal relationships are key to navigating our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world. However, our ability to form and maintain healthy relationships depends greatly on our experiences as children. Attachment theory, developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, suggests that our initial relationships and their characteristics can impact our sense of comfort and safety in later attachments (Bretherton, 1992). Challenges and trauma in attachment at a young age may hinder a child’s development into adulthood where interpersonal relationships are key to navigating our academic, professional, and personal environments. If left unaddressed, these challenges can become exacerbated in adolescence as teenagers form more concrete understandings of themselves and the world (Dubois-Comtois, et al., 2013). Understanding the lasting psychological impact of attachment trauma is necessary to discovering appropriate and effective ways of addressing these struggles.With a focus on equity and accessibility in mental healthcare, this study is centered in music therapy assessment and treatment with teenage clients facing attachment trauma and the role of music as a communicative resource and symbolic object for attachment. This presentation will feature the findings of an undergraduate honors thesis project, supplemented by research at the University of Oxford, that will include a review of attachment theory and music therapy literature and qualitative research and thematic content analysis of interviews with credentialed music therapists working with this client group. This study aims to analyze the affordances, risks, and challenges of music therapy experiences in helping adolescents with attachment trauma to explore their internal patterns of attachment and develop strategies to form healthier future attachments.

• 

  Russian War Crimes Against Ukraine

  Katherine Jean Hoener

  Russia and Ukraine have a long and complicated history. The conflict escalated with Russia’s invasion in February 2022 designed to challenge Ukraine's right to statehood on the dubious pretext they were governed by “extremists” who persecuted the Russian minority. According to treaties, war crimes can be defined as acts committed during armed conflict that violate international humanitarian laws. This research explored the alleged war crimes Russia has committed. There have been systematic and intentional attacks against civilian targets such as hospitals, schools and churches; survivors of torture report they were beaten and waterboarded; victims of sexual violence recount their experiences of rape and forced nudity; and children have been abducted for the purpose of removing their Ukrainian identity. Investigators of war crimes must ensure the evidence has not been altered, which has proved to be difficult as debris was removed for safety concerns, others have buried loved ones, or victims have fled. Furthermore, for Russian officials to be held accountable, it must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that their actions were for the purpose of furthering the conflict’s goals, and they did so knowingly. Ultimately, the International Criminal Court has begun an investigation, and Ukrainian courts have already convicted Russians for war crimes. Finally, this research identified the implications of these charges and the overall impact of war crimes. The charges may prevent Russian officials from traveling as they can be arrested, may deter other political leaders or combatants from engaging in similar conduct, and may serve as a morale boost for Ukraine. These crimes have caused untold destruction and suffering and left Ukrainians without access to basic necessities. In addition, Russia's aggression has caused Sweden and Finland to break with decades of international neutrality. While Russia denies any wrongdoing, this is important research as it informs, educates, and publicizes war crimes that impact millions of Ukrainians.

• 

  Selective Evolution of Lithium Ions by Shewanella loihica

  Gabrielle A. Kozurek

  The prevalent use of lithium ion batteries in consumer electronics poses a significant sustainability challenge to both manufacturing and source availability over the next 50 years. There are several methods to extract lithium from salt water that are commercially available but require caustic reagents and environmental hazards. However, there are several lithium-resistant bacteria that have the ability to precipitate or mineralize lithium ions into a reduced form of lithium that can be processed readily into a lithium source material for batteries. The goal of this project was to culture, characterize, and selectively evolve Shewanlla loihica using lithium ion concentration changes both aerobically and anaerobically. This strain has published metal-reducing capabilities and by selectively pressuring the organisms with higher and higher concentration of Li we will understand the fundamental lithium tolerance of the organism. The project includes an understanding of the changes in growth rate due to subsequent culturing of organisms with increasing concentrations of Li ion. The hope for the final outcome of the project was to find a potential biological approach to the precipitation of Li ions from salt water.

• 

  Students Developing a More Specific Emotional Vocabulary through Picture Books

  Mary E. Horvath

  Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is a relatively new set of standards in Ohio’s curriculum. They teach students to take care of themselves mentally, emotionally, and socially. SEL standards are essential for achievement not only in the classroom but in life as well because it teaches students how to manage relationships, be better decision-makers, and have a better sense of self, just to name a few. Because of its novelty, it is essential to find the best practices for teaching SEL to meet the needs of the students. Research has shown that the standard videos, activities, and take-home worksheets referenced in the curriculum are not engaging the students (Pysarenko, 2021, p. 639). Another avenue must be taken for students to truly learn from SEL, which prompted the idea of picture books. Teachers already use picture books throughout the school day to teach academic content, so why can’t it be done to teach Social-Emotional Learning as well? This study seeks to further understand the connection between children’s literature and emotional vocabulary, which is part of the Ohio Department of Education SEL standard, “Demonstrate an awareness of personal emotions” (ODE, p. 8, 2019). With 32 participants, the researcher interviewed students before and after an intervention with picture books to see if participants could apply the emotional vocabulary used during the read-alouds. After all the interviews, thematic coding was done with all the responses to see if children were able to apply deeper emotional vocabulary to hypothetical situations. The data shows growth in application which suggests that picture books can be used to teach emotional vocabulary. This is significant because helping students grow their emotional vocabulary will help them connect better to themselves, the people in their lives, and their experiences so they can live an overall better life.

• 

  The Effect of Appearance on Judgments of Interpersonal Distance

  Connor Nicholas Kuntz

  This presentation will explore how we perceive the world and other people, and how our perception does not always match reality. Sensation is the process of collecting information about the world with our eyes, ears and other sensory organs. Our brains then process this information, and the result is our perception. It would be impossible to take in and process everything around us, so our brains select information to focus on and use shortcuts to make processing easier and quicker. This speedy, efficient processing allows us to quickly make sense of our surroundings and to interact with our world, but there are some downsides to using these shortcuts. For example, some mental shortcuts result in unavoidable and unconsciously biased ways of seeing the world around us. However, by understanding these biases, we can work to minimize their effects. My research used virtual reality environments and models of people to observe the effect of stereotypically threatening appearances on how we perceive the distance between ourselves and a person perceived as threatening. The hypothesis was that individuals who appeared more stereotypically threatening would appear closer than those less stereotypically threatening. While there was a significant difference in how threatening and non-threatening targets were perceived, our data found that more threatening targets were judged to be farther away than non-threatening targets on average. A possible explanation for this result is that seeing the threatening target as further is a signal to avoid approaching the target.

• 

  The Effect of Floor Stiffness on ACL and Meniscus Tear and Chondromalacia Susceptibility in Dancers

  Katherine J. Moreira

  Dance is a physically demanding art form, placing repeated strain on the joints and muscles of the body. Western dance technique emphasizes use of the lower extremity, resulting in a high volume of injury to the hip, knee, and ankle joints. Dance companies attempt to combat injury by installing low-stiffness floors in studios and performance spaces. These floors exert less pressure on dancers’ joints during intense movement sequences. The purpose of this research is to determine the impact of floor stiffness on dancers’ susceptibility to ACL and meniscus injuries and chondromalacia, specifically. Participants were asked about past and present dance training, floor type for all training, lower extremity injuries, and their path to recovery. The data were analyzed to find the frequency of dance-related injuries of each type, on both sprung (low stiffness) and non-sprung (high stiffness) floors. The results indicated that floor type does not have an effect on injury susceptibility in dancers. They also showed that of ankle, knee, and hip injuries, ankle injuries are the most common. A torn ACL and meniscus appeared in one participant, and no occurrences of chondromalacia were reported. Overall, the data show that ACL and meniscus tear are not common in low stiffness floors. Future research may investigate the effect of floor surface on lower extremity joint injury, as floors with high slickness may have a more immediate effect on dance injury.

• 

  The Effects of a Mindfulness Intervention on Ameliorating Premenstrual Hedonic Eating Patterns in College-Aged Females

  Nicole R. Palmieri

  Young women in college are susceptible to weight gain from a myriad of factors, such as hormones involved in the luteal phase of a woman’s menstrual cycle; increasing caloric intake and hedonic hunger. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of a mindfulness intervention on food craving behaviors and on mindful eating behaviors. This was a quasi-experimental study using descriptive analysis on questionnaires and qualitative analysis on workbook responses. From the 23 participants, there was a mean decrease in FCQ-T scores and mean increase in MEQ scores. Menstruating women reported remorse, anger, and loss of control when cravings occur. After the mindfulness intervention, acknowledging physical sensations, emotions, hunger/fullness cues, contemplation of outcomes if the craving was or was not indulged, and engaging in mindfulness exercises resulted in a shift in how the food craving was managed. College-aged women who experience a menstrual cycle can ameliorate the intensity of hedonic eating behaviors with mindfulness practices.

• 

  The Effects of Fatigue on Landing Forces in Competitive Female Irish Dancers

  Anna Robinson

  Lower extremity injuries are highly prevalent within the Irish dance population, yet research surrounding potential determinants is scarce. Many movements, particularly jumps, in Irish dance are constituted by a one-foot landing with the ankle in a plantarflexed position and the knee fully extended. This unique landing technique is contrary to other forms of dance, such as ballet, where landings typically allow for some knee flexion in a plie-like position. Subsequently, this aesthetic constraint requires large amounts of strength and balance, in addition to forcing the structures of the foot and ankle to absorb the entire shock of the landing. This study aims to determine the effect that fatigue has on landing forces following the 360 spin move, which is characterized by the dancer jumping off the ground from their lead foot, making a full 360° turn in the air before landing on the opposite foot. Since fatigue has been shown to play a role in ground reaction force, in addition to overall center of pressure, this study focuses on establishing how the lower extremities react when trying to stop the turning motion following this jump. Through having competitive female Irish dancers perform the 360 spin under both fatigued and non-fatigued trials with all landings taking place on a force plate, the changes in ground reaction force and center of balance can be determined. The results from this study will be able to direct future research in establishing additional injury risks associated with the Irish dance technique in order to correctly aim injury prevention measures.

• 

  The Necessary Reception of those with Disabilities in the Mass amid Liturgical Fragmentation

  Jack H. Gorman

  The Catholic Church is at a moment of receiving those with disabilities through catechetics, liturgical accommodations, and structured ecclesial guidelines; the Church realizes that the reception of Catholics with disabilities is necessary. Although, this ecclesial posture does not alter the fact that the Church is in liturgical fragmentation. The true form of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the novus ordo is being practiced and even exploited in many different ways and polarized into camps. Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has utilized the two poles of Neo-Pelagianism and Gnosticism to speak about this liturgical fragmentation, or “spiritual worldliness”. Working from this insight from the Holy Father, this paper applies these terms to the current reception of Catholics with disabilities in the Mass. In this paper, Neo-Pelagianism is characterized as the temptation to receive those with disabilities in the Mass solely through human means apart from the gift of Divine Grace. Docetism, which replaces Pope Francis’ Gnosticism for the sake of this paper, is characterized by an ignorant trust in the Liturgy that dismisses the embodiment of those with disabilities and neglects accommodations they may need. The presence of these temptations within disability ministry is objectively seen through ritually analyzing five separate Masses that were celebrated explicitly for accommodating those with disabilities. Although there are isolated signs of Docetism, the analysis shows that Neo-Pelagianism, as a temptation, is prevalent in disability ministry. The presence of Neo-Pelagianism is seen throughout the Liturgy as an abnormal amount of lay involvement, excessive and unscripted commentary, and invalid changes of liturgical rubrics or practice. The presence of Docetism, which was more isolated, is seen primarily through long and complex homilies. The paper will then end with some remedies to these temptations in the reception of those with disabilities within the Church.

• 

  The Pussification of Man: Evangelical Pastor Mark Driscoll and The Construction of an Ideal Masculinity

  Phillip E. Cicero

  Scandals involving evangelical church leaders seem to appear daily. One might imagine that people would flee the churches where these leaders have served or continue to serve. But, in general, they do not. A good question to ask is why. Why do people continue to worship God in a church led by someone who has been proven through their words and deeds that they are aggressive, sexist, and violent? This project focuses on the rhetoric of Mark Driscoll that appeared in a series of blog posts published on the Mars Hill Church website in late 2001 to early 2002. In these posts, Driscoll exhibits an aggressive and misogynist rhetoric that goes against conventional neo-evangelical arguments for complementarianism to an intensely misogynistic and homophobic rhetoric. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Barbara Biesecker – that, in turn, draw on the theoretical insights of Judith Butler and Slavoj Zizek’—this paper argues that Driscoll’s rhetoric constructs a masculine Christian identity that appeals to a group of straight, white men who have felt marginalized by the dominant discourses of American culture for the past 100 years. More specifically, this paper argues that Driscoll gives these men an opportunity to reclaim the power and belonging that they feel they have lost. The paper also makes use of Stuart Hall’s concept of the floating signifier to explain how Driscoll’s rhetoric shapes a certain kind of toxic masculinity with his definition of “pussification”, which is, in simple terms, about the threat to men of a discourse that feminizes men. Driscoll seeks to draw these men into his vision of what it means to be a real man by presenting them with two simple options: adopt Driscoll’s’ brand of homophobia and misogyny and be a real man or admit that they have been “pussified” – that is, completely emasculated.

• 

  Understanding Calcium Signaling in Invasive GBM Cells in a Microfluidic Model

  Jenna Abdelhamed

  Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is one of the most common, aggressive, and deadly types of brain cancer. Its high malignancy is attributed to its surrounding environment, consisting of a great amount of blood vessels, neurons, and astrocyte processes, allowing tumors to reproduce and evade quickly. Upon diagnosis, GBM patients have a median survival time of 12-15 months, even with available treatment modalities such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. To explore new treatment modalities, it is important to understand the oncogenesis, invasion mechanisms, and cellular characteristics unique to GBM. The tumor’s microenvironment can promote migration as GBM interacts with components in the brain's extracellular matrix, triggering intracellular cascades such as the calcium signaling pathway, which has caught the attention of numerous researchers. Calcium signaling pathways are a key step in signal transduction, linking external stimuli into cellular response, and are implicated in GBM proliferation and metastatic-related processes. This work displays the invasion of GBM cells through our established 3D tumor models, which consist of GBM spheroids placed into a Polydimethylsiloxane) microfluidic device to mimic the tumor microenvironment of GBM. With these 3D tumor models, two phenotypes of the cancer can be established, an invasive and noninvasive phenotype, which allow for the comparison of intracellular calcium concentrations, and of migration patterns and lengths. This research provides data regarding the relationship between the two phenotypes and calcium signaling activity. This is important because it will allow further research on mediators of the Ca2+ pathway such as Ca2+channels and their roles in mediating invasion, potentially laying groundwork for new therapies that limit GBM migration.

• 

  Understanding the Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition of Glioblastoma Multiforme on a Microfluidic Model

  Khadija Fatima

  Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is one of the most aggressive and fatal forms of brain cancer. Despite the multiple advances in treatment, median survival is only about 15 months upon diagnosis. Hence, multiple studies have been conducted to further our understanding of GBM tumor biology and the mechanisms underlying its malignancy. I am particularly interested in the Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) of GBM cells that have been shown to enhance its migratory and invasive capabilities. In this study, I aim to investigate the specific effect of TGFβ inhibitor, SB-431542, on the EMT as well as other aberrant outcomes. Using the non-adherent method and microfluidic technology, I can generate a model of three dimensional GBM spheroids surrounded by physical constrictions, which mimics the GBM tumor microenvironment. The TGFβ inhibitor will be introduced and the resulting sprouting and migrating behaviors of the invasive cells will be quantified. I hypothesize a detectable decrease in the level of invasion among the treated spheroids compared to the control. Furthermore, I plan to isolate the cells for transcriptomic analysis, particularly on the mRNA expression of EMT-related genes. The findings of this proposed study will broaden our knowledge of the complexity of EMT and its role in GBM cancer development and metastasis. Moreover, I hope my work will provide the means to improve therapies that can inhibit cancer cell dissemination in GBM patients.

• 

  Unhappy Endings: Queer Time in Evelyn Waugh’s "Brideshead Revisited"

  Caitlin Grace Spicer

  This thesis examines Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 Catholic novel, "Brideshead Revisited", through the lens of queer theory. My work focuses on reproductive heteronormativity and queer time and how these concepts can be used to analyze Waugh’s text. I argue that Sebastian, among other characters, steps out of the traditional—or heterosexual—timeline in a way that queers temporality. I examine Sebastian to understand how his lonely yet holy life contributes to a larger tradition of unhappy endings in queer and Catholic fiction. In this thesis, I define reproductive heteronormativity as the assumption that people will follow a heterosexual and reproductive lifestyle. This lifestyle is often associated with the common timeline of finding a job, dating someone of the opposite sex, getting engaged and then married, having children, buying a house, retiring happily, and so on. Following theorists like Jack Halberstam, Sara Ahmed, and Hil Malatino, I define queer time as the failure to replicate the timeline of reproductive heteronormativity. I utilize Ahmed’s definition of happiness, in particular, to revalue Sebastian’s sad story in Waugh’s queer and Catholic novel. Ultimately, my thesis aims to bridge the gap between queerness and Catholicism, creating a space for inclusion and the opportunity to celebrate the unhappy ending.